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Encyclopaedia

of

Religion and Ethics

Encyclopedia

of

Relimon and Ethics

EDITED BY

JAMES HASTINGS

WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF

JOHN A. SELBIE, M.A., D.D.

FBOFESSOB OP OLD TESTAMENT LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE
UNITED FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, ABERDEEN

AND

LOUIS H. GRAY, M.A., Ph.D.

SOMETIME FELLOW IN LNDO-IKANIAN LANGUAGES IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK

VOLUME XII cj . 3.

SUFFERING-ZWINGLI

Edinburgh: T. Sc T. CLARK, 38 George Street

New York: CHARLES SGRIBNER'S SONS, Fifth Avenue at 48TH Street

I92I

2>l
v.xi.

Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limited

FOR

T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH

LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED
NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNEE's SONS

[The Rights of Translation and of Tteproduction are Reserved."]

TO

Sir JOHN MAURICE CLAEK, Baronet

PUBLISHER

AND

FRIEND

PEEFACE

In issuing this, the twelfth, volume of The ENCYCLOPiEDiA of Religion and Ethics,
I wish to thank those who have assisted me in the work.

And first let me name the Publishers, Messrs. T. & T. Clark, and their Staff,
above all Sir John M. Clark, Bart., to whom I have taken the liberty of dedicating
it. The Printers also, Messrs. Morrison & Gibb Ltd., deserve the thanks of all
concerned, and mine most of all ; and especially must their able and accurate Readers
be remembered.

What shall I say of my accomplished and loyal Staff? Besides Dr. Selbie and
Dr. Gray, whose names are on the title-page, I must mention Mr. J. F. Grant
and Mr. T. Riach. Not less deserving than these are the two sisters Miss M. C.
Macdonald (now Mrs. Laburn) and Miss D. R. Macdonald (now Mrs. Dow), to
whom most of all is due the minute accuracy of the Encyclopedia. With them let
me name my Secretary, Miss H. Robertson, who was with me at the planning of the
Work and has guided its course to the end. I must also mention our indispensable
Librarian, Miss E. M. Mitchell, and Miss B. Wisely, the Typist, whose work has
often won the admiration of the authors of articles.

Many scholars have aided with their contributions and with their counsel.
I cannot name them. But I must say one thing. The ENCYCLOPiEDiA would not
have been what it is if I had not had in every department of study covered by
it at least one man upon whom I could rely for advice.

The names of the translators have never appeared. The translations from the
French have for the most part been made by my assistants. The German transla-
tions are almost all due to the Rev. Alexander Grieve, M.A., D.Phil. Mr. Albert
Bonus, M.A., has translated nearly all the Italian work. Either Professor W. R.
Morfill or Dr. E. H. Minns has been responsible for the Russian translations. A
few articles written in Danish were translated by the Rev. John Beveridge, B.D.

The editing of a work like The ENCYCLOPiEDiA of Religion and Ethics is
undoubtedly difficult, but it has brought me into touch with so many men of ability
and generosity, and has enabled me to make so many frieudsliips, that the pleasure
of it has far outweighed its pain.

An Index Volume is in course of preparation.

THE EDITOR.

AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME

Abelson (Joshua), M.A., D.Lit. (London).

Rabbi, Cardiff; author of Immanence of God
in Rabbinical Literature, Jewish Mysticism,
Maimonides on the Jewish Creed.

Usury (Jewish).

Abrahams (Israel), M.A. (Lond. and Camb.),
D.D. (Heb. Union Coll., Cincin.).
Reader in Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature
in the University of Cambridge ; formerly-
Senior Tutor in the Jews' College, London ;
editor of the Jewish Quarterly Review, 1888-
1908.

Symbolism (Jewish), Talmud, Targums.

Adam (David Stow), M.A., D.D.

Professor of Church History and Systematic
Theology in Ormond College, University of
Melbourne.

Theology.

Adeney (Walter Frederic), M.A., D.D.

Late Principal of Lancashire College, and
Lecturer on History of Doctrine in Man-
chester University ; author of The Greek
and Eastern Churches, and other works.

Toleration, Waldenses.

Alexander (Archibald Browning Drysdale),
M.A., D.D. (Glas.).
Minister of the United Free Church at Lang-
bank ; formerly Lecturer on Ethics and
present Assessor to Chair of Ethics and
Practical Theology in the United Free
Church College, Glasgow ; author of A
Short History of Philosophy, and other
works.

Wealth.

Alexander (Hartley Burr), Ph.D.

Professor of Philo.sophy in the University of
Nebraska ; author of vol. x. (North
American) of The Mythology of All Races.

Worship (Primitive).

Anesaki (Masaharu), M.A., D.Litt., LL.D.

Professor of the Science of Religion in the
Imperial University of Tokyo ; Professor of
Japanese Literature and Life in the Univer-
sity of Harvard, 1913-15; dnthor oi Biiddhist
Art in its Relation to Buddhist Ideals;
Nichiren, the Buddhist Prophet.

Sun, Moon, and Stars (Japanese),
Tathagata, Transmigration (Buddhist),
Vov7S (Buddhist).

Angus (Samuel), M.A., Ph.D.

Professor of New Testament and Historical
Theology in St. Andrew's College, University
of Sydney ; author of The Environment of
Early Christianity (1915).
Zealots.

Arnold (Thomas Walker), CLE., Litt.D.,
M.A.

Professor of Arabic, University of London,
University College ; author of The Preaching
of Islam ; English editor of The Encyclo-
pcedia of Islam.

Toleration (Muhanimadan).

Ball (James Dyer), LS.O., M.R.A.S., M. Ch.
Br. R.A.S.
Late of the Hongkong Civil Service ; author
of Things Chinese, The Chinese at Rome.
Tonsure (Chinese).

Barns (Thomas), M.A. (Oxon.).

Vicar of Hilderstone, Staffordshire.
Trees and Plants.

Bartlet (James Vernon), D.D.

Professor of Church History in Mansfield
College, Oxford ; autlior of Tlie Apostolic
Age (1900) ; joint-author of Christianity
and History (1917).
Worship (Christian).

Barton (George Aaron), A.M., Ph.D., LL.D.
Professor of Biblical Literature and Semitic
Languages in Bryn Mawr College, Pennsyl-
vania ; author of A Sketch of Semitic Origins,
' Ecclesiastes ' in the hiternational Critical
Commentary, The Origin and Development
of Babylonian Writing, Archceology and
the Bible.
Suicide (Semitic and Egyptian).

De Beaumont (Louis-Leopold Martial Bay-
NARD), D.Sc.
Sometime Fellow and Examiner of the Royal
Universitj^ of Ireland ; Fellow of the Linnean
Society ; Member of the ' Society Astrono-
mique de France.'
Sv^edenborg.

Bennett (William Henry), M.A. (Lond.), D.D.
(Aberd.), Litt.D. (Camb.).
Late Principal of Lancasliire College, Man-
cliester ; sometime Fellow of St. John's
College, Cambridge ; author of The Religion
of the Post-Exilic Prophets, and other works.
Usury (Hebrew).

AUTHORS OP ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME

Besant (Annie).

President of the Theosophical Society ; author
of Reincarnation, and other worka.
Theosophical Society.

Blackman (Aylward Manley), D.Litt.

Formerly Laycock Student of Egyptology at
Worcester College, Oxford ; Oxford Uni-
versity Nubian Research Scholar, 1910 ;
formerly Scholar of Queen's College.
Worship (Egyptian).

Box (Gkorge Herdert), M.A., D.D.

Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Exe-
gesis, King's College, London ; Hon. Canon
of St. Albans ; author of The Book of Isaiah
translated in accordance with the results of
Modern Criticism (1908), The Ezra Apocalypse
(1912), The Virgin Birth of Jesus [Idm),' The
Gospel according to St. Matthew, revised ed.
('Century Bible,' 1920).
Worship (Hebrew).

Brash (William Bardsley), B.D. (London),
B.Litt. (Oxon.).
Minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church
at Southport.
Wesley.

Broad (Charles Dunrar), M.A., Litt.D.

Professor of Philosophy in the University of
Bristol ; formerly Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge.
Time.

Bryant (Mrs. Sophie), D.Sc. (London), Litt.D.
(Dublin).
Formerly Headmistress of the North London
Collegiate School ; author of Educational
Ends, How to read the Bihlc in the Nineteenth
Century, Moral and lieligious Education,
and other works.
Sympathy.

Cabaton (Antoine),.

Professeur h, I'Eeole des Langues orientales
vivanteset^l'EcoleColoniale, Paris ; Ancien
Membre de I'Ecole Fran9aise d'Extreme-
Orient.
Tongking.

Canney (Maurice A.), M.A. (Oxon.).

Pi'ofessor of Semitic Languages and Literatures
in the University of Manchester ; editor of
the Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and
Oriental Society.
Sun, Moon, and Stars (Hebrew).

Carnoy (Albert Joseph), Docteur en Philosophic
et Lettres (Louvain).
Professor of Greek and General Linguistics
in the University of Louvain ; Professor in
the University of California, 1918.
Yezidis, Zoroastrianism.

Carpenter (J. Estlin), M.A., D.Litt., D.D,,
D.Theol.
Wilde Lecturer in Natural and Comparative
Religion in the University of Oxford ;
formerly Principal of Manchester College,
Oxford ; author of The Bible in the Nine-
teenth Century, and other works ; joint-
editor of The Ucxateuch according to the
He vised Version.
Unitarianism.

Carroll (John Smyth), M.A., D.D.

Minister of the United Free Church at
GlasgoAv ; author of an Exposition of
Dante's Divina Commcdia.
Tolstoy.

Clarke (Mrs. Daisy P^mily Martin).

Cambridge Mediajval and Modern Languages
Tripos, Class L ; Marion Kennedy Student,
Newnham College, 1020-21.

Teutonic Religion.

CoE (George Albert), Ph.D., LL.D.

Professor of Religious Education and Psychol-
ogy in the Union Theological Seminary,
New York ; author of The Spiritual Life,
The Religion of a Mature Mind, Education
in Religion and Morals.

Suggestion.

Crooke (William), B.A., D.Sc.

Ex-Scholar of Trinity College, Dublin ; Fellow
of the Royal Anthropological Institute ;
President of the Anthropological Section of
the British Association, 1910 ; President of
the Folklore Society, 1911-12; late of the
Bengal Civil Service.

Tanjore, Thanesar, Tirupati, Travan-
core, United Provinces of Agra and
Oudh, Vaisnavism, Water, Water-
gods (Indian).

Czaplicka (Marie Antoinette), F.R.A.L,
F.R.G.S.
Late Lecturer in Anthropology in the Uni-
versity of Bristol ; formerly Mary Ewart
Lecturer in Ethnology in the University of
Oxford; author of Aboriginal Siberia, My
Siberian Year, Turks of Central Asia.

Tungus, Turks, Yakut.

Darbyshire (John Russell), M.A.

Canon Residentiary of Manchester Cathedral ;
Rector of S. George's Hulnie ; Examining
Chaplain to the Bishops of Manchester and
Bradford.

Typology.

I)AVIDS(T. W. Rhys), LL.D., Ph.D., D.Sc, F.B.A.
Formerly Professor of Comparative Religion,
Manchester ; President of the Fall Text
Society ; author of Buddhism (1878), Ques-
tions of King Milinda (1890-94), American
Lectures on Buddhism (1896), Buddhist
India (1902), Early Buddhism (1908), Dia-
logues of the Buddha (1899, 1910).

Tonsure (Buddhist), Wheel of the Law,
Wisdom Tree.

DiCKiNS (Bruce), M.A.

Lecturer in English in the University of Edin-
bui'gh ; sometime Donaldson Bye-Fellow of
Magdalene College, Cambridge ; author of
Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic
Peoples.

Transmigration (Teutonic).

DoRNAN (Samuel Shaw), F.R.A.L

Superintendent of Missions, in Orange Free
State, for the Presbyterian Church of South
Africa.

Tati Bushmen.

DoTTiN (Georges), Docteur fes-Lettres.

Professeur de langue et litterature grecques h,
I'Universite de Rennes.

Sun, Moon, and Stars (Celtic), Trans-
migration (Celtic), War, War-gods
(Celtic),

AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME

United Free Church at

Dow (John), M.A.
Minister of the
Montrose.

Usury (Christian).

Edwards (Edward), B.A. (Wales and Cantab.),
M.R.A.S.
Member of the Hoard of Archaeology and
the Board of Oriental Studios, and Examiner
in Persian to the University of London ;
Assistant in the Department of Oriental
Printed Books and Manuscripts in the
British Museum.

Worship (Parsi).

Edwards (James F.).

Wesleyan Minister at Bombay ; autlior of The.
Holy Spirit tJic Christian Dynamic (1918),
and Marathi works on this subject (1919-
20) ; joint-author of The Life and Teaching
of Tukaram (1921).

Tukaram.

Fallaize (Edwin Nicholas Collingford), B.A.
(Oxon.).
Late King Charles Exhibitioner, Exeter Col-
lege, Oxford.

Sun, Moon, and Stars (Primitive).

Farbridge (Maurice Harry), M.A.

Langton and Faulkner Fellow, and Assistant
Lecturer in Oriental Studies, in the Uni-
versity of Man dies ter.

Swine, Symbolism (Semitic).

Farquhar (John Nicol), M.A.,D.Litt. (Oxon.).
Literary Secretary of the Young Men's Christ-
ian Association in India ; author of Git<i.
and Gospel, A Primer of Hinduism, The
Croivn of Hinduism, Modern Eeligious Move-
ments in India.

Thags.

The Teacher's
editor of the

Fu (Tung), M.A.

Professor of Philosophy in
College, Peking, China ;
Philosophia.

Sun, Moon, and Stars (Chinese).

Fulton (William), D.D., D.Sc.

Professor of Systematic Theology in the Uni-
versity of Aberdeen.

Teleology, Theodicy, Trinity, Tritheism,
Validity.

Gamble (John), B.D.

Vicar of Leighwoods, Clifton.

Symbolism (Christian).

Gabbe (Richard), Ph.D.

Professor des Sanskrit und der allgemeinen
Religionsgeschichte an der Universitiit zu
Tiibingen.

Transmigration (Indian), Vaisesika, Ve-
danta. Yoga, Yogis.

Gardner (Alice), F.R.Hist.S.

Lecturer and Associate of Newnham College,
Cambridge ; autlior of Jnli'in, Philosuji/icr
and Emperor ; Theodore of Htudium.

Superstition.

Gardner (Ernest Arthur), Litt.D.

Yates Professor of Arclijeology in University
College, London ; Public Orator and Dean
of the Faculty of Arts in London University ;
formerly Fellow of Gonville and Caius Col-
lege, Cambridge, and Director of the British
School of Archaeology at Athens.

War, War-gods (Greek and Roman),
Water, Water-gods (Greek and Roman),
Wings (Greek and Roman).

Gardner (Percy), Litt.D., LL.D., F.S.A.

Professor of Classical Archa?ology in the
University of Oxford ; Vice-President of the
Hellenic Society ; author of Exploratio
Emingclica (1899), Principles of Greek Art
(1913), and other works.

Symbolism (Greek and Roman).

Gaster (Moses), Ph.D.

Chief Rabbi, Spanish and Portuguese Con-
gregations, London ; formerly I'resident of
the Folklore Society ; Vice-President of the
Royal Asiatic Society.

Transmigration (Jewish), Water (Hebrew
and Jewish), Zohar.

Geden (Alfred S.), M.A. (Oxon.), D.D. (Aberd.).
Formerly Professor of Old Testament Lan-
guages and Literature and of Comparative
Religion in the Wesleyan College, Richmond,
Surrey ; author of Studies in the Religions
of the East, Introdtiction to the Hebrew
Bible, Comparative Religion ; translator of
Deussen's Philosophy of the Upanishads.

Sun, Moon, and Stars (Hindu), Symbol-
ism (Hindu), Tantras, Upanisads.

Geikie-Cobb (William Frederick), D.D.

Rector of the Church of St. Ethelburga the
Virgin, London ; author of Origines Jndnicce,
The Book of Psalms, Mysticism and the
Creed, Spiritual Healing.

Vivisection.

Glazebrook (Michael George), D.D.

Canon Resident iary of Ely Cathedral ;
formerly Headmaster of Clifton College.

Sunday.

Goodman (Paul).

Secretary to the Spanish and Portuguese
Jews' Congregation, London ; author of
The Synagogue and the Church.

Zionism.

Gordon (Alexander Reid), D.Litt., D.D.

Professor of Hebrew in McGill University,
and of Old Testament Literature and
Exegesis in the Presbyterian College,
Montreal ; author of 2'he Early Traditions
of Genesis, The Poets of the Old Testament.

Wisdom.

Gray (Louis Herbert), M.A., Ph.D. (Columbia).
Editor of Mythology of All Races ; author of
Indo-Iranian Phonology (1902).

Tushes and other Pagan Tribes of the
Caucasus.

AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME

Grierson (Sir George Abraham), K.C.I.E.,
Ph.D. (Halle), D.Litt. (Dublin), I.C.S.
(retired).
Fellow of the British Academy ; Honorary
Member of the American Oriental Society ;
Honorary Fellow of the Asiatic Society of
Benrjal ; Foreign Associate Member of the
Societe Asiatique de Paris ; Hon. Secretary
of the Royal Asiatic Society ; Super-
intendent of the Linguistic Survey of India.
Tulasi-Dasa.

Grierson (Herbert John Clifford), M.A.,
LL.D.

Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature
in the University of Edinburgh ; editor of
The Poems of John Donne.
Vondel.

Grieve (Alexander James), M.A. (Oxon.),
B.A., D.D. (Lond.).
Principal of the Lancashire Independent
College, Manchester ; assistant-editor of
Peahens Commentary on the Bible.
Vows (Christian).

Hagar (Stansbury), B.A., LL.B.

Counsellor at LaAV ; Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science,
and the American Anthropological Associa-
tion ; Executive Officer of the Departments
of Ethnology and Astronomy in the Brooklyn
Institute of Arts and Sciences.

Sun, Moon, and Stars (American).

Haldane (Elizabeth Sanderson), C.H., LL.D.
Author of The Life of James Ferrier (1899),
Life of Descartes {1905) ; joint-translator of
Hegel's History of Philosophy (1892), and The
Philosophical Works of Descartes (1911-12).
Voltaire.
Harada (Tasuku), D.D., LL.D.

Formerly President of the Doshisha University,
Kyoto, Japan.
Suicide (Japanese).

Harrison (Jane Ellen), LL.D. (Aberd.), D.Litt.
(Durham).
Staff Lecturer and sometime Fellow of
Newnham College, Cambridge ; author of
The Religion of Ancient Greece (1905),
Prolegomena to the Stiicly of Greek Religion
(1907), Themis : a Study of the Social Origins
of Greek Religion (1912).
Titans, Under World (Greek).

Hartland (Edwin Sidney), LL.D., F.S.A.

President of the Folklore Society, 1899 ;
President of the Anthropological Section of
the British Association, 1906 ; President of
Section I (Religions of the Lower Culture)
at the Oxford International Congress for
the History of Religions, 1908 ; author of
The Legend of Perseus, Primitive Paternity,
Ritual and Belief.
Totemism, Twins.

Hastings (Anne AVilson), M.A.

H.M. District Inspector of Factories, Leeds.
Utilitarianism.

Henkk (Frederick Goodrich), M.A., Ph.D.

Truman D. Collins Professor of Philosophy
and Education in Allegheny College, Mead-
ville, Pennsylvania ; Member of the Royal
Asiatic Society (North China Branch) ;
author of A Study in the Psychology of Ritual-
ism, The Philosophy of Wang Yang-ming.
Wang Yang-ming.

Hill (George Francis), M.A., (Oxon.), F.B.A.
Keeper of the Department of Coins and
Medals in the British Museum.

Token, Treaties.

Hillebrandt (A. F. Alfred), Ph.D. (Munich),
LL.D.
Ord. Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative
Philology in the University of Breslau;
Corresponding Member of the Konigliche
Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottin-
gen, and of the Royal Bavarian Academy of
Sciences; Geheimer Regierungsrat.

Worship (Hindu).

Inge (William Ralph), D.D.

Dean of St. Paul's ; author of Christian
Mysticism (1899), Studies of English Mystics
(1906), Personal Idealism and Mysticism
(1907), Faith and its Psychology (1908).

Synderesis.

Jackson (A. V. Williams), Ph.D., L.H.D.,
LL.D.

Professor of Indo-Iranian Languages in
Columbia University, New York ; author
of Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran;
Persia, Past and Present.

Sun, Moon, and Stars (Iranian).

James (Edwin Oliver), B.Sc, B.Litt. (Oxon.),
F.C.S. (Lond.).
Vicar of Holy Trinity, Reading ; Fellow of
the Royal Anthropological Institute ;
Member of Council of the Folklore Society ;
Secretary of the Anthropological Section of
the British Association ; author of Primitive
Ritual and Belief, An Introduction to
Anthropology, and other works.

Tutelary Gods and Spirits, Water,
Water-gods (Primitive and Savage),
Yawning.

Jenkinson (Mrs. Constance), F.R.A.I.

Somerville College, Oxford ; Diploma in
Anthropology, Oxford.

Tatuing.

Johns (Claude Hermann Walter), M.A.,
Litt.D., D.D.

Late Master of St. Catharines College, Cam-
bridge, and Canon Residentiary of Norwich ;
author of Assyrian Deeds and Documents
of the 7th Century B.C., Babylonian and
Assyrian Laws, Contracts a.nd Letters, the
Schweich Lectures on The Relations between
the Lcnvs of Babylonia and the Laws of the
Hebrew Peoples.

Usury (Babylonian).

Johnson (Humphrey John T.), B.A. (Oxon.).
Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Sweat, Sweat-house.

Johnston (Reginald Fleming), C.B.E., M.A.

(Oxon.).
Tutor to H.M. the Emperor Hsiian T'ung ;
formerly District Officer and Magistrate,
Weihaiwei (administered the Government
1917-18) ; author of From Peking to Man-
dalay (1908), Lion and Dragon in Northern
China (1910), Buddhist China (1913), Letters
to a Missionary (1918).

Vows (Chinese), War, War-gods
(Chinese), Worship (Chinese).

AUTHORS OP ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME

Jolly (Julius), Ph.D. (Munith), Hon. M.D. (Got-
tingen), Hon. D.Litt. (Oxford).
Ord. Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative
Philology in the University of WUrzburg ;
formerly Tagore Professor of Law in the
University of Calcutta ; Geheimer Hofrat.
Tonsure (Hindu), Vows (Hindu).

Jones (Rufus M.), M.A., D.Litt.

Professor of Philosophy in Haverford College,
Haverford, Pennsylvania ; author of Sori/d
Law in the Sjm'iturd World (1904), Studies
in Mystical Religion (1909), Sjxirittial Re-
formers (1914), The Inner Life (1916).
Theurgy.

Joseph (Morris).

Senior Minister of the West London Syna-
gogue ; author of Jtidaism as Creed and
Ltfe (1910).
Vows (Jewish).

Keith (Arthur Berriedale), D.C.L., D.Litt.
Barrister-at-Law; Regius Professor of Sanskrit
and Comparative Philology in the University
of Edinburgh.

Suicide (Hindu), Trimurti.

Kennett (Robert Hatch), D.D.

Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University
of Cambridge ; Canon of Ely ; Fellow of
Queens' College, Cambridge ; Examining
Chaplain to the Bishops of Ely and Man-
chester.
Tophet.

Kershaw (Nora).

Newnham College, Cambridge ; formerly
Lecturer in English in the University of
St. Andrews.
Teutonic Religion.

Kilpatrick (Thomas B.), M.A., B.D., D.D.

Professor of Systematic Theology in Knox
College, Toronto ; author of the articles
' Conscience ' and ' Philosophy ' in the
Dictionary of the Bible, and of ' Character
of Christ ' and ' Incarnation ' in the Diction-
ary of Christ and the Gosjiels.
Suffering.

KiNNAiRD (Hon. Emily), C.B.E.

Acting Vice-President of the Y.W.C.A. of
Great Britain, and Vice-President of the
World's Y.W.C.A.
Young Women's Christian Association.

Kroeber (A. L.), A.M., Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the
University of California.
Zuni.

Laird (John), M.A.

Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the
Queen's University of Belfast ; author of
Problems of the Self, A Study in Realism.
Will.

Langdon (Stephen Herbert), M.A., B.D.,
Ph.D.
Professor of Assyriology and Comparative
Semitic Philology in the University of
Oxford ; Member of Council of the Royal
Asiatic Society ; author of Neo- Babylonian
Royal Inscriptions (V.A.B. vol. iv.),
Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms, A
Sumerian Grammar, Babylonian Liturgies.

Word (Sumerian and Babylonian), Wor-
ship (Babylonian).

Lester-Garland (Lester v.), M.A., F.L.S.

Formerly Fellow of St. John's College, Cam-
bridge.

Trade Unions.

LoEWE (Herbert Martin James), M.A.

Lecturer, Exeter College, Oxford ; sometime
Curator of Oriental Literature in the Uni-
versity Library, Cambridge, and Director of
Oriental Studies, St. Catharine's College,
Cambridge.
Worship (Jewish).

Lyttelton (Hon. E.), M.A., D.D., D.C.L.

Dean of Whitelands College, Chelsea; for-
merly Headmaster of Eton College.

Vegetarianism.

MacCulloch (John Arnott), Hon. D.D. (St.
Andrews).
Rector of St. Saviour's, Bridge of Allan ; Hon.
Canon of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit,
Cumbrae ; Examiner in Comparative Re-
ligion and Philosophy of Religion, Victoria
University, Manchester ; Examining Chap-
lain to the Bishop of St. Andrews ; author
of The Religion of the Ancient Celts.

Teeth, Temples, Tithes, Tonsure, Under
World, Vampire, Virgin Birth.

Macdonell (Arthur Anthony), M.A. (Oxon.),
Ph.D. (Leipzig).
Boden Pi-ofessor of Sanskrit in the University
of Oxford ; Fellow of BaUiol College ; Fellow
of the British Academy ; Fellow of the
Royal Danish Academy ; Keeper of the
Indian Institute, Oxford.

Vedic Religion.

McFadyen (John Edgar), B.A. (Oxon.), M.A.,
D.D.

Professor of Old Testament Language, Litera-
ture, and Theology in the United Free
Church College, Glasgow ; author of Messages
of the Prophetic and Priestly Historians,
and other works ; editor of Davidson's
Hebrew Grammar.

Vows (Hebrew).

McIntyre (James Lewis), M.A. (Edin. and
Oxon.), D.Sc. (Edin.).
Anderson Lecturer in Comparative Psychology
to the University of Aberdeen ; Lecturer in
Psychology, Logic, and Ethics to the Aber-
deen Provincial Committee for the Training
of Teachers ; formerly Examiner in Phil-
osophy to the Universities of Edinburgh and
London ; author of Giordano Bruno (1903).

Temperament.

Mackenzie (Donald), M.A.

Minister of the United Free Church at Tain ;
Assistant Professor of Logic and Meta-
physics in the University of Aberdeen,
1906-1909.
Synergism, Transcendentalism.

Mackichan (D.), M.A., D.D., LL.D. (Glas.),
LL.D. (Bombay).
Formerly Principal of Wilson College, Bombay,
and Vice-Chancellor of the University of
Bombay.

Vallabha, Vallabhacharya.

AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME

Maclagan (P. J.;, AI.A., U.Phil.

Forei-Ti Mission Secretary of the Presbyterian
Church of England ; formerly of the English
Presbyterian Mission, Swatow.

Suicide (Chinese), Taoism.

Maclean (Arthur John), D.D. (Camb.), Hon.
D.D. (Glas.).
Bishop of Moray, Ross, and Caithness ; author
of Dictionary and Grammar of Ver7iacvl((r
Syriac, Ancient Church Orders, and other
works ; editor of Eccst Syrian- Liturgies.

Syrian Christians, Unction (Christian).

MaCLER (FR^DfiRIC).

Ancien Attache k la Biblioth^que Nationale ;
Laureat de I'lnstitut ; Professeur d'Armenien
k l'£cole des Langues orientales vivantes.

Syrians.

Mair (Alexander Willtam), M.A. (Aberd. and
Camb.), Litt.D. (Aberd.).
Sometime Fellow of Gouville and Caius Col-
lege, Cambridge ; Professor of Greek in the
University of Edinburgh ; editor of Hesiod.

Suicide (Greek and Roman), Worship
(Greek).

Marett (Robert Ranulph), M.A., F.R.A.I.

Fellow of Exeter College, and Reader in Social
Anthropology in the University of Oxford ;
author of The Threshold of Religion.

Supernaturalism, Tabu.

Margoliouth (David Samuel), M.A., D.Litt.,
F.B.A.

Fellow of New College, and Laudian Professor
of Arabic in the University of Oxford ; author
of Mohammed and the Rise of Islam, Mo-
hammedanism, The Early Development of
Moha mmedanism.

Symbolism (Muslim), Wahhabis, Zaidi.

Margoliouth (George), M.A. (Cantab.).

Member of the Board of Studies in Theology
and Examiner in Hebrew and Aramaic in
the University of liOndon ; formerly Senior
Assistant in the Department of Oriental
Printed Books and MSS in the British
Museum.

Suicide (Jewish).

MfiN^GOZ (Eug*;ne), Docteur en Tlieologie.

Professeur honoraire de la Faculte de Theologie
protestante et de I'Univer.sit^ de Paris ;
auteur de Theologie de I'Ejntre aux Hebreux.

Symbolo-Fideism.

Mercer (Samuel Alfred Browne), M.A.,
Ph.D., D.D.
Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament in the
Western Theological Seminary, Chicago ;
author of Extra Biblical Sources for Hebrew
and Jewish History, The Ethiopia Liturgy,
Sumero-Babylonian Sign List, Ethiopic
Grammur, Assyrian Grammar; euitor of
the Anglican Theological Review, the
Journal of the Society of Oriental Research,
and the Bibliccd and Oriental Series.

War, War-gods (Semitic), Water, Water-
gods (Babylonian, Egyptian).

MoFFATT (James), D.D., D.Litt., Hon. M.A.
(Oxon.).
Professor of Church History in the United
Free Church College, Glasgow ; author of
Critical Lntroduction to New Testament
Literature, and other works.
Syncretism, Therapeutae.

Morgan (William), D.D.

Professor of Systematic Theology and Apolo-
getics in Queen's Theological College,
Kingston, Canada.
Trust.

Moulton (Jame.s Egan), D.D.

Late President of Tubou College, Tonga.
Tongans.

Mutch (William James), A.M. (Wisconsin),
B.D., Ph.D. (Yale).
Professor of Philosophy and Education in
Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin ; formerly
Minister of the Congregational Church at
New Haven, Connecticut ; Lecturer on
Religious Education in Yale University ;
author of Christian Teaching, and other
works.
Training (Religious).

Nallino (Carlo Alfonso).

Rome ; author of Sulla costituzione dclle tribu
arabe prima dell' islamismo.

Sun, Moon, and Stars (Muhammadan).

Neilsox (George), LL.D.

The Stipendiary Magistrate of Glasgow ;
author of Trial by Combat.
Torture.

Nicholson (Reynold Alleyne), M.A., Litt.D.,
LL.D.
Lecturer in Persian in the University of Cam-
bridge ; sometime Fellow of Trinity College ;
author of A Literary History of the Arabs
(1907), the Tarjuman al-Ashwaq of Ibn al-
Arabi, with translation and commentary
(1911), The Mystics of Islam (1914).
Sufis, Suhrawardi, ' Umar al-Khayyam.

Odgers (James Edwin), M.A., D.D.

Fellow of University Collc;;i'., London ; for-
merly Lecturer and Tutor, Manchester
College, Oxford.
Universalism.

Oefele (Baron Felix von).
Neuenahr, Germany.

Sun, Moon, and Stars (Introduction).

Oltramare (Paul).

Professor of the History of Religions in the
University of Geneva.
Theosophy.

Orr (James), M.A., D.D.

Late Professor of Systematic Theology and
Apologetics in the United Free Church
College, Glasgow ; author of The Christian
View of God and the World, David Hume
in the 'Epoch Makers' series.
Supralapsarianism.

Ottley (Robert Laurence), D.D.

Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology, and
Canon of Christ Church, Oxford ; author of
The Doctrine of the Incariiation (1895),
Aspects of the Old Testament (190")), and
other works.
Temperance.

AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME

Owen (Mary Alicia).

President of the Missouri Folklore Society ;
Councillor of the American Folklore Society ;
admitted to Tribal Membership with tlie
Indians, 1892.
Voodoo.

Paterson (William P.), D.D., LL.D.

Professor of Divinity in the University of
Edinburgh.
War.

Patton (Walter Melville), M.A., Ph.D., D.D.
Professor of Biblical Literature and History
of Religion, and Director of the Library,
Carleton College, Northtield, Minnesota.
Suicide (Muhammadan), Sunnites.

Pearson (A. C), M.A., Litt.D.

Regius Professor of Greek in the University of

Cambridge; editor of Fragments of Sophocles,

Euripides' Helena, HeracUdce, and Fhcenisscc,

Zeno and Cleanthes : Fragments.

Transmigration (Greek and Roman),

Vows (Greek and Roman).

Petrie (William Matthew Flinders), D.C.L.
(Oxon.), LL.D. (Edin. and Aberd.), Litt.D.
(Camb.).
Fellow of the Royal Society and of the British
Academy ; Edwards Professor of Egyptology
in the University of London.
Transmigration (Egyptian).

Pinches (Theophilus Goldridge), LL.D. (Glas.),
M.R.A.S.
Lecturer in Assyrian at University College,
London, and at the Institute of Archaeology,
Liverpool ; Hon. Member of the Societe
Asiatique.

Sumero-Akkadians, Tammuz.

Pope (Robert Martin), M.A. (Camb. and Man-
chester).
Author of Introdiictio7i to Early Church
History, and other works.

Western Church.

PoussiN (Louis DE LA VallSe), Docteur en
philosophie et lettres (Liege), en langues
orientales (Louvain).
Professeur de Sanscrit h I'Universit^ de Gand ;
Membre de 1' Academic royale de Belgique ;
Hibbert Lecturer (1916) ; Membre de la
R.A.S. et de la Soci6t6 Asiatique ; Membre
correspondant de TAcademie imperiale de
Petrograd ; Correspondant de I'Ecole Fran-
^aise d'Extrcme-Orient.

Suicide (Buddhist), Tantrism (Buddhist),
Worship (Buddhist).

Price (Ira Maurice), Ph.D., LL.D.

Professor of the Semitic Languages and
Literatures in the University of Chicago ;
author of The Monuments of the Old Testa-
ment, The Great Cylinder Inscriptions A
and B of Gicdea, and other works.

Toltecs.

Reid (James Smith), M.A., LL.D., Litt.D.

Fellow and late Tutor of Gonville and Caius
College, Cambridge ; Professor of Ancient
History in the University of Cambridge;
editor of the Academica and other works
of Cicero ; author of Municijialities of the
Roman Empire.

Worship (Poman).

Revon (Michel), LL.D., D.Litt.

Professor of History of the Civilization of
the F"ar East in the University of Paris ;
formerl}^ Professor of Law in the Imperial
Uni\ ersity of Tokyo and Legal Adviser to
the Japanese Government ; author of Le
Shi7))i(visme.

Worship (Japanese).

Rivers (W. H. R.), M.A., M.D., F.R.S., F.R.C.P.
F^ellow of St. John's College, Cambridge ;
President of the Anthropological Section
of the British Association, 1911; author of
The Todas, History of Melancsian Society,
Kinship and Social Organisation.

Todas.

Robinson (Henry Wheeler), M.A. (Oxon. and
Edin.).
Principal and Professor of Systematic Theo-
logy and Hebrew in Regent's Park (Baptist)
College, London ; author of ' Hebrew
Psychology in relation to Pauline Anthropo-
logy ' in Mansfield College Essays, The
Christian Doctrine of Man, The lieligious
Ideas of the Old Testament.
Tongue.

Rose (Herbert Jennings), M.A. (Oxon.).

Professor of Latin, University College of
Wales, Aberystwyth ; sometime Fellow of
Exeter College, Oxford.

Suicide (Introductory), Thrace.

Rose (Horace Arthur), I.C.S. (retired).

Superintendent of Ethnography, Punjab, 1901-
06 ; author of A Glossary of Punjab Tribes
and Castes, and other works.
Udasis.

Ross (William), M.A., B.D.

Minister of the United Free Church at
Edinburgh.
Voluntaryism.

Rouse (William Henry Denham), M.A., Litt.D.

Headmaster of the Perse Grammar School,

Cambridge ; University Teacher of Sanskrit ;

President of the Folklore Society, 1904-06.

Tithes (Greek), Votive Offerings (Greek).

Sapir (Edward), Ph.D.

Chief of Anthropological Division, Victoria
Memorial Museum, Ottawa, Ontario.
Vancouver Island Indians.

Schiller (Ferdinand Canning Scott), M.A.,
D.Sc. (Oxon.).
Fellow and Senior Tutor of Corpus Christi
College, Oxford ; author of Biddies of the
Sphinx (new ed. 1910), Humanism (1903,
new ed. 1912), Studies in Humanism (1907,
1912), Plato or Protagoras? (1908), Foriiud
Logic (1912), etc.
Telepathy, Value.

Scott (Ernest Findlay), B.A., D.D.

Professor of New Testament Literature in
Queen's University, Kingston, Canada ;
author of The Fourth Gosjyel : its Purpose
and Theology, The Apologetic of the New
Testament, The Kingdom, and the Messiah.
Valentinianism.

Seaton (Mary Ethel), M.A. (Lond.),

Sometime Lecturer at Giiton College, Cam-
bridge.

Swan-matdens.

AUTHORS OP ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME

Seligman (Mrs. BrendaZ.), Lomlun.

Veddas.
Seligman (Charles G.), M.D., F.Il.S., F.R.C.P.
Professor of Ethnology in the University of
London ; President of the Anthropological
Section of the British Association, 1915 ;
author of The Melanesinns of British Ncio
Guinea, ; joint-author of The, Veddas.
Veddas.
Shorey (Paul), Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D.

Professor and Head of the Department of
Greek in the University of Chicago ; Roose-
velt Professor at the University of Berlin,
1913 ; Member of the American Institute of
Art and Letters.
Summum Bonum, Theognis.

Showerman (Grant), Ph.D.

Professor of Latin in the University of Wis-
consin ; Fellow in the American School of
Classical Studies at Rome, 1898-1900; author
of The Great Mother of the Godfi (Disserta-
tion), 1901, With the Professor, 1910 ; trans-
lator of Ovid's Heroides and Aniores (Loeb
Classical Library), 1914.
Taurobolium.

SiKES (Edward Ernest), M.A.

Fellow, Senior Tutor, and Classical Lecturer
of St. John's College, Camln'idge ; author
of The Anthropology of the Greeks, and
Hero and Leander, translated in verse from
the Greek ; editor of ^schylus's Prometheus
Vi^ictus, the Homeric Hymns, etc.
Torch (Greek and Roman).

Smith (Charles Ryder), B.A., D.D. (Lond.).
Professor of Systematic Theology in Rich-
mond College, Surrey ; author of The
Bible Doctrine of Society in its Historical
Evolution.
Theocracy.
Smith (Vincent Arthur), M.A., Litt.D.

Late of the Indian Civil Service (retired) ;
author of Asoka in ' Rulers of India,' Early
History of India, A History of Fine Art in
India and Ceylon, Akbar the Great Mogul,
Oxford History of India.
Vaisali, Vikrama Era.

Scares (Theodore Gerald), M.A., Ph.D., D.D.
Professor of Preaching and Religious Educa-
tion, and Head of the Department of
Practical Theology, in the University of
Chicago.
Sunday Schools.

Stevenson (Mrs. Sinclair), M.A., Sc.D.

Of the Irish Mission, Rajkot, India ; sometime
Scholar of Somerville College, Oxford ;
author of Notes on Modern Jainism, The
Bites of the Twice-horn.

Svetambaras, Worship (Jain).

Stokes (George J.), M.A, (Trinity College,
Dublin).
Of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law ; Professor
of Philosophy and Jurisprudence in Uni-
versity College, Cork, National University
of Ireland ; author of The Objectivity of
Truth.
Universality.

SwANTON (John Reed), Ph.D.

Ethnologist in the Bureau of American
Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Wash-
ington, D.C. ; President of the Anthropo-
logical Society of Washington, 1916.
Tlingit, Tsimshian, Wakashan.

Takakusu (Jyun), M.A., D.Litt. (Oxford), Dr.
Phil. (Leipzig).
Professor of Sanskrit in the University of
Tokyo.

Yuan-Chwang, Fa-Hian, and I-Tsing.

Taylor (Alfred Edward), M.A. (Oxon.),
D. Litt. (St. Andrews).
Professor of Moral Philosophy in the United
College of SS. Salvator and Leonard, St.
Andrews ; late Fellow of Merton College,
Oxford ; Fellow of the British Academy ;
author of The Problem of Conduct (1901),
Elements of Metaphysics (1903), Varia
Socratica (1911).

Theism.

Tessitori (Dr. L. P.).

Late of Udine, Italy ; editor of the Uvaesa-
mala of Diiarmadasa.

Yogis (Kanphata).

Thomas (Edward Joseph), M.A. (St. And. and
Camb.), B.A. (Lond.).
Under-Librarian of Cambridge University ;
editor of Buddhist Scriptures ; joint-editor
of Mahdniddesa and Jataka Talcs.

Sun, Moon, and Stars (Buddhist).

Thomas (Northcote Whitridge).

Elfeve dipl6m6 de I'Ecole pratique des Hautes
Etudes ; Corresponding Member of the
Soci^te d'Anthropologie de Paris ; Member
of Council of the Folklore Society ; author
of Thought Transference, Kinship Organiza-
tion and Group Marriage in Australia.

Transmigration (Introductory and Primi-
tive).

Thurston (Herbert), B.A., S.J.

Joint-editor of the Westminster Library for
Priests and Students; atithor of Life of St.
Hugh of Lincoln, The Holy Year of Jubilee,
The Stations of the Cross.

Xavier.

Urquhart (Francis Fortescue), M.A.

Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford.

U Itramontanism.

Ukquhart (William Spence), M.A., D.Phil.
Senior Professor of Philosophy in the Scottish
Churches College, Calcutta ; Fellow and
Member of Syndicate of Calcutta Univer-
sity.
Theosophy.

Waddell (L, Austine), C.B., CLE., LL.D.,
F.L.S., F.R.A.I., M.R.A.S., M.F.L.S.,
M.S.B.A., Lt. -Colonel LM.S. (retired).
Formerly Professor of Tibetan in University
College, London ; Hon. Correspondent of
the Archaeological Survey of India ; author
of The BuddJiism of Tibet, Lhasa and its
Mysteries.

Swat or Udyana, Tibet.

Watt (Hugh), M.A., B.D.

Professor of Church History in New College,
Edinburgh.
Zwingli.

Welsford (Enid Elder Hancock).

Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge.

Sun, Moon, and Stars (Teutonic and
Balto-Slavic).

AUTHORS OP ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME

Werner (Alice), L.L.A. (St. And.).

University Eeader in Swahili and Bantu
Languages, Scliool of Oriental Studies,
London ; Goldsmiths' Scholar, Newnham
College, Cambridge, 1878-80; Mary Ewart
Travelling Scholar, 1911-13; formerly As-
sociates' Fellow, Newnham College, Cam-
bridge ; author of The Language Families
of Africa, The Native Races of British
Central Africa ; translator of An Introduc-
tion to the Study of African Languages.

Zanzibar and the Swahili People.

Whitacre (iELRED), O.P., Sac. Theol. Lector.
Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Dom-
inican House of Studies, Hawkesyard Priory,
Staffordshire.

Thomism.

Whitley (William Thomas), M.A., LL.D.,
F.R.Hist.S., F.T.S.
Honorary Secretary and editor of the Baptist
Historical Society ; Member of the Ameri-
can Historical Association ; author of Roman
Catholic and Protestant Bibles, Missionary
Achievement ; editor of A Baptist Biblio-
graphy, The Works of John Smyth.

Trappists.

Wilde (Nobman), Ph.D.

Professor of Philosophy in the University of
Minnesota.

Welfaxe.

Williams (Norman Powell), M.A., B.D.

Chaplain Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford ;
Lecturer in Theology at Exeter and Pem-
broke Colleges ; Examining Chaplain to the
Bishop of Newcastle.

Tradition.

WOGIHARA (UNRAI), Ph.D.

Professor of Shyu-kyo-daigaku, Tokyo, Japan.
Vasubandhu.

Workman (Herbert B.), M.A., D.Lit.

Principal of Westminster Training College ;
Member of the Board of Studies in the
Faculty of Theology, London University ;
author of The Dawn of the Reformation,
The Letters of John Hus, Persecution in the
Early Church, and Christian Thought to the
Reformation.

WycUf.

Yapp (Sir Arthur Keysall), K.B.E., Officier de
rOrdre de la Couronne (Belgium), Wen Hu
(China).
National Secretary of the Y.M.C.A.

Young Men's Christian Association.

YOUNGERT (SVEN GUSTAF), Ph.D., D.D.

Professor of Philosophy and History of Re-
ligion at Augustana College and Theological
Seminary, Kock Island, 111.

Vows (Teutonic).

CROSS-REFERENCES

In addition to
of minor references

the cross-references throughout the volume, the following list
may be useful :

Topic.

Title of Article.

Topic.

Title of Article.

Sulpicians

. Religious Orders (Christ-

Thread (Sacred) .

Initiation (Hindu, Parsi).

ian).

Tobacco

Smoking.

Supper .

. Eucharist.

Tuatha De Danann

Celts.

Sutra

. Literature (Vedic).

Vajapeya

Abhiseka.

Suttee .

. Sati.

Vegetation .

Agriculture.

Svastika

. Cross.

Vijaya ....

Durga.

Swan

. Animals.

Vikings

Teutonic Religion.

Swastika

. Cross.

Virgines Subintroducta'

Agapetae.

Taborites

. Hussites.

Vision ....

Ecstasy.

Tai

. Ahoms, Burma.

Washing

Feet-washing, Purifica-

Taimiya

. Ibn Taimiya.

tion.

Taittiriya

. Literature (Vedic find

Week ....

Calendar.

Classical Sanskrit).

Wends ....

Slavs.

Talaings

. Burma.

Wergeld

Blood-feud.

Tapuyas

. Brazil.

Westminster Assembly

Councils and Synods.

Tartarus

. Eschatology, State of

Westminster Catechism

Catechisms.

the Dead (Greek).

Westminster Confession

Confessions.

Tatars .

. Turks.

Wills ....

Inheritance.

Teaching

. Education.

Wills (Muslim) .

Law (Muhammadan).

Templars

. Religious Orders (Christ-

Word of God

Logos.

ian).

Work ....

Economics, Employ-

Temple Society

. Friends of the Temple.

ment.

Testament, New

. Bible.

Works (Good)

Merit.

Testament, Old

. Bible.

Yuga ....

Ages of the World

Thankfulness

. Gratitude.

(Indian).

Theodoret .

. Antiochene Tlieology.

Zeus ....

Greek Religion.

Theriomorphism

. Lycanthropy.

Zoar Society .

Communistic Societies of

Thomas k Kempis

, Brethren of the Common

America.

Life.

Zodiac

Sun, Moon, and Stars.

Thomas, St. (Chri

stians

of) . .

. Nestorianism.

xix

LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS

I. General

A.H. =Anno Hijrae (a.d. 622).

Ak. = Akkadian.

Alex. = Alexandrian.

Araer. = American.

Apoc. = Apocalypse, Apocalyptic.

Apocr. = Apocrypha.

Aq. =Aquila.

Arab. = Arabic.

Aram. = Aramaic.

Arm. = Armenian.

Ary. = Aryan.

As. = Asiatic.

Assyr. = Assyrian.

AT = Altes Testament.

AV= Authorized Version.

A Vm = Authorized Version margin.

A.y. = Anno Yazdagird (A.D. 639).

Bab. = Babylonian.

c. = circa, about.

Can. = Canaanite.

cf.= compare.

ct. = contrast.

D = Deuteronomist.

E = Elohist.

edd. = editions or editors.

Egj'p. = Egyptian.

Eng. = English.

Eth. =Ethiopic.

EV, EVV = English Version, Versions.

f. = and following verse or page.

ff. =and follo'sving verses or pages.

Fr. = French.

Germ. = German.

Gr.= Greek.

H = Law of Holiness.

Heb. = Hebrew.

Hel. = Hellenistic.

Hex. = Hexateuch.

Himy. = Himyaritic.

Ir. = Irish.

Iran. = Iranian.

Isr. = Israelite.

J = Jahmst.

J" = Jehovah.

Jerus. = Jerusalem.

Jos. = Josephus.

LXX = Septuagint.

Min. = Minsean.

MSS = Manuscripts.

MT = Massoretic Text.

n. =note.

NT = New Testament.

Onk. = On^elos.

0T = 01d Testament.

P = Priestly Narrative.

Pal. = Palestine, Palestinian.

Pent. = Pentateuch.

Pers. = Persian.

Phil. = Philistine.

Phoen. = Phoenician.

Pr. Bk. = Prayer Book.

R = Redactor.

Rom. = Roman.

RV = Revised Version.

RVm = Revised Version margin.

Sab. = Sabsean.

Sam. = Samaritan.

Sem. = Semitic.

Sept. = Septuagint.

Sin. =Sinaitic.

Skr. = Sanskrit.

Symm. = Symmachus.

Syr. = Syriac.

t. (following a number) = times.

Talm.= Talmud.

Targ. =Targum.

Theod.=Theodotion.

TR = Textus Receptus, Received Text.

tr. = translated or translation.

VSS= Versions.

Vulg. , Vg. = Vulgate.

WH = Westcott and Hort's text.

II. Books of the Bible

Old Testament.

Gn = Genesis.

Ex = Exodus.

Lv := Leviticus.

Nu = Numbers.

Dt — Deuteronomy.

Jos = Joshua.

Jg = Judges.

Ru = Ruth.

1 S, 2S = 1 and 2 Samuel.

1 K, 2K = 1 and 2 Kings.

1 Ch, 2 Ch = l and 2

Chronicles.
Ezr = Ezra.
Neh = Nehemiah.
Est = Esther.
Job.

Ps = Psalms.
Pr = Proverbs.
Ec = Ecclesiastea.

Apocrypha,

1 Es, 2 Es = l and 2 To = Tobit.

Ca — Canticles.
Is = Isaiah.
Jer= Jeremiah.
La = Lamentations.
Ezk = Ezekiel.
Dn = Daniel.
Hos = Hosea.
Jl=JoeL
Am = Amos.
Ob = Obadiah.
Jon = Jonah.
Mic=Micah.
Nah = Nahum.
Hab = Habakkuk,
Zeph = Zephaniah.
Hag=Haggai.
Zec = Zechariah.
Mai = Malachi.

Ad. Est = Additions to Sus = Susanna.

Esther.
Wis = Wisdom.

Bel = Bel and
Dragon.

the

Sir = Sirach or Ecclesi- Pr. Man = Prayer of

Esdras.

Jth= Judith.

asticus.
Bar=Baruch.
Three = Song of the Three

Children.

Manassea.
1 Mae, 2 Mac^l and 2
Maccabees.

Mt = Matthew.
Mk = Mark.
Lk = Luke.
Jn=John.
Ac = Acts.
Ro = Romans.
1 Co, 2 Co = 1

Corinthians.
Gal = Galatians.
Eph = Ephesians.
Ph = Philippians.
Col = Colossians.

New Testament.

1 Th, 2 Th = I and 2

Thessalonians.
1 Ti, 2 Ti = l and 2

Timothy.
Tit = Titus.
Philem = Philemon,
and 2 He = Hebrews.
Ja= James.

1 P,2P=1 and 2 Peter.
1 Jn, 2 Jn, 3 Jn = l, 2,

and 3 John.
Jude.
Rev = Revelation.

LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS

III. For the Literature

1, The following authors' names, when unaccompanied by the title of a book, stand for
the works in the list below.

Ba,ethgen = Beitrdge Z7tr se7n. Religionsgcsch., 1888.
Baldwin = J9icf. of Philosophy and Psychology,

3 vols. 1901-05.
B&rth = A^077unalbildung in den son, Sprachen,

2 vols. 1889, 1891 (21894).
Benzini!;er=^e6. Archaologie, 1894.
Brockelmann = Gc.fcA. d. arab. Litteratur, 2 vols.

1897-1902.
Bruns - Sachau = Syr. - Rom. Rechtsbuch aus dem

funften Jahrhundert, 1880.
Budge = (?orf5 of the Egyptians, 2 vols. 1903.
Daremberg-Saglio = Z)ic^. des ant. grec. et ram.,

1886-90.
De la Saussaye = ZeAr6?/cA der Religionsgesch.^,

1905.
Denzinger = E7ichiridion Symbolorum'^^ , Freiburg

imBr., 1911.
Deussen = Z)ie Philos. d. Upanishads, 1899 [Eng.

tr., 1906].
Doughty =^raiia Deserta, 2 vols. 1888.
(jximm = Deutsche Mythologie*, 3 vols. 1875-78,

Eng. tr. Teutonic Mythology, 4 vols. 1882-88.
}ia,mh\irger = RealencyclopddieficrBibel w. Talmnd,

i. 1870 (=1892), ii. 1883, suppl. 1886, 1891 f., 1897.
'Roldex = Altceltischer SprachscJiatz, 1891 ff.
Holtzmann-Zopffel = Zea;iJcoTO y. Iheol. u. Kirchen-

wesen^, 1895.
'H.o\\\tt= Native Tribes of S.E. Australia, 1904.
Jubainville = CoM}'s de Litt. celtiqice, i.-xii., 1883 ff'.
Lagrange = Etudes stir les religions semitiques^, 1904.
Lane = 5ln Arabic-English Lexicon, 1863 If'.
Lang = Myth, Ritual, and Religion-, 2 vols. 1899.
Lepsius=Z)enA;7m^er aus Aegypten u. Aethiopien,

1849-60.
Lichtenberger =£nc?/c. des sciences religieuses, 1876.
Lidzbarski = Zfa«rf6McA der nordsem. Epigraphik,

1898.
'M.cC\iLxAy= History, Prophecy, and the Monuments,

2 vols. 1894-96.
'^mx-Orig. Sanskrit Texts, 1858-72.
Muss-Arnolt = ^ Concise Diet, of the Assyrian

Language, 1894 ff.

Nowack = Z.cAr6i(c/i d. heb. Archaologie, 2 vols.

1894.
Pauly-Wissowa = jBca^ew-r?/c. der classischen Alter-

tumswisscnschaft, 1894 fi".
Perrot-Chipiez=^w<. de Fart dans I'antiquite,

1881 ff.
Preller= i^OTOWcAe Mythologie, 1858.
liiev\\\e = Religion des penplcs non-civiliscs, 1883.
liiehm = Handtvorterbuch d. bibl, Altertums"^, 1893-

94.
Robinson = J5i6/tca^ Researches in Palestine-, 1856.
Koscher = iea;. d. gr. u. rbm. Mythologie, 1884 ff.
Schaff-Herzog = T/ie New Schaff-Herzog Encyclo-
pedia of Religious Knowledge, 1908 ff.
^c\xQnke\=Bibel- Lexicon, 5 vols. 1869-75.
Schurer = (?J'F», 3 vols. 1898-1901 [HJP, 5 vols.

1890 ff.].
Schwally = Leben nach dem Tode, 1892.
Siegfried-Stade = Zre&. Worterbuch zum AT, 1893.
Smend = ie/w-6z<cA der alttest. Religionsgesch.",

1899.
Smith (G. A.) = Historical Geography of the Holy

Land*, 1897.
Smith (W. K.) = Religion of the Semites-, 1894.
Spencer {!{.)=■ Pri7iciplcs of Sociology'!^, 1885-96.
Spencer-Gillen* = Native Tribes of Central Australia,

1899.
Spencer-Gillen ^ = Northern Tribes of Central

Aust7-alia, 1904.
Swete:=TAe OT in Greek, 3 vols. 1893 ff.
Tylor (E. B.) = Primitive Culture^ 1891 [n903].
Ueberweg = Hist, of Philosophy, Eng. tr. , 2 vols.

1872-74.
AVeber = Jiidische Theologie auf Grund des Talmud

u. ver7oandten Schriften"^, 1897.
Wiedemann = Die Religion der alten Aegypter,

1890 [Eng. tr., revised, Religion of the Anc.

Egyptians, 1897].
Wilkinson = ilfa77ner5 and Customs of the Ancient

Egijptians, 3 vols. 1878.
Zunz = Die gottesdienstlichen Vortrdge der Juden ^,

1892.

2. Periodicals, Dictionaries, Encyclopaedias, and other standard works frequently cited.

^^^Archiv fiir Anthropologie.

AAOJ — American Antiquarian and Oriental
Journal.

ABA W = Abhandlungen d. Berliner Akad. d.
Wissenschaften.

AE = Axchiv fiir Ethnographie.

AEG=AssYx. and Eng. Glossary (Johns Hopkins
University).

.(4 GG= Abhandlungen der Gottinger Gesellschaft
der Wissenschaften.

.<4GPA = Archiv fiir Geschichte der Philosophie.

.(4 ^i2 = American Historical Review.

.<4i7r= Ancient Hebrew Tradition (Hommel).

^J'jPA = American Journal of Philology.

-4J'P.s = American Journal of Psychology.

-4 t/iJP^^ American Journal of Religious Psycho-
logy and Education.

/iJ^5Z<= American Journal of Semitic Languages
and Literature.

ylJTA = American Journal of Theology.

.(4i(f(? = Annales du Musee Guimet.

.4 P^,S'= American Palestine Exploration Society.

APF =Axchiv fiir Papyrusforschung.

.4 P = Anthropological Review.

ARW =Axchiv fiir Religionswissenschaft.

AS = Acta. Sanctorum (Bollandus).

.(4 6'G — Abhandlungen der Siichsischen Gesellschaft

der Wissenschaften.
.4(S'oc = L'Annee Sociologique.
^)SlF/= Archaeological Survey of W. India.
.4Z=Allgemeine Zeitung.
BA G = Beitrage zur alten Geschichte.
BASS=Beitxage zur Assyriologie u. sem. Sprach

wissenschaft (edd. Delitzsch and Haupt).
PC^= Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique.
^^= Bureau of Ethnology.
BG — Bombay Gazetteer.
BJ= Bellum Judaicum ( Josephus).
PZ = Bampton Lectures.

BLE = Bulletin de Litterature Ecclesiastique.
P0i2 = Bab. and Oriental Record.
BS= Bibliotheca Sacra.

BSA = Annual of the British School at Athens.
P^vl .(4 = Bulletin de la Soc. archeologique k Alex-

andrie.
BSA Z = Bulletin de la Soc. d' Anthropologie de Lyon.
P5^P=: Bulletin de la Soc. d' Anthropologie, etc.,

Paris.
P5^6^ = Bulletin de la Soc. de Geographie.
5^= Buddhist Text Society.
P^F= Biblical World.
£Z^=Biblische Zeitschrift.

LISTS OP ABBREVIATIONS

CAIBL = Compte8 reudus de 1' Academic des In-
scriptions et Belles-Lettres.

CBTS =Ca.\cvLtta Buddhist Text Society.

C^ = Catholic Encyclop;edia,

Ci^= Childhood of Fiction (MacCuUoch).

CGS=CultH of the Greek States (Farnell).

C7= Census of India.

CIA = Corpus Inscrip. Atticarum.

C7^ = Corpus Inscrip. Etruscarum.

C/G = Corpus Inscrip. Grscarum.

C7/i = Corpus Inscrip. Latinarum,

C/iS= Corpus Inscrip. Semiticarum.

COr= Cuneiform Inscriptions and the OT [Eng.
tr. ofKAT-^; see below].

Ci2= Contemporary Review.

Ce5 = Celtic Review.

C7i2= Classical Review.

C^i2 = Church Quarterly Review.

C,S£Z, = Corpus Script. Eccles. Latinorura.

DA C= Diet, of the Apostolic Church.

DACL = Diet. d'ArcheoIogie chretienne et de
Liturgie (Cabrol).

DB=T>ict. of the Bible.

DC A =I>ict. of Christian Antiquities (Smith-
Cheetham).

Z)C£ = Diet, of Christian Biography (Smith-
Wace).

Z>(7G=Dict. of Christ and the Gospels.

Z)/=Dict. of Islam (Hughes).

Z)iV£ = Dict. of National Biography.

Z)PAP= Diet, of Philosophy and Psychology.

Dfr.4IF = Denkschriften der Wiener Akad. der
Wissenschaften.

.BPi= Encyclopaedia Biblica.

.BPr = Encyclopaedia Britannica.

EEFM='Egyp. Explor. Fund Memoirs.

EI= Encyclopaedia of Islam.

ERE = The present work.

Exp = Expositor.

ExpT= Expository Times.

P^G^=Fragmenta Historieorum Grsecorum (coll.
C. MiUler, Paris, 1885).

Pi = Folklore.

FLJ= Folklore Journal.

PLP= Folklore Record.

G.4 = Gazette Archeologique.

GB= Golden Bough (Frazer).

GG^ = Gottingische Gelehrte Anzeigen.

GGiV=G6ttingische Gelehrte Nachrichten (Nach-
richten der konigl. Gesellschaft der Wissen-
schaften zu Gottingen).

G/^P=Grundriss d. Indo-Arischen Philologie.

G/rP=Grundriss d. Iranischen Philologie.

GJF=Geschichte des jUdischen Volkes.

G VI = Geschichte des Volkes Israel.

^^.(4/= Handbook of American Indians.

irZ»P = Hastings' Diet, of the Bible.

fljE=Historia Ecclesiastica.

HGHL = B.istoTicsd Geography of the Holy Land
(G. A. Smith).

111= History of Israel.

HJ= Hibbert Journal.

J?JP= History of the Jewish People.

HL = Hibbert Lectures.

/riV"=Historia Naturalis (Pliny).

HWB = Handworterbuch.

I A = Indian Antiquary.

ICC= International Critical Commentary.

/CO = International Congress of Orientalists.

7(772= Indian Census Report.

IG = Inscrip. Graecae (publ. under auspices of Berlin
Academy, 1873 ff.).

IGA = Inscrip. Graecae Antiquissimae.

/G/= Imperial Gazetteer of India ^ (1885); new
edition (1908-09).

//P = International Journal of Ethics.

ITL = International Theological Library.

t/^= Journal Asiatique.

t/-4Pi = Journal of American Folklore.
J^/17 = Journal of the Anthropological Institute.
7^^ OS' = Journal of the American Oriental Society.
t/^)SP = Journal of the Anthropological Society of

Bombay.
JASBe^Joxxm. of As. Soc. of Bengal.
JBL = Journal of Biblical Literature.
J'P7'«S= Journal of the Buddhist Text Society.
J^7)= Journal des Debats.
J7>rA = Jahrbiicher f. deutsche Theologie.
7^P= Jewish Encyclopedia.
7^00(5= Journal of the German Oriental Society.
J'7?C'= Johns Hopkins University Circulars.
J"7r(S'= Journal of Hellenic Studies.
JLZ= Jenaer Litteraturzeitung.
t/P/i = Journal of Philology.

JPTh = Jahrbiicher f iir protestantische Theologie.
t/PrSf= Journal of the Pali Text Society.
J'§P= Jewish Quarterly Review.
J^P-^ 7= Journal of the Royal Anthropological

Institute.
t7P^ 5= Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
JP^S'Po = Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,

Bombay branch.
t7P^ 50= Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,

Ceylon branch.
J"P.4<S^= Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,

Korean branch.
JEGS =Jom:nei\ of the Royal Geographical Society.
J^P5'= Journal of Roman Studies.
JThSt = JouTn&l of Theological Studies.
.K'^r2 = Die Keilinschriften und das AT^

(Schrader), 1883.
^.4T='=Zimmern-Winckler's ed. of the preceding

(really a totally distinct work), 1903.
KB or .K'7P = Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek (Schra-
der), 1889 ft".
KGF = Keilinschriften und die Geschichtsfor-

schung, 1878.
iCP^= Literarisches Centralblatt.
LOPA = Li teraturblatt fiir Oriental. Philologie.
LOT= Introduction to Literature of OT (Driver).
Z,P= Legend of Perseus (Hartland).
iiS'<S< = Leipziger sem. Studien.
il/=Melusine.
ilf^7Pi = Memoires de I'Acad. des Inscriptions et

Belles-Lettres.
MBA W = Monatsbericht d. Berliner Akad. d.

Wissenschaften.
AfGTf =Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Pertz).
AfGt/T=Mittheilungen der Gesellschaft fur jiid-

ische Volkskunde.
MG WJ= Monatsschrif t fiir Geschichte und Wissen-

schaft des Judentums.
Ar7= Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas

(Westermarck).
MNDPV = Mittheilungen u. Nachrichten des

deutschen Palastina-Vereins.
iI7P= Methodist Review.

MVG = Mittheilungen der vorderasiatischen Gesell-
schaft.
MWJ = Magazin fiir die Wissenschaft des

Judentums.
NBA 0= NuovoBuUettino di Archeologia Cristiana.
NC= Nineteenth Century.
iV5^1FP = Neuhebraisches Worterbuch.
iV7iVQ= North Indian Notes and Queries.
NKZ=^e\ie kirchliche Zeitschrift.
NQ = Notes and Queries.

iV^P = Native Races of the Pacific States (Bancroft).
NTZG = Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte.
0^7) = Oxford English Dictionary.
07^= Orientalische Litteraturzeitung.
0S= Onomastica Sacra.
OTJC= Old Testament in the Jewish Church ( W.

R. Smith).
OrP= Oriental Translation Fund Publications.
P^OSf= Proceedings of American Oriental Society.

LISTS OP ABBREVIATIONS

PASB = ProceediagB of the Anthropological See. of

Bombay.
P£ = Polychrome Bible (English).
P£J?= Publications of the Bureau of Ethnology.
^(7= Primitive Culture (Tylor).
PEFM = Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly

Memoirs.
P.E'i^5^ = Palestine Exploration Fund Statement.
PG'^Patrologia Grteca (Migne).
PJB = Preussische Jahrbiicher.
PZ = Patrologia Latina (Migne).
PiV^ = Punjab Notes and Querie^i.
PjB= Popular Religion and Folklore of N. India

(Crooke).
P.B^ ^=Prot. Realencyclopadie (Herzo^-Hauck).
PRR = Presbyterian and Reformed Review.
PJ2(S= Proceedings of the Royal Society.
PESE= Proceedings Royal Soc. of Edinburgh.
PSBA = Proceedings of the Society of Biblical

Archaeology.
Pr<S=Pali Text Society.
RA = Revue Arch^ologique.
RAnthr^Heme d'Anthropologie.
iJ^jS= Royal Asiatic Society.
RAssyr = Revue d'AssyrioIogie.
jBP = Revue Biblique.
.BPJ?jr= Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology

(Washington).
RC= Revue Critique.
jBCe/ = Revue Celtique.
i2CA= Revue Chr6tienne.
RDM= Revue des Deux Mondes.
RE = Realencyclopadie.
REG = Revue ^es fitudes Grecques.
REg='Revue Egyptologique.
.Bj^er= Revue des Etudes Juives.
REth^Kevue d'Ethnographie.
RGG^Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart.
RIILR = B,evne d'Histoire et de Litt^rature re-

ligieuses.
RHR = 'RevvLe de I'Histoire des Religions.
Pilfilf= Revue du monde musulman.
^iV= Revue Numismatique.
^P= Records of the Past.
J?PA = R«vue Philosophique.
.R^=Romische Quartalschrift.
RS = Revue sdmitique d'fipigraphie et d'Hist.

ancienne.
RSA = Recueil de la Soc. arch^ologique.
RSI= Reports of the Smithsonian Institution.
.BT^P= Recueil de Travaux relatifs k I'Archeologie

et k la Philologie.
^TP= Revue des traditions populaires.
J?rAPA= Revue de Th^ologie et de Philosophie.
RTr = Recueil de Travaux.
i2FF=Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vor-

arbeitungen.
RWB = Realv/orterbuch.

SB A jr=Sitzungsberichte d. Berliner Akademie d.

Wissenschaften.
SBB = S&cTed Books of the Buddhists.
,S'^£ = Sacred Books of the East.
^£07= Sacred Books of the OT (Hebrew).
.S'Z>£ = Single-vol. Diet, of the Bible (Hastings).
<S'i)r=Studien und Kritiken.

)S'i)f^ = Sitzungsberichte d. Miinchener Akademie.
55© fF= Sitzungsberichte d. Kgl. Sachs. Gesellsch.

d. Wissenschaften.
SWA fF= Sitzungsberichte d. Wiener Akademie d.

Wissenschaften.
TAP A = Transactions of American Philological

Association.
TASJ = Transactions of the Asiatic Soc. of

Japan.
rC= Tribes and Castes.
r£5'= Transactions of Ethnological Society.
ThLZ= Theologische Litteraturzeitung.
TAr=Theol. Tijdschrift.

rjB^5= Transactions of Royal Historical Society.
Ti^/SJ^^rr Transactions of Royal Soc. of Edinburgh.
r^= Texts and Studies.

TSBA = Transactions of the Soc. of Biblical Archae-
ology.
2'C/'=Texte und Untersuchungen.
jr^/= Western Asiatic Inscriptions.
WZKM= Wiener Zeitschrif t f . Kunde des Morgen-

landes.
i^4.= Zeitschrif t fiir Assyriologie.
<^J[= Zeitschrif t fiir agyp. Sprache u. Altertums-

\yifiS0Tis(*ri flirt"

ZATW = Zeitschrift fiir die alttest. Wissen-
schaft.

ZC^= Zeitschrift fiir christliche Kunst.

ZCP = Zeitschrif t fiir celtische Philologie.

ZDA = Zeitschrift fiir deutsches Altertum.

ZDMG = Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenland-
ischen Gesellschaft.

ZDPV = Zeitschrift des deutschen Palastina-
Vereins.

ZjB = Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie.

Z^P= Zeitschrift fiir Keilschriftforschung.

ZKG = Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte.

ZJr7'= Zeitschrift fur kathol. Theologie.

ZiirWi = Zeitschrift fiir kirchl. Wissenschaft und
kirchl. Leben.

Zilf= Zeitschrift fiir die Mythologie.

ZNTW = Zeitschrift fUr die neutest. Wissen-
schaft.

ZPhP = Zeitschrift fiir Philosophie und Pada-
gogik.

Zri):= Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche.

-2^^^= Zeitschrift fiir Volkskunde.

ZVRW = ZeitBchxiit fiir vergleichende Rechts-
wissenschaft.

ZWT = Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Theo-
logie.

[A small superior number designates the particular edition of the work referred to,

s&KAT\ iOT«, etc.]

ENCYGLOPiEDIA

OF

RELIGION AND ETHICS

S

SUFFERING.— I. Introduction : the fact
AND THE PROBLEM. — SuH'ering, as a feature of
life in this earth, is too obvious and too familiar
to need description. Sentimentality and denuncia-
tion are alike superfluous. SuHering is all but
universal. From the point where, in the evolu-
tionary process, a brain is developed, upward
through all ranks of being, suffering is an unvary-
ing element in experience. It appears in endless
variety. Some of it belongs to animals in their
natural conditions as an accompaniment of their
life-story or as a consequence of their predaceous
habits. It is, however, in human life that suffering
most abounds. A great deal of human suffering is
what we term roughly 'physical pain,' though, in
point of fact, the suilering of a self-conscious being-
must be radically distinct from that of a living
creature in whose sentient life the thought of
personality has not yet dawned. Physical pain is
found in many degrees of intensity, from that
which is easily bearable, at least by persons in
normal health, to that which is appalling to look
u])on, and must constitute an unimaginable
anguish. If we pass from physical sutt'ering to
that which is mental and moral, we are over-
whelmed by the mass and the magnitude of the
agonies that are the lot of mankind. From the
sorrows of childhood, deeper than the observer
can calculate, to the stony griefs of age, untold
and ungauged, there is a range of sutt'ering beyond
all enumeration and conception, battling the im-
agination, att'ronting the intelligence.

The worst feature of human suffering is the
chaotic nature of its distribution. If strong men
alone were sufferers, we would comfort ourselves
by noting the gladness of little children ; but
children suffer, often with an intensity which
seems too awful for the tender frame to endure
and yet survive. If the guilty alone suffered, we
might have some kind of theodicy to fit the facts ;
but the innocent suffer ; they are the greatest
sutterers. If we had to consider only our own pains,
we might find a reason for them, or at least we could
retreat to the fastness of our unconquerable soul.
When, however, it is the jmin of others that con-
fronts us, we feel that our explanations are an im-
pertinence. The chie to their sufferings is not to
be found in any supposed r.ationale of our own.
VOL. XII. — I

The deepest element in the problem of pain is
that so much sutt'ering is meaningless, as far as our
most careful thought can discern. After we have
noted causes the removal of which would certainly
reduce the quantity of pain in the world, after we
have seen the ends which it may be supposed to
serve, there remains a surplusage of pain unac-
counted for by our largest theory. It is this
surplusage that forms the heart of the mystery
of sutt'ering. If there is any meaningless pain
in the world, it cannot, surely, be the best of all
possible Avorlds. How can a world crossed by such
a bar sinister be the expression of wisdom, powder,
or goodness ?

'The dilemma of Epicurus is still with us: if God wishes to
prevent evil but cannot, thtn he is impotent ; if he could but
will not, he is malevolent; if he has both the power and the
will, whence then is evil'F'i

The challenge to theism is direct. There is
probably little theoretic atheism among ordinary-
men and women. But it is certain that in multi-
tudes of cases faith has sutt'ered shipwreck on the
rock of meaningless pain. To this form of unbelief
women are peculiarly prone. Sutt'ering appeals to
their sympathy. Their acquaintance with it is
wide and intimate. They feel, more deeply than
men, the waste and cruelty of it ; and they are
accordingly brought to doubt the existence of a
God who is at once almighty and all-merciful. In
their case, too, scepticism moans more than it does
to the majority of men. It is not merely the
abandonment of a theory. It is the ruin of a life,
through the loss of the hope which alone makes
life endurable. In all ages the pressure of this
problem of pain has been felt. It maj' even be
said to be the driving force in all philosophy and
in every great religion.

How shall man be reconciled to life? What
view of the world must be taken if man is to live
worthily in it? What estimate of life must be
held if it is to be at least endurable ? How are
the facts of suffering to be adjusted to the sense
of value and the insj)iration of hope, which are the
mainsprings of fruitful labour?

II. The leading attempts at solution.—
I. Pessimism. — Frankly and definitely, sutt'ering
is so wide-spread and so intense that the verdict

1 W. II. Sorley and others, Thr Elements of Pain and Can-
Jlicl in Human Life, p. 4S.

SUPii^ERING

of open-eyed aiul nnpiejudiced observers must be
that tlie Avorld is an intolerable place to live in,
and that life is an unendurable burden.

The classical exaiupie of this solution of the problem of pain
is the doctrine of Buildha, which, in the heart of the 19th cent.,
was reproduced bv Schopenhauer. Pessimism must always be
substantiallv the same. It is interestini;- for i(-s verdict, not for
its discussions. Buddha's ' Four Noble Truths '—pain, the orij:in
of pain, the destruction of pain, and the eiichtfold holy way-
are the conclusion of the whole matter. The first contains the
result of direct observation. Suffering prevails. Life is worth-
less and miserable. The second traces this universal wretched-
ness to its source in 'thirst,' the de.sire which attaches the soul
to worldly objects and leads to 'becoming:'— an infinite series of
new existences, with a monotonous repetition of birth, pain, and
despair. The third points out tlie means of deliverance from life
and from suffering, viz. cessation of desire. Let desire cease ;
then the thread of lite will be snajiped; then the fountain of
suffering- will cease to flow. The fourth is Buddha's plan of
salvation, containing a careful account of the steps by which
the extinction of desire is to be accomplished. Among these
morality has its place ; and Buddhist ethic has a mild lustre of
its own. The crown of the procedure, however, is contempla-
tion. Schopenhauer's ' path ' includes art, but otherwise is
scarcely an improvement upon Buddha's. The issue for both
is the same — the cessation of desire, the abandonment of the
will to live.

To discuss the pliilosophy of pessimism {q.v.)
■would be wasted labour. The Buddhist psy-
(ihology, with its rigidly atomistic sensationalism,
has gone to the scrap-heap. Schopenhauer's
dependence on Kant does not give his system
commanding authority. The real strength of
pessimism, or the linal demonstration of its weak-
ness, must be sought elsewhere. Pessimism pur-
sues the empirical method. The Krst question to
be asked is as to the validity of this metiiod and
as to the certainty of the first 'Noble Truth'
reached b}"^ means of it. Can the wortlilessness of
life be established by any enumeration of details?
The question is not as to the possibility of balanc-
ing the pessimist's instances by others of a more
clieering nature. Optimism cannot be established
by such means. The real question is as to the
method itself. The pessimist inference from the
facts of pain is not really drawn by mere generaliza-
tion. It rests on a preconceived theory of values,
by which all the facts of life are tested. Pessimism
is simply disappointed hedonism. If the higiiest
good is pleasure, life is certainly not worth living,
for pleasure in any guise is not to be had, on any
terms whatever, in human experience, to such a
degree as to counterbalance the danming facts of
pain. If the Creator was bound to secure for His
creatures a surplusage of pleasure, He certainly
has failed to do so. His power has not been equal
to ills good intentioiis. If He exists, we nmst
conceive of Him as shorn of His omnipotence, or
even 'gone mad.' Hedonism, however, is of all
ethical theories the most precarious. If appeal be
made to experts in living, the answer will be re-
turned that hapjnness is not the chief good for
man and cannot be conceived as the chief end of
creation. That place of eminence belongs to moral
goodness.

Our question as to the world, accordingl}', must
be : Is it so framed and ordered that moral good-
ness is being wrought out therein, not merely in
spite of, but actually by means of, the suffering
thfit is to be found in all human life? It is to
be observed, however, tliat the answer might be
enough to refute pessimism, and yet leave a crux
for theism. We might be quite convinced that
virtue is the highest good for man, and we miglit
vindicate the position that virtue grows to its
maturity through the discijiline of pain ; still, if
there remains a margin of suiiering that bears no
relation at all to character and cannot be related
to the chief end of creation, the theistic conclusion
remains open to doubt. It may even become
necessary to maintain that optimism cannot be
established by argument at all, and that theism
is warranted by some other process than that of

logical demonstration. In that case the challenge
of suiiering inny be met ; but not otherwise. After
we have refuted a theoretic pessimism, we have to
recognize the fact of pain. Before one irrelevant
[lang our best theorizings sink abashed. We have
nothing to say. Our siJeech would be a worse
irrelevance.

2. Stoicism. — Another answer to the challenge
of sutlering is to the eli'ect that, while i^ain is real
and nniy be very acute, it is one of those indifierent
things which a Avise and strong man may neglect,
not allowing it to disturb him in any way. The
Stoic philosophy is the elaboration of this answer,
by means of a full apparatus of metaphysic, psy-
chology, and ethic. Stoicism, however, is more
than a philosophical theory. It is an attitude to
life. It reappears in noted personalities, when the
insistent evils and disorders of the world drive men
to the inner region of their own souls, to iind there
a refuge nowhere else discoverable. The circum-
stances under which classical Stoicism arose are
familiar. It was an age of individualism. No
relief or satisfaction could be found in any form
of life open to man in the world of that day. Men
could not go into the Avorld and find the counterpart
of their own moral nature. They could not lose
themselves in the activities of city or nation and
in the very process of such devotion achieve their
own highest welfare. And this for two reasons :
no city or nation was left standing in its independ-
ence ; and the soul of man had grown so great in
its needs and capacities that it could no longer be
satisiied within the limits of civic or national
activities, however intense and vivid these might
be. Man had discovered himself. He knew now
that nothing less than the universe would meet his
need and aiibrd a satisfying life. Here, then, is
the Stoic gospel, which is at once a philosophy and
a message of salvation. The ultimate reality is
reason. We may speak of Nature or of God. In
any case there is one principle at work in the world
and in man. Stoicism is, in this aspect, optimism.
It believes in a principle which underlies all phen-
omena and is moving through all events to com-
plete victory. This principle is the life of all that
is, both Avithin man and beyond him. It is a
principle of reason and of harmony. It is inher-
ently good ; and its supremacy is the highest
welfare of the world and of man. The ethical
ideal for man, accordingly, is consistency with
nature or with reason ; or, speaking religiously,
it is harmony with the will of God. The ancient
Stoic doctrine of providence has the fervour of
intense religious conviction. It is strange at first
sight that such a glowing optimism should have
any room for a theoretic acknowledgment of the
facts of pain and evil. It is to be noted, however,
that the ultimate reason has been reached in
Stoicism too easily. It is, after all, a negation of
the vast and confusing facts of a miserable and
perplexing experience. It is the bare affirmation
of an abstract principle which ought to be the
truth of all things and, in point of fact, is repro-
duced in scarcely any of them. Reason is every-
thing ; and yet reason is nowhere. Stoic optimism
is a faith ; but the Stoic estimate of facts is dark
and pessimistic. What, then, is man to do, poised
as he is between reason, which is his true nature,
an<i a world in which man and things are so irra-
tional ? What attitude is he to take towards such
brute facts as hunger and cold, oppression and
crixelty, bereavement and grief ? The Stoic answer
is serene and hard. The wise man will choose
reason. He will be absolutely sure that this
choice brings him a good of which no ])ower in
man or in things can rob him. He is in indefeas-
ible possession of the absolute best. His harmony
with reason sets him in a charmed circle, into

SUFFERING

3

which notliing irrational and evil can ever enter.
Pain racks his body ; but his body is not his reason.
Death robs him of wife or chiki ; but they are not
himself. Evil afflicts his friends ; but tiiat cannot
invade the citadel of his own peace. We read the
aphorisms and counsels of an Epictetus with a
shudder. So calm, so logical, so inhuman ! It
ought to be noted, however, that this attitude of
complete detachment towards pain and evil is an
advance upon a view such as tliat of Aristotle,
which regards them as obstacles in the way of a
perfect life. To the Stoic they are not obstacles.
Thfi perfect life has simply nothing to do with
them. The wise man will not court them ; but lie
will not allow them to disturb his serenity. He
will make their occurrence in his experience the
occasion of manifesting his consistency with reason.
He will even lieneht by their presence, inasmuch
as his conquest of them will invigorate liis strength
and enable him to gain a yet greater superiority
over them. But, in themselves, they have no
relation to his inner life, which is complete with-
out them and does nothing to them. At this point
our admiration for the Stoic attitude reaches its
highest.

Here also our criticism begins. Tiie reason,
which is the Stoic's God, and highest good, is not
positively related to the manifold experiences of
life. It is not in and through them that reason is
revealed in its own inner Vv'ealth, and that man
attains the fullness of his being. Very specially,
pain and evil serve no end of reason, and tlie su-
preme principle of the universe has no relation to
them. Man, in union with that piinciple, has no
duty with regard to them, save to repel them and
to refuse to them the tribute of an emotion. It is
not on these lines that the worth of life can be
vindicated or an idealist construction of the universe
be established. The Stoic conclusion is mere
negation, abstraction, and emptiness. It is good
only for defiance ; but defiance is not victory over
pain ; and far less is it transmutation of evil into
the means of a greater good.

Yet is it good, even for defiance? Stoicism has
too easily assumed that man can choose the reason
of the universe and identify himself with it. A
])ainful doubt develops. What if a man's self be
the main obstacle to his being identified with God?
In abandoning all tilings finite and particular, will
he not need also to siirrender himself? Thus the
axe is laid to the root of Stoic pride ; and the Stoic
gospel turns out to be a counsel of despair. In the
migiit of my self I am to defy the world. But who
am I ? The very essence of finitude, tlie very acme
of contrast with the reason which is the harmony
of the universe. My utmost willing, then, is weak-
ness. Upon my resistance falls the doom of
ineptitude and impotence. Victory is turned to
defeat. Self-confidence is no longer possible ; for
self is the secret of failure. When Stoicism has
reached this point, it is ready for a pliiloso[ihy, or
a religion, MJiich shall start where it ended and
make the condition of man's achievement of the
highest good, not his self-assertion, but his self-
surrender. The challenge of suffering might now
be met in a different May — not by resistance, but
bj' acceptance. Pain might become, not an obstacle
in the path of the perfect life, not even a thing
indifl'erent to man's inner good, but the opportunity
and the instrument of his death to self, and there-
fore, also, of his complete self-realization. Stoicism
began with optimism and ended in pessimism. It
might be possible to reverse the process and to lean
our optimism upon a deeper view of evil than an
empirical pessimism had ever reached. Such a
stage beyond Stoiiasm is found in one direction in
Neo-Platonism, and by aiiotlierpath in Christianity.

3. Meliorism. — A nobler answer to the challenije

of suffering than that offered by Stoicism was very
prevalent during the recent war. The world, it is
admitted, is full of virulent evils and untold suffer-
ings. These things are not to be explained. They
are to be fought. They are not to be accepted as
an irresistible fate or as tlie appointment of an
almighty and sovereign Disposer of events. They
are evil, and only evil, continually. Judged by
the human conscience, they exist only to be resisted,
defeated, banished from the experience of the race.
They are a challenge to love, sympathy, honour,
to be met by sacrifice, by service, and above all by
unending war. All intelligences are summoned to
take part in this war for peace, this struggle for
the abolition of sutiering. Among the hosts en-
gaged in this life-and-death conflict some individuals,
both human and superhuman, occupy the position
of leadership, as well in strategy as 'in the actual
fighting. Commander-in-chief of this army is God.
He is not what absolutism, or orthodox theism, has
conceived Him to be. He is not the inscrutable
ground of all being, the omnipotent will, the
omniscient mind by whose unalterable decree all
things in creation are predetermined. He is a
finite being, though of course His resources both in
wisdom and in power are far more than human.
He is in this figlit, which is no shadowy and spectral
combat, but is for Him as for man tragically real,
a genuine life or death struggle. We can indeed
scarcely imagine His being defeated ultimately ;
but He has not won yet. Nay, He cannot win
unless He secure the co-operation of man. In this
tremendous conflict human beings cannot be
neutral. If they are not for Him, they are against
Him, slackers, traitors, or oijen enemies. He sends
out a great call for volunteers ; and all who have a
spark of generosity or heroism will rally to His
side. They will fight with the splendid courage
which comes from sympathy with the oppressed
and tortured everywhere, and with the desperate
energy of those who see the issue plainly. They
are figliting for their all, for the very life of
humanity, and humanity's radiant and high-souled
Leader. Every rookery pulled down, every disease
routed, every social wrong redressed, is a battle
won in the long campaign, a stage to the final, all-
comprehensive victory. Suffering is being elimin-
ated. Progress is being made. The end, if not in
sight, is reasonably secure.

But the practical value of meliorism must rest
ultimately on the validity of its presuppositions.
If these are invalid, their results cannot be per-
manent. Now the iiresuppositions of meliorism
are mainly three: (1) the universe is conceivetl as
growing in time, its future, strictly speaking,
unpredictable ; (2) God Himself is avowedly a
finite being, in time, sometimes described even as
'young,' with a future before Him in which He
has still to make good ; (3) the issue of the conflict
is, in the nature of the case, uncertain, though
every successive victory and the inexhaustible
resources of intelligences, human and sujierhuman,
give ground for hope. It is not too much to say
that each one of these presuppositions is disputable.
Not one of them has won universal consent. To-
gether they constitute a huge hypothesis. If
regarded as more than this, they become sheer
dogmatism ; and dogmas are but ' iron rations ' at
best, and are soon exhausted.

The error both of Stoicism and of meliorism lies
in trying to turn what is partial into an absolute.
Because a man is summoned to oppose the evil that
is in the world with all his might, it is supposed
that he can ' carry on ' till the victorj' is his.
Suppose, however, that this rough dualism between
the good man and the wicked world does not repre-
sent the real situation. Sujipose that the real
source of evil is not without, but within, and that

SUFFERING

the conflict that is beinj? waged in the world is the
image and tlie outcome of a more devouring strife
that rages in man's own soul. Then the result will
be, as happened in the history of Stoicism, that
self must give up its self-sufficiency and must seek
the true and the good, not by self-assertion, but by
self-surrender, and see in its attainment of virtue
and knowledge the disclosure and the communi-
cation of One who includes the universe in His
consciousness and His control. Then the fighter
may ' carry on ' Avithout anxiety and without self-
confidence, because the victory has been won
already, not by himself, but by the Power which
is working in him, whose servant and vehicle he is.
The end of such a war is not uncertain, though it
can be reached onlj^ through a sacrificial ministry.

It ought to be added that meliorism makes no pretension of
having solved the problem of pain. It knows no more than any
other theorj' why pain should ever be ; and it cannot be blamed
for refusing to face the question. A graver defect, however, is
its inability to provide hope or comfort for those sufferers who
are not taking part in the successive victories, or are not directly
benefited by them In this war, as in all wars, it is the non-
combatants who suffer most. Uut really the metaphor breaks
down altogether. Where time is the whole of reality, there can
be no ' repatriation ' of those who have been overwhelmed by the
po\vers of evil. Some meliorists believe in immortality. But
their faith is not a certain conclusion from their presuppositions ;
nor does meliorism require such a faith for its completeness. It
is concerned only with the progress of humanity. Its soldiers
get their fill of fighting, and this is all the pay they ask for.
Those who have never had a chance to fight, who have been
crushed by forces too great for them, have no compensatory
advantages offered them. At this point meliorism lapses below
Stoicism. It has no resource against pessimism. A world with
such hopeless, meaningless pain in it had better never have been.
The meliorist ' God ' escapes the condemnation and contempt
even of the most ordinary intelligence, only because, to do him
justice, he is not creator of the world, and is not responsible for
Its blemishes. We stand, as does 'God' also, in the midst of a
circumambient fate, unintelligible, inaccessible, whose blind
decree can be neither modified nor served, which is liable at any
moment to intervene disastrously in our affairs and turn our
most brilliant victory into mockery and despair.

4. Optimism. — The most perfect optimism Avould
be a thorougligoing pantheism. If finitude is
really an illusion which disappears from the point
of view of the Absolute, evil cannot be held to
exist. Ascend to the point of view of the Absolute,
and forthwith evil is seen to be mere seeming. The
idea that it exists is the mistake of those who
attribute to things finite a reality which does not
belong to them.

This .sounds convincing. But two remarks im-
mediately occur. (1) Who shall ascend to the
height of the Absolute ? How shall the finite leaj)
to the Infinite ? Practically, pantheism has nothing
to say to the sufferer. His pain is utterly irremedi-
able. Pain necessarily belongs to the finite. He
is bound to the linite. As long as he exists he
must suffer. When suffering ceases, he will have
ceased to be. Pantheistic optimism is thus pessi-
mistic in its estimate of life. (2) If evil is an
illusion, because it is finite, so must good be also,
for it too is finite. Good and evil are, in fact,
meaningless. For the Absolute they do not exist.
Optimism and pessimism, accordingly, are philo-
sophies of the unreal, and are in the strictest sense
alike nonsense. Of course this treatment of the
problem of pain is due to the error which turns the
unity of thought against the manifold of experience
and regards the universal as the only real, while
the particular is condemned as the illusory.

The philosophy of Leibniz has been dealt with in
this Encyclopcedia ^ and needs no further exposition
here. Leibniz stands at the opposite pole from
pantheism ; yet it is pantheism to which his own
ruling principle of thought constantly leads him.
The principle of sufficient reason, as he interprets
it, is the same as that of identity and contradiction.
A complete analjrsis would be a perfect explanation.
The principle of identity is the highest principle of
truth. All appearance of diflference is mere illusion,
1 Sec artt. Lbibniz and Prssimirm and Optimism.

due to the disability of a finite consciousness. From
this point of view tlie problem of evil may be
solved ; but the solution is really pantheistic.

The criticism of Hume, and the yet more de-
structive work of Kant, have made the dominance
of an abstract Absolute impossible for modern
thought. The finite has come to its rights. The
principle of freedom is too strongly entrenched in
the convictions of men ever to be relegated to the
sphere of the negative and the illusory. This
means that modern optimism can no longer take
the position of pantheism, and so affirm the sole
reality of good as to destroy the possibility of evil.
Its proof must now consist in arguing that evil is
inseparable from the highest good in this sense,
that the highest good is attainable only through
the conquest of evil. This argument consists
fundamentally in a special reading of the facts of
human life. It may be presented as a deduction
from an idealist philosophy, or it may appear as an
induction from data empirically reached. Funda-
mentally it is a judgment of value, as intuition of
the significance of life, and is not reached by either
the a priori or the a posteriori method.

' There is no evil except for a rational being, who is capable of
willing a good which he identifies with the absolute good, but
which is in reality in antagonism to it. But, inasmuch as the
possibility of willing this lower good is inseparable from the
existence of free subjects, who only come to the clear conscious-
ness of the higher through experience of the lower, it is just
the high destiny of man and the infinite perfection of God
which make it inconceivable how there should be a universe,
containing beings who realize what is the meaning of their own
life and of the whole, unless those beings pass through the long
and painful process by which the absolutely good is revealed as
that which can overcome the deepest depths of evil.' 1

Watson, from whom these words are quoted,
develops them into a view of human life and
history which shows that, the higher the concep-
tion of the good, the deeper will be the insight
into evil. The man who knows himself a sinner
knows that no sin is alien to him. He is the
supreme sinner of the universe, the chief of sinners ;
and in the act in which he confesses and dies to his
sin the violated order is rectified ; and the guilt
which he so profoundly acknowledges is lifted to
the shoulders of Another, and he is free for ever.
Watson does not in this passage explicitly apply
this profound conception of an optimism, vindi-
cated through a deeper pessimism than Buddha or
Schopenhauer ever knew, to the pangs of nature
and the physical woes of men. Plainly, however,
the one problem lies within the other. The deepest
evil man can suffer is the division within his own
spirit. Let his breach with the Absolute be healed,
and his breach with nature cannot fail to be healed
likewise. The truth of nature is spirit. If the
unity of spirit rise triumphant above the dualism
that a false assertion of freedom has wrought,
there can be left nowhere in the universe any
element of difference, and therefore of evil, which
is not in process of being transcended in the realiza-
tion of the ultimate good.

Many writers who do not adhere to Watson's
type of idealism base their ethical view of the uni-
verse on the facts which he emphasizes. The world
was certainly not framed to produce the pleasure
of all sentient creatures or the happiness of human
beings. The highest good is moral good, and
moral good can be attained by man only through
a process of discipline. A world which made good-
ness easy would make true goodness impossible.
By work, by suffering, and by temptation, human
character is perfected. The theistic and optimistic
inference is more securely drawn from a world
with imperfections, in conflict with which character
is ripened, than it would be from one in which
neither physical nor moral evil was present. It
is possible to believe that the Creator of such a

1 John Watson, The Philosophical Basis of Religion, p. 459.

SUFFERING

world is good and wise and almighty, whereas
such a faith would be vahieless if the world were a
machine for turning out mechanical perfection.
This does not mean, of course, that for every pain
we suffer we can allege a moral purpose. Physical
suffering comes to us through our place in a cosmic
order whose laws operate witli absolute impartiality.
Would we prefer that it were otherwise ? Yet
in such a world, and in such a world alone, can the
highest good be realized. As matter of observed
fact, the good is making progress towards a victory,
which may be delayed, but which stands in no
reasonable doubt. One difficulty lies in the path
of such modest optimism, viz. the fate of the
individual. Most upholders of this view take
refuge in the idea of personal immortality. It
is granted that the general optimistic estimate
requires that there shall be a balance of good for
the individual as well as for the race, seeing that
the individual is an end in himself, and not a mere
link in a chain. But in the vast majority of in-
dividuals this balance is not struck within time
and space. It is necessary, therefore, to postulate
another life, in which the wrongs and sufferings of
this world shall be rectified and their memory lost
in the realization of perfect good.

An argument such as this, which turns upon the
supremacy of moral worth, and the function of
pain in realizing it in the history of individuals
and of the race, is intellectually unanswerable.
The conclusion of the whole matter is :
' God's in His heaven —
All's right \Wth the world ! '

It is to be noted, however, that, when we have solved the
problem of pain from the point of view of the spectator, suffer-
ing still remains a mystery for the sufferers. No amount of
argument can meet their need. What they require is an experi-
ence. Their pain cannot be transmuted into joy by telling them
that, ill the final result, there will be for them a preponderance
of good. They will continue to suffer, and before their anguish
argument sinks back ashamed. They need to be introduced to
the experienceof a suffering within which theirs is comprehended
and of a good through which theirs is guaranteed.

Optimism must submit to the test of fact. The fact in this
case is pain ; and pain is insoluble by a process of reasoning.
Over against every phase of the argument stands the intractable
pain, or, rather, there stands the piteous army of the sufferers.
Optimism appears satisfactory only when we stand back from
the facts. Stand in the midst of them, and our philosophy is
smitten into silence. A world, with pain in it — and such pain !
— cannot be the best of all possible worlds.

Of course, Omar Khajyam's aspiration is ridiculous. We
cannot ' grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,' cannot
' shatter it to bits ' and ' remould it nearer to the heart's desire.'
None the less, we turn from the best that the optimist can say
to the contemplation of a universe which contains such 'things'
in it and are conscious of a lamentable gap. The key does not
fit the lock. Suffering remains a mystery and a challenge to
theism.

5. The Christian doctrine of providence. — It
cannot be doubted that Jesus had the whole fact
of pain present to His mind. He lived in the
midst of suffering. Yet it did not present itself
to Him as a problem. Certainly He made no
explicit reference to the questions with which Job
wrestled. His compassions flowed forth unhindered
by any tlieory of the causes of pain. He never
viewed suffering as other than a great evil. He
devoted a large part of His ministry to its allevia-
tion. But He never stood before it confounded or
paralyzed. If He was conscious of its challenge to
theism. He never replied by argument. He lived
in unbroken communion with God, and faced all
the problems of life from that position of perfect
acquaintance. He knew God. He knew that
God's love gathers into its compass all the suffer-
ing of man and of the whole sentient creation.
The good will of a God whom He knew as the Father
cannot be impugned. The victory of His love can-
not be doubted. In tliis faith Jesus lived and died.
He revealed to men its divine object, and gave
theism the verification of experience. Christianity
is the reproduction of this proof. It is a life ' hid
with Christ in God.' Its secret i« nn experience.

This experience is not a mystic rapture, to be
attained in rare moments by those who have leisure
to cultivate the conditions leading to such remote
and perilous heights. It may be reached by
children. It can be reached only by those who
consent to become as little children. It is pecu-
liarly accessible to sufferers. It is reached in the
act by which man surrenders his separateness of
will and commits himself trustfully to the divine
love as it meets him in the chiefest of all sufferers.
Such an experience cannot be translated directly
into a theory of pain. It contains more than any
theory can express. All noble idealism seeks to
interpret its fullness ; and, apart from it, no philo-
sophical solution can be more than an attractive
speculation.

The Christian doctrine of providence {?.•?;.) articu-
lates the leading ideas which are implicit in this
experience, and by means of them seeks to exhibit
the relation of God to the history of the world. It
does so, however, under the distinct understanding
that the experience of communion with God, while it
is central and all-comprehensive, cannot be drawn
upon to provide ready-made answers to the questions
which intellect may raise regarding the course of
nature and of human life. The divine love is the
highest reason. The Logos is love incarnate in
the life of the Son of God. But this does not
mean that a book could be written, solving, on the
whole and in every detail, the mystery of pain.
No reasoning process can reach the sanctuary
where God at once comforts and remakes the soul
that pain has shattered. The Christian is an
optimist, but not a theorist. He knows God. He
has seen Him in Christ. God is love. That is the
secret. There is no truth outside of love, no power
that can withstand love. It dominates the uni-
verse. It is almighty. When it is reproduced in
man, it is the greatest thing in the world. The
doctrine of providence simply says, in different
connexions, that the divine love is sure of itself,
knows its own design, is baffled by no obstacles,
overcomes all enemies, is moving to an end, guar-
anteed in Christ, which is none other than God's
perfect communication of Himself in and to a uni-
verse which responds with the ' Amen ' of absolute
faith and unhindered devotion. Christian optimism
blends the confident assertion of love's supremacy
with an unashamed agnosticism. Its key unlocks
the mystery of suffering. Yet the Christian does
not employ this key to meet the question of why
and wherefore, either as to the presence of pain in
the world at large or as to any individual affliction.
He bears witness to the fact of love. The accept-
ance of that fact introduces the sufferer to an
experience in which all questionings are transcended
in a great possession. Christianity accordingly
stands apart from theoretic optimism. It does not,
of course, impugn the function of pain, by which
philosophers and poets have sought to establish their
hopeful conclusions. It can use such instances of
beneficial pain as illustrations of its own central
truth. It doubts, however, their adequacy to
establish, by intellectual demonstration, results so
magnificent. It is in full sympathy with their
spirit. But it rests its optimism on a different
basis ; and it presents its results not so much to
those who contemplate suffering from without, in
order to satisfy their questions, as to those who
know it from within, that they may know it better
and enter through it into fellowship with God.

(a) The (jround of Christian ojitimism. — The
Christian doctrine of providence stands at one
point in profound and significant agreement with
such an idealism as is presented in the writings of
Caird and Watson. It believes that the problem
of jiain is part of the wider and deeper problem of
moral evil. It does not stay to discuss the fact of

6

SUFFERING

physical evil before it has dealt with the paver
problem of sin. It presses on to the tremendous
fact of breach -with God, confident tliat, if that has
been met and liealed, no other discord can remain
finally unresolved. Nature finds its truth in man.
Physical suffering has its analogue in the division
which exists between the 1 .uman soul and God. Re-
conciliation with God will be the final solution of
a mystery of pain wliich reverberates throughout
the universe. In spite of this parallelism, how-
ever, Christianity and idealism stand a[)art. Cliristi-
anity is an idealism, no doubt. But idealism is
not Christianity. The vital question for both is
the reconciliation of man and God. How is it
achieved ? Idealism answers, In an idea. Christi-
anity ventures its all on an historic fact. Idealism
pursues the soul to its deepest consciousness of
guilt and declares that there already is the recon-
ciliation. The consciousness of guilt is possible
only to a soul fundamentally at one with God. In
awaking to a sense of liis guilt, man knows himself
reconciled at once to God and the universe. The
spiritual unity is gained ; the unification of all
experience is thereby guaranteed. Christianity
deei^ens the diagnosis and exliibits a different
remedy. In sin man has the universe against him.
It reacts to his sin in perpetual judgment, register-
ing in his character and his career, in loss and
defeat and pain, the condemnation which man's
attack upon the universal order lias brought upon
him. This automatic reaction does not stand
apart from tlie will of God. It reflects one aspect
of the divine mind regarding sin and carries out
one part of the divine dealing with it. But sin is
not the ultimate reality of the moral Avorld ; and
judgment is not the whole mind and will of God.
The ultimate in God and in the universe is love.
The reconciliation is accomplished not in an idea,
but in the action of God. The love of God goes
into action coincidently with the sin of man. It is
true that God's experience of time must differ from
ours in a manner necessarily inconceivable by us ;
so that it is not improper to speak of an eternal
act of love and an eternal atonement. But the
standpoint of Christianity is. definitely historical.
Sin is in time. Sin-bearing is in time also. Love
can reconcile the world to God only if it pass to
the world's side and in the world realize experi-
mentally the whole meaning of sin. It must enter
into the tragedy of human life in an experience
more tragic than any penitent sinner ever passed
through. ' Christ died for our sins ' (1 Co 15^). It
is the first, the only. Christian gospel. In the
action and passion of a life crowned by the Cross
Christ is not another than God. He is God, in a
temporal experience, manifesting an eternal fact.
Love lias gone to the utmost limit of sin and suffer-
ing and has returned bearing the fruits of tliat un-
imaginable agony in a Avorld reconciled, mankind
redeemed, sin and evil judged, exposed, broken.
The fact of sin — that is pessimism. The fact of
Clirist — that is optimism. Christianity confronts
the world of sin and suffering with the deeper
suffering of divine sin-bearing love. All else that
it has to say is an inference from that basal fact.
Its doctrine of providence consists in developing
the significance of that fact for the varied discipline
of life.

' The Christian faith in providence is an immediate inference
from the Christian experience of redemption, and it is an
inference as vast and unqualified as the redeeming love on which
it rests.' 1

To be reconciled to God is to be reconciled to
life. To 1)6 at one with God is to be at lionie in
the universe. The reactions of the order with
which we now live in harmonj' set like a tide
towards our perfecting. ' All things work together

1 J. Dennei', Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation, p. 330 f.;
see also pp. 1, 3, 177-179.

for good to them that love God.' Love has taken
the place of fate. Possessing it and being pos-
sessed by it, we possess all things. We cross every
chasm, even the ultimate gulf of death, and find
ourselves still in a region where love is king.

The NT is a lyric ; but it is not a freak of poetic
fancy. It is the song of a victory won, the record
of an experience, not the less reliable tliat it is
amazing, an inference which is strictly logical,
from the greater to the less, though it surpass all
calculation. ' He that spared not his own Son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things?' (Ro 8^^).

{b) The Chrisiian attitude, toivards suffering. —
(1) Pain means obstruction of life. It is essenti-
ally evil. It is not the intention of God that any
of His sentient creatures should sufi'er. It is not
possible to .say to every sufferer, ' God sent you
this; He has laid this affliction upon you.' This
judgment upon suii'ering as evil Avill lie assailed
from many points of view, scientific, ethical, and
religious. Suffering, it will be said, is inevitable,
as an element in the evolution of the world. It
was experienced liy innumerable sentient creatures
millenniums before man appeared on the earth,
before the first sin was committed. Suffering, it
will be urged, is a splendid moral discipline. It
is, therefore, a good, of which no man can com-
plain that he has had too much. It is sufficient to
reply that the Author and Object of Christian
faith, the Revealer and the Organ of the infinite
love, did not think so. He steadfastly set Himself
to reduce the sum of pain. So far as we know.
He never met a case of pain Avhich He did not
relieve, if the conditions were present for His
doing so. In such action He Himself suffered
exceedingly. He made no moan. He recognized
.such suffering to be necessary to the fulfilment of
His redeeming vocation (Mt 8^'). But His doing
so cannot be construed as an approval of pain.
Rather was it a judgment upon pain as an evil to
be removed at any cost of pain. This judgment,
moreover, was not an implicit hedonism. It would
be ridiculous to make such a suggestion regarding
the teaching of Jesus. He never taught that it
was a primary concern of God's love to keep His
creatures immune from .suffering. He absolutely
denied that the crown of life was pleasure. But
this cannot be construed to mean that He regarded
suttering as a good, or asceticism as the ideal of
life, or sorrow as the soul of religion. It does
imply, however, that He regarded the condition of
the world as abnormal. He occupies the jioint of
view of the religious mind of Israel in looking
upon the world as standing in intimate and vital
relation with human life. There is a strict i-ele-
vance between these two. If there be evil in man,
there M'ill be pain in nature. Nature stands .so
near to s])irit that it thrills responsive to the
breach that sin has wrought between the human
spirit and the divine. Paul is enlarging the same
idea inherited from the OT, and reinterpreted
through the death and resurrection of the Redeemer,
when He speaks of the ' sighing of creation,' of
its subjection to fxaraioTTis and its share in the
hope of redemi)tion (Ro 8'^'--). There is suffering
in nature ; and there is suffering in man as part
of nature. And all suffering, in nature or in little
children, is the exposition and illustration of that
which, in self-conscious and self-determining man,
is sin. Dogmatism regarding the origin of sin and
suftering is forbidden. To ajjpeal to predestina-
tion for a theory is to bring the Eternal within
the limits of time. We have nothing to do with
origins. AVe have to do only with meanings and
values. And this is the meaning which Christi-
€anity puts on pain. It means intensely ; and it
means evil. The first thing to be done with it is

SUFFERING

not to discuss it or apologize for it, but to relieve
it, if possible, and at least administer the healing of
sympathy. This, tlien, is the first_ position of
Christianity •with respect to pain : it is not God's
will for His creatures that they should suffer ; it is
His M'ill that pain shall bo abolished from His
universe for evermore.

(2) Pain is not an unanswerable challenge to
theism. It is not inconsistent with the supremacy
of love. Love has won an eternal victory in an
event which occurred in time. Love hns snatched
victory from defeat. It has transmuted the foulest
crime of man into the instrument of the divine
redemption. It has done this greatest thing.
How shall it not accomplish all lesser things in the
same order? He who redeems from sin will not
be baffled by suffering. It is to be noted care-
fully that Christian thought, in claiming that God
is not hindered by the obstacle of pain, is not
passing from ethical to non-ethical considerations,
giving up love to take up power. What Christian
experisnce iinds in the Cross of Christ is not an
incident, an act over and done with, like the
fiunishment of a criminal. It is the historic revela-
tion of that which is in essence timeless, and
endures through all time, and triumphs in all
history, viz. the atoning love of (Jod. The Cross
is the supreme revelation of the <livine immanence.
God is present in all pain. He suffers in all suUer-
ing. He is the chief sufierer in the world.

Theology has never done justice to the surest
affirmation of faith : ' In all their affliction he was
afflicted.' The incarnation of God in Christ is the
deepest truth of the divine relation to the world.
Nicene orthodoxy is not orthodox enough. Misled
by the Greek conception of the Absolute, it
ascribes divinity to One who, nevertheless, has an
experience of which God is incapable. But the
God wliom faith finds in Christ is the onlj' God
there is. He suffers in all that sin has wrought,
and His suffering is the redemption of the world.
Christianity meets the challenge of pain, not by
anxious computations of the amount of good
which may be extracted from the agonies that fill
the records of time, but by the iinveiling of the
suffering of God. The Cross is the only Christian
apologetic. Only through the suffering of God is
it tolerable to suppose that a world with pain in
it is His world, reconciled to Him, and carrying
within its tragic history the energy of omnipotent
redeeming love. We time-determined conscious-
nesses cannot pretend to understand God ; but we
know Him with an estimate that is sure and
pierces the inevitable mists of time. God is love.
This we know. P'or the rest we can afford to wait.

(3) Christianity sets out in the name and by the
power of a victory already w^on, on its age-long
vocation — the conquest of sin and suffering. To
accept at God's hands the deliverance He has
wrought by pain is to be committed to a perpetual
war with pain. The campaign is world-wide.
The battles are innumerable. The fundamental
strategy is to utilize for every instance of pain the
energy of love, which is the very nature of God
and is available and adequate for the redemption
of man. In this matter it may be that Church
theology and Church policy have lagged behind
the actual experience of Christians and have failed
to push home the victory.

Three lines of action are prescribed by the consciousness of
redemption, (i.) The employment of pain. It is here that
optimism is most at home. Brownin;^ has rung out the answer-
ing challeni;e to pain. It is absolutely true that in a sinful
world the perfecting of souls is won throuch suffering. We are
to react on the pains we endure, and so make them subservient
to the development of moral stature. We are bound to be swift
and earnest in this subjection of pain to our uses ; for the
opportunity of so employing it passes with the passing moment.
We are to lay to heart tlie thought which liuils eloquent expres-
sion in Ugo Bassi's ' Sermon in the Hospital ' :

• While we suffer, let us set our souls
To suft'er perfectly : since this alone,
The sufTering, which is this worlci'^s special grace,
May here be perfected and left behind.' i
All this is to be accepted, rejoiced in, and practised. The only
reservation to be made is that such considerations do not estab-
lish optimism as a theory. The data are not broad enough.
The victory over pain ni\i.st first be won before specilic suffer-
ings can be attacked in detail and made to yield booty to the
conqueror. This is the paradox of the higher life of man.
Apart from this sure base in triumphant love, the flood ot
irrelevant pr.-n in nature and history would rout the most
confident optimism.

(ii.) The mastery of conditions. This is the sphere of organ-
ized ministry. All such service, whether operated by idealists
or materialists, Chrishians or non-Christians, proceeds on the
supposition that the conditions of human life are abnormal, and
that, before full vigorous life cnn l)e enjo3'ed, these conditions
must be improved. Another presupposition, however, has to be
made if such ministerial aid to sufferei-s is to be completely suc-
cessful, and is to be rendered, not merely with skill and fidelity,
but with the energy of perfect confidence. We must be certified
that in rendering such help we have the universe on our side,
that resident within it are forces capable of carrying sentient
creatures to such complete and harmonious exercise of funclion
as shall be a perfect victory over pain. No alteration of con-
ditions will be of any avail in social service or in medical work,
unless there be this fountain of energy, discharging itself for
ever through these channels. Apart from this, we shall not
escape the verdict of pessimism on our most abundant efforts.
Many will appeal to ' Nature ' ; but Christianity knows nothing
of personified abstractions. It goes deep into experience,
and finds the living God, triumphant over pain, and pouring
the energy of His Spirit through channels of human ministry.
Such an experience of God binds upon those who share it an
inescapable obligation of combating pain of every kind, where-
soever it shows its desolating presence. They are the fellow-
workers, without question or criticism, of all of any creed, or
none, who will do this work and become conscious or uncon-
scious instruments of love, suffering and victorious.

(iii.) The direct exhibition of the ultimate cure of pain, viz.
the love of God in Christ. This is not an extravagance of
unreasoning emotionalism. It is sober fact, verified in innumer-
able instances ; God's love does heal pain. If the love of God
were regnant in all human life, how much of the world's pain
would remain ? This is not an abstract speculation ; it is a
question whose answer cannot be arithmetically complete, and
yet is absolutely sure, and admits of boundless practical applica-
tion. We must make thorough work of the category of solid-
arity. Soul and body, man and man, race and race, humanit3'
and nature : the universe is organic to the core. It lives from
the centre. By the lines of solidarity pain has penetrated to
the last filament of the vast web of life. By the same lines of
solidarity the healing of pain will go spreading through the
entire creation wliich now waits with eager longing for the
revelation of the sons of God. Man's part in this comprehensive
conquest of pain corresponds to his place and function in the
world. In him the meaning and value of the world are con-
sciously apprehended and uttered. By him too they have been
grievously mistaken, and the forces which should have filled the
world with the peace and joy of functions normally operating
and perfectly fulfilled have been hindered, and the world of
man and nature has been put to illimitable torture. It is not
morbid when a man sees in the pain of innocent children, of
wronged womanhood, and even of the creatures beneath our
rank, the sign and seal of his own sin, the issues of a mighty
evil in which he is confedeiate. It is the simple truth.

Therefore man has special work to do in the
healing of pain. He has to receive the healing
which love can bestoM- in his own experience,
allowing it unhindered exercise as he is reconciled
to God and to life. He has to become the con-
scious organ of that healing to all who suffer. Ha
is never to inflict pain except in so far as pain, in
the conditions under which we live (themselves
abnormal), is the instrument of moral or physical
benefit. He is to be ceaselessly the channel of the
love of God to man. Simply by being in the com-
munion of God, one living in the divine love
becomes source and centre of healing to the souls
and bodies of all around. The evidence is matter
of daily experience. Yet the power of healing is
not a bare physical force. It requires conscious
appropriation and direction. Love that heals is
not magic. It is eff"ective as a vocation, accepted
and fulfilled. The specific task of love belongs to
the manifold opporttinities of life, and these are
innumerable. They include all ministries of help.
In particular, two great obligations rest on all in
whom love is doing its reconciling and healing
work. One is witness, the other is prayer. The
Church, called into being by love's deed, has been
1 II. E. Hamilton King, The Disciples^, London, 1837, p. 191.

8

SUFFERING

slow in its recognition of these evident duties —
slower, and less confident, in respect of the second
than of the first. Yet it is in prayer that tlie
function and higli privilege of humanity do chiefly
consist. By prayer man enters the sanctuary of
the divine immanence. In prayer the indwelling
love finds another home and citadel, a new centre
from which to work. Prayer is the liberation of
the spiritual energies that are saving the world.
Prayer provides God with the conditions without
which an Omnipotence that is moral, and not
physical, dare not and cannot Avork. The question
wiil be asked. Does this mean that anj' given pain
can be relieved by j^rayer ? The answer must be
that dogmatism and prediction are forbidden by
tlie organic structure of the universe. No man
sins by himself or suffers by himself, and no man
is redeemed for himself alone. It is impossible to
cut a man out of the texture of his existence and
operate on him as though he were an unrelated
atom moving in empty space. We have no cal-
culus by which to work out the measurements of
the individual's sin and suflerings or to forecast
the immediacy and completeness of his deliverance.
At the same time, our answer must not 'limit
God.' He certainly does not fling about His
powers, healing at haphazard. But with equal
confidence we may affirm that His healing power
is available bej'ond any measure in which men
have permitted it to operate. The ordo salutis
here is fixed and cannot be altered : first the
reconciliation, then the healing ; first the faith
that commits itself absolutely to God in Christ,
then the faith that refuses no gift of God.

The experience recorded in the NT is normative.
First, believers owned Jesus Lord, then they re-
ceived the Spirit. The love to which they com-
mitted themselves lived on in them, and wrought
mightily. No complete catalogue of such opera-
tions could be given. But among the lists that
are given we read of healings (1 Co 12^-^). The
gifts of the Spirit are not magical, and there is
nothing stereotyped in the activities produced by
them. It would be ridiculous to infer from the
presence of a certain gift in the NT coinmunities
that it must be perpetual in the Church of all ages.
The gifts were created for use. If the use ceased,
the gift was withdrawn. But is it fair to regard
healing as a sporadic and passing manifestation of
the Spirit's presence ? Healing of the world's pain
is certainly part of the world's redemption. Is it
proper to make a distinction here and say that we
will believe in the forgiveness of sins, but draw
the line at the relief of pain ? It may be that sects
which we justly condemn for their absurd meta-
physic and their ridiculous jargon, and for faults
graver still, have such influence as belongs to them
because they have been bold enough to rely on a
healing power which belongs to the love that was,
in Clirist, the reconciliation of the world. It may
be that the Church has to learn in this matter
from those whom, quite justifiably, it has excluded
from its fellowship. In any case, the conquest of
pain is the work of omnipotent atoning love ; and
in prayer man co-operates with God in healing the
hurt of humanity and of the world.

(4) Christian faith is more than conqueror of
pain and can do much more for the sutterer than
relieve him of his distress. Christianity teaches
the transmutation of pain. Those who love God
find that all things, pain included, work together
for their good. As they go deeper into the experi-
ence of suffering, they make a still more wonderful
discovery. In their pain they are not alone.
They meet in that sequestered place Another, and
He too is a sufierer. These two pains, theirs and
His, draw together into the unity of one experience
— He in them, and they in Him ; their pain His,

His pain theirs. This is not to escape from pain.
It is to take out of pain the element which makes
it an evil. When the self is surrendered to the
love of God in Christ, the sting of pain, which is
sin, is taken out of it. It becomes straightway
part of a life-fellowship with redeeming love. It
undergoes a complete transmutation. It has been
taken up into the pain that is the price of the
world's redemption. There is no question of
diminishing the value of love's redeeming deed on
the Cross of Christ. But the method of trium-
phant love remains. The ages reproduce the
method of Calvary. The sufferings of Christ rise
like a tide in the souls of His i)eople (Ph 3^", Col
P^), Their sufferings take on the quality of His.
They are ministerial, vicarious, sacrificial. They
are not on that account less hard to bear. Were
shame and spitting, thorns and nails, less painful
because Jesus bore them as part of His obedience ?
Suffering borne with Him is suffering still. It is,
however, bearable, and far more than bearable.
It is utterly changed. It is not a fate, but a voca-
tion, the highest service that a soul can render to
God or man. Its evil is blotted out. It is a
moment in the being of the highest good. This
does not mean that in every suffering a believing
man will be conscious that it is good. The pain
may inhibit the sense of joy, even as it did with
Jesus on the Cross. But none the less is it received
and retained by the servant of God as the crown
of his ministry, even as Jesus refused to come
down from His Cross.

Perhaps James Hinton overstrains the thought
when he suggests that our feeling of pain in sacri-
fice is due to the lack of a perfect love in us.
Sacrifice is pain ; but in deepest anguish we know
it preferable to the best that the world can give.

' Reniemberin": these things . . . what should we consider
the presence of pain in the world to mean ? . . . Does it not
wean that a world in which so much of pain is present, is
adapted— was altogether made — to be the scene of an over-
powering, an absorbing love? . . . The reason we are made, or
seem as if we were made for pain, is that we are made for
love. . . .

What is the happiness God has meant us for, the happiness
to which human nature is fitted, to which it should aspire?
Should it be that from which the painful is banished, or that
in which pain is latent? Should pain be merely absent, or
swallowed up in love and turned to joy ? . . .

The pain that is latent in man's bliss is latent, too, in God's ;
in His most as He is highest : and that great life and death to
which the eyes of men are ever turned, or wandering ever are
recalled, reveals it to us. . . .

All pains may be summed up in sacrifice ; and sacrifice is — ol
course it is — the instrument of joi'.'i

This is a nobler optimism than that which rests
its case on the fruitage of benefit out of pain.
Browning, who is the poet of the one, has not
missed the other :

' I think this is the authentic sign and seal
Of Godship, that it ever waxes glad,
And more glad, until gladness blossoms, bursts
Into a rage to suffer for mankind.
And recommence at sorrow : drops like seed
After the blossom, ultimate of all.' 2
The mystery of pain, then, is hid with Christ in
God and becomes the open secret of the xxniverse.
All pain is a symbol of the suffering of God, and
fulfils the function of sacrifice. These innumerable
untold and incalculable pains of nature and of
humanity are drawn into the compass of the aton-
ing suffering of God. The sign of the Cross is
upon a world of sin. The ministerial, vicarious,
sacrificial quality of suffering begins very early in
the history of the world. Its presence is ever more
closely marked as the scale of being rises. It can
be traced in each stage of the ' ascent of man.' It can
be followed along the whole course of that river of
blood and tears which flows through human history.
It is useless to make computations, and ask. Was
even redemption worth such a price? It would

1 The Mystery of Pai7i^, pp. 37, 38, 39, 40, 52.

2 lialaustion's Adventure.

SUFFERING

9

not be, if the price paid were merely liuiuan paiu.
But within the human pain is hid the anguish of
crucified love. It is part of ' the reproach of Christ.'
Because the infinite love shares this p.ain, it is
transmuted. It becomes part of the price which
God pays. Nothing could apologize for God, not
any benefit wrung from tortured bodies and
slaughtered souls, if He merely looked on from a
throne of omnipotence. But a God who suffers is
immune from our criticism and does not need our
defence. The suffering of love has redeemed the
world and has not lost its redeeming power.

Confessedly, this is a faith, not a theory. It is
not the less, but the more, sure on that account.
It is not a precarious inference from insecure pre-
misses. Its premisses are the love and suffering
of God, revealed in the ministry and the Cross of
Christ, and apprehended in the act Avhich commits
the soul to their redeeming power. Faith is not
an act finished in a spasm of emotion. It is the
assumption of an attitude towards God and towards
life, warranted and established by God's redeeming
action.

Faith, says a great Christian teacher, ' is the whole being and
attitude of the soul as determined by the sin-bearing love of
God in Christ. That love, and that love alone, evokes it, and
on that love and that alone, it rests.' 1
Therefore, Christian optimism is not a document
which can be signed, sealed, and delivered to a
suffering world to solve the whole problem of
suffering. It is the outcome of an experience.
Experience cannot be finished, gathered up, and
put aside. It lives and grows from a centre.
Those who will know the force of its demonstration
must occupy the central standpoint. As that is
reached in the act of self-commitment to the appeal
of divine suffering love, it can be retained only in
the continued action of communion with God.
Faith in divine providence is not easy. Did any
serious thinker ever imagine a state of mind in
which faith would rest on an argument? Faith is
a post held in the midst of a furious attack which
never ceases. It can be held only in prayer.
Praj'er is at once communion and co-operation
with God. In both aspects it carries with it con-
firmation of faith. Without it faith withers and
dies. As we live by receiving the divine love and
by acting in the power of it, even to the last limit
of devotion, the world where men suffer reveals
itself as still within the compass of a sovereign
purpose which through pain is passing to its
victory. And prayer is the concentrated power
of that life, the life of receiving and of giving.
Prayer, therefore, conveys the final proof of divine
providence. In prayer the darkness of sufiering
comes into the light of divine victorious love.

(5) Lastly, the Christian view of pain is available
for comfort. Comfort for such suffering as the
world is full of cannot consist in words.

'The philosopher's generalisations falter, and only the pro-
fessional pietist, babbling about all being for the best, keeps on
talking. His observations are highly admirable. But even
faith is almost ashamed of them. It is better to say nothing.
There is simply nothing to be said.' 2

The only offer of comfort that will not insult the
sufferer comes from the love of a God who can and
does suffer. This is the knowledge we have of
Him. Where sufiering is He is, in the fullness of
a power won by His own pain. Outside of Him
there is no comfort. A world without suffering
love at the heart of it would be an atheistic world.
The last word regarding it would be unrelieved
pessimism.

Comfort is the work of God within the soul. It
is direct, immediate, as the divine Spirit enfolds
the human in the unity of a mutual indwelling.
Its action is beneath the eye of the observer ; and
it fulfils its mission when there is no eye to

1 Dciiney, Christian Doctrine nf Jicconciliation, p. 295.

2 Carnegie Simpson, Facts of Life, p. 72.

see, no heart to pity. It is the privilege of
creatures whose consciousness is other than human.
It upholds those who are not conscious of its
operations. Beneath their pain there is a divine
experience of which theirs is part. Christianity is
withheld from pessimism, only because it holds
thus profoundly the truth of the divine immanence.
Only so is it withheld from blasphemy, as it
beholds the agonies of the world. Even so, it is
dumb with amazement. All the more earnestly
does it lay upon those who have received the
Divine consolations the duty of ministering to
those who suffer. Their fulfilment of this duty
consists in making themselves the vehicles of re-
deeming love. They have nothing of their own to
give. The comfort they can give is simply the
comfort they have received, and that is the love of
God. Whatever they say and do will be effective
as it bears witness to, and is the medium of, this
— the only medicine for human hurt. In many
cases silence will be the most perfect human vehicle
of the divine comfort.

The Christian view of pain does not warrant the
conclusion that in the case of the individual all
suffering will cease. The oi'ganism is disordered,
and the elimination of pain cannot take place at
haphazard. The doctrine of divine providence,
however, rests on the eternal victory of love, of
which the time-development of the world contains
the progressive achievement. It, therefore, be-
comes a prediction of that which will emerge out
of time — the complete reconciliation of the world.

Without this, comfort in sufiering would be in-
complete. God has no comfort to give if He is un-
certain of victory. Love is triumphant over sin
and sufiering ; therefore both sin and sufiering
will cease to be. The final message of Christianity
to a suffering world is one of an immortal hope :
' There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain ; for
the former things are passed away.'

LiTERATDRE.— See references in artt. Pessimism and Optimism
and Good and Evil ; and art. ' Pessimism ' in EBr^^. Almost
all volumes dealing with the philosophy of religion, or with
Christian apologetic or dogmatic, have discussions of the topic.
A selection of English works is here appended. J. Sully,
Pessimism, a History and a Criticism'^, London, 1892 ; John
TuUoch, Modern Theories in Philosophy and Religion, Edin-
burgh, 1SS4 ; Robert Flint, Anti-theistic Theories^, do. 1894 ;
W. L. Davidson, The Stoic Creed, do. 1907 ; E. Naville, Le
Prohlime du mal, Lausanne, 186S, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1871 ;
A. M. Fairbairn, The Philosophy of the Christian Helirjion,
London, 1902 ; J. Ward, The Realm of Ends, Cambridge, 1911 ;
A. Seth Pringle-Pattison, The Idea of God, Oxford, 1917 ;
John Watson, The Philosophical Basin of Religion, Glasgow,
1907, The Interpretation of Religious Experience, 2 vols., do.
1912 ; E. Caird, The Evolution of Religion, 2 vols., do. 1893,
The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, 2vo\s., do.
1904; A. C. Eraser, Philosoi>hy of Theism'^, Edinburgh, 1899;
J. Oswald Dykes, The Dirine Worker in Creation and Provi-
dence, do. 1909 ; Horace Bushnell, Tfte Moral Uses of Dark
Things, New York, 1868 ; Henry Jones, Browning as a Philo-
sophical and Religious Teacher, London, 1891; J. Y. Simpson,
The Spiritual Interpretation of Mature, Edinburgh, 1912 ; P.
Carnegie Simpson, The Facts of Life, London, 1913 ; C. F.
D'Arcy, God and Freedom in Human Experience, do. 1915;
R. L. Ottley, Christian Ideas and Ideals, do. 1909; B. H,
Streeter and others, Concerning Prayer, do. 1916; F. J.
Foakes-Jackson and others, The Faith and the M'ar, do.
1915 ; [L. Dougall], The Christiaii Doctrine of Health, do.
1916 ; W. R. Sorley and others. The Elements of Pain and
Conjliet in Human Life, Cambridge, 1916 ; J. Orr, The Christ-
ian View of God and the Worhft, Edinburgh, 1897 ; A. K.
Rogers, The Religious Conception of the World, New York and
London, 1907; G. J. Blewett, The Christian Vieto of the
World, New Haven, U.S.A., and London, 1912; William
James, Pragmatism, London, 1907 ; A. B. Bruce, The Moral
Order of the World, do. 1899, The Providential Order of the
World, do. 1897; C. C. Everett, Theism and the Christian
Faith, New York and London, 1909 ; W. L. Walker, Christian
Theism and a Spiritual Monism, Edinburgh, 1906; G. C.
Workman, At Onement, London, 1911 ; Henry Drummond,
The Asce7it of Man, do. 1894 ; W. S. Palmer, Providence and
Faith, do. 1917; Douglas White, Forgiveness and Suferiiig,
Cambridge, 1913 ; W. F. Cobb, Spiritual Healing, London,
1914 ; Frank Ballard, Why does not God intervene!, do. 1912 ;
James Hinton, The Mystery of Pain-, do. 1907; J. H.
Brookes, The Mystery of SuffeHng, New York, IOC? t P.

10

SUFIS

Laurent, Tfie Minaion of Pain, Ens- tr., London, lOKi ; V. C.
Harrington, PruUem of Human Sufering, New York, 1S99 ;
J. Denney, The Christian Daclrine of Reconciliation, Loudon,
1917 ; J. E. McFadyen, Jesus and Life, do. 1917 ; G. Steven,
The Warp ami the Woof, do. 1917 ; W. R. Sorley, Moral
Values and the Idea of God, Cambridge, 1918.

T. B. KiLPATRICK.

SUFFERING MESSIAH. — See Jesus
Christ, vii. 514, Messiah, viii. 574^

SUFIS. — I. Derivation and meaning. — The
derivation of the name 'SufLs' (Muhammadan
mystics) was long a .subject of dispute. Most
Sufis favour the theory that it is derived from
safct {'purity') and tliat the Sufi is one of the
elect who have become puritied from all worldly
dehlemeuts. Others would connect it with saff
('rank'), as though the Sufi were spiritually in
the hrst rank in virtue of his comnmnion with
God ; or with sitffa (' bench'), referring the origin
of Sufism^ to the Ahl al-sufla ('people of the
bench'), a title given to certain poor Mu.slims in
the early days of Islam who had no liouse or
lodging and therefore used to take shelter on the
covered bench outside the mosque built by the
Prophet at Medina. As Qushairi and other Sufis
admit, none of these explanations is etymologically
defensible. There is, however, among the deriva-
tions proposed by the Sufis themselves one which
does not violate the principles of etymology. The
author of the oldest extant Arabic treatise on
Suhsm, Abu Nasr al-Sarraj, declares that in his
opinion (wliich, naturally, is not ba.sed on philo-
logical grounds) the word ' Sufi ' is derived from
suf ('avooI'), 'for the woollen raiment is the habit
of the 2>rophets and the badge of the saints and
elect, as appears in many traditions and narra-
tives.''^ Notwithstanding the facetious remark of
Scaliger, ' quod quidam Soh a flocco lanae dictum
uolunt, hoc leuius est ipso iiocco lanae,' it was
perceiveil by some European Orientalists in the
18th cent, that this derivation was what Reiske
pronounced it to be — ' sola uera et grammaticae
ipsique rei congrua.' Meanwhile its claims to
acceptance were challenged by Joseph von Hammer,
wlio in his Gesch. clcr schonen Eedekiinstc Persiens,^
asserted that the Sufis are related to the ancient
gymnosophists of India and that ' the Arabic words
Sufi (mystic) and stifi (pure) belong to the same
root, like the Greek cro(p6s and aa^ris.' This un-
lucky sentence might cast doubt on von Hammer's
competence as a philologist, but his suggested
equation of 'Sufi' witli a-o(p6s was, at first sight,
plausible enough. Although rejected by Tholuck,'*
it has been championed in comparatively recent
times by Adalbert Merx." In 1894 the question
was finally settled by Th. Noldeke, at that time
Professor of Arabic in the University of Strassburg.
He pointed out'' that the word ffo(p6s is unknown
in Aramaic and therefore could scarcely be expected
to occur in Arabic. On the other hand, both
Aramaic and Arabic have the words cro^io-n?; and
(pikbao'pos, and in the latter language the a- is
represented by sin [^m), as is almost invariably
the case in Greek words which have been Arabicized,
not by sad { p). If ' Sufi ' were of Greek extrac-
tion, its initial scld would be at least abnormal.
Further, v.e have no positive ground for regarding
the derivation from o-o06s as probable in itself,
whereas the derivation from suf is coniirmed by

I'SiJfism' is the more connect form. 'Suflism' implies
derivation from ' Sufi,' whereas the corresponding Arabic \yords
tasavnmif and suf't are collateral formations from siif, which is
the conmion root of both.

2 Kitdb al-f.vma', ed. R. A. Nicholson, London, 1916, p. 20 f.

3 Vienna, 1818, p. 346, note 1.
•1 Sstifisimis, p. 30 f .

5 Idc'c rmd Grundlinien einer alhjemneinen fiesch. der Uystik,
p. 37 f .
e ZDilG xlviii. [1891] 45 f.

the authority of Oriental tradition. i>foldcke then
cites a number of passages showing that, in the
first two centuries of Islam, garments of coarse
wool were worn by the common people and
especially by those who followed an ascetic way
of life. The words Inbisa 'l-silf, 'he clad himself
in wool,' occur frequently in the early literature
and signify that tlie person to whom they are
applied has renounced the world and become an
ascetic ; at a later period, when asceticism passed
into mysticism, labisa 'l-sf'f generally means ' he
became a Sufi.' In Per.sian too the ascetic is
often c!x\\ed'pashmina-pilsh, i.e. ' wearing a woollen
garment.' The old Muslim ascetics who clothed
themselves in wool borrowed this practice from
Christian hermits or monks. When yammad b.
Salama (t A.D. 784) came to Basra, he said to
P'arqad al-Sanji, who appeared before him in a
woollen garment, ' Put off this (emblem of) Christi-
anity.'^ Such garments are described as ziytf al-
ruhhdn, 'tiie dress of tiie Christian ascetics.''^
A hadith put in the mouth of the Prophet states
that Jesus Himself used to wear them.

We are told by Jami^ that the name 'Sufi'
was first borne by Abii Hashim of Kufa, a con-
temporary of Sufyan al-Thauri (f A.u. 778).
According to Qushairi,' it came into vogue before
A.H. 200 ( = A.D. 815). Al-SariTij mentions the
view that it was invented by the people of
Baghdad.^ Although the circumstances of its
origin are obscure, it seems to have gained
currency during the period of transition from
asceticism to mysticism, about the end of the
2nd cent, of the Hijrah, and may possibly mark
some stage in that process. No weight can be
attached to the apocryphal traditions which seek
to prove that the appellation existed^ in the
Prophet's time or even throw it back into the
pre-Islamic age. The Sufis of the 3rd and 4th
centuries, who claimed to be the true spiritual
descendants of ^luhammad, considered themselves
fully justified in fabricating evidence in support
of their assertion. So far as the present writer
is aware, the first Arabic writer to use the word
' Sufi' is Jahiz of Basra (t A.D. 869), who refers to
'the Sufis amongst lihe pietists' (nl-Sufiya mina
H-nussuk) and enumerates the names of several
who were famous for their eloquence.**

In the present article the terms 'Sufi' and
' Suhsm ' are to be understood in their ordinary
sense, viz. as equivalent to ' Muhammadan mystic '
and ' Muhammadan mysticism.' Ancient Sufism,
however, had strong ascetic tendencies, while the
mystical element miglit be insignificant; and
there have always been Sufis of an ascetic and
devotional type whom we should hesitate to
describe as mystics in the proper meaning of the
word. In Persian and Turkish poetry 'Sufi'
sometimes bears the sense of ' hypocritical pietist'
or 'dissolute free-thinker' and may be used as a
term of reproach by poets who are themselves
Sufis of a ditierent sort.^

2. Origin and early development. — The begin-
nings of mysticism in Islam take us back to the
great ascetic movement which arose, largely under
Christian influence, during the 7th cent. A.D.^
This is reflected in the biographical works con-
taining notices of eminent Sufis, which include
the names of many of those "early ascetics. The
movement, though extreme in certain directions,
was mainly orthodox. It is characterized by

1 'Iqd, Cairo, A.ii. 1293, iii. 348.

" Sha'raui, Lau-aqih, i. 45.

3 Nafahat al-uns, ed. W. N. Lf es, Calcutt?., 1859, p. 31.

4 Risal'a, Cairo, A.n. 1318, p. 9.

5 Kitdb al-Luma', p. 22.

8 Kitdb al-bai/d7i, Cairo, A.u. 1313, i. 13S.

7 Cf. E. J. W. Gibb, Hist, of Ottoman Poetry, London,
1900-09, i. 25 f.

8 See art. Asceticis.m (llusiim).

SUFIS

11

intense religious exaltation, an overwhelming
consciousness of human frailty, boundless fear of
Cod, and utter submission to His will. There was
no organized monastic life, though some ascetics
wandered to and fro accompanied by a few friends
or held prayer-iueetings in which they studied
the Qur'an aiid discussed their spiritual experiences.
Basra seems to have been the centre of an anti-
ritiialistic party who laid stress on the higher
aspects of asceticism, regarding it as essentially
an inward feeling, whereas the Syrians were more
concerned witli its external forms ; ^ 9asan al-
Basri (q.v.) said tl)at it consisted in humility and
was not a matter of dress and food. Examination
of what is involved in the first article of the
Muslim creed— the command to associate nothing
with Allali— gradually led to the view that true
asceticism is incompatible with any selfish desire,
even Avith the desire to undergo the utmost priva-
tions and austerities for the sake of wanning
paradise, and that it must culminate in dis-
interested love of God.^ Thus the old asceticism,
rooted in fanatical exaggeration _ of religious
observances, gave way to a doctrine which in
the end threatened to make all observances un-
necessary. But this consequence did^ not show
itself immediately. The Sufis of the 2nd cent.
Avere usually orthodox and law-abiding. They
cultivated poverty, self-abasement, resignation.
If they loved God, they feared Him more, and on
the wliole their mysticism lacked positive qualities
as well as distinctive theories. They stand mid-
way between asceticism (ztchd) and theosophy, or
gnosis (vrn'rifat). The word that best describes
their attitude is ' quietism ' (ridel).

Special mention may be made of Ibrahim b. Adham, a prince
of Balkh, whose les'end is modelled on the story of Buddha; 3
Shaqiq, also of Balkh, who developed the doctrine of ' trust in
God ' (tawakkul) ; "* Rabi'a al-'Adawiya, a saintly woman who
was born at Basra and died at Jerusalem ; ^ and Ma'riif al-
Karkhi, a native of Baghdad.6 The two last-named foreshadow
the ecstatic and enthusiastic mysticism which is characteristic
of the succeeding ag;e, although it may be doubted whether
all the sayings and verses attributed to Rabi'a on the subject
of divine love are genuine. Ma'ruf is the author of the first
recorded definition of Sufisin, 'to grasp the verities and to
renounce that which is in the hands of God's creatures.' 7

During the 3rd cent. Sufism enters decisively
on a new course. The ascetic and quietistic
spirit, thougli still strong, is overpowered by
speculative and pantheistic tendencies which had
hitherto remained in the background but now
assert themselves with increasing boldness. Not-
withstanding the dominant and vital part which
these tendencies play in the future development
of Sufism, it is a mistake to identify their triumph
with the origin of Sufism. Nor is it less a mistake
to descrilie them as an entirely foreign element
which fiowed into Siilism from outside and rapidly
transformed it, so that all at once it became
difi'erent in kind. The germs of Sufi pantheism
are to be ftmnd in the Qur'an :

E.fi., xxviii. SS : ' Every thing is perishing (hdlik) except the
face (reality) of Allah ' ; Iv. 26 f. : ' Kvcry one on the earth is
passing away (fdnl), but the glorious and honoured face of thy
Lord abideth for ever ' ; and ii. 109 : ' Wheresoever j'e turn,
there is the face of .\llah.'

Certainly the Muslim mystics might have arrived
independently at the conclusion that Allah is the
only real being.

' It is conceivable that this notion may have come into Islam
from outside ; on the other hand, speculation on the doctrine

1 Qut al-quluh, Cairo, .\.li. 1310, i. 129.

2 Cf. D. S. Maruoliouth, The Early Development of Moham-
medanism, p. 167 f .

3 See art. ' Ibrahim b. Adham ' in EI ; Goldziher, in JRAS,
1004, p. 132 f. ; Nicholson, in ZA xxvi. 11911] 215 f.

■* See art. Asckticism (Muslim).

■i See von Krenier, Gesch. d fr Uerrfehenden Tdeen des Idnms,
p. 64 f. ; R. Dozy, Ex-iaisiir I'hisl. del'ulamiame, tr V. Chauvin,
Leyden, 1879, "p. 31Sf. ; Nicholson, A Literary Hist, of the

Arabs, London, 1907, p. 233 f.
6 See JliAS, 1906, p. 306 f.

7 lb. p. 331.

of the divine unity appears sufficient to account for its develop-
ment and indeed for its origin. Had there been more gods
than one, says the Koran, the heavens and the earth must liave
come to grief ; but if any attempt be made to define the word
"god" metaphysically, speculation quickly leads to something
like the truly existing or the necessarily existing ; even with
Homer the difference between God and man is that the former
is eternal, the latter transient. The relation between God and
matter immediately suggests questions : is matter independent
of God, or not? The former supposition leads to polytheism,
the latter only is consistent with real monotheism. If, then,
God is not outside matter, He must in a way be identical with
matter ; and the most thoughtful of the Sufis, accepting this
conclusion, based on it a series of inferences as unlike the
original doctrines of Islam as any that could have been evolved.' i

Theoretically, there is no reason whj^ the Sufis'
should not have reached their pantheistic goal in
some such fashion as this, and probably they often
did, althougli in most cases it was a truth grasped
intuitively from mystical experience rather than
the result of philosophical rellexion. But, in
seeking to explain how they advanced from
quietism to pantheism, we cannot j)rocecd on the
assumption that they wore wholly in)])ervions to
non-Islamic ideas. The infiuence of Claistianity,
Neo-Platonism, and Buddhism is an undeniable
fact. It was in the air and inevitably made itself
felt. Of its extent and importance we have ample
evidence, although the materials at our disposal
seldom enable us to trace it out in detail. In
short the new Sulism of the 3rd cent., like Sufism
in every period of its history, is the product of
diverse forces working together — speculative
developments of the Muhammadan monotheistic
idea. Christian asceticism and mysticism, Gno.sti-
cism, Greek and Indian philosophies. Until recently
the problem has been attacked on tlie wrong lines.
Many former investigators held the view that this
great movement, whicli drew its life and strength
from all classes and races in the Muslim empire,
could be adequately explained by jtointing to one
definite source (e.g., the Vedantaor Neo-Platonism)
or by formulating theories which are at best half-
truths (e.g., that Sufism was a reaction of the
Aryan mind against a Semitic religion forcibly
imposed on it). It is now, the present writer
thinks, recognized that, instead of searching in
vain after a single cause, we should endeavour to
study the various influences by which the Siifi
doctrine was moulded, to place them in due order
and connexion, and to distinguish as far as possible
what was contributed by each. Tli,ese influences
constitute the environment in which the doctrine
developed, and among them are to be reckoned
all political, social, and intellectual conditions
which favoured the growth of mysticism, such as
the devastating civil wars of the Uuiayyad period,
the sceptical and rationalistic currents that ran
stronglj^ in the early "Abbasid age, and particularly
the bitter sectarianism and barren dogmatism of
the 'ulamd.

The main features in the evolution of Sufism in
the 3rd cent, maj'' be set forth as follows.

The older Sufis had sought to bring every word,
act, and thought of their lives into harmony with
the divine will — an ideal which expressed their
conception of Allah as a transcendent personality,
' the Lord of created beings,' and which they
attained by means of asceticism. This theoi-y and
practice naturally produced (1) the doctrine of
divine love, which is the highest positive form of
(luietism, and (2) ecstasy, which is frequently a
result, either involuntary or intentional, of ascetic
exercises. Although the early Sufis were more or
less orthodox, their relation to Ishim being not
unlike tliat of the mediaeval Spanish mj'stics to the
lloman Catholic Church, a religion of love and
ecstasy was bou7id to come into conflict witii Islam
sooner or later, llabi'a declared that she had no

1 Margoliouth, The Early Development of Afohammedanisin,

p. 180 f.'

rj

12

SUFIS

fear of hell or hope of paradise, and that she could
not love the Prophet because her love of God
absorbed her so entirely that neither love nor hate
of any other thing remained in her heart. Tlie
barrier between Allah and His creatures was
gradually broken down. The definition of divine
unity (tauhid) became pantheistic ; the unique
personality of Allah, far above and beyond human
reach, was transformed into the one real Being
{al-Ifnqq) revealed in all created things, the
mystic s true self, which he finds by losing his
individual consciousness in ecstatic self-abandon-
ment. This doctrine, however it may be disguised,
is the essence of Sulism, and the historical circum-
stances of its origin justify the statement that it
was at least partially derived from sources outside
of Islam. Merx, indeed, seems to go too far when
V^e calls it 'Greek' and connects it specifically
with the writings attributed to Dionysius the
Areopagite,^ though it may well have been in-
fluenced both by them and by the so-called Theology
of Aristotle, a Neo-Platonic treatise of which an
Arabic version appeared before the end of the
3rd century. But at this epoch little can liave
been borrowed directly from books. What makes
the influence of Hellenism certain is the fact that
in Western Asia and Egypt the Siifi theosopiiy
arose on a soil long saturated with Hellenistic
culture, while some of its leading exjionents were
non-Arab Muslims belonging to the subject
nationalities. -

One example will suffice. The mystical knowlerlg-e of God
peculiar to the Sufis is denoted by the term ma'ii/at = yi'wcrts,
I.e. immediate knowledj^e resulting from apocalyptic vision.
It is defined in this sense by several Sufis of tlie 3rd cent., but
we owe the first important speculations on its nature to Dim
'1-NiJn of Ejrypt (t a.d. S.'iO), of whom his Persian bio','rapher
saj's : ' He is the head of this sect [the Sufis] : they all descend
from and are related to him.' ^ That, no doubt, is an exairgcra-
tion ; 3'et it shows the significance of the man. Now, ]>hu '1-
Nun was a Copt or Nuliian by race; he is described as a
philosopher and alchemist — i.e. a student of Greek wisdom ;
during his-life he was regarded by many as a zindlq (free-
thinker). Here we have plain indications that, as soon as
Islamic mysticism began to develop, it drew inspiration from
the doctrine concerning ' a gnosis or higher knowledge which
can be taught with safety' — as Dhu '1-Niin also says — 'only to
the "perfect" or "fully initiated." '■! While Dhu" '1-Niin con-
ceived the Sufi's supreme experience as a super-intellectnnl
God-given knowledge, peculiar to those who 'see God wilh
their hearts ' and ultimately involving complete unconsciousness
('the more a man knows God, the more is he lost in Him '), he
never makes use of the term /<'»«, which is associated with the
name of his contemporary, Aliii Yazid, or Bayazid, of Bistam.
Fand is best rendered by ' i)assing-away ' ; it maj' be applied to
the disappearance of evil qualities or, in its pantheistic sense,
to the passing-away of the whole individual self in union with
God. Possibly the term was derived by Muslim mj'stics from
a verse in the Qur'an •' quoted above, but in Eastern Persia,
where it first came into prominence, it must have been deeply
coloured by Perso-Indian ideas.B The definition of fand as a
moral state, and of the means by which the extinction of all
passions and desires is brought about, agrees so exactly with
the definition of iiirvdna that Buddhistic influence cannot be
denied. As regards the pantheistic aspect of /a?ifl, the Vedanta
and similar forms of Indian thought readily suggest themselves.
Here again the lives and sayings of representative Sufis, in
conjunction with other historical evidence, provide the only
trustworthy clue. Bayazifl was a native of Khurasan. His
grandfatlier was a Zoroastrian and his master in Sufism a Kurd.
He learned the mystical doctrine of passing-away (Jand) in tlie
divine unity from Abu 'AH of Sind. He knew the Indian
practice of ' watching the breaths ' {pds-i anfds) and described
it as the gnostic's worship of God.7 The character of his
pantheism is probably reflected in the utterances which his
legend records, even if their authenticity may be questioned
— for exarajjle.

1 Idee und Grundlinien, p. 18 f.

2 Many illustrations of the close parallelism existing between
the leading ideas of Hellenistic religious philosophy and those
of early Sufism will be found in the introduction to Bar
Hebrceus's Book of the Dove, tr. A. J. Wensinck, Leyden, 1919,
p. xxxix f.

3 JamI, Nafahdt al-uns, p. 36.

4 VV. R. Inge, Christian Mysticism (BL), London, 1S99. d. 81.

5 Iv. 26. ' > J^

6 See Goldziher, Vorlemmqen Hher den Islam, p. 163 ; Nichol-
son, The Sfystics of Islam, ji. lOff.

7 Tadkkirat al-cmliyd, i. 1()2, 10; of. T. W. Rhvs Da\ids, The
Yogdvacara's Manual (PTS), London, lS9(i. p. x.'

' I went from God to God, until they cried from me in me,

"O Thou I!'"
' Verily, I am God, there is no God except me, so worship me.

Glor}' to me ! How great is my majesty ! '
'Nothing is better for man than to be without aught, having

no asceticism, no theory, no practice. When he is without

all, he is with all.'
'Creatures are subject to states, but the gnostic has no

state, because his vestiges are obliterated and his

individuality (huwylat) passes away in the individuality

of Another and his traces are eflaced by Another's traces.'
At this time earnest Sufis did not habitually and
openly indulge in the language of 'deification.'
The doctrine underlying it was esoteric, reserved
for adepts in theosophy, who usually were more
discreet than Bayazid and ^lallaj. They saw the
necessity of keeping their mystical theories in
close touch with the religion which they professed.
Consequently the Qur'an and the Sunna were
proclaimed to be the standard to which not only
speculation but also spiritual feelings and states
must conform.

Let us now consider the methods whereby a
reconciliation was eti'ected and take a general
survey of the relations existing between Sufism
and Islam.

3. The Law, the Path, and the Truth.— The
Qur'an contains a few passages from which it can
fairly be argued that Muhammad had in him
something of the mystic, but that book as a whole
is no better fitted than the Pentateuch to form the
basis of a system of mysticism. Nevertheless, the
Sufis, adopting the Shi'ite principle of allegorical
interpretation (tahvil), were able to prove to their
own satisfaction that every verse and word of the
sacred text hides treasures of meaning which God
reveals to the elect ^ — meanings which flash upon
the inward eye in moments of rapt meditation.
So much being granted, one can imagine that it
was easy to show Qur'anic authority for any
mystical doctrine whatsoever and to maintain that
Sufism was really the esoteric teaching of the '
Prophet communicated by him to his son-in-law,
'All b. Abi Talib. From the same principle it
follows that the Sufi interpretation of Islam
admits an endless variety of divei'gent and even
contradictory beliefs and practices, all of which ex
liijpothesi are equally valid in kind, though not in
degree, since the meanings of the Qur'an are in-
finite and reveal themselves to each mystic in pro-
portion to the spiritual capacity with which he is
endowed. Hence the SQfls are not a sect, and /
there is no uniform body of doctrine constituting
what is called ' Sufism.' The manj'-sidedness of
the term is exemplified by the innumerable
attempts made to define it.* Similarly, the
attitude of the Sufis towards Muhammadan
religious law depends on a subjective criterion.
Some punctiliously fulfilled their ritual obligations,
while at the same time they recognized that forms
of worship have only a relative value in comparison
with ' the works of the heart,' or are altogether
worthless except as symbols of spiritual realities.
To make the pilgrimage, e.q., is to journey away
from sin ; to put on the pilgrim's garb (ihrani) is
to cast off with one's every-day clothes all sensual
thoughts and feelings. This is a well-known
doctrine of the Isma'ilis, from whom the Sufis
seem to have borrowed it.** Others are antinomian,
whether they be free-thinking and free-living
dervishes, genuine mystics like the Malamatis
described by Hujwiri,^ whose fear of men's praise
caused them deliberately to act in such a way as
to incur reprobation, or gnostics supremely in-
different to the shadow-shows of religion and

1 Cf. Kitdb al-Luma', p. 72 f.

2 See JRAS, 1906, p. 330 ff. ; Goldziher, Vorlesungen, p. 166.

3 Cf. Kitdb al-Lwna', p. 172 f. (Nicholson, Afi/stics of Islam,
p. 91 f.) with Browne's Literary Hist, of Persia, ii. 241 f.

* Kashf al-Mahjuh, tr. Nicholson, p. 66; cf. M. Hartmann,
Der islamische orient. Berichto und Forsc.hungen, Berlin, 189©-
1910, i. 156 f.

SQFIS

13

^

morality in a phantom world. Many Sufis, hovv-

^' ever, insist that, normally at any rate, perfect

, realization of the Truth (haqlqat) — i.e. the con-

.' summation of the mystical life — is not only

^ compatible with observance of the Law (sharl'nt)

! but includes it as a facet or aspect of the whole.

*^This view will be better explained if we give a

brief account of its ethical and psychological

basis.

The Sufis regarded themselves as a peculiarly
favoure(\ class, possessing an esoteric knowledge
of the Qur'an and the apostolic traditions, and
using technical expressions which no ordinary
Muslim could understand. This fostered a feeling
of brotherhood, and it was not long before traces
of organization began to appear. Eminent mystics
gathered round them groups of disciples (small at
tirst) for private instruction and in course of time
became recognized teachers, heads of mystical
schools, and abbots presiding over convents where
Sufis were trained. It was generally held that for
those entering on the religious life a teacher was
indispensable. A self-trained mystic, who had
not passed through the discipline prescribed by
a spiritual director {sluiilch, pir, vuirshid), was
looked upon with suspicion. The authority of the
shaikhs was absolute. It lay with them to decide
whether the novice, after his probationary period,
should be granted leave to take the vow of
obedience to his master which was exacted from
all candidates for initiation. Hujwiri mentions a
three years' probation.

'The first year is devoted to service of the people [i.e. the
Sufis], the second year to service of God, and the third year to
watchinif over his own heart. He can serve the people, only
when he places himself in the rank of servants and all others in
the rank of masters, i.e., he must regard all, without exception,
as being better than himself and must deem it his duty to serve
all alike. And he can serve God, only when he cuts off all his
selfish interests relating either to the present or to the future
life, and worships God for God's sake alone. . . . And he can
watch over his heart, only when his thoughts are collected and
every care is dismissed, so that in communion with God he
guards his heart from the assaults of heedlessness.'!

On taking the vow of initiation, the novice was
invested by his shaikh with the khirqa or Tnur-
aqqa'a, a garment made of pieces of cloth stitched
together, which in later times superseded the
woollen dress worn by the original Sufis. This
ceremony marked his admission to the Sufi brother-
hood. Occasionally a Siifi might be invested with
two khirqas by different shaikhs, as happened to
Abu Sa'id ibn Abi '1-Khair. The veneration which
the shaikhs inspired in their disciples is well
known. Dhu '1-Niin went so far as to say that the
true disciple should be more obedient to his master
than to God Himself.^ The rule, method, and
religious practice inculcated by the shaikh and
followed by the disciple constitute the Path
(tarlqa). Accordingly, the Path has no fixed and
uniform character ; its details are determined by
the individuality of the teacher. The tarlqas of
the dervish orders exemplify this divergence.
Broadly speaking, the Path corresponds to the
via purgativa of mediaeval Christian mysticism.
Hunger, solitude, and silence are the chief weapons
employed in the war against ' the flesh ' (nafs).
The ascetic and ethical discipline is divided into a
progressive series of ' stations ' {maqdmdt), which
the learner must traverse, making himself perfect
in every one of them before advancing to the next.
They vary in number and order, but the first place
is usually occupied by ' repentance ' or ' conversion '
(tattba), i.e. turning away from sin towards God.
/The moral ideal of the Sufis is unselfishness,
\ whether it take the form of renouncing worldly
J possessions and desires, sincerity in word and deed
j without regard for the good opinions of others,

^ 1 Kashf al-Mahjab, tr. Nicholson, p. 54.

2 Tadhkirat al-arUiyd, i. 131, 7,

patience, humility, charity, or trust in God and
single-hearted devotion to His will.^ These are
the fruits of the Path, but its true end is attained
by means of exercises in spiritual meditation and
recollection which predispose and prepare the
disciple for ecstatic experiences. It may be that
he will never reach that end ; ecsta.sy is an incalcul-
able gift of divine grace and caimot be extorted.
But the Sufis had a method of their own for pro^
ducing the state of mind in which ' revelation ' of
the unseen was most likely to occur. They called '
it dhikr (' recollection '), set the highest value upon
it, and deemed it the corner-stone of practical
religion.^ The simplest form of dhikr is the con-
tinual repetition of the name Allah or of some
short litany, accompanied with intense concentra-
tion on the thought of God.* Concentration
might be assisted by other means, such as flagella-
tion and holding the breath, until the sense of
personality gradually disappeared in a state of
trance.

' The first stage of dhihr is to forget self, and the last stage is
the effacement of the thinker in the act of thought, without
consciousness of thought, and such absorption in the object of
thought as precludes return to the subject thereof. '•* Con-
certed performances of dhikr, with music and dancing, were
introduced at an early date, and their demoralizing effect on
neophytes is noted by Hujwiri.^ Such prayer-services, as is
well known, play an important part in the ritual of the der\'ish
orders. 6

A general view of Sflfi psychology, so far as it
bears on the ecstatic life, may be obtained from
Qushairi ^ or f rom the more systematic treatment
of the subject by Ghazali in the second half of his
Ihyd.'^

There are four terms which, taken together, comprise the
sensual, spiritual, and intellectual nature of man : (1) nafs, tlie
appetitive soul ; (2) rUli, the spirit ; (3) qalb, the heart ; (4)
'aql, the intelligence. The nafs, being the seat of the passions,
is wholly evil ; its mortification by means of asceticism is the
Siifi's holy war (jihad). The qalb and the rUh (to which
Qushairi adds the sirr, the inmost ground of the qalh) are the
proper organs of the mystical life and are not clearly dis-
tinguished from one another. Qalb, as used by Sufis, does not
signify the heart of flesh, but 'a transcendental suljtlety' or
non-material essence whereby the realities of all things are per-
ceived and reflected as in a mirror. Hence the phrase ocxibis
cordis has equivalents in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. But
the power of the heart to perceive and reflect spiritual realities
depends on its puritj'. It is veiled in greater or less degree by
sensuous impressions— sin, egoism, book-learning, traditional
faith, etc. ; and, in proportion as these veils are removed, its
vision of reality becomes more perfect. God alone can purify
it, but the need for co-operation with the act of divine grace is
asserted by those Siifis who follow the Path and attach par-
ticular importance to the methods of recollection (dhikr) and
meditation (murdqabat), by which the heart is purged of every-
thing except the thought of God. The ' stations ' (maqdindt)
of the Path, which belong to the mystic's practical religion,
are subordinate to the 'states' (ahwdl), which belong to his \,

inner life. The term ' state ' (p,dl) denotes a mood of feeling, a ^

spiritual disposition or experience, which God causes to pass
over the heart; it is not subject to human control, but comes
and goes as God wills ; usually it is transient, but it may abide
permanently. The classification of aliwdl in pairs of opposites
— e.g., hope and fear, expansion and contraction, presence and
absence — answers to psychological facts familiar to students of
mysticism. Passivelj' yielding to the divine influences which
swing him to and fro in an ascending scale, the i^ufi is ' the son
of his time,' dominated by the ' state' in which he finds himself
at the moment, oblivious of the past and without thought of
the future. The highest 'states' are ecstatic, and the term
lull is often synonymous with ecstasy, though it had not this
special sense originally.

Here we come back to the point at issue between /•

Sufism and Islam. Through ecstasy the Sufi "^T
reaches the plane of the Truth {haqlqat), where he
is one with God. The person thus enraptured

1 See R. Hartmann, Das ^ufllum nach al-Kuschairi, p. 44 ff.

2 See art. Asckticism (Muslim).

3 Cf. U. B. Macdonald, Religious Attitude and Life in Islam,
p. 255f.

•» Nafalidt al-uns, 161, IS. 5 Kashf al-Mahjub, 420.

6 Cf. E. W. Lane, An Account of the Manners and Cuatomn of
the Modem Egyptians^, London, 1871, i. 309 ; Macdonald,
Aspects of Islam, New York, 1911, p. 160 ff. ; J. P. Brown, The
Dervishes, or Oriental SpiritualisTn, London, 1868.

"! R. Hartmann, Das /^tifitum nach nl-J<iuschairi, p. C9 f.

8 Summarized in Macdonald, Religious Attitude and Life in.
Islam, p. 220 IT.

14

SUFIS

{majiUiub) is a saint (wall) ; no further testimony
is required, since tlie doctrine that a saint who
violates the Law is thereby shown to be an
impostor applies onlj' when the ecstatic fit has
subbided. And in any case, it was argued, a
divinely inspired man must not be judged by
appearances ; his knowledge of unseen things may
justify him in doing what religion and morality
condemn : the story of JNIoses and Khadir ^ illus-
trates this. Ecstasy not being coniined to one
sex, the Sufi legend includes a long roll of women,
to whom a separate section is sometimes allotted
in standard hagiogi-aphical works. In accordance
■^ — witli tlie the;)pathetic cliaracter of Muslim saints,
their miracles (kardm~it = xo-pi-^P-'^Ta-) Q.re. described,
not as wrought by them, but as gi-anted or mani-
fested to them ; and, while the higher Sufism declares
that 'reliance on miracles hinders the elect from
penetrating to the inmost shrine of the Truth,'
and that ' the greatest miracle is the substitution of
a good quality for a bad one,' the popular xvali
cannot, even if he wishes, avoid the reputation
of being gifted with powers which Muslims call
'extraordinary' and Europeans 'supernatural.'
<4, /The saints form an invisible hierarchy bj^ Avhich
"* ' the order of the world is maintained. At their
head stands the qntb ('axis'), under him inferior
grades of sanctity — niiqaba, autdd, ahrar, abddl
or budald, etc. — the numbers of each class increas-
ing in proportion to its distance from the qutb."^
Probaldy this idea was taken over by the Sufis
from the Shi'ites and Isma'ilis.^

The Sufi theory of ecstasy recognizes two aspects
of the experience of oneness with God. These
aspects are syml)olized by such negative terms as
fund (' passing-away ' from individuality), faqd
('self- loss'), sukr ('intoxication'), with their posi-
tive counterparts baqd ('abiding in God'), wujd
('finding God'), and mhw ('sobriety'). In the
controversy wiiich arose as to the relative values
of the ecstatic state and the subsequent return
to consciousness* it is easy to discern tlie same
motives as ranged Siifis on opposite sides in regard
to the question, Were they antinoraian or not ?
From the standi)oint of pure Sufism there is
nothing beyond the supreme negation of self,
when 'the mortal disappears' and religion no
longer exists ; but logic compels those Sufis who
are more than nominal Muslims to set the life in
God against and above the death to self, and to
find the highest mystical experience in the state
of conscious clairvoyance which succeeds the
moment of ecstasy.

'The full circle of deification must comprehend both the
inward and outward aspects of Deity— the One and the Man.v,
the Truth and the Law. It is not enou:;h to escajie from all
that is creaturely wthout enterinj; into the eternal life of God
the Creator as manifested in His works. To abide in God {baqd),
after having passed awa.v from selfhood {fand), is the mark of
the Perfect Man, who not onlj' journeys to God, i.e. passes from
plurality to unity, but in and unth God, i.e. continuing in the
unitive state, he returns with God to the phenomenal world
from which he set out, and manifests unity in plurality. In this
descent ... he brings down and displays the Truth to man-
kind while fulfilling the duties of the reUjjious law.' 5

Such a compromise could not restore the balance
efi'ectually. The Sufis might do homage to the
Law, but they ranked it'beloAv the Truth and
even below the Path. And, if the Truth is above
the Law, yet not in contradiction -with it, the
view was plausible that, when a man has attained
to the Truth, all his acts and words are holy and
in harmony with the spirit of the LaAv, however
they may seem to dash Mith its letter. Still, a
^ Qur'dn, xviii. 64-80.

2 Cf. E. Blochet, ' Etudes sur I'^soterisme musulman,' J A,
9th ser., xx. [1902] 49 ff. ; Hujwiri, Eashf al-Mahjab, p. 214.

3 Ibn Khaldun, PrnlepomeiM, tr. M. de Slane, Paris, 1802-68.
iii. 104 ff. ; cf. H. S. Nyberg, Kleinere Schriften des Ibn al-
'Arabl, Leyden, 1919, introd., p. 113.

■» Cf. Uujwiri, Kashf al-MahjCib, p. 1S4 f.
5 Njcholgon, T/ie Mystics of Islam, p. 163.

via media had to be secured, even at the price of
illogical concessions on both sides.

A Persian Sufi, writing in the 5th cent., laments that his con-
temporaries ' give tiie name of " law " to their lusts, call their
own senseless fancies "divine knowledge," t!ie motions of the
heart and affections of the animal soul " divine love," heresv
"poverty," scepticism "purity," disbelief in positive religion
"a passing away from self," neglect of the Law of the Prophet
" the mystic path." ' 1

In A.D. 1045 Qushairi published his famous
' Epistle on Sufism' (Risdla ft 'ilm al-tasawiouf),
recalling to his fellow-mystics how in past times
great Sufis spoke and behaved as good Muslims
and set an example of piety whichtheir unworthy
successors had almost forgotten. That tliese pro-
tests \\ere not made in vain was due above all to
Ghazall.2 He fused the traditional and mystical
elements into one mass. His work was lastino-
because it took shape not so much from the force
of his mind as under the pressure of a .searching
spiritual experience : he had worked out and
solved the problem in himself before he gave the
result in his books. Fifty years after the appear-
ance of Qushairi's Risdla Ghazali resigned the
professorship of theology and canon law which he
held in the Nizamiya college at Baghdad and went
into retirement as a Sufi. He has told us in pages
as fascinating as Newman's Apologia how his
studies and meditations at last made his conversion
inevitable, through what struggles he shed off
philosophy, scholasticism, and legalism, and gained
the certainty that the central truth of religion lies
in the inner life of the soul.'' By frankly accept-
ing the main Sufi position Ghazali gave a new
meaning to Islam and an assured place within its
fold to many earnestly religious men and women
whom the formalists would have driven out if they
could. Henceforth Islam is in large measure a
mystical_ faith. But Ghazali always remained a
Muslim in two essential points : (1) his reverence
for the religious law, (2) his view of the nature of
God. He sliut the door against pantheism by
insisting on the dogma that the Divine Ijeing is
personal, unique, distinct from all other beings.
In so far as the human soul has these attributes, it
is capable of knowing God ; but it can never be
identified with God. Our knowledge of Goa
depends on His will to make Himself known
through revelation to prophets and saints whom
He created. This left Allah spiritualized and
brought near to men's hearts, but still Allah, not
the All in One. It may be said that Ghazali
belongs to_ Islam rather than to Islamic mysticism,
and that, inasmuch as he is not a pantheist, he is
not a typical Sufi. This seems true. On the
other hand, while Sufis who are pantheists often
use language implying belief in a personal God,
such belief is by no means inconsistent with the
full theory of fana, or at least may be sincerely
combined with it.

4. God, man, and the universe. — Upon the founda-
tion of experimental mysticism the Sufis built
a theology and a philoso'phy of which' the forms
are as various in content and expression as the
materials are diverse in origin. It is a notable fact
that the oldest scheme of this kind— which has
recently been made accessible through the publica-
tion of the Kitdb al- Tawdsln of ^allaj ■* — was derived
from the Christian doctrine of two natures in God.
According to Hallaj (q.v.), the essence of God's essence is love.
Before the creation God loved Himself in absolute unity and
through love revealed Himself to Himself alone. Then, desiring
to behold that love-in-aloneness, that love without otherness

1 Hujwiri, Eashf al-Mahjiib, p. 8.

2 See art. Ethics and Morality (Muslim).

3 See al-Munqidh min a(}-(j.alal, tr. Barbier de Meynard, J A
VII. ix. 5ff. ; D. B. Macdonald, Development of Aftu<!im
Theology, Jurisprndence and Constitutiotial Theory, London.
1903, p. 21.^ f.

•* See Literature.

SUFIS

16

4

and duality, as an external object, He brougbt forth from non-
existence an iniaf>'e of Himself, endowed with all His attributes
and names. Tlii8divii\e image is Adam, in and by whom God is
made manifest. Hallaj, however, maintains a certain distinction
between the divine and human natures. Even in their mystical
union some personality survives : divinity (Idhut) is infused in —
not confused with— hiimanitv (iiri.^iit), as wine in water; hence
the 'deified' man cries, 'Ana 'l-TIaqq,' '/ am God.'i The
markedly Chri'itian flavour of the I'lallajian doctrine, to2:ether
with its author's use of the heretical term liuliil (' infusion ' or
'incarnation'), condemned it in Muslim eyes, and later Sufis
take care to give it a monistic interpretation ; Ibn al-'Arabi,
e.g., reduces the Idhilt and vdsat to correlative and interchange-
able aspects of the one reality. Yet the magnitude of the debt
which SQfism owes to Hallaj can hardly be overestimated. His
doctrine, though formally rejected, introduced and established
in Islam the revolutionary idea that there is a principle of
diflference in the Absolute itself.

An important school of Rafis, whose watchword
is ' the unity of being ' {walidnt al-wujtid or ittihdd),
liold that reality is one, that all apparent multi-
plicity is a mode of unity, and that the phenomenjil
is the outward manifestation of the real. Their
views may be illustrated by giving some account
of a work entitled The Men perfect in Knowledge of
the Last and First Things by 'Abd al-KarIm al-Jili,
a mystic of the 15fch century A.D.^

The essence of God is unknowable per se ; we
must seek knowledge of it through its names and
attributes. It is a substance with two accidents,
eternity and everlastingness ; with two qualities,
creativeness and creatureliness ; with tAvo descrip-
tions, uncreatedness and origination in time ; with
two names. Lord and slave {i.e. God and rnan) ;
with two aspects, the outward or visible, which is
the present'^ world, and the inward or invisible,
which is the world to come. Pure being, as such,
has neither name nor attribute ; only when it
gradually descends from its absoluteness and enters
the realm of manifestation do names and attributes
appear imprinted on it. The sum of these attributes
is the phenomenal universe, which is phenomenal
in the sense that it shows reality under the form
of externality. Although the distinction of essence
and attribute must be admitted if we are to think
of the universe at all, the two are ultimately one,
like water and ice. The so-called phenomenal
world — the world of attributes— is no illusion ; it
really exists as the self-revelation or other self of
the Absolute. It expresses God's idea of Himself ;
for, as Ibn al-'Arabi says,

' We oursehes are the attributes by which we describe God :
our existence is merely an objectification of Kis existence. God
is necessary to us in order that we may exist, while we are
necessary to Him, in order that He may be manifested to Him-
self.'

The simple essence, apart from all qualities and
relations, Jili calls ' the darkness ' [al-amci). It
develops consciousness by passing through three
stages which modify its purity and simplicity. The
first stage is oneness (ahadiyat), the second is
' He-ness' (huwlijat), the third is 'I-ness' (anlyat).
By this process of descent absolute being becomes
the subject and object of all thought and reveals
itself as divinity with distinctive attributes em-
bracing the whole series of existence. While every
appearance displays some attribute of reality, man
is the microcosm in which all these attributes are
united, and in him alone does the Absolute become
conscious of itself in all its diverse aspects. This
can only mean that the Absolute, having completely
realized itself in human nature, returns into itself
through the medium of human nature, or, in mj'^ti-
cal language, that God and man become one in the
perfect man — the divinely rapt propiiet or saint —
whose religious function as a mediator between
man and God corresponds with his metaphysical

1 Kitab al-Tau'dsin, ed. Massignon, p. liOf.

2 See .Shaikh Muhammad Iqbai, The Development of Meta-
physics in Persia, p. TbOff. ; Nicholson, "The Siifi Doctrine of
the Perfect Man,' in The Quest, viii. [1017] .54') ff. A more ade-
quate account of .lili's work will be found in the present writer's
Stiidies in Islamic Mysticism, (in the j)ress).

function as the unifying principle by which the
opposed terms of reality and appearance are
harmonized. Therefore the upward movement of
the Absolute, from the sphere of manifestation
back to the unmanifested essence, takes place in
and through the unitive experience of the soul ;
•and so we have exchanged metaphysics for mysti-
cism. Jill recognizes three phases of this experience
running parallel, as it were, to the three stages —
oneness, He-ness, and I-ness — traversed by the
Absolute in its descent to consciousness, viz. the
illumination of the names, the illumination of the
attributes, and the illumination of the essence.
The perfect man is the final cause of creation, the
preserver of the universe, the qutb ('axis') on
which all the spheres of existence revolve. He is
a copy made in the image of God — a tj'pe of the
essence with its two correlated attributes, divinity
and humanity. Hence his real nature is threefold,
as Jili expressly declares in the following verses :
' If you say that it (the essence) is One, you are right ; or if you
say that it is Two, it is in fact Two ;
Or if you say, " No, it is Three," you are right, for that is the
real nature of man.' i

Coming from a Muslim, who identifies the ab-
solutely perfect man with the prophet Muhammad,
this Trinitarian doctrine is very remark.ible ; but
we must remember that the Sufis generally regard
Muhammad as the Logos, the Light of God which
existed before the creation of the world, and for
the sake of which all things were made.^ The
Logos is manifested in every age by the prophets
and saints, who alone are actually perfect, though
all men are potentially so.

Other Sufis enumerate 'five different planes of
existence "(/ia?a?'a^-i khanisa), which loses in true
Being as it descends,'* and many adopt the Neo-
Platonic scheme of emanation.'*

The theory that all existence, thought, and
action are really divine leads to consequences from
which the Siifis do not shrink. In the first place,
the universe must be essentially good. Even
infidelity and sin are effects of the divine activity
and belong to the divine perfection. Satan himself
glorifies God, inasmuch as his disobedience is
subordinate to the eternal will. Yet some at-
tributes, i.e. some aspects in which God shows
Himself, such as majesty and wrath, are relatively
less perfect than others, such as beauty and mercy.
What men call evil is privation, not-being. In
relation to the One, who has no opposite, it is
nothing ; it appears only in the phenomenal world,
where things are manifested ^er- contraria. Simi-
larly, all religious beliefs must be essentially true.
God, as Ibn al-'Arabi says, is not limited by any
one creed.

To summarize Jili once more : the diflferent forms of worship
result from the variety of names and attributes by which God
reveals Himself in creation. Every name and attribute in-oduces
its own characteristic effect; e.g., God is the true Guide (al-
Udiil) ; but He is also the Misleader (al-Mu(JMl), for the Qur'an
says : ' Allah shall lead the wicked into error.' If any one of
His names had remained ineffectual and unrealized. His self-
manifestation would not have been complete. Therefore He
sent His prophets, in order that those who followed them might
wor.ship Him as the One who guides mankind to salvation, and
that those who disobeyed them might worship Him as the One
who leads mankind to perdition. He is the truth or essence
of every belief. Idolaters worship the being who peraieates
each atom of the material world ; dualists adore the Creator
and creature in one ; magians (fire- worshippers) the unity in
which all names and attributes pass away, just as fire destroys
all natural properties and transmutes them to its own nature ;
those who deny the existence of a Creator really worshii>
Him in respect of His He-ness, in which He is potentially
but not actually creative. It follows that all men are saved at
the last. But Jili, as a Muslim, is obliged to make distinctions.

1 Al-insdn al-kamil, Cairo, a.h. 1300, p. 10, 1. 21 f.

'-Tor Andrae, Die person Muhammads, Stockholm, 1918,
p. 333f!. „ . ^^,

3 See E. J. W. Gibb, Hist, of Ottoman Poetry, i. 54 f.

4Cf. Nicholson, Selected Poems from the Divant Shamxi
Taftm, Cambridge, 1S08, p. xxxiif.

inaZj Siie idea of God ia Resented
-■:■:■-/ TierietiM Chat fatat w— ifr be.
•-•■:" '.tii 'lontain Che tt^eatwetmne

isy is liiiaiwfaMjy lUiTTil, Md£er
-.He w&i» aiduHtwltedlgeaofiaffaeC,
-' ^-^oh^-n ssr titenadraa ; and.

16

Relitr

oe -■

Ml.

.i.- -r.i,j,.-, Approach to hw owa
-. of lauim. Chnamana (he aaya) recognize
■■- jidea of tame belief concerniBg God, via.
'-new He ia abowe all Ijieneaa, while from
, V He rev^eala H^Bd* mtSeftuma of Hia
- lite lies in fc&e g— aiu*""- to wiiich tiiey

- - '- lod beeatHesBOHfeaC m. tfaia

r breathed ai^ SfmSt intia

i_ ji'rniffiwt evecT' hafWHt bs-

-.^ - io behold God in maa » the

-,£as Tiaioii Christians poaaeaa, and

1 hridse timt; will lead chem an laat

-d are' like mirrors set face Co face,

1 la in all ; and ao they will behold

. . _ . ..:-- Him to be ahsoliifcely One.

> Swfi po^sv. — A™^>"g tiie pEsustiees devised by
tlie Sh£m fior 1^ purpose, of st^liiralating religions
eoMttioB tBiisB BH'Oiie more potent than that_ which
Shey —"> •aadrtion' {srinul'), i.i. liatening to
Hmae jumI aoog,^ C'otmtleaa atories are told of
Siffewi© WHetfcrowu iato ecstasy on hearing a few
fines erf TBfse efeanted inadTertently by a singing-
girl or with intention by one of themselves. Such
▼«3ea were naaally erotic, but not myatical ; the
ical aenae waa not given by the poet but waa

^ by the hearer. In Safi poetry, of conrae,

itBSOtlierwiae; here the poet's meaning La myatical,
henrerex aMsanooa may be the form in which it
lamia. Ami often the two kinds are so like each
«»feher anperficially that, tmless we have aome cine
to the intention of the writer, we cannot easily
lieeMe whether we are reading an ode of human
tore or a hjonn addressed to the Deity.' K it
lie a<iked why the Safia make aach large oae
of erotic and bacchanalian sjv^be^smL, the answer
is that they could find no analogy more aug-
gestive and better adapted to ahadow forth the
states of enthusiasm and ecstasy which their poets
describe.
*Wiiie, tornfa, and heaaty are epiphaaiea of Verity,

For it 18 that which ia revealed under aH forma soever.

Wine and tornh are t;he tranaporc and liarht of Che knower ;

Beiioid The Beauty, for it ia hidden from. none.

Wine, torch, and beaaty, all are present ;

JTegfect not to embrace that Beauty.

Quaff the wine of dyinjf So self, and for a season

Peradvcnture you will be (reed from Che dominion of self.

Dnnk wine, for ita cup ia Che face of the Friend ;

Xhe flagon is TTia eye drunken and flown with wine.' 3

Thia poetry ia the chief glory of Peraian litera-
ture. It may be studied in the quatrains
attribute*! to Abu Sa'ai b. Abil-Khair,* in the
poems of FarMuMdin 'Attar,* Jalal al-din Rami
iq.v.), and Jami,* or in the Gulsh/ini Ra,z of
Mahmiid Shabiatart. Whinfield's edition of the
lart-aaoLed -work" is provided with explanatory
■otes and may be recommen/ied as the best intro-
dactBOQ. to the aubject. In Arabic thia y^Tire of
poctij takes a more conventional form, which La
Bcxft ao stttractive to Western readers, but the odea
of Ilba at-Farid^ are exceedingly fine, while those

I OL IX K. ttacdonald, ' Emotional Religion in lalam as affected
by Itiimc and Singing,' JB.A3, 130X, pp. 136 ff., 706 ft ; Hajwiiri,
K/ii/i./ itl'Xahjiih, p. .iSiilS.

2 See Sficholaon, Myatiat nf Titiasm., p. 102 ft

3 GvigiuMina, Rdz, itL and tr. E. H. Whinftridl, LwnJM^, laM^
p. TSfL

* Text and Germ. tr. by H. Eth^ in .S^KH^sSerjiatfe ier k.
hmner. Akitd. rUr Winmnsehaften, PhiIoR.-phiIoI. Claase, Ixxix.
pt 2 [UTa] p. lia f., Ixxxix. pC L [laTSI p. 36 f. ; cf. E. G. Browne,
Lit. But. of Per^/i, iL 2fllff.

■1 Lt piMiaie p/iUmmpkiqun nt ndi/jienstf, ihez ten Parmtnit,
ePa/prim i« X/imf.ia vMni-r, ofL U Lantjaga den wwjimx^, ed. and tr.
fiarcin de Taiwy, Paria, L'Ji4.

« YiisfiLf ivnd ZuLnikiui, Cr. B. T. H. Griffith, London, 1882.

T London, 1.^60.

8 cr. Granj'iret de Lflarange, AtUifuilnrj'iA itrnJie, Paris, 1S28, p.
Kff, ; JTichoiaon, Lit, SiO. nf the. AraliB, p. 303 II.

SUFIS

of Ibn al-'Arabi,^ in spite of their recondite style,
contain some passages of great beauty. Of the
Turkish Sufi poets the moat interesting is Nesimi,'
a fervent admirer of ^allaj and a member of the
sect known as ^urufis, who derive their title from
the mystic significations which they attach to the
lettaa of the alphabet and to combinations of these.'

The Sufi poet is not directly concerned with
metaphyaica.

He ' leta hia heart be wholly filled by the aablime conceptions
of all-embracing Unity and all-cooq^ieniig Love wfaieh form the
real baaia whereon all the rest ia hwat.^_. . He »ee» hum the
Truth ia the one source of all exiateaeev <IWlHiwt tfiiiMW.lMMt tte
naivtiraK tfarougfa emanation after emanation ; how the Priajal
latieBigemee, itaelf rayed out from the One, ray a out in tnm the
^f^iaiaMSaoS. ; how the Divine Jfamea caat their light upon the
darkness of noC-beina, each atom of which mirror-like refle<;tfl
one. He sees how 'the Awful Attributes of the Truth are
reflected in the exiatence of hell and the devils, and how the
Beautiful Actributea are refle-;ced is tfaas oC PSiZSKtHe and ttae
ans'tLq. He further sees how Man lefcttoaB tfee Att»ar«tM,
Awfnl and Beautiful alike, and ia t&as tfae Bfierocflsm, aooHMK
up the universe in himaelf. He tfana sees how it is the Truth
alone that ia acting through all things, and moreover how chis
action ia a never-cea-sing, never-pausing process, every existent
atom being each inatant cloched with a fresh pttenoinenal efflux
radiated from the Source of Existence, and hemg again stripped
of it, ao that the whole contingent univMae is momentarily
hesog- anidhilated and re-created, though the aaccesaive acta
of dotiaefeMO and renewal follow one another in such awift
soceeaaoni t&at they are wholly imperceptible, and aU appears
as one uninterrupted line, even as an onbroken circle of fire ia
aeen if a single spark shall be whirled quickly rounrL But Che
poet may not rest content with the mere perception of these
high myateriea ; indeed Chat very Love which haa revealed them
Co him impels him to seek reunion with the Truth.' ■•

Grod, as the poets conceive Him, ia the eternal.
Beauty which by the necessity of ita nature deairesf
to be loved, manifests itself for the sake of love/
and ia the real object of all love. Even earthly
love ia a type of spiritual, a bridge leading to
reality.' The aoul, being divine in ita esiienee,
longa for union with that from which it is separated
by the Ulu^iun of individuality, and this longing
aspiration, which urges it to pass away from aelr-
hood. and to rise on the wings of ecstasy, is the
only means whereby it can return to ita original j
home. Love transmutes into pure gold the base""
pheoioiBaial alloy of which every creature partakes.
Wlole reason ia dualiatie, love unifies by transcend-
ing tlwNi^t.

^Be eonea^ a moon whose like the sky ne'er saw, awake or
^eamisf.

Crowned wr ..e no flood can lay.

Lo, from Cfci- ove, O Lord, my soul is swimming,

Xai ruined ^ , ■ .. -. .-.ouae of clay :

When first the Giver of the grape my lonely heart befriended,
Wine flred my bosom and my veina filled up,
But when his image all mine eye possesserl, a voice descended :
" Well done, O sovereign Wine and peerless Cup 1 "

Love's mighty arm from roof Co ba** each dark abode is bewisff

Where chinks reluctant catch a ?oiden ray.

My heart, when Love's sea of a sudden hurst into itn viewing;

Leaped headlong in, with " Find me now who may 1 " ' 9

The following paasagea further illnatrate the
manner in which thia principle ia applied by Safi
poets.

Love ia the final cause of erection :

' In solitude, where Being a^fnteas dmdl^
And all Che universe stiu domaat lay
Concealed in selflessness. One Being wa«.
Exempt from " I "- or " Thou "-ness, and apart
Prom all duality ; Beauty Supreme,
Unmanifeat except unto Itself
By Its own light, yet fraoght with power Co charm
The souls of ail . . .

But Beauty cannot brook
Conc.ealment and She v<>il, nor patient rest
Unseen and unadmired : 'twill hurst all bonds
And from ita prison-casement to the world
Reveal Itaelf . . .

1 Ttrjumdn. al-Aith.vi'iq, ed. and tr. Nicholson, I>indon, I91I.

2 Gibh, i. nf. ff.

» See E. O. Browne, in JRASi, Vm, p. «1 ff. ; C. Hoart and
Peylesouf Ri?a, Textea pergaiu rfjjti.if* A la. jwefce «fe« Urmrnnfi*,
London, 190ft.

* Oibb, i. 65 f. » See Oibh, i. 20 f., 63f.

« iXmami Skamai TahrU, p 342.

SIJFIS

1'

Wherever Beauty dwells.

Such is :'l5 nature ir.d lis herita*:e

From Ev-^rlisrin^ Beauty, which emerged

From realms of purlt}' to shine upoa

The worlds, and all the sools which dwell therein.

Each speck of matter did He constinite

A mirror, causing: each one to reflect

The beauty of His -s-isasre. From the rose

Hashed forth His beauty, acd the nightingale,

Beholdina: it, loved madjy. From that fire

The candle drew the lustie which beguiles

The m»->th to immo'.irion . . .

Beware '. say not, •• He is A : :~

And we His lovers. * Thou . ..iss.

And He the face oonfrontir-^ .-cs

Its imagre on the mirror. He il^ne

Is manifest, and Thou in truth art hid.

Pure love, like beauty, cominj- but from Him

Reveals itself in theel If steadfastly

Thoa caost regard, thou wilt at length perceire

He is the mirror also ; He alike

The Treasure and the Casket. " I ' and "Thou "

Have here no place, and are but phantasies

Vain and unKal." i

Love is the essence of all religions :
' Soul of mine, thou dawning Light : he not far, O be not far !
Love of mice, thou Vision bright : lie not far, O be not far !

See how well my Turban fitteCh, yet the Parsee Girdle binds

me ;
Cord and Wallet I bear light : be not far. O be not far !
True Parsee and true EIrahman, a Christian, >-et a Mussulman.
Thee I trust supreme by Right : be not far, 6 be not far !
In all Mosques, Pagodas, Churches, I do find one Shrine alone ;
Thy Face is there my sole delight : be not far, O be not far I ' -

The same principle enables the Suii poet to solve
the problems of evil and predestiiiation.

' The more a man loves, the deeper he penetrates the divine
purposes. Love is " the astrolabe of heavenlj mysteries," the
eye-salve which clears the spiritual eve and makes it clair-
voyant.' s

Through love we can discern that evil, so far as it
has any real existence — and in relation to God it
has none — is a good in disguise or, at the worst, a
necessary condition for the manifestation of good.*
.\s reg:\nls predestination, rvrfect love implies
identity of will and thus aWlishes the conllict
between freedom and ne^.-^ssity,

' The word " compulsion " makes me impatient for love's sake ;
Tfe he who loves not that is fettered by comp;:'s-.^n.
This is close communion with God, notcompulsio;;.
The shining of the sun, and not a dark cloud.' ^

The lyric ix>etry of Sufisni reaches its highest
Uiark in pantheistic hymns describing the states
of /<i"<» (neg-sition of individuality! and bt^
(affirmation 91 universal consciousne.-*s).

' Lo, for I to m^vself am unknown, now in God's name what

must I do ?
1 adore not the Cross nor the Crescent, I am not a Giaour nor

a Jew,
East nor West, land nor sea is my home, I have kin nor with

angel nor gnome,
I am wroiight not of fire nor of foam, I am shaped not of dust

nor of dew'.
I was bom not in China .^far, not in Satjsin an»l not in BiUchar ;
Not in India, where five ri\-ers are, nor 'Iraq nor Khorasan I

^rew.
Not "in this world uor that wwld I dwell, not in Paradise, neither

in Hell :
Not from Eiieu anvl Rirwin 1 fell, not from Adam my lineage

I drew.
In a place be\ owd uttertnosi Place, in a tract without shadow

of trace.
Soul and bo.V transcending I live in Uie soul of «v>" Lovevl One

anew ! ' 6

Though many of tlie^e ^kvius are exquisite in
form ana elaKnato in style, it is dithoult to regaui
theiu as prvnlucts of conscious literaiy art, and the
present writer is inclined to accept the stAtoment
that the cK.les of Jalal al-Din Kiimi, Ibn al-Farid,

1 J.\mi. Vui-nr" u ZuIaiSehd. tr. E. G. Br\.->wne, in art. ' ?iifiism "
in Rfti^'tn S!.itt^ns o,r" thf Worid. p. S^ f.

STr. after Kuok^rt'ln W. ll.istu' .:-. .'-. .-": .-■^ti'oi <i/" :j^»r»;y,
frma tk<f IHvxtn - s.

»Whinfield, ' - U Cv^iifts of

.WrtRinrta Jau-.:.. , LoiKlou, liSii,

lntro«1. p, *S.

* Nicholsini, .Vystu'S lif Igiam, p. 96 1.

' Whinfield, .VitcvMi-t-i JVa'M<ir«, jv 2tx.

* IHnitii SAamsi r«,Vir, p. $44.

VOL, XU. — 2

Ibn al-'Arabi, and other Sufi poets were oh^n
composed under the influence of ecstasy and are in
fact analogous to what is known as "automatic
writing,'^ Their rhythm and melody, combined
with the symbolic form in which they are clothed,
give them a strange power of communicating to
the reader the same feeling of rapture by which
their comooser was inspir^ ; and the eiTect is
greatly ennanced when they are chanted with an
accomj^animent of music, as is customary among
Sufis engaged in dhiX-r. While students of this
poetry cannot ignore the conventional rules of
interpretation which assign a fixed allegorical
meaning to a large number of wonis that are
commonly used in a different sense, such a method
may easily be pushed too far. Ibn al-'Arabis
commentary on the TarJuiiujH aJ-Ashinlq sho\*-s
that even the author of a mystical ode is sometimes
unable to explain its meaning. The ecstatic
element appears only at intervals and seldom with
it^ first intensity in narrative romances, which depict
the soul's love of Clod and its ultimate union with
Him as the storv of two human lovers — f.g.. Ytlsuf
and Zulaikha, Laila and Majnun. Salainan and
Absal — and didactic poems, of which the AfusHari
is the most <.vlebr?>te<i.

v'ementar.- r». and should he
ASCBt!cissi tMuslim). In the
-« premature to aim at giving
;ect, since adequate material

- iEformation concemii^ the
'"Abd

a h:s:cr:ci: ^ -

are not yet .

doctrines of . - - U be found ;-. :r:

il.-\Jit>ui AL-Ji:_i>!. Ail- »-;-X ■ •i.t Hu: vj, ' -

jiL-ris KiMi, MrHTi .u.-i'ts iss AL-'AstASi, - ~ .md

ScHBAWAKi'L See also artt. BussssrsBss -iiiX

CV»uii-xios> WITH PsiTT vMuslim\ PssxTSH, and L^. v i \: --.•^inv».

danl

(1) G*ntnU.—F. A. G. Tholtick, 5.*«.i.«»»t« « jy rAA>A<fAM
PfTsarmm pmntktistKa, Berlin, IS^ei ; E, H. Palmer, t>-i>nf«i
JTjr^iticwM, (^mbrid^, ls«;7 ; E. G. Browne, art. ' Sifi-sm." in
Reiicnous Sustains \\f tJie M'orid. Londc>n, l^; :. \ . .:".4 ff. ;
I. Goldxiher, I'cKiWu/kvji aSfr dfn l^-arn^ ':' '.JIO,
r;p. 13^:^X1; D. B. Macdonald. Tkr ^.'^k; :»d
Li'f in lsi<im, Chi>.-asv\ lA^ ; R. A. Nichoiso - .•.-■ i{f"
/,<>'dn». London. 1914; H^iwiri, £a^ ml-M<3^^ tr. K. A.
Xicholson. do. 1911,

(2) t>n,;if» ami enriji dftteioifmtiU. — A. too Kremer, OsadL
dfr Kfrr:fe.\ftui<-n 7.:>t*B J^s Isiams, Ldpsi^, 1S4«. p. 52 ff.;
E. G, Browne, Z.t.Vnjr|f Hist, <^ /Vrsi*, London, 1902-OS, i.
e96S., 416 ff. : A. Merx, IdM «mU tfrwMUwiVit finer «2^
tH^iitfti l^A-A, <i<fr Jlfiiik, Heidelberv:. 1^JS^ p. 25 ff. ;
L Goldciher, 'Ma:erialien vox Entwk-kehingsgesich. ife«
SCfismus.' ri#?ww OrifiittMl Jtmntal, vol. xiii. [IS*] no. 1.
p. S? ff. : R. A. Nicholson, ' .\n Historical Enquiry cooceniinjf
the Origin and IVvelovmenl of Sufiism," JiU^, 19i>i, p, SliS ff.";
D, S. Marg-olioath, Tk* Sarif 'Dtveitupmeni i^f McJ^timmM-jn-
isM (HL\ London, 191S, p^ 167 ff. ; ShAilch Mohammad Iqbil.
r** I>epeicvm<rnt ((f MttiiAyties i» Ptrsia, do. IStti, p. 96 ff. ;
H. Frank, Bfittt^ snr Brittt»t*iss dfs SujismHt nacA 7ft«
KkiilduH, Leipiig, 1^S4 : L. Massignon, Kitti^ oi-frntPosiH,
l^aris, 19:S ; D, S, Mar^oliouth, ■ Xotice of the WriciiJ^s ol
al-^I.irith al-Muljasibi. the first Siifi Author,' in TV«iu. ^ ***
r*mi Jnt-friust. tVu.rri'ss f"cr tkf Hist, i^f RtiigiMU, Oxford,
liVS, i. 292 ff. : R. Hartmann. A}.< ^^^^r-trwm mkA «^|kiuc*«m,
Hamburg. 1914 ; .l.'-A:r;.-!!.-.^ai>^'»- r^Vst*a»t*j^ i(«» ^i^/thMW,
Berlin, 1914 : I. Goldriher, ' Xe-uplatojiische und gTK>stische
Elemente im y.vlith." ZA xxii. ri9i^] SIT ff., A Bikidkismut
kattxsa at Isziamnt, Budai>?st, lAiS. tr. T. Puka, in.^iiJl.:*. !*>*,
p, 125 ff. ; E. H. Whinfield, " Hellenism and Muhammadanism.'
v^K-l.^, 1905. p. ,=.2:ff. ; R. A. Nicholson. 'The Goal o*
Muhammadaii Mj'Sticisu:,' .7/i.l^, 191S, p. 5off.

iS) Av-'ni/ij*. — Mc<st of the importank Kuropean Kx»ks and
papers on Sufism have alreadv been menticuie\l in the present
art. or in the \-arious artt. enumerated above. These titles are
not repeated in the list which follows. M. Schreiaer. ' Beitrage
lur Gesch. der theolcvi*."hen Bewegungen im IsL^n." ICMG
lii. [li*^] 51Sff. ; E- Eiochet. 'EuKles sur I'esoterisuie musul-

I man." J A, 9th ser.. vlx. [lA-i] 4iSff. and xx. [1*^1 *9ff.
^concerning the different grades of Siitis, tbe i/tif^, and the
infer:v^r *;•.::!:«■>; I. Goldnher, MttiuaiMmtfiimisciif Stttdifti,

j V . "- pt. ii. pp, 2rT-SrS ^»rorship of Mus'.i!u :»intsl;

! >•- . r Sufismus und seine drei Hauptvertreter," in

, .'. . "U' 5rt*.?i>j», Leiixijg. li^ro. p. 95ff. : W. H. T.

I Gairduer. ' .\l-GhiVi3lirs Mishkat al-AnwOr anvi the Ghasah-
lYoWem,' in l\fr Iniaui, t, [1914] 121 ff., " Tic »j» " >i'" «
.V.A.i!.'*J-»<\i.>rt -VjrsfK-. LeivMJg. 1912; E. H. Whinfield,

I /.aK>i'K\ of Jimi. Persian text with Eng. tr,. Lotidon, 19IJ8;

; F. A, G. Tholuck. K.'iatAe'njiauuNJMH^ ntUji d^r utitrffnUini
iscJuH M$<stik, Bertin, 1S2.\

Rkyxold a. Xioholsox.

I Of. the testiiuoMT of Madame Guyon atnl Blake, cited in
1, rnderhiU, .Vy^ficAawA, Loitvlon, 1913, p. TSff.

18

SUGGESTION

SUGGESTION.— Supsestion is the production
of a reaction by an ideational process, but witliout
deliberation on the part of the subject thereof.
The term applies also to any attempt by the
subject or by another person to produce such a
reaction. 'A' sngRestion is any idea that de-
termines, or is used for the purpose of determining,
the outcome of such a non-deliberative process.

The qualification ' by an ideational process ' is
intended to differentiate suggestion from primary
instinct-acts. Such acts, though they may be
secondarily initiated by an idea or mental image
(as when a letter makes me angry with the writer
of it), require as their primary stimulus nothing
but an appropriate sense-presentation. Svigges-
tion, on the other hand, is primarily ideational.
The most typical suggestions are those that are
conveyed by language. Gesture, in the broad
sense 'of significant bodily motions, postures, and
inarticulate vocalization, comes next. Natural
pheaiomena act suggestively only when they have
antecedently acquiied a meaning, as when one
avoids poison ivy, or quickens one's pace upon
hearing distant thunder.

The term ' reaction,' as here used, refers to both
psychical and bodily responses. It includes beliefs,
hallucinatory perceptions, attitudes (with their
affective and emotional aspects), stimulation of
involuntary muscles and of certain glands, par-
ticular contractions of voluntary muscles and
muscle-systems, even extended chains of such
contractions, and finally, in all these fields, in-
hibitions and functional paralyses as well as
stimulations.

A reaction is ' deliberate ' when it is made after
attention has been given to alternatives, and with
the alternatives in view. Associated with the
idea that defines any alternative is a tendency
towards something beyond itself as merely this
idea now present." Because of these associated
tendencies ideas may be said to compete with one
another and therefore to involve inhibitions as
well as positive stimulations. In deliberation
there is mutual inhibition of two or more com-
peting ideas, wherefore popular thought coiTectly
conceives tliat pause or postponement is a mark
of deliberate conduct and of deliberate believing.
Suggestion, on the other hand, implies the ab-
sence, or relative lack, of such competition, inhibi-
tion, and j)ause. All that is necessary is that
attention should be withheld from some of the
ideas ;i.pin-opriate to the given situation, and
f(jcused or ' narrowed down ' to some one idea or
coherent chain of ideas. Thereupon the associated
tendency that has just been referred to is auto-
matically instated.

How such associated tendencies should be con-
ceived has been a matter of debate. W. .McDougall,
emphasizing the subconscious character of the
connexions here involved, and also the close re-
lation of suggestion in general to ' psychic phen-
omena,' is of the opinion that any adequate analysis
of suggestion must rest at last upon a theory of
the subconscious.! William .James used the phrase
'ideo-motor action' to designate what he regarded
as a mental law, namely :

' Every representation of a movement awakens in some degree
the actual movement which is its object ; and awakens it in a
:naximum dejjfree whenever it is not kept from so doing by an
antAg-onistic representation present simultaneously to the mind.' -
On the other hand, E. L. Thorndike opposes to
the 'ideo-motor' theory, and by implication to
McDougall also, the following far simpler theory :
an idea' may produce a nio\ement in either of two
ways— by imaging an object that awakens an
instinctive response, or, under the ordinary law
of habit, by reinstating something that has pre-

1 See art. Hypkotism.

2 Principles of Psychology, ii. 526.

viously been associated in the subject's experience
with the suggestive idea. The reason why the
idea of bending my first finger produces actual
bemling, according to Thorndike, is that the two —
the idea of the bending and the actual bending—
have been experienced together heretofore. The
very first flexions of the linger, it may be adiied,
occurred refiexly, without any antecedent idea
thereof. Just so, if the sight of a glass of water
upon my dinner-table induces me to drink water
that I do not want, habit is clearly the explanation.^
This theory enables us to bring all the psychical
and physical manifestations of suggestion under
the sanle two heads, habit and instinct.

Both are found in Antony's handling of the Roman rabble.
The opinion of the artisans concerning Cassar's death was
quicklv reversed, not bv the weighing of pros and cons, but by
brin"in<^ attention back again and again to essentially the same
point le by narrowing attention so that the old attitude of
admiration for Cassar the conqueror was reinstated. In ad-
dition, Antony arouses various instincts, as when he works upon
curiosity until the crowd demands to hear the will that he pre-
tends to withhold.

It is evident that suggestion is not an excep-
tional, rare, or abnormal phenomenon, but an
omnipresent fact of all mind whenever its reactions
are upon the ideational level. In hypno.sis com-
peting ideas may be inhibited to an extraordinary
degree, but there is no hxed line of division be-
tween the incipient stages of hypnosis gradually
brought on and fully normal mental action. Simi-
larly the ordinary effects of cheerful or of gloomy
expectation are merely heightened in the extreme
and truly remarkable facts of suggestive thera-
peutics."

The process of suggestion has, as such, no
particular relation to the truth or the falsity of
what is suggested. One may arrive by suggestion
at true beliefs or false, and at ethically correct or
incorrect attitudes and conduct. Suggestion is an
ordinary device of oratory and of preaching, as it
is also of advertising and "of salesmanship. Kecent
works on ' business psychology ' present what may
fairly be called a technic that is parallel to that of
physicians who employ psycho-therapy. Thus far
the ethical aspects of influencing buyers by sugges-
tion have not been examined as carefully as the
technic.

If any one should douut whether the deliberate
influencing of men to act without deliberation is
ever iustitiable, the following three considerations
would have a bearing. (1) There are numerou.s
cases in which the ends of deliberation are defeated
bv the process of deliberation itself, as when too
meticulous weighing of possible consequences or
an overwrought insistence upon complete certainty
prevents the action that a situation calls for. One
way to get such a person over his 'dead centre is
precisely to narrow his attention to one of tlie
alternatives until action ensues. (2) N\ hen an
instinctive capacity for noble emotions and atti-
tudes has become dull from disuse, one simply
lacks considerations that are needed for dehbera-
tion. A psychological pre-conditiou of all delibera-
tion is appreciation of the pertinent alternatives.
What is to be done for a man, then, whose habits
preclude any feeling of the force of a pertinent
alternative? The obviously rational procedure is
by processes of suggestion to narrow his attention
upon some object that may awaken an instinctive
response of the desirable sort, and then to lead
liim to include this fresli experience among the
data of Ids deliberate thinking. (3) Whether we
will or not, a large factor in education, ]).articularly
in the development of standards and ideals in the
young, is suggestion emanating from adults, especi-
" 1 See Thorndike, ' Ideo-Motor Action,' rsyef>- R^v. xx. [1913]
^Vs°e^e artt. Diskask asi. Mkotcine, H^TNOTISM, FsYcno-

1 TIIBBAPKITICS.

SUGGESTION

19

ally parents and teachers. A purely rationalistic
education is a psycliolo<;ical impossibility. Hence
itis a custom of educators to take at least some
measures for determining the sorts of suggestion
to which pupils shall be exposed. M. W. Keatinge
argues for careful, deliberate planning of this part
of teach in g.i

On the other hand, suggestion is, on the whole,
a process of repetition or of maintaining some
status quo ante rather than a process of criticism
and revision. Under the influence of suggestion
alone one merely drifts with social currents, or
follows a leader, or imitates one's own past, or at
best ap])lies a recognized standard or sets free a
disused instinctive capacity. To judge a standard,
on the other liand, one must attend to alternatives.
It would be a mistake, nevertheless, to suppose
that truly ethical action requires nothing but
deliberation. Ethical situations are made real to
us, especially situations that call for reform, by
some kindling of elemental processes that include
strong satisfactions or their opposites. Thus it
comes to pass that great sermons commonly inter-
weave strong suggestions with analysis and even
argument.

To exhibit the whole significance of suggestion
in religion would require an historical catalogue
of practically all forms of deeply felt experience.
Primitive fears connected with tabu and with
spiritism were propagated from individual to
individual and from generation to generation by
suggestion. The same is true of the rejoicing that
accompanied some of the ceremonies, Priesthoods
acquired and retained their power by narrowing
the attention of worsliippers by means of sense
.stimuli of various sorts focused upon some point
tliat required no deliberation. The mystics of all
ages have practised auto-suggestion under the name
of contemplation or interior prayer. Modern re-
vivals have i)roduced a sense of sin, conversion
(reversal of attitudes and of likes and dislikes),
and 'assurance' or the 'witness of the Spirit'
chiefly by suggestion. Indeed, managers of re-
vival campaigns at the present day are accustomed
to organize preaching, singing, personal work, and
advertising of various kinds upon a strictly sug-
gestive ba.sis. Not the least item is the careful
preparation of the public mind, sometimes for
weeks in advance of the first public meeting.
Finally, such experiences as 'the jerks,' 'the
power,' 'speaking in tongues,' and 'interpretation
of tongues ' present as a whole cases of suggestion.
They are usually initiated by a spontaneous auto-
matism which is then imitated (by oneself and by
others) without deliberation, but often with support
from passages of Scripture. The idea of a baptism
'with fire' has similarly fulfilled itself here and
tliere.-

The phenomena of suggestion reach their climax
in human masses, whether crowds (which involve
spatial propinquity) or a public whose opinions
and attitudes are formed by common reading
matter or even by statements passing from mouth
to mouth. It is a fact of common observation that
in a crowd one may act ' like a different person,'
accepting as truth what one could not ordinarily
believe, and conducting oneself contrary to one s
ordinary standards. The mechanism whereby
crowd suggestion acquires this reiuarkable power
is as follows. (1) Certain instinctive capacities
are strongly stirred by the massing of appropriate
stimuli. Man has a gregarious instinct, is peculi-
arly interested in tlie movements of his fellows,
and is sensitive to their approvals and disapprovals.
Here is the basis for a quickening or excitement of

1 Sugfjestion in Education^.

2 See H. S. Dver, Revival in India, I.onrton, 1007, ch. iv. an<l
p. 76.

the mind througli tiie mere presence of others, as
also for watching and following others, and for
subordinating, even forgetting, one's own ideas in
the presence of a sentiment generally held by the
mass. (2) A crowd usually assembles under the
influence of some common thought. Even when
this is not the case, conversation tends to produce
a common thought. Moreover, under the stimulus
of the excitement already referred to, some indivi-
dual— either one Avith relatively few inhibitions or
one with strong convictions, or even a designing
deniaj;ogue — is likely to speak aloud. This often
precipitates the thinking of the entire mass. It
is now as if each one were suggesting to every
other one the idea that has come to expression.
Thus sentiment rolls up like a snowball. (3) This
narrowing of attention, as already indicated, in-
volves an equally strong inhibition upon ideas that
would ordinarily appear as competitors. There-
fore strong, impulsive action occurs spontaneously
and appears to the subject to be natural and justifi-
able. A crowd is incapable of fine discriminations
and of skill ; its acts tend towards the simplicity
and crudity of instinct ; and therefore, in this
case, a human as.soeiation easily acts less socially
(as far as ends and consequences are concerned)
than its members would do if they faced the same
moral issue severally.

All tliat has just been said applies also to
masses that are unified by means of the public
press. Our present means of communication are
so swift and so all-pervasive that men feel the
presence of one another almost the world over at
almost the same instant. Communities that are
a thousand miles apart get the same news, often
word for word, at about the same hour ; the effect
of the news in one community now becomes an
item of news in the other ; action as well as idea
thus spreads. This is the process whereby a whole
nation rises to succour sulferers from earthquake
or from fire, or to repel an invader. Thus, too,
political opinions as well as fashions of dress and
of speech spread with great rapidity.

A study of suggestion as a means of governing
men in the State as w'ell as in the Church will
show that one of the basal differences between
types of organization lies in the degree to which
suggestion, as compared with deliberation, is
officially used. At the tribal level of organization
common action is secured to a great extent by
suggestion of the crowd type, as in dances and
other cei'emonies, and in the jjersonal leadership
of the chief. In the monarchical State, as in
sacerdotal religion, men are ruled partly by direct
command (which is, under some conditions, a
potent mode of suggestion), and partly by page-
antry and other sensuous or sentimental appeal
that ever reawakens a traditional attitude of
loyalty. The underlying psychical principle of
democracy, on the other hand, is deliberate gi'oup
action. A deliberative group is one in which
unity is sought, not by withdrawing attention
from alternatives, but by mutual incitement to
pause and weigh alternatives before acting. This
type is most fully developed in bodies that have
formal rules of order. Here, as a preliminary to
each common act, the entire group pauses, the
chairman saying, ' Are there any remarks ? ' Tlicn,
as if challenging each individual to full, deliberate
self-expression, he asks, ' Are you ready for tlie
question?' This procwlure has been devised .so as
to prevent action under suggestion. Wliereas the
crowd becomes a unit by the suppression of indi-
vidual inhibitions, the deliberative group achieves
its unity precisely by inviting the expression of
competing ideas, and by spreading them out for
inspection and unforced selection. The ballot, in
popular government, is an organ for essentially

20

SUHRA^WARDI

the same type of deliberation on the scale of the
local community or of the nation.^

Literature. —A. Binet, La, SuggestililiU, Paris, 1900;
Warner Brown, 'Individual and Sex Differences in Sugs^esti-
bility,' University of California Publications in Psychology,
191C, ii., no. 6, pp. 291-430; G. A. Coe, The Psychology of
Religion, Chicago, 1916, chs. viii. and x. ; A. S. Edwards, ' An
Experimental Study of Sensory Suggestion,' AJPs xxvi. [1915]
99-129; H. L. HoUingworth, Advertising and Selling, New
York and London, 1917, ch. xii. ; W. James, The Principles of
Psychology, 2 vole.. New York and London, 1890 and later
editions, ii. 522-530, and ch. xxvii. ; M. W. Keatinge, Stujges-
tion in Education^, London, 1911; W. D. Scott, The Psy-
chology of Advertising, Boston, 1908, ch. vi., Injixiencing Men
in Business, New York, 1911, chs. v. and vi. ; E. L. Thorndike,
'Ideo-Motor Action," Psych. Rev. xx. [1913] 91-106; C. L.
Tiickey, Treatment by Hypnotism and Suggestion^, London,
1913 ; W. Wundt, Hypnotismus und Suggestion, Leipzig, 1892,
reprinted from Philosophische Studien, vol. viii. pt. i. The
Psychological Bulletin publishes annually an annotated list of
new publications on suggestion. See also the annual Psycho-
logical Index under division viil. 2.

George A. Coe.

SUHRAWARDi.— Suhraward, a small town
in the Jibal province of Persia, has given its
name to two celebrated mystics whose lives,
characters, and opinions present a remarkable
contrast, though both were born in the same
decade. Of Shihfib al-din 'Umar b. 'Abdallah
al-Suhrawardi (A.D. 1144-1234) it is enough to say
that he was a Sufi of the conventional type, that
he lectured and preached in Baghdad under court
patronage, and that his writings include a well-
known treatise on Sfifism — the AwCirif al-ma'drif
— and a polemical work directed against tlie study
of Greek philosophy, which he dedicated to the
khalifah al-Nasir.^ His contemporary, Shihab
al-din Yahya b. Amirak al-Suhrawardi (A.D.
1153-91), after studying jurisprudence and theology
at Maragha, devoted himself to mystical philo-
sophy, led the wandering life of a dervish, and
finally settled in Aleppo. While some of his
earlier books were written under the influence of
Aristotle, he was at heart a Platonist, as is shown
by the title and contents of his chief work, the
Hikmatu 'l-ishrdq ('Philosophy of Illumination') —
whence the school of mystics who follow him
are called Ishraqis (al-ishrdqlyun). Being an
enthusiast as well as a bold and original thinker,
he made no attempt to disguise the anti-Islamic
tendency of his doctrines. It cannot be denied
that from the orthodox standpoint they were
detestable ; and, though at first he found an
admirer in al-Malik al-Zahir, the son of Saladin,
he was condemned and executed by order of that
prince in 1191. The name of 'martyr' [shahld)
was refused to him ; he is generally known as
Suhrawardi al-maqtul ('Suhrawardi the slain')
or al-Shaikh al-maqtul.

In his theory of illumination he combines Neo-
Platonic and Persian ideas. Tlie source of all
things is the Absolute Light (al-nur al-qdhir).
That which is visible requires no definition, and
nothing is more visible than light, whose very
nature consists in manifestation.

' The Primal Light, therefore, has no reason of its existence
beyond itself. All that is other than this original principle is
dependent, contingent, possible. The "not-light" (darkness)
is not something distinct proceeding from an independent
source. It is an error of the representatives of the Magian
religion to suppose that Light and Darkness are two distinct
realities created by two distinct creative agencies. . . . The
relation between them is not that of contrariety, but of
existence and non-existence. The affirmation of Light neces-
sarily posits its own negation — Darkness, which it must
illuminate in order to be itself. This Primordial Light is the
source of all motion. But its motion is not change of place ;
it is due to the love of illumination which constitutes its very
essence. . . . The number of illuminations which proceed
from it is infinite. Illuminations of intenser brightness become
in their turn the sources of other illuminations ; and the scale
of brightness gradually descends to illuminations too faint to
beget other illuminations. All these illuminations are mediums,

1 Cf. G. A. Coe, Psychology of Religion, ch. viii.

2 Brockelmann, Gesch. der arab. Litterutur, i. 440; von
Kremer, Gesch. der herrschenden Ideen des Islaitis, p. 99.

or in the language of theology angels through whom the
infinite varieties of being receive life and sustenance from the
Primal Light.' i

We may distinguish two illuminations, i.e.
modes of being, of the Primal Light: (1) pure,
abstract, formless ; (2) accidental, derivative,
possessing form. The pure light is self-conscious
substance (spirit and soul), knowing itself through
itself, for 'whatever knows itself must be pure
light.' The accidental light is related to the pure
light as eflect to cause and only exists as an
attribute in association with the illuminated
object (body), which is not matter in Aristotle's
use of the term, but merely the negation necessarily
implied in the nature of light.

' The experimental fact of the transformation of the primary
elements2 into one another points to this fundamental Absolute
matter which, with its various degrees of grossness, constitutes
the various spheres of material being.' 3

It is of two kinds : (a) dark substance, (6) dark
forms, i.e. qualities ; and the combination of these
two makes up a material body. Since darkness
is nothing but the absence of light, and light is
identical with reality, the substance and forms
of the universe consist of illuminations diffused
from the Primal Light in infinite gradations of
intensity. It follows that everything partakes of
reality in proportion to the radiance which it
receives and towards which it ever moves 'with
a lover's passion, in order to drink more and more
of the original fountain of Light.' This perpetual
flow and ebb of desire produces the revolutions
of the heavenly spheres, the processes of nature,
and all human activities. The abstract light
(First Intelligence) is less perfect than the Primal
Light (God), in contemplating which it becomes
conscious of its imperfection, whence there arises
in it a darkness that is the ground of plurality
in the sensible world. While the entire universe
is eternal as emanating from the eternal Light,
but contingent if regarded as the object of irradia-
tion, some illuminations are simple, others com-
pound and therefore inferior. The intelligences,
the celestial spheres, the souls of the heavens,
time, motion, and the archetypes of the elements
belong to a higher world, which may be called
eternal in contrast with all below it, though in the
relation existing between them not posteriority
but parallelism is implied. Suhrawardi, like
Plato, conceives a world of Ideas— he declares
that it was revealed to him mystically— in which
every kind of sublunary thing exists as a substance
in itself.* The wise men of Persia (Zoroastriaiis),
he says, gave names to many of the.se pure lights
(Ideas) ; e.g., they named the Idea of water Khurdad
(May), that of trees Murdad (July), and that of
fire Ardibihisht (April).

As each species is endowed with its distinctive
qualities and preserved by its guardian Idea —
'the lord of the species' (rabbu 'l-nau') — so the
Idea of the human body is ' the holy spirit ' or
universal lieason, while bodies individually are
types of rational souls. The soul does not exist
before the body. Being pure light, it imparts
illumination to the body through tlie medium of
the animal soul. It operates with the five external
and the live internal senses, which correspond to
powers residing in the ideal archetype. Thus
vision, knowledge, memory, imagination, etc., are
essentially not pa.ssive functions but illuminative
acts of the soul. Obeying the principle that what
is lower in the scale of being loves what is higher,
the soul longs to be united with the formless

1 Shaikh Muhammad Iqbal, The Development of Metaphysics
in Persia, London, 1908, p. 127 f.

2 Suhrawardi recognizes only three elements, fire being
regarded as hot air.

a I(i))al, p. 133.

•» Carra de Vaux, ' La Philosophic illuminative d'aprts
Suhrawerdi Meqtoul,' J A, 9th ser., vol. xix. [1902] p. 72.

SUICIDE (Introductory)

21

world of light, and it advances towards tliis end
according as it seeks to become perfect in jiliilo-
sophy and the practice of virtue. By so doing it
develops a mystical perception (dhauq) which
clears all doubts away. Dha,nq, as Sulnawardi
tells us, forms the basis of the speculations set
forth in the Hikmatu 'l-ishrdq. In one passage
he seems to hint that he himself is the quib, the
mysterious head of the Sufi hierarchy,' for he
asserts that the philosopiiy of illumination was
taught by Empedocles, Pythagoras, Plato, and
the Zoroastrian sages, and that the world is never
without some one who possesses the doctrine and
can expound it with authority ; that person, he
adds, is God's vicegerent (khalifrtt Allah) on
the earth. '^ Attainment oi fanCt'^ unites the soul
Avith God, but does not mean that one substance
is absorbed in another. No two souls can be
completely alike.

'The individual souls, after death, are not unified into one
soul, but continue different from each ofiier in proportion to
the illumination they received during their companionship
with physical orj;anisms. . . . Some souls probably come
back to this world in order to make up their deficiencies. The
doctrine of transmigration cannot be proved or disproved
from a purely logical standpoint, though it is a probable
hypothesis to account for the future destiny of the soul. All
souls are thus constantly journeying towards their common
source, which calls back the whole universe when this journey

is over, and starts another cycle of being to reproduce in
almost all respects the history of the preceding cycles.' i

SuhrawardI agrees with Ghazali in holding that
the world could not be better than it is. Evil is
a negation depending on the motion and darkness
wiiich, as we have seen, are involved in the nature
of light ; it is associated with the ellects and does
not proceed per sc from the First Cause ; if it
existed per se, it would not be evil. In his clear
and sympathetic exposition of the Ishraqi philo-
sophy Shaikli Muhammad Iqbal calls attention to
Suhrawardi's intellectual independence and to the
skill with which he moulded his Neo-Platonic
materials into a thoroughly Persian system of
thought, uniting speculation and emotion in perfect
harmony. Mystic and (in a sense) pantheist as
he was, he regards the external world as real and
never loses touch with it.

'No Persian thinker is more alive to the necessity of explain-
ing all the aspects of objective existence in reference to his
fundamental principles.' 2

Literature. — Besides the references given in the art., M.
Horten, Die Philosophy der Erlexichtuncj nach Suhraivardi
(Ahhanrllnnrjen zur Philosophie und. ihrer Gesr.hichte, xxxviii.),
Halle, 1912 ; A. von Kremer, Gesch. der hcrrschenden Ideen
des Islains, Leipzig, 1868, p. 89ff. ; C. Brockelmann, Gesch.
der arab. Litteratur, Berlin, 1808-1902, i. 4.37.

Reynold A. Nicholson.

SUICIDE.

Introductory (H. J. Rose), p. 21.

Buddhist (L. dk la VALLiiK PoussiN), p. 24.

Chinese (P. J. Maclagan), p. 26.

Greek and Roman (A. W. Mair), p. 26.

Hindu (A. Berriedale Keith), p. 33.

SUICIDE (Introductory). — Before attempting
any discu.ssion of suicide from the standpoint of
etiiics or religion, we should note that in many
cases — probably the majority, among civilized
peoples — either no moral judgment can be passed
upon the act or at least great allowance must be
made for the mental condition of the agent.
Lunacy not infrequently involves such complete
loss of the instinct of self-preservation that the
patient, even where analgesia is not present, Avill
mutilate or kill himself, apparently without any
idea of what he is doing. Ho in dementia prcacox
'self-respect, modesty and the instinct of self-
preservation are quite absent ' ; and the result is
various absurd, criminal, or indecent acts, including
suicide for a trivial reason or none at all.* Again,
dementia paralytica, or chronic periencephalitis,
although like many forms of mental diseases it
generally produces intense and unreasoning attach-
ment to life,'' often involves accesses of wild, self-
directed fury, such as that in which Guy de
Maupassant tried to kill himself.® But the most
typical examjtles are those of melancholia. We
quote part of Tanzi's admirably lucid account :

' In some cases of melancholia .scenes of the most horrible and
sanguinary nature, which are reitresented to the patient's mind
as simple possibilities, and repeated as favourite images on
account of their hideousness, become transformed into a motor
obsession. The obsession, meeting with but slight resistance in
an exhausted and abulia brain (i.e. one almost if not quite
deprived of will-power), becomes so imperative as to drive the
patient inexorably to the commission of acts corresponding to
It, such as . . . suicide in its most horrible forms.''

The state in which these acts occur — the raptus
melanchoUcus — is quasi-unconscious. But suicide
often takes place in less advanced cases than this,
when the patient is not wholly irresponsible, but

1 See art. SPpTs. - Carra de Vaux, p. G8f.

•* Sff art. Hi'Fis.

■•Tanzi (A Text-book of Mental Diseases, yi. 640) gives a case
(p. 641) of a patient who believed that he was invulnerable and
killed himself in trying to prove it. An apparently unmotived
suicide is described on p. 662.

s Tanzi, p. 231. « lb. p. .519. ^ lb. p. f.l;J.

Japanese (T. Harada), p. 35.
Jewish (G. Margoliouth), p, 37.
Muhammadan (W. M. Patton), p. 38.
Semitic and Egyptian (G. A. Barton), p. 38.

is actuated by motives the importance of which
his disease greatly exaggerates. A preliminary
symptom of the raptus is precordial anxiety — a
sort of horrible intensification of that uneasy
' sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach ' which
often attacks a healthy man when frightened or
anxious.^ Now, as a normal subject may be
tempted, by the depression arising out of a real
misfortune, to take his own life, so a melancholiac
suffering from this intense and abnormal feeling of
anxious misery is not infrequently driven in a
quasi-normal way to commit suicide. Objectively
he has no sufficient motive, but subjectively his
hopeless depression, the morbid nature of which he
is unable to realize, presents itself as a good reason
for Avishing to be dead and fulfilling his wish.*
Still more typical are those suicides of melan-
choliacs which are inspired by altruistic motives,
the patient believing that his death will in some
way greatly benefit his friend H~e.fj., that he is
miserably poor and must relieve his family of the
burden of .supporting him,^ or that his life is
demanded in expiation of a fancied crime, or the
like. Such unfortunates are well aware of what
they are doing ; their tielusion consists simply in
believing that they have an adequate motive.
Often their action has a kind of perverted nobility,
arising from a devotion to an ideal which in itself
is lofty enough, although the ideal is imaginary
and the form which the devotion takes morbid. It
has been suggested that in these cases the disease
has exaggerated and distorted the instinct of self-
sacrifice,'' which is a normal constituent of the

1 Iqbal, p. 147 f. 2 76. p. 149.

3 This is merely a rough description of the nature of the two
sensations. Physiologically they are quite distinct, one being
precordial, the other epigastric.

4 Tanzi, p. 514 ; Mercier, i>anit;/ and Insanity'^, p. 3.50.

c Mercier, p. 351 ; this suicide was in reality very well off.

6 It might also be described as a distortion of the social sense,
or herd-instinct, which some would regard as primary' (like
self-preservation, etc.). See VV. Trotter, instincts of the Uerd-,
London, 1919, especially p. 18 IT.

^2

SUICIDE (Introductory)

sexual emotions, especially in -women. Hence
such suicides are particularly common amonf;
adolescents. As there is admittedly a close con-
nexion between sexual and religious emotions,
especially in their more exaggerated and niorlnd
forms, we may put some at least of the religious
suicides (see below) in this category.^

In most cases of this kind the patient's insanity
is easilj'' recognizable ; and even in those instances
where a melancholiac supposed to be cured re-
lapses and ends his life in a suicidal fit— or possibly
feigns recoveiy in order to carry out, when left
unguarded, his purpose of self-destruction— we need
have no hesitation in pronouncing him at least
partlj^ irresponsible." It is less easy to pass
judgment on the numerous class of neurasthenics.
A characteristic feature of the mental state of
these sufferers is that impulses, often of the most
absurd or criminal nature, haunt and obsess the
imagination ; and, while the patient knows
perfectly well that these imjmlses are not rational
— tlius difrering from the melancholiac — lie is nut
always strong-minded enough to control them.

The most vivid description l^nown to us of ttiis condition
occurs, not in a technical worli at aD, but in two of the stories
of one who seems himself to have l)oen a neurasthenic and
clearly regarded such im]>ulses as part of the normal human
mentality — Edgar Allan Poe.=^ This author represents two men,
one as betraying a fatal secret, the other as killing a pet
animal, for no other reason than that the acts are insanelj'
devoid of motive ; and the writings of alienists ^ give many
actual cases of the same kind. Clearly, then, when a neuras-
thenic's obsession is suicidal, if he yields to it, he cannot either
be regarded as an ordinary lunatic who does not know what he
is doing or imagines that he has good reasons for his act, or be
judged like a normal man who decides, on more or less rational
grounds, that he wishes to end his life.

It is still harder to pass satisfactory moral
judgments on the ratlier numerous persons,
apparently sane but perlia^is really neurasthenic,
whose suicides have a motive, but an inadequate
one — a small injury, real or supposed, to honour,
or even so trivial a cause as a wager.

Suicides of this kind sometimes amount to a sort of epidemic.
When one member of a family has ended his life, the recurrence
of the anniversary of his death, the sight of the weapon that lie
used, or some such casual association has been known to drive a
relative to follow his example, until as many as seven of one
household have died by their own hands.^ Larger epidemics,
extending through an entire city, or even wider, •> have not been
unknown in ancient or modern times, and are frequently
associated witli religious mania. These are probably hysterical,
as hysteria is easily communicated and often produces, especially
among women, ' theatrical attempts at suicide.' "^

To all these classes of more or less non-moral
acts of self-destruction should be added the very
large number of instances of persons who are sane
for tlie greater part of their lives, but, as a result
of violent nervous shock, disease, grief, excesses of
one sort or another, etc., become temporarily
unbalanced to a slight degree. The.se causes are
so many that it is questionable whether any one
whose life is of normal length is absolutely sane
during every waking moment of it.'^ We need not
doubt that the charitable verdict of the average
coroner'.s jury, ' suicide while of unsound mind,' is
in a large percentage of cases quite in accordance
with medical facts.

But our primary interest is in the act of one
who, being perfectly sane, takes his own life. The
question whether such a deed is justifiable, and, if
so, when and under what circumstances, has been
answered in the most various ways by jieoples of

1 See Mercier, pp. 354-357.

2 For other forms of mental disease resulting in suicide during
more or less compkte irresponsiljility seeTanzi, pp. 321 (alcohol-
ism), 603 f. (epilepsy).

s See ' The Imp of the Perverse ' and ' The Plack Cat ' in Talcs
of the Grotesque and Arabesque, especially tlie opening para-
graphs of the former.

* Several examples in Tanzi, p. 510 f.

5 Tanzi, p. Sil.

^ E.<j., at Milctos; see Plutarch, dc Miilierion Vh-tiit.iliiin,
J). 249 b, c (wholesale suicide by hanging of the young women
' from some obscure cause ') ; cf. Aulus Gellius, xv. x. 1 f.

7 Tanzi, p. 585. ** Mercier, p. 131.

dillerent degrees of culture, from the lowest
savages to members of the highest civilizations,
ancient and modern. Some account of these
answers has been given elsewhere.' We propose
now to consider the attitude taken by religions,
savage and civilized, and by the leading schools of
moral philosophy.

I. Religion. — Various faiths have taken every
conceivable view of suicide, from recommending it
to resolutely and uncompromisingly opposing it.
As the grounds for the former view are less obvious
to us, it is well to begin by briefly discussing them.
First in the list stand those fanatic beliefs, in-
cluding degraded forms of Christianity, whose
votaries haVe been impelled to kill tiiemselves,
often in most painful Avays, to attain a blissful
immortality or to avoid something which they
regarded as polluting.

Russia furnishes us with some remarkable examples. Thus at
Tiraspol, in 1897, twenty-eight persons buried themselves alive to
escape the census, which apparently they regarded as sinful.
i3ut a more wide-spread epidemic occurred in 1066, in which year
many Russian zealots looUtd for the appearance of Antichrist.
To escape him and enter heaven, suicide was strongly urged
by certain wrong-headed and often wholly criminal persons,
clerical and lay. ' Whole communities hailed with enthusiasm
the gospel of death, and hastened to put its precepts into
practice. ... At first the favourite mode of death was by
starvation. . . . (But) death by famine was attended by some
obvious disadvantages. It was slow : it opened the door to
repentance : it occasionally admitted of rescue. Accordingly
death bj' fire was preferred as surer and more expeditious. . . .
The mania in its most extreme form died away towards the end
of the seventeenth century, but during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries cases of collective suicide from religious
motives occurred from time to ti)ne.'2

Many of these people, and other such religious
suicides, were undoubtedly in a condition of
hysteria, if not actual paranoia. We have a parallel
to such self-destruction in the most horrible of the
rites of Kybele— that which took place on the dies
sanguinis, at least in its earlier form.^ On this
occasion the devotees of the goddess, wrought up
to a pitch of frenzy by an exciting and elaborate
ritual, not only wounded themselves, but performed
the act of self-emasculation, thereafter joining the
ranks of the Galli. Turning now to medical evi-
dence, we find^ such mutilation named along with
suicide and manslaughter as typical of some forms
of lunacy. We have thus two closely related acts,
both involving loss of the instinct of self-preserva-
tion, arising, not from ordinary mania, but from a
temporary insanity artificially produced and due
to a perverted or degraded religious instinct.

But religious suicides are not always maniacs.
We need only allude in passing to the inniimerable
cases, familiar from Frazer, of divine kings and
other incarnate deities who kill themselves or are
killed, either after a fixed period has elai)sed or
when their l.odily vigour begins to fail. Indeed,
these can hardly be called suicides in the strict
sense, since the killing is, in intent, merely the
first act of a process of reincarnation. That the
god should be destroyed is never thought of ; it is
simply desired to provide him with a new and more
desirable fleshly covering. Nor can one justly
class as maniacs those persons who hold that by
killing themselves they can attain future happi-
ness— an idea not uncommon in some forms of
Buddhism— or will return to life in this world
stronger or wiser than before.^ However erroneous
their belief may be from tlie point of vie\v of any
sound theological or metaphysical system, it is not
a delusion in the medical sense, but often the
perfectly logical result of their tenets. In the

1 See art. Euthanasia.

2 Frazer, GB-i, pt. iii.. The Dying God, London, 1011, p. 41 f.,
(pioting I. Stchoukine, Le Suicide collcclif dans le Kask^d russr,
Paris, 1903 ; cf. Tanzi, p. 731 f.

■i Yi^'idly described by Frazer, (?/>", pt. iv., Adonis, Altis,
Osiris, London, 1914, i. 223 If . ; cf. \\'issowa, liel. und Eultun
der Uorm'r'^, Munich, 1912, p. 321 ft'.

4 Tanzi, p. 513.

5 Examples of both in GB\ pt. iii.. The Dying God, p. 42 £f.

SUICIDE (Introductory)

lower strata of Iniiiian history we have numerous
exiiiuples of savages who regard suicide as perfectly
justifiable (a) because the deceased will in the next
world have a body in the same state as his present
one.' This naturally leads to the conclusion that
voluntary death is much preferable to mutilation
or long and wasting illness, since it will avoid a
maimed or helpless life after death. Such suicides
are practically examples of euthanasia ('7.1'.). Or
(6) suicide may, at least in some cases, lie reputed
as honourable and therefore as procuring a more
than usually pleasant lot in the next world, not
merely avoiding an unpleasant one. Obviously
such ideas are not wide-spread or unqualified, or
they would result in the extinction of the peoples
holding them. They mostly take this form : a
dependent — wife, vassal, or slave — is so closely
bound to his or her superior that death cannot
sever the tie ; therefore, just as in any earthly
journey the vassal will faithfully attend his lord,
so, when his lord dies, the most honourable course
is to follow and continue to serve him. Such
fidelity will, it may be expected, result in due
honour among the dead.

So at the death of a king of Benin ' his favourites and servants
used to compete with each other for the priviieice of bein;,'-
buried alive with his body in order that they might attend and
minister to him in the other world,' and ' the iirst to die was
deemed the happiest,"-' no doubt as being the most prompt and
willing. Similarly among the early Germans ' infame in omnem
uitam ac probrosum superstitem principi suo ex acie recessisse ' ; 3
and in a higher civilization Persian nobles were capable of
similar devotion to their lang.*

But this is hardly a religious idea ; more definitely
connected with religious belief is the Hindu sati
{q.v.).

Religious opposition to suicide is to be found in
all, or nearly all, strata of civilization. Probably
the chief, if not the only, reason for this among
primitive races is simply the dread of the ghost.
The self-destroyer must have been greatly wronged
or troubled in some way, or he would not have
acted as he did ; therefore his gliost will be an un-
usually troublesome and revengeful spirit, like
that of all ^laioddvaroi — to borrow the convenient
Greek term. Hence, either he must be appeased
by the death of his enemy, if known, or by offerings
of some kind, or else he must be rendered harmless.

A natural waj' to accomplish this is to mutilate or destroy the
corpse— in fact, to treat it much as mediaeval Europe did a
supposed vampire. Well-known survivals of this are the
Athenian practice of severing its right hand, 5 and the custom,
not long discontinued in England, of driving a stake through
the body. Such treatment, originally a mere precautionary
measure, would easily enough generate the belief that the act
of the deceased was something extraordinarily wicked, i.e.
strongly displeasing to whatever deity the community wor-
shipped. It should be noted, however, that among some
peoples in a not very advanced stage of culture suicide is
objected to on religious grounds, but no such drastic methods
of treating the corpse are in vogue. The Kayaiis of North
Borneo hold that thnse who die by their own hands live miser-
ably in the next world ; but the bodies are not burned or mutil-
ated, nor is any fear of them shown.Bunless their unceremonious
burial on the spot where they are found may be taken to be a
precautionary measure indicating fear.7

This vague idea of suicide as a crime has been
taken over by several higher religions and ex-
plained by them in the light of their ethical and
eschatological beliefs. Thus for any uncorrupted
and logical form of Buddhism it is clearly for-
bidden, since it violates the first of the five funda-

1 See, e.g., T. C. Hodson, Ndga Tribes of Manipiir, London,
19U, p. lo9 ; W. B. Grubh, ^l)i Unknown People in an Un-
knoiim Land, do. 1911, p. 120 ; for these and other examples cf.
GB'^, pt. iii.. The Dying God, p. 10 ff. ; and for classical survivals
of this belief see Verg. ^En. vi. 427, 446 ff., 494 ff.; Lucian,
Mcnippus, 470, 472, and elsewhere.

2 GB3, pt. iii., The Dying God, p. 189 f.

3 Tacitus, Genn. 14.

4 Xen. A 1Mb. i. viii. 20; ITerod. viii. 118.
■'' .I'.schines, in Cirs. 244.

'' C Hose and W. MoDougall, The I'ngan Tribes of Borneo,
London, 1912, ii. 40, 201.

7 Cf. the reiiictance to have anything to do with the danger-
ous corpse of a woman dying in child-birth (ib. p. Ibb).

mental precepts, 'Kill not any living thing. '^ A
religion — it can scarcely be called a philosophy —
which presents certain striking parallels to that of
Gautama gave an elaborate justification of its pro-
hibition of suicide. To the Orphic-Pythagorean
the present life was a penance which took the
form of imprisonment ; therefore to kill one's self
was to attempt, quite vainly, to shirk a deserved
penalty.^ This view, with various modifications,
was taken up by Plato, and reap])ears in the theo-
logical teachings of later philosophy.^

The native Roman religion perhaps condemned suicide origin-
ally and in theory at least. Servius-* tells us that the Hbri
ponlificalas bade the body of one who had hanged himself to be
cast forth unhuried ; and the later Seruius Danielis adds on the
authority of Casisius Hemina that the idea of thedisgracefulness
of suicide dates from the time of Tarquinius Superbus. More
noteworthy is a quotation from Varro,5 confirming the state-
ment that suspe7uiiosi were denied the regular funeral rites.
We have no hint, however, that the various suicides of legend
and history were otherwise tlian honourably treated. Possibly
the objection was not to suicide in general, but to hanging,
regarded as infonnis. At anj* rate, the rhetorical discussions of
the suliject*) quote no native religious scruple.

The opposition of Christianity has from an early
date been of the most determined kind. It is true
that nothing in the NT directly justiiies such an
attitude, but certain Patristic writings make it
obvious that by their time the discussion had taken
the form of an inquiry whether self-destruction was
ever allowable. Thus St. Augustine "'■ deliberates
at considerable length whether such a crime
(scelus), as he repeatedly calls it, may be condoned
in the case of a woman whose honour is in danger,
or in any case ; and he arrives at a negative con-
clusion. His reasons are chieflj' : (a) that suicide
is an act which precludes the possibility of repent-
ance,* and (b) that it is a form of homicide, and
therefore a violation of the sixth commandment,"
not justified by any of the exceptions, general or
special to that commandment, Avhich have been
divinely established,'" and aggravated by the fact
that the person thus killed has done nothing worthy
of death." Hence suicide to avoid violation is at
best the commission of a greater sin to escape
a lesser.'- But even St. Augustine himself was
obliged to admit the possibility of exceptions, since
in his day several persons who had taken their own
lives were recognized officially as martyrs — an
indication, even if other proofs w'ere lacking, that
the opposition to suicide was of gradual growth.
He suggests'^ that in such cases as in that of
Samson a special divine ordinance superseded the
general law, which nevertheless remains in full
force for all ordinary persons. This remains in
substance tlie position of orthodox Catholicism.
It is not insignificant that in the most splendid of
all mediajval works on eschatological subjects,
although the possibility of repentance at the very
moment of a violent death is admitted, the examples
are chosen from persons killed in battle or by
assassins. '•* Nor has orthodox Protestantism been
any less emphatic ; indeed, its rejection of the
doctrine of purgatory makes it still more uncom-
promising in condemnation of suicide and less hope-

1 See Monier-Williams, Prnddhimn, London, 18S9, p. 126.

2 See Plato. Phctdo, OJ U ; cf. Philolaos, ap. Clem. Strom, iii.
433 (fr. 23 Miillach), and artt. Pvthaqoras, Thrace.

3 Plato, Phaedo, loc. cit. ; cf. Cicero, de Se^iect. xx. 73, pro
Scauro, iii. 4.

•1 On Verg. uKn. xii. 603. » lb.

'^ E.g., Cic. pro Scaitro, iii. 2£f., Tiisc. Di.<p. i. xxxiv. S3f.,
etc.

7 De Civ. Dei, i. xvii. (f.

8 Ch. xvii. ' liuoniam (ludas) Dei misericordiam dcsperando
exitiabiliter paenitens, nullum sibi salubris paenitentiae locuni
reli(|uit : quanto magis a sua nece se abstinere debet qui tali
supplii'io quod in se puniat non li.abet.'

!i ( li. \x. 1" Ch. xxi. " Ch. xvii.

1- Ch. XXV. ' (^uis ita desipiat ut dicat : " lam nunc pe'ccnuis,
ne postea forte peccemus"V . . . Nonnc salius est (lagitiuni
conniiittere ijuod paenitcndo sanctur, (piani tale facinu> ubi
locus salubris paenitenti.ae non relinquitiirV

IS Ch. xxvi.

i> Uante, Pxirgatorio, v. 52 ff.

24

SUICIDE (Buddhist)

ful with regard to the future destiny of suicides.
Judaism in its later forms strongly denounces self-
destruction, ^ but the OT says nothing which could
reasonably be held to justify this, unless we adopt
the Augustinian view of the meaning of the sixth
commandment. Probably the Hebrews, until late
post-Exilic times, must be counted among those
races to whom suicide is simply one of tiie various
possible forms of deatli and calls for no special
comment.^

2. Ethics. — All the different views of suicide
taught by various religions re-appear, with addi-
tions and re-statements, in various ethical systems.
The religious side of Plato's views has already been
mentioned. Both he and Aristotle^ objected to
self-destruction as cowardly and an oil'ence against
the State, which thus loses a citizen. Plato also
declares it unnatural, since a man is his own
closest friend. But both are willing to allow it in
some cases— incurable pain, or disgrace so great as
to make life no longer worth living. The Hood of
individualism which resulted from the overthrow
of the old political life by the Macedonian conquest
swept away the second of the above arguments ;
and consequently we find much discussion of
suicide in the later schools, notably Stoicism, and
a decided tendency to condone or even commend it.
Its most whole-hearted upholders are those who
deny immortality, or at least personal immortality ;
for they readily embrace the idea — as old as Homer
and frequently appearing in poetry — tliat death is
the cure for all ills.'* A thoroughgoing exponent
of this view and insister upon the miseries of life
was Hegesias the Cyrenaic, who, according to
Cicero, was ' forbidden by King Ptolemy to lecture
on that topic, owing to the number of suicides
wliich took place among his liearers.'* Less
extreme doctrines were prevalent among the Stoics,
who before the time of Posidonios generally
denied personal immortality and without excep-
tion refused to admit that death was an evil or life
a good. Both being 'indifferent,' since neither is
a virtue or a vice, it follows that sometimes one
and sometimes theotlier is ' preferable '(irpoTjY/i^fo;') ;
hence it Ls ' reasonable ' for even the perfectly wise
man to kill himself if it will beneht his friends or
his country, or will free him from great pain or
incurable disease.^ Suicide for trilling reasons, Iioav-
ever, was condemned.

Epiktetos, perhaps the most lovable member of this school,
puts the matter thus in an imaginary dialogue with his pupils :
'Epiktetos, we can no longer endure to be bound to this
wretched body ! . . . Let us go whence we came ; let us at
length get free of these chains that weight us down.' . . .

' Wait for God, sirs ; when He gives the signal and sets you
free from this your service, you shall depart to Him ; for the
present, endure to live in the place where He has stationed
you. . . . Wait, do not depart unreasonabl.y.''

Another passage indicates what he means by a ' reasonable '
departure : ** ' Tlie room is smoky. If only moderately, I will
stay ; if there is too much smoke, I will go. Remember this,
keep fast hold on it — the door is open. ..." You nmst live in
Gyara."!* Very well. But Gyara seems to me a very smoky
room. So I will depart to a habitation in which no one can
prevent me dwelling ; a habitation which is open to everyone.'
The Epicureans did not indeed recommend
suicide in general ; but that deatli, although .an
evil, is not one which can touch or harm us is one
of their fundamental principles. ' When we are,
death is not present ; when death is present, then
we are not,' .says the founder of the sect.^"

1 Josephus, DJ III. viii. 5. This view probably had great
influence on early Christianity.

2 See art. Euthanasia.

3 Plato, Laivs, 873 C, D ; Aristotle, Eth. Nic. v. 1138*7, with
J. Burnet's note.

4 Homer, II. v. 61 if. ; Soph. I'hiloct. 797 ; cf. Oed. Col.
122.'3 ff. ; Eur. Heracl. 595 f.

5 Tiisc. Dt'sp. I. xxxiv. 83. Hegesias's teachings won him the
surname of TreicriflaraTos.

B Diog. Laert. vii. 130. 7 Dissert, i. ix. IG.

8 lb. I. XXV. 18.

9 A rocky islet in the ^gean — the Roman Siberia.
10 Diog. Laert. x. 125 ; cf. Lucr. iii. 830 fT.

The suicide of the ordinary unph)loso))hi(;al man, Lucretius
stigmatizes as self-contradictory, since it is caused by fear of
the very death which it courts.i The Cynics professed to be
absolutely indifferent to life and death rs to everything else
and are accused of killing themselves by extraordinary methods
for little or no reason, 2 while some Skeptics were equally
insensible.^ In Rome, where originally suicide appears to have
been rare,* the famous deaths of Cato, Thrasea, and others
were for the most part inspired by Greek teaching, generally
Stoic. Mediasval ethics added nothing new.

Perhaps the greatest contribution of modern
times to the rational treatment of the matter is
the consideration noticed in the opening paragraphs
of this article, that many suicides are non-moral
and entirely the allair of the specialist in mental
diseases. Apart from this, and considering only
cases where the agent is fully rational, the
characteristic feature of the ethical discussions of
the subject is their elimination of the theological
elements in the arguments, Hume's famous essay
' Of Suicide ' ^ being the last important work to
[lay them much attention. Perhaps the school
most nearly favourable to suicide is Utilitarianism ;
for, starting from its deiinition of a good act as
one which increases tlie sum total of human
happiness (identified with pleasure), ''one can easily
imagine cases where the death of a man by his
own hand would cause little or no pain to any one
and would be more or less completely a source of
pleasure to many. The more metaphysical schools
discountenance it, either as an insult to humanity
in general as embodied and exemplified in oneself
(Kant) or as a final assertion of the will to live
(Schopenhauer). There is also a tendency, arising
from a contemplation of such medical facts as
those already mentioned, to remove it altogether
from the field of ethics — a view which we believe
to be an exaggeration of a truth. The general
trend of non-theological thought on the part of the
ordinary educated man is towards a compromise
between the extreme laxitude towards suicide
represented by Stoicism and the extreme rigidity
of the Kantians. That self-destruction is now and
then justified by circumstances is admitted by
most ; and it is quite as widely admitted that
those circumstances must be of an extreme and
unusual kind to make the act anything else than
cowardly and otherwise immoral.

Literature. — Besides the works given under Euthanasia,
the following may be cited : E. Tanzi, A Text-book of MentaC
Diseases, Eng. tr., London, 1909; C. Mercier, Sanity and
Insanity-, do. 1905 (short popular account); J. G. Frazer,
GB3, do. 1911-14 ; J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, do. 1863 (many
subsequent edd.). H. J. liOSE.

SUICIDE (Buddhist).— I. Introduction.— We
are concerned only with 'religions suicide' and
the Buddhist views thereon, not with the various
kinds of suicide mentioned in Buddhist literature,
interesting as they may be.'' The position of the
old Indian ascetics in regard to suicide may be
summarized as follows. While the majority of
sects were addicted to rajiitl methods of suicide —
throwing oneself down from a mountain, etc. — the
Jains (and probably also the disciples of (iosala)
considered those methods vulgar and evil.* Men

1 De lier. Nat. iii. 79 ff.

2 Luc. Vit. Aiict. 10 [p. 550], /cat reXos, iji' erot SoKp, iro\\jno&a
aijLLOi/ tJ ar^TTLav i^ayiur airoQave.

■* PyirhoM, ap. Stob. Flnr. cxxi. 28.

* See art. Suicide (Greek and Roman) and note the clumsiness
of the Latin, as compared with the Greek, expressions for
suicide. The word ' suicide' itself, alchougli of Latin derivation,
is impossible as a Latin compound.

6 First published in his Es-says and Treatises, London,
1777.

6 ' Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote
happiness, wrong .as they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence
of pain ; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure '
is the famous dictum of J. S. Mill, Wtilitnrlnnixni, ch. ii.

7 See, e.p., Majjhima, ii. 109; a husband, threatened with
separation from liis wife, kills her and commits suicide, in order
that thev niav be husband and wife in their next birth.

8 See kathiikuia, tr. C. H. Tawney, London, 1895, p. 8.

SUICIDE (Buddhist)

25

■who thus kill themselves are reborn as demons.'
While practising starvation, the Jain must avoid
any desire for death (marandiamsd) : ^ ' Renounc-
ing all food and drink, I patiently wait for my
end.'

2. Buddhism condemns asceticism. — Any aus-
terity -wliich is likely to weaken body or mind is
forbidden. The Jains and many others saw in
asceticism and physical pain {duhkha, tapas) a
force that makes for purification from sin : suicide
by starvation is the ascetic act par excellence.^
While vocal sins are destroyed through silence
()nauna) and mental sins through 'respiratory-
restraint,' bodily sins are destroyed through
starvation (abhojana) * and lust is crushed througli
mortification. Buddhism had better methods of
crushing lust and destroying sin — the realization
of the impermanence of pleasure and of the non-
substantiality of the Ego, the experience in trance
(dhydna) of a happiness which has nothing to do
with pleasure and destroys in a man any infatua-
tion for pleasure. It was thus enabled to dis-
qualify ascetic methods.

3. Buddhism condemns suicide. — There is a
celebrated text :

' A monk who preaches suicide, who tells man : " Do away
with this wretched life, full of suffering and sin ; death is
better," in fact preaches murder, is a murderer, is no longer a
monk.' 5

A man must live his allotted span of life. He
cannot avoid, by suicide, the suti'erings which are
the result of his former evil deeds ; nor can he
win sooner, by a voluntary death, the reward of
his good deeds. Everything comes to him who
waits. To that efiect Buddha employs to Payasi
the simile of tlie woman who cuts open her body
in order to see whether her child is a boy or a
girl.*

It seems also that suicide from religious motives
is not effective. Buddhists object to ' thirst for
non-existence' (vibhavatrsnd), as they object to
' thirst for existence' (bhavatrsyd). A saint must
abide in indifference, without caring for life, with-
out caring for death. He will not commit suicide
in order to reach nirvana sooner. Is not suicide a
desperate act of disgust and desire, disgust of
existence, desire of rest ?

4. Buddhism admits suicide. — We have there-
fore good reason to believe (1) that suicide is not
an ascetic act leading to spiritual progress and to
nirvana, and (2) that no saint or arhat — a spiritu-
ally perfect being — will kill himself. But we are
confronted witli a number of stories which prove
beyond dispute that we are mistaken in these two
important conclusions. On the one hand, suicide
may be in certain cases the actual cause or the
occasion of tlie attainment of arhatiAn\>, although
in other cases it may be premature and sinful.
On the other hand, arJiatfi commit suicide.

In illustration of the first point, we may quote
the stories of the attemjited suicide of (1) Siha, (2)
Sappadasa, and (3) Vakkali; for the second the
suicide of (4) Yakkali and (5) Godhika.

1 The (jiripadana or hhxgupCita is puf/ayajanachetjhii/a (H.
Jacobi, Ausgewdfilte Erzahlungen in MahnrCis\ri, \jc\\izv;,
188C, p. 2; A. Weber, Fragment der Bhagavati, Berlin, 1865-00,
p. 206).

2 On Jain suicide see J. J. Meyer, IHrubi Talea, Eng. tr.,
London, 1909 ; Uvasagadasao, cd. and tr. A. F. R. Hoernle,
Calcutta, 1888-90, §§ 57, 89 ; Aclinrdnga.iutra, i. 7. 5-8, tr.
H. Jacobi, SBE xxii. [1884] 74-78; E. W. Hopkins. The
Religwns nf India, London, 1896, p. 291 ; G. Biihler, Ueber die
indinche Sekte der Jaina, Vienna, 1887, p. 12. As concerns
Gosala, see Uvasagadasao, app. ii. p. 2:5 (suicide is permitted to
ascetics who have reached the highest degree of perfection).

3 V'iolent death, voluntary or not, destroys sin (see J. J.
Mever, Hindu Tales).

■»"See, e.g., Majjhivia, i. m\ SBE 1. [1910], S.v. 'Suicide,' the
references to vols. xxii. and xlv.

5 Pardjika, iii. ; see SBE xiii. [1881] 4.

fi DUjha-Nikdya, ii. 331 ; Pialn</ueis 0/ the Biiddhn, ii. 350
(SBB iii. [London, 1910]).

(1) Siha was distressed at not obtaining spiritual progress
after seven years of endeavour. She said : ' What have I to do
with this wretched life {pdpajlvita)1 I will die through hang-
ing.' But, just as the rope was tied round her neck, she was
turning her thought towards enlightenment {vipassamC), as was
her former habit. She attained arhatshvp, and at this very
moment the rope loosened from her throat and fell.i

(2) The story of Sappad.osa is to the same effect. This monk
was overpowered by passion (kilesa) and never obtained con-
centration. This distressed him so much that he was about to
commit suicide with a razor or a sword, when he suddenly
realized the inward vision.^

(3) Vakkali was fond of looking at the Buddha, and the ex-
cessive imyiortance which he attached to the physical body — a
putrid body (putikdyay—ot the Master was an obstacle to his
spiritual advance. In order to create in him a 'holy fear'
(■•^arftvega), the Buddha commanded him to go. Desperate at
being no longer able to see the Master, Vakkali decided to com-
mit suicide by throwing himself down from a mountain, saying :
' What have I to do with this life, if I can no longer see Ilim? '
At this moment the Master appeared and prevented him from
thus 'destroying the conditions of his reaching the Path
(inaggaphala).' 3

(4) Vakkali was sufTering from a painful illness. Bhagavat
came to comfort him and said : ' Your death will be a holy one,
an auspicious one (apdpika).' When the Master had gone,
Vakkali uttered for the last time the Buddhist profession of
faith (universal transitoriness) and took the sword.'*

(5) Godhika was unable because of disease to remain in a
certain state of meditation. He thought : ' If I were to take a
sword.' Mara approached the Buddha and told him : ' Your
disciple wants to die ; he has resolved to die. Prevent him.
How could one of your disciples die wliile he is not yet an
arhat ? ' But, as it is explained in the Ahhidharmako&avydkhyd,
Godhika reached arAaiship just after he had begun cutting his
throat.5 It is said : ' Those who take the sword are without
regard for life ; they achieve insight (mpassand) and reach
nirudrta.' 'Thus act the strong ones (dhira) ; they desire not
life ; having removed thirst and the root of thirst (that is,
ignorance), Godhika is at rest.' 6

5. The nirvana of the great saints. — Vakkali
was an arhat, but, as he did not possess the power
of ' loosening the saviskdras of life,' he had, in
order to die, to take the sword. On the other
liand, Sakyamuni and, in later sources, a number
of saints — e.g., Mahapajapati Gotami in the
Apaddna — po.ssess such a power. The Sanskrit
Abhidharma'' teaches that it belongs to the saints
who have reached the niritpadhisesanirvdria (' nir-
vana without rests ').

in the case of Sakyamuni we have to deal with
a voluntary death; in the case of Maliapajapati,
who has to obtain permission of Sakyamuni before
she resolves to die, we have to deal with a vohin-
tary death of a slightly different character. Th«
Pratyekabuddhas, like Sakyamuni, decide for
themselves when the 'time' has arrived; their
method is to rise a few cubits above the ground
and burn themselves.

We can easily understand that a Buddha, when
he has set in motion the wheel, when he lias
elected two chief disciples — brielly, ' when lie has
done what he had to do' — is duly authorized to
enter into the final rest. Tiie case of an arliat is
not different ; the arluit also has achieved what lie
liad to achieve — i.e. he has removed the slightest
kind of desire. If be is not, like a IJuddlia, cap-
able of abandoning life in a quiet way, tliere is no
reason why he should not have recourse to more
drastic metiiods.

6. Mahayana praises and deprecates suicide as
self-surrender and worship. — The saint of tiie new
Buddhism must, liefore reaciiing nirvdna, sjjend
millions of lives in charity, worship, and medita-
tion. 'Abandoning ones existence' [dtmanas
tydgah, dtmabhdvatydgn) is to be looked upon as
the best self-sacrifice, for to give one's body is
better than to give alms ; and also as the best

1 Thenxjdihd, 77. 2 T/icragdthd, 408.

3 lb. 350 ; Dhaiamapada's Commentary, 381 ; also Aiiguttara's
CoMunentarv.

■1 Saiin/f'la, iii. 123. « Cf. Kathdiatfhn., i. 2.

6 The MiUndajmliha deals with suicide (see SBE xxxv. [1890]
273 ff.), but does not mention Godhika and Vakkali. See J. P.
MinayefT, Becherches snr le bmiddhisine, tr. E. II. Assier de
Poiiipigiian, Paris, 1894, p. 223 ; Saiiiyuttn, i. 120, iii. 123 ;
Dhammapada's Commentary, v. 67 (i. 431); Kathavatthu's
Couinienlary, ad i 2.

' Abhidhaniiaku.sa, eh. vi.

26

SUICIDE (Chinese)— SUICIDE (Greek and Roman)

worsliip, for to burn one's body as an olfering is
certainly more meritorious than to kindle lamps
at a shrine. We maj' refer (1) to the story of the
future Sakyamuni giving his body to feed a starving
tigress, 1 and (2) to the legend of Bliaisajyaraja,
who, dissatislied with his previous worsliip altliough
painful and extravagant, filled his body with all
sorts of oil and set it on Hre.^

The bodhisattvas oi the past have j)ractised in
that way many heroic deeds {duhkara), some of
which are told in the canon of ancient Buddliism
(Chariynpitaka, Jdtakn) ; the new scriptures are
inexhaustible on this topic.

In accordaTice with the principles of the new
Buddhism and the L(gende doric of the eternal
Buddliism, self-surrender culminating in voluntary
death has been held in honour in various Buddhist
countries. It happens (or it used to liappen) that
Chinese monks beg for fuel, build a funeral pyre,
sit cross-legged on it, cover their head M'ith linen
soaked in oil, and set themselves on fire. With
.some branches of the Chinese IMahayana, the
'burning of the skull' is an essential part of
ordination as a 'future Buddha' — a symbol of the
holocaust for which human courage is nowadays
inadequate.^

The pilgrim I-tsing says that Indian Buddhists
abstain from suicide and, in general, from self-
torture.* Whether this statement be accurate or
not — A. Barth did not believe it to be quite
accurate — the theologians of the Great Vehicle
strongly deprecate such practices. One of the
chief aims of S.antidesa in his Siksdsaimichchaya,^
'A Compendium of the Rules of the Disciple of
the Creat Vehicle,' is to elucidate this point : In
what measure is a disciple — a beginner — to imitate
the heroic deeds of the bodhisattvas of old ? The
di.sciple is ready, willing, and resolved even to
commit sin and to burn in hell for the sake of
another, not to mention Bacrificing his limbs and
body ; but he must avoid any mistake in the
realization of his resolve. The question is whether
in such and such a case sacrifice or self-denial is
really useful to our fellow-creatures ; whether
there is not some other means of procuring uni-
versal welfare. To sum up, the sacrifice of one's
body is not in accordance with a wise estimate of
the spiritual needs of a beginner.

Literature. — See, in addition to the .sources cited in the foot-
notes, L. de la Valine Poussin, ' Queiques Ohserv.ations sur le
suicide dans le Bouddhisnie ancien,' Bulletin de la Classe des
Lettres de I Acadimie de Belijique, 1919, pp. 685-693 ; A.
R6musat, FogKougKi, Paris, 1S36, p. 272 ; J. Legg-e, Fd-kicn's
Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, Oxford, 1836, p. 86 ; Divya-
vadd7ia,ed. E. B. Cowell and R. A. Neil, Cambridge, 1886, p. 39 ;
E. Chavannes, Cinq cents contes et apologues, extrails du
Tripitaka chinois et traduits en fran<;ais, Paris, 1910, i. 2i)7,
265, passim; E. Huber, Le Sutralamkara de A^vaghosa,
French tr., Paris, 1908, pp. 126, 440; Abhidharrnakoia, ii. 10, v. 7.
L. DE LA VaLLEE PoU.SSIN.
SUICIDE (Chinese).— Suicide is at lea.st not
uncommon in China. Literature and history
supply illustrations. In a Chinese novelette the
heroine commits suicide on the grave of her
betrothed lover to avoid the marriage arranged for
her with his rival, and that rival thereupon takes
his own life in order to pursue in the other world
at once his quest for his bride and vengeance on
her lover. Among some eight hundred biographical

1 Jdtakamdld, i., tr. J. S. Speyer, SBB i. [1895].

^ Saddharmaputi4ar'ika, xxii., tr. II. Kern, SBExx'i. [1884].

S See J. J. M. de Groot, Le Code du Malidydna en Chine,
Amsterdam, 1893, pp. 50, 217, 227. It is recorded that in the
.lapanese sect of Siikhavati religious suicide was not unlcnown.
In 1422 a large company of persons, after he.aring a stirring
sermon by a zealot to the effect that paradise ni.ay be gained
solely by calling on the name of Aniitabha, committed suicide
by walking into the sea while repeating the ' Namu Aniida
Butsu.'

■* A Record of the Buddhist Religion, tr. J. Takakusu, Oxford,
1896, p. 197 f. (ch. xxxviii. f.); A. Barth, Journ. des Savants,
1898, p. 541.

s Bibl. Buddhica, i. [Petrograd, 1902].

notices in W. F. Mayers's Chinese Headers'
Mamial,^ 27 instances of .suicide are recorded —
generals after defeat, a tyrant to escape his im-
pending doom, a dethroned ruler, statesmen whose
advice, like Ahithophel's, has been rejected, or who
desired to enforce their counsel by this last proof
of their earnestness, a captive to avoid exile, hope-
less prisoners, ministers who, having incurred
imperial displeasure, were allowed to die thus
rather than by the hands of the executioner, a
rebel whose plot was discovered, women to avoid
a marriage deemed by them to be shameful, nn
upright servant rather than commit a murder
enjoined on him, a minister of justice under whose
subordinates cajiital punishment was unduly
frequent, those moved by loyalty to a deceased
master, bj' grief for the death of father or son, or
by shame for a son's treachery.

In addition to suicides on such occasions as these,
some of which will be noted as peculiarly Chinese,
cases also occur in which misery {e.g., hopeless
leprosy) drives to suicide. More frequent are
cases in which suicide is committed in an access of
passion, .sometimes with the view of involving
one's adversary in legal jiroceedings in this world,
or less frequently with the hope of harassing him
by visitations of the vengeful ghost.

Hanging, leaping down a well, and opium
poisoning have been perhaps the most common
methods of suicide ; the last may diminish in
frequency under the present opium restrictions.

In the absence of accurate statistics it is
impossible to estimate the ratio of deaths by
suicide to the total population. The general
impression, probably well founded, is that suicide
is much more frequent than in Great Britain. This
greater frequency, if it is assumed as f.ict, may be
accounted for by the low value put on individual
life, a tendency to ungovernable rage, and the
fact that social and religious feelings do not
rigorously inhibit suicide, but rather in certain
circumstances [e.g., where marriage is being urged
on a widow or a bride whose betrothed bridegroom
has died) approve it.

Litkratdre. — The Encyclopcedia Sinica, Shanghai, 1917,
London, 1918; J. Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, New
York, 1S65, London, 1S6() ; A. H. Smith, Village Life in China,
Eilinljurgh, 1900 ; Records of the General Conference of
Protestant Missionaries, Shanghai, 1890, pp. 329-333.

P. J. Maclagan.

SUICIDE (Greek and Roman).— I. GREEK.—
Under the name '.suicide' we here include all
foi'ms in which the individual kills himself in-
tentionally, whether he acts of his own free Avill
or under compulsion, and Avhether the end of his
action be selHsh or altruistic.

I. Legendary suicides. — The earliest definite
mention of suicide in Greek literature is the case
of Epikaste (lokaste), the mother of Gidipus of
Thebes, in the Nekyia.^

Odysseus tolls how in Hades ' I saw the mother of Oidijiodes,
fair Epikaste, who wrought an awful deeil in ignorance of mind,
marrying her own son. And he had slain his father and he
married her. And presently the gods made it known to men.
Then he in lovely Thebe endured sorrow and ruled over the
Kadmeans by the grievous counsels of the gods. Bub she went
to the house of Hades, fastening a high noose from the lofty
hall, holden by her woe. And to him she left sorrows in the
aftertime full many, even all that the Erinyes of a mother bring
to pass.'

The precise motive for suicide is not very clearly
indicated here, or rather Homer does not dis-
tinguish clearly between the horror of Ejtikaste
at the revolting nature of tiie situation in which
.she unwittingly finds herself and her shame in
the face of her deed becoming known. But the
essential points are that (1) suicide presents itself
to Homer as the natnr.al and litting act when life
has lost all that makes life worth living, and (2)
no blame attaches to suicide in itself.

1 New ed., London, 1910. - Horn. Od. xi. 271 ff.

SUICIDE (Greek and Roman)

27

Jjut the mosl: famous ami iiulcctl tlie typical
heroic suicide is that of Aias. Homer does not men-
tion his suicide explicitly, but it is clearly alluded
to in Od. xi. 518 ft'., where Odysseus expresses
his regret at having obtained the arms of Achilles :

<dS &r\ jXTTj oi^eAoi' vixar TOiwSe eV oe'SXto-

Toi'iji' yap K€<l>a\rii/ eveKavToii' (the arms of Achilles) yaXa.

Aiavfl', 6% kt\.

His suicide was recounted in tlie Aiihiopis of
Arktinos in connexion willi the award of the arms
of Achilles to Odysseus.' It is to be noted that so
far there is no mention of madness or of an attack
by Aias upon the herds. These incidents were,
however, recounted in the Little Iliad of Lesclies,'-
Also, whereas in Od. xi. 555 it is emphasized that
the death of Aias was mourned by the Greeks
equally with that of Achilles, the Little Iliad^
told of the withholding of burial honours. But
even so there is nothing to indicate that tlie suicide
in itself was considered blameMorthy. It is an
act quite in accordance with the haughtiness and
self-sutiiciency which characterize Aias in Homer,
and of which the famous 'silence of Aias' in Od.
xi. 553 If., so admired by the author of the treatise
On the Svbltiiic,* is a fitting expression. The
suicide of Aias is the typical act of a great soul
which cannot Inook dishonour.

A motive of a less heroic kind which prompts to
suicide is excess of sorrow for the dead. The
feeling is one familiar to Homer. ' If I lose thee,
it were better for me to go Ijeneath the earth,' says
Andromache to Hektor,'' in the same spirit in which
David cries, ' Would God 1 had died for thee, O
Absalom, ray son, my son ! ' ^ There is noc in Homer
any express mention of suicide for this reason, but
Antikleia is referred to in terms M'hich are hardly
consonant with any other explanation than that
she died by her own hand.

Eimiaios says to the disguised Odysseus : 'Laertes still lives,
but evermore he prays to Zeus that life may perish froui his
linihs within his halls ; for he mourns exceedingly for his son
that is gone and for his wedded wife, whose death beyond all
else liatii grieved him and brought him to untimely age. She
in grief for her glorious son perished by a miserable death
(AeuyaXe'cu Oai'dTw) : so may none parish who dwells here friendly
to me and doing h'iendly deeds.' '

The natural inference from these words is strongly
confirmed by the reference to her in Od. xi. 84 ti'.
and 197 ff. The later story said frankly that she
hanged herself.®

The list of such suicides is a long one.

Aigeus, father of Theseus, had arranged with his son when he
left for Crete, carrying the annual tribute of the Athenians to
the Minotaur, that, if Theseus were successful in slaying the
monster, a white sail should be hoisted upon the returning
vessel. Theseus forgot to take down the black sail which the
ship was flying, and Aigeus, thinking that his son had perished,
threw himself from the rock on which he was keeping watch
into the sea (.Egean) which thenceforth bore his name.f
Erigone, daughter of Ikarios, hanged herself when she found
the dead body of her father.i" Skedasos committed suiinde
when his daughters had hanged themselves.il When Evadne
throws herself'on the funeral pyre of her husband, her father
Iphis threatens to commit suicide by starvation. i-

A special case of suicide to avoid shame is that
to escape sexual dishonour.

Legend told how the Lenkadian rock received its name from
Leukatas, who, to escape the unwelcome attentions of Apollo,
plunged into the sea off the island of Leukas.i'' I'ausanias tells
us 1^ how the daughters of .Sked;.;-;os of Leuktra hanged them-
selves to escape the violence offered them by certain
Lacedainonians.

1 Cf. Proclus in Epiconim Grocc. Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel,
Leipzig, 1877, p. 34, 8ff.

2 Cf. Proclus, Ep. Gr. Fr. p. ?,n.

3 Ep. Gr. Fr. p. 40 ; Eustath. II. p. 285, 34.

4 [Longinus] ix. 2 : t; toO AIoi'tos tv Nfxui'a cthottt) y.fya icaX
TTavTO^ v\lir\\6Ttf)ov \6yov.

■' II. vi. 410. G 2 S 18:«.

■? Oil. XV. 353 ff. 8 Hvu'in. Fab. "43.

'J Flut. T/irs. 22; Diofl. iv. CO f . ; Ilygin. Fab. 242; Suida-,
«.«. Alyaiov rrcXayo^ ; Serv. on V'erg. .En. iii. 74.
10 ApoUod. iii. 14, etc. " n Pans. ix. xiii. 3.

12 Eurip. ^iiiJ2>l. 1105 f .

13 Serv. on Verg. ACn. iii. 279. 14 ix. xiii. 3.

Suicitle, in tlie souse of self-devotion for one's
country, lias always occupied a prominent place
in patriotic saga. Kodros, the last king of
Athens, is a famous example.

The Lacoil:emonians, under pressure of famine, resolved to
invade Attica, liut first ihcy consulted the Delphic oracle as
to their prospects of taking Athens and, receiving an answer
that they would be successful if they did not kill the Athe;iian
king, marched on the city. Cleomantis, a Delphian, secretly
communicated to the Athenians the purport of the oracle.
Kodros thereupon dressed hiuiself as a beggar and stole out of
the besieged city and proceeded to gather lirewood. When two
enemy scouts approached him, he slew one of them with his
hatchet, whereupon the other, taking him for a beggar, drew
his sword and slew him, thus rendering the capture of Athena
impossible.i

There is the similar story of Makaria, daughter
of Herakles and Deiancira.'- That such a death
was deemed a glorious one is sufficiently attested.'

2. Heroic suicide. — The motives which in the
Homeric [loems seem mainly to be regarded as
prompting to suicide are of a heroic nature — the
sense of dishonour suffered or impending, the de-
votion of a high purpose, or the intolerable sorrow
of a personal bereavement. The sense of the com-
mon ills of humanity is by no means ignored —
tXtjtoi' yap Moipai Ovjxbv Oiaav avdpibiroi<nv.^ JJut there
is no pessimism. Whatever the evils that darken
human life, at least it is a good thing to enjoy the
sun, and the darkest shadow that falls athwart
Homeric life is the sense not of its burden but of
its brevity. Life at any level is to be preferred to
the sunless realms of Hades.^

But with the rise of reflexion, as witnessed in the
poetry of the age succeeding the Homeric, we have
a view of life which is frankly pessimistic. Hesiod
conceives the present to be an age of iron, thrown
into darker relief by tlie picture of a liapi>ier golden
age gone by."

That life is an evil has become a comnioniilace.
irdvTdiv fxkv fj-Tj (pvi/ai iirixdovioiaiv S.pLffrov'^ is a doctrine
which becomes a hackneyed phrase of later poetry —
TO fiev 07] iravraxou dpiiXovaevov, KpanaTOV eXvai (pyjiu
yarj (pdvai jipori^.'^ The logical consequence of this
view of life is that man is justified in ending wh.-it
he cannot mend. Whether, in fact, this pessimistic
view of life actually induced an increased practice
of suicide is more difficult to establish. But in any
case motives of a less heroic kind seem now to
be recognized as worthy causes of suicide. Thus
poverty is expressly recognized by Theognis ^ as a
sufficient cause.

3. The historians. — In the historians of the 5th
cent, suicide is not a particularly prominent feature,
and belongs in general to one or other of the tyi^es
already noticed.

Herodotus relates the legend of Nitokris, who,
in order to escajie punishment for her misdeeds,
committed suiciile by lea[iiug into a room full of
ashes.'" Arion is compelled by the ferrymen either
to commit suicide, Avith the prospect of being buried
ashore, or to jump into the sea." The daughter of
jMykerinos, being violated by her father, hanged
herself from grief. '^ Shame was the motive for the
suicide of Spargapises, leader of the Massagetai,
who in a state of intoxication v.-ere surprised and
killed or captured by the Persians. '^ And we have
the parallel stories of Othryades, who, ashamed to
return to Sparta when his company was killed, slew
himself at Thyrcai,'* and of rantites, who, having
survived the disaster at Thermopylai, 'on his
return to Sparta, being held in dishonour, hanged
himself.' '»

I Lycurg. c. Leohrat. 84 ff.

- I'aus. I. xxxii. ; Eurip. llcraklflitni.
•"• I'aus. IX. xvii. 1. ■* II. xxiv. 49.

•"■ 0(/. xi. 48Sft". n D'ori-s, 174 ff.

■; Theognis, 435 IT.

;< Eurip. Ih-llcrophiin, frag- 287. 1 f. (A. Nauck); cf. Soph. Oed.
Col. 1227 f.

II 173 If lOii. 100. 11 7ft. i. 24. 12 /6. ii. 131.
i:i lb. i. 213. l* lb. i. 82. '-' lb. vii. 232.

28

SUICIDE (Greek and Roman)

In Thucydides we read how in 427 15. C. the Coi-
cyrean democrats ' went to the temple of Hera and,
persuading some fifty of the suppliants (belonging
to the oligarchic party) to stand their trial, con-
demned them all to death. The majority refused
to come out, and, when they saw what was going
on, destroyed one another in the enclosure of the
temple where they were, except a few who hanged
themselves on trees or put an end to their lives in
any other way they could.' ' Again in 425 B.C. the
oligarchs of Corcyra were entrapped into a large
building from which they were led forth in groups
of twenty for execution. When those in the
building got to know what was happening, they
refused to come out. Then the Corcyrean populace
broke a hole in the roof through which they
showered tiles and arrows at those within. ' The
prisoners tried to shelter themselves as best they
could. Most of them put an end to their own lives.
Some thrust into their throats arroAvs which were
shot at them ; others strangled themselves with
cords taken from beds which they found in the
place, or with strips torn from their own clothes.
This went on during the greater part of the night,
until in one way or another, by their own hands or
by missiles from the roof, they all perished.'^
Thucydides knows, too, the story that Themistokles
poisoned himself : Xiyovcri 84 rtves Kai iKoixnov <papix6.K(p
aiTodavelv avrdv.^

In Xenophon, HclL VI. ii. 36, we have the
familiar motive of shame. Krinippos, when the
Syracusan fleet under his command was captured
by Iphikrates (373 B.C.), inrb Xinri^s davaro} avdaipiri^
airodvr)(rKei. So Hell. VII. iv. 9, Avhen the invading
Arkadians Avere attacked in camp by the Eleans,
whom they defeated, the Elean hipparcli, who was
held responsible for the attack, committed suicide
(364 B.C.).

But the suicide which is more prominent in
Xenophon is of the romantic type, described as
iirairodavelv, iTriacpA^ai iamdv, where love faithful
lanto death refuses to be comforted otherwise than
by sharing the fate of the beloved. ' Cyrus himself
died, and eight of his best followers fell over him
(iKfivTo eir avTifi). And Artapates, the most faith-
ful of his staff, when he saw that Cyrus had fallen,
is said to have leapt from his horse and thrown
himself upon him. And some say that the king
ordered him to be slain over Cyrus {eiri(j(j)6.^ai avrou
Kvpi^) ; but others say that he dreAv his sword and
killed himself over him (iavrbv eirL(T(p6.^a(xOai).' *
We have the same motive in the story of Pantheia,
so beautifully told by Xenophon.*

The emotional value of this motive has made it
very prominent in literature, as, indeed, it has
everywhere and at all times been actually a very
common cause of suicide.

It is f.amiliar to the 0T.6 AIread.y in Homer Antilochos holds
the hands of Achilles, lest in his grief tor Patroklos he should
ctit his throat ; ' and, even if suicide is not meant, Andromache's
angui.sh for Hektor almost makes her die.** Most familiar per-
haps of all is the case of Laodamia, the wife of Protesilaos, to
whom she had been married just before his departure for Troy.
There Protesilaos was the first to leap ashore and, after slaying
many Trojans, was killed by Hektor. After his death his wife
grieved for him so nnich that Hermes for pity brought back
Protesilaos from the dead. At first Laodamia, thinking he had
actually returned from Troy, rejoiced, but when he returned to
Hades cauriji' e(^oreucrei'.'* As this legend is enshrined for us in
the verses of Wordsworth, so Tennyson has told the story of
another who was faithful unto death : Oinone, the beloved of
Paris, whose story is unknown to the epic cycle and to the
tragedians. When Paris died, she either hanged herself!" or
threw herself into his funeral pyre.n

J iii. 81. 2 iv. 48. 3 i. 138.

* Anab. i. 8. * Cyrop. vii. 3.

6 1 S 'AW- ; see art. Suicide (Semitic and Egyptian).

I II. xviii. 3,3 f. 8 lb. xxii. 473 f.

9 Apollod. Epit. iii. 30 : f i<|)ei SifxpijcraTo eavrriv ; Eustath. on
II. ii. 700 ; cf. Ovid, ex Ponto, in. i. 10!» f.

1" Apollod. HI. xii. 5. 4, vi. 1-3 ; Lycophron, 57 ff. ; Konon, 23 ;
Parthen. Kntt. 4.

II C^. Smyrn. x. 262, 484 ; Ovid, nn: 5.

Another late legend is that of Hero and Leander, the subject
of the poem by Musaios entitled to. Ka9' 'Hpib xal AeWSpof.
Leander of Abydos swam the Hellespont nightly to visit his
beloved Hero, the priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos across the
straits, being lighted by a lamp which Hero set upon her tower
by the seashore. He attoniptod the passage one stormy night,
when the lamp was extinguished by the storm. Next morning
bis dead body was washed ashore, and Hero threw herself from
her tower to join him in death. i Pausanias2 remarks of three
heroines, Marpessa, Klcopatra, and Polydora, that they all com-
mitted suicide in this wa.y : irpoairoOavova-i. naaai rots o.v&p6.(nv

The motives of such suicides are not always
identical and no doubt were sometimes complex.
Sometimes it was the last sacrifice of devotion, a
tradition become a religion, like the Indian sati or
our own proud tradition that the captain goes down
with his shi}).

Xenophon tells how in 388 B.C. Anaxibios the Spartan, falling
into an ambush, said to those by him : ' "Gentlemen, my duty
is to die here. As for j'ou, seek safety before we engage the
enemy." Then he took his shield from his armour bearer and
fell fighting at his post. But his favourites (to. 7rai5tica) abode
with him, and twelve of the Lacedemonian harmosts who had.
come from the cities died with him fighting.'^ Haimon in the
Antignne of Sophocles had all along determined to die with
Antigone,'* but the actual suicide is complicated by his futile
attempt to slay his father and becomes outwardly an act of
disappointed rage.^

Where the suicide considers himself responsible
for another's death, his own death may appear to
be due as an act of atonement.

Thus Kallirrhoe, having by her unkindness brought about
the suicide of her lover Koresos, repented and out of pity for
him and shame for her conduct killed herself,** precisely as
Adrastos, when he accidentally killed the son of Croesus, ' stood
before the dead and submitted himself to Crojsus, holding out
his hands and entreating him to slay him over the dead (sTriKa-
Tocri/xifai Toj viKpw) since for him life was no longer tolerable
(oufie ot €ivat. jSttoai^oi').' "^

But, without any such complications, we have
the devotion of those who, lovelj' and pleasant in
their lives, in death would not be divided. When
Kastor is slain by Idas, his brother Polydeukes
cries : ' Our Father, Son of Kronos, what release
shall there be from sorrow ? Give me also to die
with him, O Lord. Honour is departed for him
who is bereft of friends.'* And the more one
knows of the religious thought of the Greeks, the
less is one inclined to disparage the influence of
the motive to whicli Plato alludes — the hope of a
blessed reunion hereafter : ' Ere now for human
love, for dead wife, for dead son many a man has
gone willingly to the house of Hades, drawn by
the hope that in the world beyond they might see
and be with those they loved.'*

4. Compulsory suicide. — A special interest at-
taches to Xenophon, Hell. II. iii. 56. In describing
the execution by compulsor}'^ suicide of Theramenes
in 403 B.C., he says: 'When, lieing compelled to
die, he drank the hemlock [to Kun'eiov Itrie), it Avas
said that he threAv Avhat Avas left of it as in the
game of cottahos, crying, "This for the fair
Kritias ! " ' This is the first occurrence of the
word Kwveiov in the historians and the only one in
Xenophon. When the practice of execution by
compulsory poisoning Avas introduced in Athens
Ave do not knoAv, nor Avhen hemlock first became
the recognized medium. The use of hemlock for
this purpose, Ave may Avith probability suppose,
first became regular in the latter part of the 5th
cent. B.C. Even in the orators, however, refer-
ences to it are stirprisinglj' rare. It is not men-
tioned in Antiphon. Andocides mentions it only
once.^" Lysias refers to it tAvice." It is not found
in Demosthenes, Lycurgus, Dinarchus. The ad-
vantages of hemlock-drinking over other more

1 Musaios, op. cM. ; Stat. Theb. vi. 542 ; A'^erg. Georp. iii. 258 ;
Ovid, Her. 17, IS.

" IV. ii. 5 ; cf. the c^se of Skedasos (ix. xiii. 3).

S Hell. IV. viii. 38 f. ■* 7.'jl.

5 1234 f. 6 Pans. vii. xxi.

7 Herod, i. 45. 8 pi„d. j\-,.,«.. ,x. 70 ff.

» I'hcedo, (58 A. 1" De Pace, 10.

11 C. Erujitosthfnfm, 17, and IIcpl Bt^h. t. t. Noct'ow a&e\il>.
{Or. IS) 24.

SUICIDE (Greek and Roman)

cumbrous methods of suicide are referred to in the
Frogs^ of Aristophanes (405 n.c).

It was by drinl-cing hemlock that Socrates died
in 399 B.C. 3 It was the method used by the
Athenian women whom the shameful conduct of
the characters of Euripides drove to suicide, ac-
cording to Aristophanes. 3 It is difficult to resist
the conclusion that in the stress and excitement
and anxiety of the closing years of the Pelopon-
nesian war suicide had assumed a prominence
hitherto unknown, and it would appear that this
phenomenon was not unconnected with the interest
in tlie preparation of speedy and painless modes of
putting an end to life. Incidentally it may be
noted that Attic hemlock was reputed to be
specially efiective.* Theophrastus tells us of the
discovery by Thrasyas of Mantineia of a pot'Sta kcI
5.Trovoi a.Trb\v(TLs in which the juices of hemlock
(Kibvetov) and poppy (n-qKwv) and other such herbs
were made up in a dose of small bulk, weighing
about a drachma, the effects of which were incur-
able and which, moreover, would keep and retain
its potency for an indehnite period.* No doubt,
also, the fact of having at their disposal a con-
venient and not too painful means of terminating
life induced, as in our own time, many rash persons
to attempt their lives. It is interesting to note
that Menander wrote a play with the title Kwceta-
^S/xefat. Hence there was developed the interest
in antidotes of which we have evidence.'' Theo-
phrastus has much to say of antidotes.'' In par-
ticular it is interesting, in view of the attitude of
the people of Ceos to suicide, to notice that to them
is attriouted an improved method of preparing
hemlock.*

The story of the death of Theramenes points in
the same direction. When in our own coimtry
death by the axe of the headsman was a common
fate, it became a point of honour with his victims
that they should take leave of life like gentlemen.
Montrose, we are told, went to the scaffold clad
in rich attire ' more becoming a bridegroom than a
criminal going to the gallows.' Such conduct is
the true analogue to the dying libation of Ther^i-
menes. Socrates had the same idea :

'What about making a libation with this cup?', he says to
the jailer, 'May I or not?', and, that not being: feasible, he yet
drank the cup of death ' easily and cheerfully ' as one who
toasts a friend.9

And, as meaner victims of the axe imitated the
conduct of Montrose and others, and the grand
manner degenerated into the bravado of the
desperate and callous, so we have a degenerate
echo of the heroic in the story told by Mh&n and
AthenjBus of the devotees of debauchery who,
having drained the cup of pleasure to tlie lees,
ended by throwing away the cup, and concluded
life's banquet with a toast.'"

5. Legal aspect. — So long as suicide does not
become so frequent as to threaten seriously the
well-being of the conmiunity, the State has no
motive to intervene by legislation against it. At
no time does Athenian law define suicide as a
penal offence. The only outbreak of which we
hear in Attica suggesting an e])idemic of suicide is
that which legend connected with the origin of the
Aiora, or swing-festival.

illCff.

2 Plato, Phtvdo, 57 A: to <j>a.pfiaKov eiriev ; of. 57 B, 116 D,
117 A. Though Plato does not nanit' the poison, it is clear from
the symptoms described that it was l-.iMiilock. .Elian, Var.
Ilwt. i. 16, calls it merely to <f>dpfiaKov; Diodor. xiv. 37: viuv
Ki^i/eiov eTe\evTTqtTev ; Diog. Laert. ii. 42.

» Frogs, 1050 f. •* Plutarch, Dio, 58.

5 Theophr. Hi>it. Plant, ix. xvi. 8.

6 Plato, Lysis, 219 E : ' I mean, for example, if a father knew
that his son had drunk hemlock and thought that wine would
save him, he would value the wine.' Cf. KKaxiAev, Alexiphar-
ir.aca, 18C.

7 IX. xvi. 6. 8 Ih. 9. « Plato, Phndo, 117.
10 ^.lian, Var. Hist. iv. 23; Athen. xii. 537 U.

Legend told how, when Dionysos first came to Attica with
the new gift of wine, he was hospitably entertained by Ikarios,
to whom he revealed his intoxicating boon. Ikarios gave of
the wine to some shepherds, who in their vinous frenzy killed
their would-be benefactor. His daughter, Erigone, guided to
the spot by his faithful dog Maira, hanged herself on a tree.
Then there" broke out among the Athenian women an epidemic
of hanging, which abated only when the Athenians dis-
covered the cause and instituted the Aiora festival in honour of
Erigone. 1 .

Plutarch tells of a similar outbreak at Miletos
which, obscure in origin, was generally attributed
to atmospheric conditions :

' A strange and terrible affliction once came upon the maidens
of Miletos, from some obscure cause — mostly it was conjectured
that some poisonous and ecstatic temperament of the atmo-
sphere produced in them a mental upset and frenzy. For there
fell suddenly upon all of them a desire of death and a mad im-
jjulse towards hanging. Many hanged themselves before they
could be prevented. The words and the tears of their parents,
the persuasions of their friends, had no effect. In spile of all
the ingenuity and cleverness of those who watched them, they
succeeded in making away with themselves. The plague seemed
to be of an unearthly character and beyond human remedy,
until on the motion of a wise man a resolution was proposed
that women who hanged themselves should be carried out
to burial through the market-place. The ratification of this
resolution not only checked the evil but altogether put an end
to the passion for death. A great evidence of the high character
and virtue of the women was this shrinking from dishonour and
the fact that they who were fearless in face of the two most
awful things in the world — death and pain — could not support
the appearance of disgrace nor bear the thought of shame after
death.' 2

Theramenes, in whose time hemlock as a means
of suicide appears to have come into vogue, was
a native of Ceos, and we have seen above that
Theophrastus* ascribes to the Ceans certain im-
provements in the method of preparing that
poison. There is evidence that at some period
suicide by drinking hemlock was a recognized
practice — if not a legal regulation — in Ceos for
persons who had passed the age of 60. Strabo''
(63 B.C.-A.D. 23), speaking of lulis, the chief town
in Ceos, birthplace of Simonides and his nephew
Bacchylides, says :

napa. toutoi? 5e So<e2 TeSrji'ai TroTe i'0/i09, ou /ie'jxi'iJTat Kai
MeVai'Spos [342-291 B.C.] " KaKbv to Kfiuiv vofxifxov e<rTi, ^avia-
6 fj.ri Sui-ajaevos irjv icaXu)?, oil ^j) kokuis." IIpoo-eTaTTe yap, u)S
ioixev, 6 TOUO! Tous iiTrep i^rJKOi'Ta irrj -yeyoioTas icioi-eiafeo-Sai,
ToO SiapKeiv rols aAAoi9 rqv Tpo<j)Vf- xal TroXiopKOU/uueVovc Si ttots
vtt' 'AO-qvaCMV, xfiriifiCcTaadaC <|)ao-i Tov5 Trpetr/Siira; Toixr e'f aiiTuiv
oLTroSavelv, opto'Se'i'TOs TrXrjOov; iruiv tovs 5e rravaao'Bai vroXiop-
Kovvras-

Stephanus of Byzantium ^ writes to the same
effect.® So too Jilian.'^ Valerius Maximus, who
wrote under Tiberius, attests a similar practice
for Massilia and tells of the Cean practice as he
had actually witnessed it.*

In Thebes, too, the treatment of suicides
attracted some remark.* In Athens such differ-
ential treatment as we hear of is of a religious
rather than of a legal nature. The suicide as a
victim of violence lielongs to the class of those
whose spirits ' walk.' "^ According to a statement in
Suidas," suicides and other victims of violent and
untimely death were buried in a special place.
We tind a similar ordinance given by Plato. '^ To
the same order of ideas belongs the Athenian
custom of burying the hand which wrought the

iServiusand Probus on Vergil, Georg. ii. 389; Hy^in. Fali.
130, Astron. ii. 4 ; Pollux, iv. 55 ; Hesych. s.vv. Aiwpa and
'AAnTis ; Eiyinologicmi Magnum, ed. F. Sylburg, Leii>zig, 18 Hi,
s.v. Atiupa ; schol. Hom. II. xxii. 29 ; Athen. xiv. 61S E, F. For
this ancf other swinging rites cf. GB^, pt. iii.. The Dying God,
London, 1911, Note H, p. 277 ft.

2 Plut. Muliennn Virtutus, 249 B-D.

3 Hist. Plant, ix. xvi. 4 x. 486.
5 De U'rhibii,i, s.v. 'louXi'?.

« Cf. Her.acleid. Polit. 9, and the epigram of Meleager,
Anthdloifia Palatiim, vii. 470, where the deceased is made to
say that at an advanced age ((capra Trpda-^v;) TjAvflof AiSoi'
auTofleAei, Kei'wi' •yeuo'dntro! KvXiKuiv.

7 Var. Hi^t. iii. 37. « Val. Max. iL 6.

'■> Zenob. Prov. vi. 17 ; Phot. Lex. a. Ti ovk air^yfw IVa ©^jSijcrii'
Tjpaj? yetrn',

10 See Plato, Laivs, 865. _ _ _

11 S.o. Kvi'Jryioi' : OTt (y tw Kvftiyiif KaXovfievw (ppiiTTovvTO oi
^inioOdt'aTOL.

1-' Laws, y73C.

30

SUICIDE (Greek and Roman)

deed apart from the suicide's body.^ Josephus, in
mentioning the custom, adds the unsatisfactorj'
reason that the hand was regarded as alien to the
body.' It is more natural to connect the practice
with the idea of the soul of the suicide ' walking '
— 'perhaps to jjrevent his ghost from attacking
the living.'^

6. Philosophy. — As regards tlie attitude of the
philoso]i]iii' scliools, the teaching of the Pytha-
goreans condemned suicide. According to Orpliic
or Pythagorean doctrine, the soul is undergoing in
the body a penitential discipline for ante-natal
sin.* Hence suicide is an unwarranted rebellion
against the will of God on the part of the indi-
vidual, wli;)init behoves to wait until it please God
to set him free.

Plato, if we may infer his position from the
Phcedo and the Laws, condemns suicide on grounds
which we would characterize as religious. Re-
ligious, too, are the grounds on which Aristotle
appears to regard suicide as reprehensible.^ Aris-
totle treats suicide as an oil'ence not against the
individual, but against the State, and that of a
religious kind, as involving the city in pollution
and requiring therefore penalties of a religious
nature. No doubt Aristotle had in view such
ceremonial observances as the severance of the
right hand and the like, to which we have referred
above.

Stoic teaching was decidedly favourable to
suicide. Life and death being for the wise man
inditierent (d5:d^o,>a), morally neither good nor
evil, the question of suicide resolves itself for him
into a decision whether life or death is in a given
case preferable. Life in accordance with nature
being the Stoic ideal, ^ when the conditions
essential to that ideal are no longer fulfilled,
suicide becomes a reasonable deliverance (ei!\oyos
i^ayoyyri).

Thus suicide may be demanded by a man's duty
to his country or his friends or by a condition of
severe pain or of physical disablement or incurable
disease. '^ The paradox of the Stoic position is
that tlie question of ' to be or not to be ' is decided
not with regard to virtue or vice, but with regard
to the d8id(popa, the 'indillerent' things. It is a
question of to. KadrjKovra and to, irapd to icadriKov.^
Hence it may be proper (KadrjKov) for tlie happy to
commit sui('idc, for the unhappy to remain in liie.^
Goodness or badness ^jc?' sc has no bearing on the
question.^" There is, indeed, little that ditiers from
the Platonic position in the statement of their
doctrine in Diogenes Laertius.^^ But the danger of
the Stoic doctrine lay in the facility with wliich
comparatively trivial discomforts might be held to
justify suicide.

Zeno (c. 300 h.c), the founder of the Stoic school, is said,
according to one account, to have taken his own life because he
had stumbled and wrenched his finjjer.i- Cleanthes, his suc-
cessor, havin;^: developed a gum-boil, refrained from food b.v the
advice of his doctors for two dajs. The treatment was success-
ful, and the doctors relaxed the re;,'ime and allowed him n-di'-a
Ta crvinridTi, all the usual foods. But Cleanthes, having gone so
far in the path of death, persisted to the end.U
For the Stoic the length or brevity of life was a
matter of indifl'erence.^^

The Cynics, too, favoured suicide. Antisthenes

' Aischin. c. Ktet;. 244 : edv tis aiirb:' 5ia;(p-/j(rv)Tai, ttju X'^'PO'
TTji' TOVTO Trpafaaai' xiopls toO cra/iaTOS BdirTOtiev.

2 BJ III. viii. 5.

3 GD:\ pt. iii., The Dying God, p. 220 n.

4 Philolaos, ap. Clem. Strom, iii. 3, p. ISC. Cf. Plato, Gonj.
493 A, Cratjjl. 400 C.

5 Eth. A'ic. V. 11 (113S-0.

Stc'Ao? eV-i TO o^ioXoyouueVajs th divcet fijf (Cleanthes, ap.
Stob. Ed. ii. 132). .■>■:> I y

7 Diog. Laert. vii. 130.

8 Stob. ii. 226 ; Plut. de Stoic. Repugn. 1012 D.

9 Plut. loc. cit.

10 Plut. dc Stoic. Repugn. 1039 E, de Comm. Not. 1103 C-D;
Cicero, de Fin. iii. 18.
" vii. 130. 12 Tb. vii. 2Sff. is /fi. vii. 176.

»Cic. de Fin. iii. V,.

seems to have used the term, afterwards so familiar
in the Stoics, i^aywyi), to denote suicide.-^ Diogenes
is said to have recommended suicide to Antisthenes.
According to Diog. Laert. vi. 18, when Antisthenes was lying
upon his deathbed, Diogenes visited him, carrying a dagger ;
and, when Antisthenes said, ' Who will deliver me from this
trouble?', Diogenes, showing him the dagger, said, 'This.'
There is a similar story in Diog. Laert. iv. 3, that on one
occasion Speusippos, driving in his carriage to the Academy,
met Diogenes and wished him good-day (xaipe ilneiv), to which
he replied that he would not wish him the same otrns un-o/ieVei?

^T^V T010UT05 uv.

On the other hand, the Academic, Peripatetic,
and Epicurean schools were all ojiposed to suicide,
at any rate in theory.

With regard to the Academics it ma}- suffice to quote the
story of Carneades, who, when he heard that the Stoic Antipater
had committed suicide by drinking poison, exclaimed, 'Then
give me too to drink!' And, when his friends said, 'What?'
' Athol brose ' (oifo/jieXi), he said. 2

The Peripatetics hold that the excellences of the
soul are superior to the excellences of the body
and other external excellences, yet thej^ aim at
the other excellences, first, as desirable for their
own sakes, and, ne.xt, as being useful irp6s re tov
ttoXltlkov Kal tov kolvuivikov piov Kai 8e /cat Trpoj Tbv
deiopTjTLKov. wapap-eTpeicrdai. yap tov ^iov tuls Ti'oXiTi-
icals Kal rats KOLViovLKais irpa^ecn Kai rats OeupTjTiKals.^
Their attitude to suicide is thus in sharp contrast
to that of the Stoics.

As regards the Epicureans, believing as they did
in the extinction of the soul at dissolution, it
might well seem that life at any level was at least
worth something, and it were folly to cast that
away for the nothingness of tlie grave. It would
seem that thej' occuined themselves particularly
in pointing out the folly of committing .suicide
through fear of the terrors of death.

' Death, that most dreaded of ills, is nothing to us. For
while we are, death is not ; and when death has come, we
are not. Death, then, is nothing to the living nor yet to the
dead, since it does not affect tlie former, and the latter no
longer exist. The crowd, to be sure, at one time shrink from
death as the worst of evils, at another choose it as a refuge from
the miseries of life. But the wise man neither declines life nor
shrinks from death, since life is not distasteful to him, nor does
he think it an evil not to live.' 4

The Cyrenaics seem in general to have been
opposed to suicide. Theodoros, counting the
Avorld his country and disbelieving in friendship,
held that even self-sacrifice for one's country was
unjustifiable.* Hegesias, on the other hand,
preached suicide so franklj' as to earn the title of
6 IleLjiddvaTos,'' and witii such success as to provoke
the interference of Ptolemy.'

7- Religion. — From the religious point of view
.suicide was regardetl alwaj^s as a crime, a violation
of the social order. We have seen that Orphic
teaching condemned suicide. But it is impossible
to regard this condemnation as limited to so con-
fined a circle. The more one re'iects on the
evidence, the more one is forced to the conclusion
that much which we ascribe to the Orphics is
really part of tlie general tradition — part of the
popular belief. The sort of doctrine Avhicli Plato
ascribes at one moment to the mystics he at
another ascribes to popular belief. In any case
the belief in immortality is described in the
Apology/ as among ra \ey6j.i.eva, among the popular
beliefs. And popular belief certainlj^ diii'erentiated
between the fortune after death of the suicide and
of those who died a natural death [davaTui €'ip.apnevu>,
morte sua). Already in Homer it is difficult to
account for the position of Antikleia, the mother
of Ody.sseus, on any other supposition than tiiat

1 Cf. Athen. iv. 157 B ; Plutarch, de Stmc. Repuqn. 1039 E,
1040 A, and de Comm. Not. H'O.i C, D ; Diog. Laert. vi. 24.

2 Diog. Laert. iv. 64 f. ; Stob. Flor. cxix. 19.
s See Stobaius, ii. 264-266.

4 H. Usener, Epictirea, Berlin, 18S7-1908, iii. 60, tr. A. E.
Taylor ; cf. Seneca, Ep. xxiv. 22, Ixx. 8 ; and the eloquent
protest of Lucretius, iii. 79 ff.

s Diog. Laert. ii. 98. 6 lb. 80.

' Cicero, Time. i. 34 ; cf. Plutarch, de Aiiuire ProHs, 497 D.

SUICIDE (Greek and Roman)

31

she is a suicide and thus not admitted immediately
to the realm of Hades. ^ We have seen above that,
according to one tradition, the dead Aias was
deprived of certain rites of burial. Tlie same
feeling is at the bottom of the practice of severing
the riLiht hand of the suicide and burjdng it apart
from the rest of the body. So in our own country
suicides used to be buried at the marches in a no
man's land : or, if in the churchyard, the body must
be passed o\ er tlie wall and not enter by the gate.

As popular religion regarded with horror all
shedding of blood, all interference with the natural
bounds of life, so it regarded with a peculiar horror
the shedding of kindred blood {al/x i^cpiikiov).
Ixion, who lirst introduced this crime — e/x^vXiov
al/jLa Trpcirttrros ovk drep r^x^as ewi/xL^e Ovarots — won
for himself a clioice woe.^ The supreme case of
'kindred blood' — which is the term used by
Sophocles to denote the patricide of Oidipus' — is
suicide. The Greek language hardly distinguishes
between self murder and murder of kin. The
suicide belongs to tl\e class of the %'ictinis of violent
and untimely death — aa.<pot fiiaioddvaroL (or, in late
usage, ^lodavaTOL) — tlie murdered, the dead on birth
or in nonage,'* tire unljorn victim of abortion,^
regarding the fate of whom the popular mind was
peculiarly sensitive. It seems probable that these
religious grounds, and not any speculative theories,
were the really active motives at all periotis of
ancient Greece in condemning the practice of
suicide.

II. Roman. — i. Heroic suicide.— What we may
call the heroic type of suicide— committed either to
escape intolerable shame or for great causes wliich
seem to demand the sacrifice of the individual life
— was thoroughly consonant with the character of
Republican Rome. Such suicides were a prominent
feature in tlie early history of Rome, and the
tradition of them undoubtedly exercised a power-
ful influence upon later conduct.®

The typical exauiple of self-sacrifice for the
fatherland is that of the Decii. According to
modern authorities, the story is true only of the
younger Decius. But, in any case, both are
enshrined in Livy's matchless prose. The elder,
P. Decius Mus, devoted himself in 337 B.C. in .a
battle with the Latins near Mount Vesuvius, when
he was in command of the left wing. A preciselj'
similar story is told of tlie younger Decius, who at
the battle of Sentinum in 295 B.C. devoted himself
to death, charging into the densest ranks of the
Gauls, where he fell."

Suicide to escape intolerable dishonour is illus-
trated by the story of Lucretia, the victim of the
mala libido ^ of Sextus Tarquinius. Her story is
too familiar to be told here.^

2. Penalties of suicide. — We have seen that
suicide liy hanging was regarded by the Greeks
as a shameful type of death. When Oidipus
discovers the nature of his sin, he can find no
stronger words to describe his deeds than to say
that they are Kpeiacxov ayxov-r^s, i.e. such as even
suicide by hanging could not expiate. The Roman
feeling seems to have been precisely similar. If
we quote the case of Amata, wife of King Latinus,
it is mainly on account of the interesting matter
preserved by Servius in his commentary on the
passage. Vergil tells ns that

' liegina ut tectis venienteni pvospicit hostem,
Incessi niuros, iijnes ad te<:ta volare :

J Ocl. xi. 85 f. 2 Pind. Pyth. ii. 30 ff.

3 Oed. Tyr. 1400.

4 Plato, lieii. (315 C : tCiv 5} eiiOii yivojiivuiv ical oAi'yoi' xpovov

jStOVVTlOV.

s See S. Reinach, 'Awpot /Staioeai/aroi, in ARW ix. [1906] 312-
322, and S. Wide, in ARW \u. [1909].
6 See Cic. Pm Sentio, 4S, pro Scauin, iii. Iff.
f Livy, viii. 9 i., x. 28. 8 lb. i. 57.

9 III. tui. ; Ovid, Fasti, ii. 741 ff.

Nusquani acies contra Rutnlas, nulla agmina Turni ;
Infelix pugnae juvenem in certamine credit
Exstinctum ; et, subito mentem turbata dolore,
Se causain claniat, criuienque, caputtiue malorum :
Multaque per moestuni deniens etfata furorera,
I'urpureos moritura mami discindit ainictus,
Et nodum informis leti trabe uectit ab alta.'l
Servius on this passage tells us tliat certain
posthumous penalties attached to this form of
suicide :

'Sane sciendum quia cautnm fuerat in pontificalibus Hbris
ut qui laqueo vitani finisset, insepultus abiceretur. . . Cassius
autem Hemina [the oldest Roiiian annalist] ait: "Tarquinium
Superbum cum cloacas populum facere coe<fisset et ob hano
iniuriam niulti se siispendio necarent, iussisse corpora eorum
cruci affigi : tunc priuium turpe habitum est mortem sibi con-
sciscere." Et Varro ait: " Suspendiosis quibus iusta fieri ius
non sit, suspensis oscillis- veluti per imitationeni mortis
parentari." '

It is clear in any case that the grounds on which
this particular kind of suicide was condemned
were religious or mystical rather than ethical.

3. Suicide under the Empire. — That suicide was
extremely prevalent under the Empire, at any
rate among the higlier ranks of society, caniiot be
doubted. Nor are the causes whicli contributed
to this state of affairs difficult to conjecture. The
most important were probably chieliy two : on the
one hand the decay of religious belief and on the
other liand the great popularity of a school of
l)hilosophy which was favourable to suicide. With
regard to the first, however, it is to be remarked
that it does not appear that even in Republican
times suicide, for sufficient cause, was considered
to be inconsistent with piety. The Stoic teaching
suited in general the typical Roman character,
and, in particular, the Stoic teaching in regard to
suicide found ready acceptance among the educated
classes under the Empire. In this matter the
Stoic position appealed even to men who in other
respects were at variance with the Stoics. In one
sense the Stoic doctrine was merely a logical
tlevelopment from the position taken up by Plato.
Even Plato had admitted suicide when some com-
pelling avdyKT] — .some ineluctable constraint of
Circumstances — forced a man to end what he could
not mend. The nature of this dvdyKr], or, as the
Romans called it, necessitas ^ or neccsvitrido, was so
indefinite as to be capable of a very various inter-
pretation. It only remained for later Stoics like
Panaitios (c. 140 B.C.) and Posidonios {c. 130-46
B.C.) to interpret it in the sense not of an external
compulsion, but of an inner overmastering impulse.
By this interpretation the whole philosophic anti-
suicide position was undermined. It was no longer
felt to be a disgraceful thing to commit suicide :
the only thing Avorth considering was how to
commit suicide with such bravery or bravado, such
fortitude or such parade of fortitude, as would most
ai)peal to the imagination. The morality of suicide
w as no longer in dispute : given such a situation as
either from the individual point of view or from
the point of view of his relation to the State
appeared intolerable, then suicide was the obvious
and expected course of action.

The pages of the writers of the Empire teem
witli suicides, and a glance at .some of these will
help to illustrate what was the current view of
vtiluntary death.

Pliny the younger,^ writing of Titus Aristo, an eminent
lawyer whom he (iesoribes as inferior to none of the philoso-
phers ' castitate, pietate, iustitia. fortitudine,' tells how, being
adlicted oy ' longa et pertinax valetudo,' he contemplated taking
his own life : ' You would he surprised, were you present, at the
patience with which he bears this illness, holding out against
l)ain, resisting the temptation to quench his thirst, enduring
the unbelievable heat of fe\ er while motionless and warndy
covered. He lately summoned mo and a few other speciid

1 Ain. xii. 595 ff.

2 The meaning of thcae nscilla we have seen above In con
nexion with the Athenian festival of the Aiora ; cf. Verg. Georg.
ii. a87fT.

■ Tac. Ann. vi. 23. ■» Kp. i. 22.

32

SUICIDE (Greek and Roman)

friends and requested us to consult his physicians about the
issue of his illness, with the intention of voluntarily departing
from life, if his illness were incurable, while on the other hand,
if it were merely to be difficult and tedious, he would bear up
and bide his time ; for so much, he thought, was due to the
entreaties of his wife, the tears of his daughter, even to us his
friends, that he should not by voluntary death abandon our
hopes, if only they were not vain. Such conduct I consider
eminently high and praiseworthy. For to rush to death under
the influence of an impulse and an instinctive feeling is no more
than what many have done : but deliberately to weigh the
motives for and against and then, as reason advises, to accept
or reject the policy of life or death, that is the conduct of a
great soul.'

In A.D. 101 the poet Silius Italicus committed suicide by
abstention from food. Pliny says: ' It has just been announced
that Silius Italicus has ended his life by starvation (inedia) in
his Neapolitan villa. Bad health was the cause. He had de-
veloped an incurable tumour and, weary of it, he betook him-
self to death with irrevocable firmness. Up to his last day he
had been happy and fortunate, with the exception of the death
of the younger of his two children.' i

In Ep. iii. 16 Pliny celebrates the heroic conduct
of Arria, who, when her husband CjBcina Partus
was condemned for his share in the conspiracy of
Scribonianus against Claudius in A.D. 42, en-
courages her husband to commit suicide, first
stabbing herself and then handing the dagger to
her husband with the words ' Paete, non dolet.'
This famous suicide is the subject of an epigram
of Martial. 2

A somewhat similar story is told in Pliny. ^

A special interest attaches to the type of suicide
mentioned by Pliny in Ep. iii. 9.

Cajcilius Classicus, proconsul of Bajtica a.d. 98-99, was
accusL'd of extortion and anticipated judgment by death — pre-
8umal)ly suicide : ' Ille accusationem vel fortuita vel voluntaria
morte praevertit ; nam fuit mors eius infarais, ambigua tamen :
ut enini credibile videbatur, voluisse exire de vita, cum defendi
non posset ; ita mirura pudorem damnationis morte fugisse,
quem non puduisset damnanda committere.'

Keferences are frequent under the Empire to the
forestalling of judgment by suicide. In a Avell-
known passage^ Tacitus explains tiie motives,
referring to the year A.D. 34, as being dread of the
executioner and the desire to secure certain post-
humous advantages which the suicide had over
the condemned in raspect of the disposal of his
person and his property. Normally, it appears,
the goods of a condemned person were confiscated,
and he forfeited the rites of burial. The suicide,
on the other hand, did not forfeit the rites of
burial, and his testamentary dispositions remained
valid. These advantages constitute what Tacitus
calls the 'pretium festinandi.'^ In practice, how-
ever, there seems to have been considerable varia-
tion in the treatment of the goods of such a
suicide. In tlie time of the Republic apparently
his goods were confiscated as a matter of course.®
It is clear from the evidence of Tacitus himself
that even under the Empire suicide before sentence
did not always save the suicide's goods from con-
fiscation.'

The perplexities of the question and the various
distinctions made may be seen in Justinian, Dig.
xlviii. 21 : ' De bonis eorum qui ante sen-

TENTIAM VEL MORTEM SIBI CONSCIVERUNT VEL
ACCUSATOREM CORRUPERUNT,' where § 3 forms an
important document with regard to suicide :

' Persons accused of or caught in crime who, through fear of
the charge hanging over them commit suicide, have no heirs.
Papinianu8,8 however, writes that, when guilty persons who
have not been accused commit suicide, their goods are not
forfeited to the fisctts. For it is not the fact of guilt that is
liable, but the fear of the guilty conscience is held in the case
of an accused person as tantamount to a confession of guilt.
Therefore, for the confiscation of the goods of suicides, it is
required that they must either have been accused or caught in
the criminal act. According, however, to the rescript of the
emperor Piua, the goods of a person who, lying under an
accusation, commits suicide are confiscated only if the crime of
which he was accused was such that, if condemned, he would
have suffered either death or deportation. He likewise held

1 Ep. iii. 7.
* Ann. vi. 29.

- i. 14.
5 lb.

7 Tac. Ann. iv. 19 f., ii. 31 f., iii. 15, 17.
^ Digesta Responsa, bk. xvi.

» Ep. vi. 24.

8 Of. Livy, iii. 5S.

that a person who was accused of a pettj' theft, even if he
committed suicide by hanging, was not in such case that his
goods should be taken away from his heirs, any more than they
would have been taken from himself, had he been convicted of
theft. Therefore the goods of a suicide are to be forfeited only
if the charge in which he was implicated were of such a nature
that conviction would have entailed the loss of his property.
If, on the other hand, a person committed suicide from
weariness of life or impatience of pain or the like, he was
entitled, according to Antoninus, to have a successor.
According to a rescript of the emperor Hadrian, if a father,
accused of killing his son, committed suicide, it must be held
that his suicide was due rather to grief for the loss of his son,
and therefore his goods were not to be confiscated. This
distinction is on the same level as the inquiry whether a
person who commits suicide without being guilty is liable to
any penalty on the ground that he has passed sentence on
himself. For in any case suicide is punishable save when it is
due to weariness of life or intolerance of some grief. And
rightly so : for, if a man did not spare himself, much less will
he spare another. It is forbidden by imperial mandates to
confiscate the goods of persons who have died in prison or on
bail, while the issue of their case is still uncertain. We have
to consider, in the case of a person who has died by his own
hand without reasonable cause while under accusation,
whether, if his heirs are prepared to take up his case and main-
tain the innocence of the deceased, they are to be heard and
his goods not to be confiscated until the charge is proved ; or
whether in any case they are to be confiscated. But a rescript
of the emperor Pius to Modestus Taurinus laid down that, if the
heirs are prepared to undertake the defence, the goods are not
to be confiscated, until the charge is proved.'

Other examples of this type of suicide in Tacitus
are P. Vitellius,^ M. .^milius Scaurus," Plancina.^
L. Piso died before his trial by a 7nors opportuna
which was probably suicide."*

A notable feature of the Empire is the use of
compulsory suicide as a means of executipn.
Intimation is conveyed, more or less explicitly, to
the party concerned that his death is desired.
The advantages of this form of compulsory death
over actual execution were apparently partly
festhetic, but probably the main advantage was
that it seemed to make the guilty person his own
judge and executioner and thus relieved the
emperor of the invidia which necessarily attached
to an actual execution. This method left to a
man his ' choice of death ' — what was known as
' liberum mortis arbitrium,'" or merely 'mortis
arbitrium.'*

Other examples of compulsory suicide recorded
in the Annals of Tacitus are Silanus,' Poppaja
Sabina,* Silvanus,^ Narcis.sus,^" lulius Montanus.^'
Thrasea Partus, Soranus Barea and his daughter,^^
Valerius Asiaticus,^^ Arruntius," Anteius.'*

Three examples may be selected as being the
suicides of notable men with regard to whose last
moments we possess detailed records — the poet
Lucan, tlie emperor Nero, and Seneca.

The suicide of Lucan in A.D. 65 is thus described
by Tacitus : i«

' Exim M. Annaei Lucani caedem imperat [sc. Nero]. Is,
profluente sanguine, ubi frigescere pedes manusque, et paulatim
ab extremis cedere spiritum, fervido adhuc et compote mentis
pectore, intellegit ; recordatus carmen a se compositum, quo
vulneratum militem, per eiusmodi mortis imaginem obisse
tradiderat, versus ipsos rettulit [Pharsat. iii. 635-646?], eaque
illi suprema vox fuit.'i''

The suicide of Nero has often been described.
The account given by Suetonius ^^ is too long to
quote. The story of Seneca's death is told in
Tacitus, Ann. xv. 60-63.

It appears that in those times every suicide was
more or less a^jjoseur, who was expected to make
his suicide remarkable by some notable word or
act. Hence Tacitus remarks : ' Senecio . . . et
1 Ann. V. 8. 2 76. vi. 29. 3 lb. 26.

•* 76. iv. 21 ; cf. Livy, vi. 1 : ' iudicio eum mors adeo oppor-
tuna, ut voluntariam magna pars crederet, subtraxit.'
5 Suet. Domit. 8. ^ Tac. Ann. xvi. 33.

7 76. XV. 32. 8 76. xi. 2. 9 76. xv. 71.

10 76. xiii. 1. 11 76. xiii. 25. I'-i 76. xvi. 33.

13 76. xi. 3. W 76. vi. 48. l»/6. xvi. 14.

16 76. XV. 70.

1'? Cf. Sueton. Vit. Luc. : ' Impetrato autem mortis libero
arbitrio, codicillos ad patrem de corrigendis qnibusdani versibus
suis exaravit : epulatusque largiter, brachia ad secandas venas
medico praebuit.'
18 Nero, 49.

SUICIDE (Sindu)

33

Quinctianus et Scaevinus . . . mox reliqui coniura-
torum periere, nullo facto dictove memorando.'^

A notable feature of those suicides is the
frequency with Avhich the wife shares the suicide
of the husband or even by example prompts him to
death — e.g., Sextia,^ Pompilia,^ Seneca's wife, as
just mentioned, and Arria, wife of Pfetus.

Suetonius, as the historian of the emperors,
naturally has numerous suicides, some of which
present interesting features.

In his life of Augustus'* we have a curious case (in 42 B.C.) :
'patrem et filium pro vita rogantes sortiri vel dimicare [i. 9,
trial bj' combat] iussisse [sc. Augustus] ut alterutri con-
cederetur ; ac spectasse utrumque morienteni, cum patre, qui
se obtulerat occiso, Alius quoque voluntaria occubuisset nece.'

'Quin efc Artabani, Parthorum regis, laceratus est literis,
parricidia et caedes et ignaviam et luxuriam obicientis, mon-
entisque, ut voluntaria morte maximo iustissimoque civium
odio quam primum satisfaceret.'^

' Alios [other senators], cum clam interemisset, citare nihilo
minus ut vivos perseveravit, paucos post dies voluntaria morte
periisse mentitus.'S

The attitude of at least the educated world of
the time may be described as an advanced Stoicism,
and the permissibility of suicide under certain
circumstances was accepted at Rome not merely
by professed Stoics but also by adherents of other
philosophical schools. We cannot do more here
than summarize and illustrate the chief aspects of
the question of suicide as it presented itself to the
chief exponents of later Stoicism.

In the first place, whereas to Plato suicide had
seemed to be permissible only, if at all, under
compulsion (avayKt)) of an external nature, this
compulsion is now so interpreted that suicide
becomes in fact not so much the involuntary act
of the unwilling victim of circumstances as the
voluntary assertion by the individual of his
freedom. The liberty of the 'wise' man consists
precisely in this that he is entitled to ' withdraw
himself (i^ayeiv eavrbv) Avhen he finds his liberty
hampered bj' his environment. Already Cicero
had interpreted for the Romans this phase of later
Stoicism :

' Et constat Stoicos, praesertim inter Romanes, in eo quod
vitae se subducere liceat morte voluntaria {i^aytoy-qv dicere
solebant) vel libertatem sapientis cerni putasse.' ^

This is the prevalent doctrine under the Empire.^

Hence the man who finds it no longer possible
to obey God, or, in other words, to live as his
nature requires, is to perceive precisely in this
fact an intimation from God that it is time to
depart from life.*

Again, Plato had felt the difficulty that, while
on the one hand it was better for man to depart
and be with God, it was yet held to be unlawful to
hasten that departure by one's own voluntary act.
Now the conviction of the nothingness of this
present life as compared with the after life for
which it is a preparation has become an additional
motive for suicide, no longer hampered by any
other restraint than that the individual must
convince himself that God gives the signal for him
to depart.^'*

In the end, then, to be or not to be becomes
purely a question for the individual. Suicide is
not to be the rash act of a momentary impulse,
a temporary confusion of values. It is to be
determined upon or rejected after due deliberation.
Nothing indeed is more striking in the accounts of
suicides under the Empire tlian precisely this
formal weighing of the considerations for and
against.

1 ylnji. XV. 70. a /ft. vi. 29. 3 /ft. xv. 63.

4Ch. 13. 5Tiberius,m.

8 Calii/ula, 2G. For other cases of suicide cf. Galba, 3, Jul.
Cms. 36,' Clarid. 31.
^ De Fin. iii. 60.
8 Cf. Seneca, Ep. xii. 10 ; Epicletus, Dissert. 1. 24 : to 5e

KcAdXaiov fxe^vrjao otl t) 8vpa rji'oiKrai,.
* Cf. Epictetus, Diss. iii. 24. 101.
M Cf. lb. i. 9. 16 ; Seneca, Ep. cii. 23.
VOL. XII. — 3

The individual point of view was much insisted
upon in the later Stoicism. The same set of
circumstances might in a given case demand
suicide, in another not. A situation of intolerable
shame, for instance, might be for an ordinary man
a sufficient ground for suicide. Yet it might be
the duty of another man, whose life was essential
to the State, to reject the temptation. A man's
death must be in consonance with his life.

Peregrinus, according to Lucian, e^Tj PovXtuSai, XP^"''? P^V
Xfivariv Kopioi'-qv (KL0eivai.' xpijvai yap tov 'HptucXetois PePittiKora,
'HpaicAeiios arroBavelv.^

This doctrine of ' propriety ' is expounded in a
well-known passage of Cicero's de Officiis, which
is of course based upon Pansetius.^

III. Conclusion.— Out review, then, of the
history of suicide among Greeks and Romans shows
that at all times the only valid motives against
the practice of suicide have been, in the main,
not ethical but religious. And consequently the
penalties attached to suicide are not so much civil
as religious. They affect a man's condition not
here but in the hereafter. The withholding of the
rites of burial, the severance of the right hand,
and so forth, all belong to the religious circle of
ideas. When religious values ceased to have any
meaning and were not replaced by other values,
then, as in the case of the Cynics, there was no
antagonism to suicide. When, on the other hand,
the life hereafter was so emphasized that in
comparison with that after life the life here seemed
of little account, there was an obvious impulse to
suicide. But that impulse was resisted and decried
— by Plato on the ground of a higher law, a great
mystery which demands that we remain in our
prison-house till God shall please to set us free ;
by the Neo-Platonists because suicide is ipso facto
detrimental to the soul. The whole question is
admirably put in Macrobius, Comm. in Somn.
Scip. i. 13 :

' Haec Platonicae sectae semina altius Plotinus exsequitur.
Oportet, inquit, animam post hominem liberam corporeis
passionibus inveniri. Quam qui de corpore violenter extrudit,
liberam esse non patitur. Qui enim sibi sua sponte necem
comparat, aut pertaesus necessitatis aut metu cuiusquam ad
hoc descendit aut odio ; quae omnia inter passiones habentur ;
ergo etsi ante fuit his sordibus pura, hoc ipso tamen, quod exit
extorta, sordescit. Deinde mortem debere ait animae a
corpore solutionem esse, non vinculum, exitu autem coacto
animam circa corpus magis magisque vinciri. Et revera ideo
sic extortae animae diu circa corpus eiusve Bepulturam vel
locum, in quo iniecta manus est, pervagantur : cum contra illae
animae, quae se in hac vita a vinculis corporia philosophiae
morte dissolvunt, adhunc extante corpore caelo et sidoribus
inserantur.'

Literature.— K. A. Geiger, Der Selbstmord im klassischen
Altertum, Augsburg, 1S88 ; E. Durkheim, Le Suicide, Paris,
1897; R. Hirzel, 'Der Selbstmord,' in ARW xi. [1908];
A. Buonafede, Bistoire critique et philosophique de suicide,
Paris, 1762. A. W. MaIR.

SUICIDE (Hindu).— I. Vedic— In view of the
devotion to life and its pleasures which marks the
Eigveda, and which is reflected in the disapproval
therein implied of the practice of snti, it is not
surprising that no trace of the custom of religious
suicide can be found in that text. Nor in the
later Sainhitds and the Brdhmanas is there any
clear recognition of such a usage, unless we accept
the suggestion of Hillebrandt^ that the consecra-
tion ceremony {diksd),* which is an essential pre-
liminary to the most important r\tes, is in reality
a faded form of the older practice of suicide by
fire. While it is true that the generation of heat
in the man who undergoes the rite is an important
feature of it, the pur])ose of this practice, as of
the fasting which constitutes even a more essential

1 Lucian, Peregrin. 83.

2 Cicero, de OJlciis, i. lllff., tr. G. B. Gardiner, London,
1899.

3 Ritiiallitteratur ( = GIAI' iii. 2), Strassburg, 1897, p. 125.

4 See B. Lindner, Die Dihfd oder H'eihefiir das Somaopfer,
Leipzig, 1878.

34

SUICIDE (Hindu)

element of the cereinouy, may much more naturally
be deemed to be to produce the jisychological con-
dition best suited for the performance of the
sacrifice. There are, however, in the Brdhmanas
two doctrines which undoubtedly pave the way
for the approval of suicide from religious motives.
In the first place, there is developed the conception
that the proper sacrifice is that of a man's self,
and that other forms of oiiering are substitutes;^
in the second place, in the late.st of the great
Brdhmanas, the SatajKctha," the closing act of
both the purusamedha and the sarvamedha, the
human and the universal sacrifices, is the giving
away by the performer of the whole of his posses-
sions, including in tire latter case even the land,
and ins wandering into the forest, doubtless as a
preliminary to an early death. The teaching of
the Upanisnds, which emptied empirical life of
all true reality, held out union witli tlie infinite
as the result of knowledge, and glorified the cessa-
tion of existence, must have tended to the same
result, but the logical conclusion of their thought
is not expressed in any of the older Upanisads,
and it is only in such late works as the Jdbdla ^
and Kanthasniti^ Upanisads that it is expressly
laid down that the sannyusin, who has acquii'ed
full insight, may enter upon the great journey, or
choose death by voluntary starvation, by drowning,
by fire, or by a hero's fate. Earlier evidence (and
better proof of usage) is afforded by notices in the
Dharmasutras : in Vasistha ^ it is expressly stated
that the world oi Brahman is obtained by entering
the fire ; and in Apastamba,^ in an interesting dis-
cussion which ends with a defence of secular life
and aims, it is admitted that in one view the ideal
was for an ascetic first to live on fruits, roots,
grass, and leaves only, then on those things alone
which become spontaneously detached, then on
water, then on air, and finally on ether alone.
With the testimony of Vasistha accords the record
of the death on a pyre erected by his own wish of
Kalanos, an Indian follower and friend of Alexander,
who fell ill at Pasargadae and decided on death, de-
spite the opposition of the king, rather than alter
his mode of life.''

2. Buddhism and Jainism. — It is characteristic
of the general sanity of Buddhism in its earliest
form that the Buddha appears to have disapproved
of suicide, as he disapproved of all excesses of
ascetic fervour. But it would be surprising if the
influence both of Brahmanism and of Jainism had
not had its effect in making suicide reputable in
certain communities. Not only is the duty of
self-sacrifice deemed to excuse the action of the
hodhisattva in committing suicide with the definite
aim of being reborn as tlie fish whose flesh alone
can save the people from disease, but self-destruc-
tion appears to be approved if undertaken Avitli
the desire of securing rebirth in such a condition
as will permit entry into the Buddhist order.^

While this attitude is exceptional in Buddhism,
Jainism frankly recognizes and commends religious
suicide. It is dealt with at length in the Aydra,^
the first Ahga, and its preliminaries are described
in detail in the Aurapachchaklchdna and the Saiii-
thdra, the second and fourth of the Painnas in one

1 A. B. Keith, tr. of Taittiriya Satihitd, pt. i. p. cviff.

2 xm. vi. 1 ff.

3 5; cf. P. Deussen, The Philosophy of the Upaniahads, Eng.
tr., Edinburgh, 1006, p. 3S2.

* See F. O. Schrader, The Minor Upanisads, Madras, 1912, i.
39, 390 f. The great journey is probably wandering on without
food until death takes place.

s xxix. 4. 6 II. ix. 23. 2.

7 Arrian, Anab. vii. 3. A similar deed is recorded of an
Indian sage who formed part of an embassy to Augustus in
20 B.C., and accompanied his court to Athens; but he had not
the excuse of disease (Dio, liv. 9 ; Strabo, xv. i. p. 720).

8 J. S. Speyer, Die indische Theosophie, p. 276 f. Cf. art.
Suicide (Buddhist).

a 1. vii. (iff.

reckoning. But suicide is not permitted promiscu-
ously ; it is allowed to those ascetics who have ac-
quired the highest degree of perfection, and it in
essence consists of giving up begging, and lying
down in a duly chosen place to awr.it death by
hunger and thirst. Frequent mention is made of
death being thus brought about by a month's
abstinence (kdlamdse) ; this fate is recorded of the
Tirthakaras Parsva and Aristanemi,^ of the monk
Khandaga,^ of the layman Ambada,^ and of all
those celebrated in the Uvdsagadasdo. At this
supreme moment of his career the ascetic must not
long after rebirtli in this world or as a god ; he
must not wish to live on or desire sensual pleasures,
but equally he must not seek for death to come
more swiftly. The final condition thus reached
by the sage (samdhipatte) is one of complete
mental and physical collapse. Practically identical
with it appears to be the pannahhumi, the last of
the eight stages of man's existence as taught by
Gosala Mahkhaliputta.* The popularity of the
practice is attested throughout the whole histoiy
of Jainism : in 1172 thus died the great scholar
and statesman Hemachandra, followed in a short
time by his patron Kumarapala;^ in 1912 a monk
at Ahmadabad, tliough in perfect health, starved
himself to deatli by a fast of 41 days ; and in the
following year a nun at Rajkot, having previously
weakened herself by austerities, died after two
or three days' fast. Suicide, however, is still not
permitted to others than a.scetics, and non-religious
suicide is regarded with especial horror by the
Jains, as they disapprove of all taking of life.
The problem of reconciling these two views is
solved as little by the Jains as by the Brahmanical
schools.

3. Hinduism, mediaeval and modern. — Hinduism
stands firmly on the position reached in the
Dharmasutras, which permits religious suicide,
while censuring ordinary forms of self-murder.
Manu^ expressly permits a Brahman, in circum-
stances explained (doubtless correctly) by his com-
mentators as disease or great misfortunes, to walk
straight on in a north-easterly direction subsisting
on water and air until his body sinks to rest, and
declares that a Brahman who has got rid of his
body by any of the means practised by ancient
■ sages obtains the world of Brahman ; and Medh-
atithi interprets the niathods in question as
drowning oneself in a river, leaping from a height,
burning, or starvation. The MahdbMrata' fully
recognizes the wickedness of suicide ; nevertheless
the prince Duryodhana himself resolves to die by
starvation, and for this purpose, as the ceremony
is a religious rite, dons old garments and holy
grass, drinks water, and applies his mind to de-
votion, though his purpose is eventually defeated.^
An interesting tale,^ which appears also in the
Panchatantra,^^ is that of the hunter for wdiom
a pigeon roasts itself as a guest-oflering ; the
wife of the bird declines to survive her hus-
band, and the hunter, saddened by their sacri-
fice, repents and himself ends his life by fire. A
new aspect of suicide appears in connexion with
the develojiment of the devotion paid to the
sectarian deities which is characteristic of Hindu-
ism, for suicide now means not so much absorption
in an impersonal absolute as union with a very
personal deity. The idea is reflected in the
mythical account of the history of Mira Bai, the

1 Kappa Sutta, 168, 1S2.

2 Dhagavati. ed. A. Weber, Berlin, 1SC6, p. 300.
•i Ovavdiya Sutta, 100.

■1 BuddliaLrhosa's coram, on D'ujha Nikaya, ii. 20.
•'■' G. Biihk'r,' Ubcr das U'ben des Jaina MOnches Hema-
chandra, Vienna, li!S9, p. ."iOf.
c vi. 31 f. '' XII. ccxcvii. 31 f.

8ni. ccli. 20 ff.

9 Mahdhhdrata, xii. cxliii. 10 ff.
10 T. Benfey's tr., Leipzig, 1S59, ii. 217 (T.

SUICIDE (Japanese)

35

devotee of Krtsaa in the time of Akbar, who is
recorded tu have disappeared into a fissure which
showed itself for a moment in the image of her
chosen divinity when she was paying homage to
him at Dvaraka. Similar considerations doubtless
prompted some of the comparatively rare suicides
which took place during the ydtras of Visnu as
Jagannatha at Puri. Neither Chaitanya, to whose
teaching the fame of the shrine was largely due,
nor any of his followers appears to have encouraged
or approved this form of worship ; no allusion is
made to it in the elaborate account of the car-
procession by Krsnadnsa or by Abu-1 Fazl. It is
not impossible that the conception may have been
borrowed from a Saiva sect, some fusion of the two
cults having taken place at Puri, but Chaitanya's
own end was mysterious, and in his lifetime he
had sought mystic union with the god in ecstatic
trance, so that the occasional suicides of ardent
devotees beneath the wheels of the car of Jagan-
natha can hardly be deemed unnatural or sur-
prising.^

The wide-spread nature of tlie custom, and its
prevalence both with and without Brahmanical
sanction, are attested by H. T. Colebrooke from
personal observation just at the opening of the
19th century. In 1S02 the legislature intervened
to prevent the practice of suicide on the island of
Sagar, at the mouth of the Ganges, where, in
pursuance of vows, not only were children cast
into the sea to be devoured by sharks but grown-
up persons voluntarily underwent the same fate.
Tliis iiractice was confined to the lower castes, as
was also the custom by which men used annually
to hurl themselves from a precipice in the moun-
tains south of the N armada, sacred to Kalbhairo,
in fulfilment of vows undertaken at an earlier
l)eriod. This rite was carried out by mountaineers ;
great concourses gathered at the place on the new
moon of Phalguna, the day appointed for the
ceremony, and it is significant of the passion for
public recognition as part of the motive of such
suicides that the man meditating this fate was
wont to proclaim his intention publicly and, at-
tended bj' a band of musicians, to promenade in
the neighbouring toAvns collecting alms. On the
other hand, not only did the practice of satl (q.v.)
fiourish under Brahmanical auspices, but the
custom of suicide by drowning at the specially
holy spot of the junction of the Jumna and the
Ganges was approved, while the practice of lepers
consenting to burial alive was promoted by the
grant, of obsequies which were otherwise denied.
The Saivas also allowed suicide by cutting the
throat before the image of BhavanI in the temple
of Vindhyavasini, near Mirzapur. Interference
with these rites was gradual, but the final adop-
tion of the principle of treating as a criminal
offence participation in a ritual suicide has de-
prived the act of much (jf its religious character,
though it is of course impossible to prevent suicide
on the part of those who regard such a fate as a
logical outcome of the religious convictions which
they hold.

So far as religious suicide has been a])jnoved in
India, it is significant that it has been in cases of
men who have lived a full life and acquired a high
measure of ascetic power, and that suicide in other
cases has never been authorized and has instead
been strongly condemned. Tliere is obviously
comparatively little essential distinction between
the practice of austerities to a i)itcli which deprives
the ascetic of all mental and ])liysiial activity, and
the actual termination of life ; !in iritiirmcdiatc
stage is furnisiied by tlie catab'])! Iv (•(indition which
the Yogi seeks to induce, and of which the most
famous case is that of Haridas, who even survived
1 See art. Jagannatii.

burial for considerable periods.^ But in its essence
the practice can hardly be traced to any origin
other than the effort to supply a rationale for the
old and inhuman usage by which the aged head of
a family might be cast out to die, when he became
too old to rule or be of service to his kindred — a
usage for which there is clear evidence in the
Rigi:ccla.'^ In i)lace of the violent removal of the
elders there was substituted the doctrine that in
old age it was the duty and privilege of a man to
adopt a hermit's life, unless he preferred to termin-
ate of his own will an existence Avhich had become
l)urdensome. The essentially popular character of
the practice is proved conclusively by the pertin-
acity with which the Jains have maintained it
from the earliest period, though the doctrine of
the sanctity of life as adopted by them would
otherwise have forbidden approval of the custom.

Literature.— For the question of the dlkm see A. Hille-
brandt, Vedische Mythologie, Breslau, 1891-1902, i. 482 f.,
JDeut.fiche Litteraturzeitung , xvi. [1895] 74; H. Oldenberg,
Die Religion des Veda, Berlin, 1894, p. 398 f., ZDMG xlix.
[1S95] 170 ; A. B. Keith, tr. of Taittiriya Sahhitd, Cambridge,
Mass., 1914, p. cxivf. For Buddhism see L. de la Valine
Poussin, Bouddhisme : Opinions sur I'histoire de la dogmatir/ue,
Paris, 1909, p. 325 ff. The Jain views are given and explained
b}' H. Jacobi, Gaina Sutras, pt. i. [SliS xxii.], Oxford, 1884,
p. 68 ff., pt. ii. iSBK xlv.], do. 1895, p. 24 ; A. F. R. Hoernle,
in his ed. of the Uvasagadasdo, Calcutta, 1890 ; Lewis Rice,
Inscriptiuns at ^ravarta Bclgola, Bangalore, 1889, p. 15 ff. ;
A. K. Forbes, Rds MAUI, London, 1856, ii. 331 ff. ; Margaret
Sinclair Stevenson, The Heart nfJainism, Oxford, 1915. For
Hinduism generally see A. Barth, The Religions of India, Eng.
tr., London, 1882 ; H. H. Wilson, Essays and Lectures on the
Religion of the Hindus, do. 1862, vol. i. ; E. W. Hopkins, The
Religions of India, do. 1896, Epic Mythology { = (iIAl' iii. lb),
Strassburg, 1915 ; J. S. Speyer, Die indische Theosophie,
Leipzig, 1914. The facts as to the ydtra of Jagannatha are
examined in detail bv W. W. Hunter, Orissa, London, 1872, i.
132 ff., 306 ff.. The Indian Empire^, do. [1893], p. 276 ff. The
observations of H. T. Colebrco'ie are given in a paper quoted
by T. E. Colebrooke, The Life of U. T. Colebrooke, London,
1873, p. 178 ff. A. BEREIEDALE KeITH.

SUICIDE (Japanese). — Japan is known as a
country in which an unusually large number of
people commit suicide. According to the latest
statistics, compiled by the Bureau of Statistics of
the Japanese Government, the number of deaths by
suicide in the ten years preceding 1915 was as
follows :

Number

of

Year.

Population. 3

Number of
Deaths.

Deaths
Suicide.

Suicides
per One
Million
Inhabit-
ants.

1905

47,678,396

1,004,661

9,413

197

1906

48,164,761

955,256

8,906

184

1907

48,819,630

1,016,798

9,180

188

1908

49,588,804

1,029,447

9,595

193

1909

50,2.54,471

1,091,264

10,553

210

1910

50,984,844

1,064,234

10,773

213

1911

51,753,934

1,043,906

10,753

207

1912

52,522,753

1,037,016

11,128

212

1913

53,362,862

1,027,257

11,942

223

1914

54,142,441

1,101,815

12,705

234

The same returns give the number of deaths by
suicide according to sex and age, as shown on Table 1.

According to the methods employed, the number
of deaths is as shown on Table 2.

Some of the principal causes of suicide are shown
on Table 3.

Among the methods of suicide used hy Japanese
the following three are unique and worthy of
descrijition :

(I) Uarctkiri ('belly-cutting'), more commonly

1 11. Garbe, Si'nYikhya vnd Yoga{ = GIAP iii. 4), Strassburg,
1896, p. 47.

2 viii. Ii. 2; M. Zinmif-r, All.indischeit Lchen, Berlin, 1879,
)). 328 ; cf. A. A. Maodonull and A. B. Keith, Vedic Index,
l,ondon, 11)12, i. 395.

:• Populations in Korea, Formosa, and Sa;.'liaIion an' nut
ini'ludcd.

36

SUICIDE (Japanese)

Table 1.

Age.

Sex.

Year.

1905. 1906.

1907.

1908.

1909.

1910.

1911.

1912.

1913.

1914.

1-16 . .
16-20 . .
20-30 . .
30-40 . .
40-50 . .
Over 50 .
Unknown .

/ Male
\ Female
/ Male
\ Ffiiiale
/ Male
1 Female
/ Male
1 Female
1 Jlale
\ l'\'male
/ Male
{ Female
1 Male
(. Female

82

]08

201

383

1105

929

825

480

903

402

2007

1379

9

84

64

244

381

1277

971

785

4C1

774

365

2262

1241

6

1

83

90

2.58

378

1318

1019

909

515

773

406

2122

1308

5

1

79

80

309

440

1494

1015

894

504

821

398

2296

1261

4

135

103

299

409
1568
1009

965

573 ■

918

388

2(in8

1383

94

41

131

115

316

405

1527

1021

1019

543

881

418

2756

1428

171

42

135

116

345

399

1597

1058

1022

587

834

408

2569

1421

209

53

108

91

379

356

1683

1102

1015

560

861

485

2057

1452

212

67

122
111
344
449

1767

1213

1131

580

998

479

2913

1592

206

37

141

100

388

413

1855

1231

1214

641

1049

479

3210

1724

221

39

Table 2.

Year.

Method.

Sex.

1905.

1906.

19U7.

1908.

1909.

1910.

1911.

1912.

1913.

1914.
4376

Hanging .

J Male
( Female

3593

3337

3296

3427

3S61

3909

3686

3769

4123

1591

1516

1573

1517

1637

1616

1578

1621

1791

1814

Drowning .

1 Male
1 Female

1148

981

921

11187

1183

1247

1222

1245

1318

1516

1685

1510

1536

1574

1698

1693

1746

1770

1810

1927

Stab-cut .

/ ILale

186

193

201

239

265

243

269

276

325

343

( Female

95

87

112

108

117

118

86

103

127

126

Fire-arms .

J Male
\ Female

117

127

121

143

150

158

132

136

149

144

8

13

9

12

16

12

8

9

13

10

Poison .

/ Male

124

137

170

171

223

260

349

346

347

375

1 Female

58

68

103

112

107

137

]86

206

190

226

Railway

/Male

—

—

—

698

804

821

930

1017

1105

1 Female

—

—

—

—

294

307

343

403

465

436

Otherwise .

/ Male

564

644

759

830

207

190

252

213

202

219

\ Female

244

290

379

380

98

89

95

101

65

88
8078

Total . .

/ Male
\ Female

5732

5422

5468

5S97

6.587

OSU

6711

6915

7481

3081

3484

.3712

3703

3967

3972

4042

4213

4461

4627

Table 3.

Cause.

Year.

1905.

1906.

1907.

1908.

1909.
3784

1910.

1911.

1912.

1913.

1914.

Mental disease

4563

4312

4298

4174

3622

3421

3358

3276

3453

Physical pain

1676

1514

Kun

1835

2109

2155

2146

2224

2460

2669

Povertj'

1192

984

1005

1017

891

824

771

837

897

875

Jealousy

340

373

428

485

327

257

264

234

232

235

Remorse

274

271

226

232

230

165

156

173

157

193

Family trouble .

248

278

334

330

227

251

248

268

321

382

Fear of punishment

86

64

102

91

167

185

195

213

219

214

Anxiety

42

65

68

55

163

229

238

219

232

199

Business failure .

102

116

128

136

177

187

184

189

252

304

Dissipation .

51

81

86

95

203

147

184

215

185

197

called scp2^i(ku, was, until the iiiu'iiuili^atioii of the
new criminal code in 1873, a method of punishment
frequently required of offenders from the nobility
and the military class. Tlie laws of the Tang
period in China, which for several hundred years
had been the model of the Japanese legal system,
recognized three forms of capital punishment: be-
heading, strangulation, and self-execution. The
last was allowed to offenders of rank, that they
might escape the shame of public death at the
hands of others. The criminal law.s of Japan
allowed self-execution to members of the royal
family and to others above the fifth court-rank,
except in case of high treason. IlaraJciri dates
from the Taira and Minamoto period in the 12th
cent, and was widely practised during the Sengoku

period of internal strife. During the Tokngawa
period the practice developed into a complicated
system with much etiquette and formality.

'It was not mere suicide. It was an institution, legal and
ceremonial, invented in the middle ages, by which warriors
could expiate their crimes, apologize for error, escape from
disgrace, redeem their friends or prove their sincerity.' i

The most notable historical case of harakiri is
that of the 47 llonin, in 1703. The daimyo Asano
had been obliged to commit hnrakiri to atone for
an unjustifiable attack upon Kira, a nobleman in
the Shogun's palace. A band of devoted followers,
after long effort, avenged their master by assassin-
ating Kira. They gave themselves up to justice
and, under sentence, committed harakiri at the
1 T. Ilarada, Faith of Japan, New York, 1914, p. 129.

SUICIDE (Jewish)

37

homes of the daimyos to whom, in groups, they
had been entrusted. Their bodies were buried
with respect at a Buddhist temple in Tokyo ; and
to this day many admirers of their chivalrous
loyalty pay homage at their tomb.

For the purpose of harakiri a site was usually
selected in some garden facing a residence, sheltered
at the back and sides by curtains of white cotton.
Within tlie curtained enclosure were placed two
mats covered with a mattress of light blue. The
condemned seated himself upon the mattress in the
presence of superintending witnesses, with a kins-
man or special friend to act as an assistant. He
was clothed in special garments, and, after certain
formal ceremonies, was handed a short sword with
which to make the horizontal cut through the
abdomen. The cut having been made, it was the
duty of the assistant to behead the sufferer, that
the agony of death might be short.

Though harakiri is no longer recognized as a
form of public execution, the method is still not
uncommon among those who seek to avoid the
humiliation of public condemnation and punish-
ment or the supposed disgrace of capture by the
forces of an enemy in battle.

(2) Shinju or aitaishi {'dying between two
parties ') is the death together of unhappy lovers
who seek escape from the difficulties of their earthly
lot and entrance upon a happier life in the next
world. For the accomplishment of shinju drowning
has been the most frequent method, the lovers
often tying themselves together Avith a strong rope.
So common was this form of suicide among the
lower classes during the TokugaAva period that in
1723 the Shogunate issued special regulations for-
bidding it, refusing formal burial to the bodies,
and condemning to shame or exile any one who
might survive the attempt. At present shinju is
of frequent occurrence ; and in recent years other
forms of death, such as poison or mutilation
beneath trains, have been employed.

(3) Junshi is suicide upon the death of one's lord
or master with the idea of following him into the
next world. In ancient times this was an act of
loyalty required by custom, until the emperor
Suinin (29 B.C.-A.D. 70) ordered the substitution of
clay images for the bodies of attendants and
favourite animals. Junshi was revived during
the feudal period, not as a requirement, but as a
voluntary custom whereby loyal followers, through
harakiri, expressed their devotion to their masters.
The drowning of almost the entire Taira clan in
the western sea at the downfall of that clan and
W\G. junshi oi hundreds of the family of Hojo Taka-
toki at the end of his career are among the most
striking manifestations of this junshi spirit. The
custom was forbidden by the Shogunate in 1744,
and, before the opening of the Meiji era, had
become uncommon ; but solitary cases have occurred
from time to time. Of these the most startling in
recent times was the death by harakiri of General
Nogi and his wife, at the time of the funeral of the
emperor Meiji, in Sept. 1912.

Literature. — Eneyelopcedia J aponica, vol. \i.,s.v. 'Seppuku
(in Japanese), Tokyo, 1914 ; B. H. Chamberlain, Things
Japanese*, London, 1902; Annual lieport of Statislics of the
Japanese Imperial Govemmeiit (in Jajmnese), Tokyo, 1917.

Tasuku Harada.
SUICIDE (Jewish). — Only a very fcAV cases of
suicide are recorded in the OT. The ancient
Hebrews were, on the whole, a naive people,
joyously fond of life, and not given to tampering
with the natural instinct of self-preservation. IS or
are all of tlie feAV instances recorded on the
ordinary level of suicidal occurrences. The case
of Ahithophel (2 S 17"^) is the only one which, in the
modern mind at any rate, excites loathing and
reprobation. The suicide of Ziiuri (1 K 16'") and

of Abiinelech (killed at his own request by his
armour-bearer [Jg 9^^]) only leaves us cold ; whilst,
on the other hand, the death of Samson (Jg IG'^"-)
and of Saul and his armour-bearer (1 S 31*'*)
inspire us with a sense of awe and a certain kind
of admiration rather than any other feeling.

But, when later the people of the Dispersion
became more and more affected by some of the evil
influences around them, and the difficulties and
perplexities of existence kept on increasing, a
much less wholesome attitude towards life made
itself perceptible. And, as cases of suicide became
more frequent, it was at last found necessary to
give a name to the evil. A suicide was thus, in
exact legal terminology, described as ' one who
purposely destroys himself.' ^ In accordance with
a general Rabbinic principle of legislation, an
effort was, moreover, made to find support in the
Scriptures for the new ideas and enactments which
the practice of suicide brought in its train. In
Midrash Rabbdh, 34, the prohibition of suicide is
thus derived from the wording of Gn 9^, the little
word nx in D3Dt hn iki ('and surely your blood')
being taken to include self-destruction. Dt 4"
('Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul
diligently') has been considered capable of a
similar interpretation, and some^ would even
include suicide in 'Thou shalt not kill,' contained
in the Ten Commandments. An indignantly re-
jected suggestion to commit suicide rather than
sufler is also by some discovered in Job 2^""" (cf.
7").

Considering some confusion of ideas which the
elaborate treatment of the subject by J. Ham-
burger ^ may produce in the reader's mind, it seems
necessary to state that the Rabbinic, like the
Christian and general, conception of the act
entirely excludes submission to a death of martyr-
dom from even the category of condoned or per-
missible suicide, so long as the victims do not,
under the stress of fear or suffering, lay violent
hands on themselves (or, by mutual consent, on
one another).

The difference between an act of self-destruction during
martyrdom and martyrdom pure and simple is illustrated by the
striking- case of Hananiah b. Tfcradyon, who, whilst suffering'
the pangs of death by fire during the Hadrianic persecutions, is
reported to have replied to his disciples' suggestion that he
should open his mouth, so that the fire should enter it and con-
sume him more quickly, in these words : ' It is right that he
who has given life should take it away, but let not a man
destroy himself (though, on the other hand, he allowed the
executioner to heap up the flames and otherwise hasten his
end).4

We must, therefore, limit ourselves to cases in
which the act of death is, in the literal sense of the
term, self-inflicted, though a division into ditterent
categories is at the same time necessary. Con-
cerning suicide induced by the martyr spirit of
patriotism we find instructive information in
Josephus, where both sides of the argument are
forcibly stated from tiie points of view of warriors,
philosophers, and men of the world.

In the speeches addressed to the Jewish garrison of Masada '
their commandant Eleazar lays special stress on their resolve,
made long ago, ' never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any
other than God himself,' and then exhorts them to receive their
punishment for their past sins from none other than the l>eity,
' as executed by our own hands ' ; and, on finding that his words
had not yet produced the desired effect, he adds, among other
things, the further argument that death ' affords our souls their
liberty, and sends them by a removal into their own place of
purity, where they are to be insensible to all sorts of misery,'

1 nyiS l2i'V n3.XDn(fi.r7., at the beginning of S^mahoth,\\.).
The terms lD!iV riN pJinn ('one who strangles himself) and
IDsy riK 3"linn (' one who kills himself ') are also used. The act
of suicide is represented by nviS iDsy nn'K.

2 See J. L. Saalschiitz, Das mosaische Recht, Berlin, 184C-18,
p. 550.

3 Art. ' Selbstmord,' in Realencyclopddie, Talmudic part.

4 T.B. 'Ahoddh ZarCih, 18a.

5 BJ VII. viii. 6f.

38

SUICIDE (Muhammadan)— SUICIDE (Semitic and Egjrptian)

the final result beiiicr that 960 persons {i.e. the whole srarrison,
including women and children, with the exception of two
women and five children) consented to die rather than yield
themselves up to the Romans. (The spirit of the act is, of
course, tlie same as caused the self-destruction of Razis, as
related in 2 Mac 14^7-46 ; and with the occurrence at Masada
may be filly compared the typical medi;eval instance of the
dea'th of a large number of Jews in York in the year 1190.)

Joseplui.s's own attitude towards suicide, under
similar conditions, i.s revealed in BJ III. viii.

In the speech which, after the fall of Jolapata, he addressed
to the men who had taken refuge with him in a cave, he com-
pares a suicide to a pilot ' who, out of fear of a storm, should
sink his ship of his own accord,' reminds them that it is a
wicked and perfidious act to cast out of one's body the soul
which God had committed to it, and exhorts them not to
endeavour, by an act of self-destruction, 'to run away from
God, who is the best of all masters.' 1

A somewhat analogous, though much more piti-
able, class is well represented by the case ^ of 400
captive boys and girls who, when they understood
that they were being carried off for a life of shame,
determined to end their lives by drowning. To
quite another category belong a certain number of
persons who are reported to have committed
suicide under the stress of acute remorse for
certain acts of theirs.^ A diiferent case, again, is
that of the executioner of ^ananiah b. T6radyon,
already referred to, who, on receiving from the
dying martyr the promise of future bliss, is said to
have destroyed himself in the flames in which the
saint had tlied, in order to enter at once on his
inheritance. Rabbinic leniency by way of accept-
ing excuses for young suicides is shown in the
cases of certain cluldi-en who had destroyed them-
selves because they lay under a threat of punish-
ment from their respective fathers.*

The judgment of a person who, in our own legal
phraseology, has been proved afolo dc se is, in the
main, left to God (o-CfS),^ though a person who
recklessly endangers his life is subject to judicial
chastisement (nmo ruD)."* With regard to the
treatment of the body of a suicide, there is a
mention in the speech of Joseplius referred to of
the custom which demanded that the remains
should lie exposed till sunset. In Semahoth, ii. 1,''
it is enacted that one should neither rend one's
garments for a suicide nor bare the shoulder or
engage in any other formal mode of mourning.
Care is taken, Iiuw ever, not to ollend the feelings
of the relatives of the dead. Those present at the
funeral, therefore, form themselves in a row and
recite the necessary order of service. The general
rule, indeed, is that one does everything required
by respect for the living, but omits all the rest.
There has also been a rule of burying a suicide
away from the regular line of graves, but this is
not always observed.^

It should be mentioned in conclusion that
statistics comparing the prevalence of cases of
suicide among modern Jews with those of other
races and denominations are given in JE, s.v.
'Suicide.'

Literature.— The literature has been indicated in the article.

G. Margoliouth.
SUICIDE (Muhammadan). — There isno siiecifu-
text of the Qur'an which forbids suicide, though it
would seem that the texts which bear upon the
taking of human life in general are sufhciently
clear as to their purpose to include any kind of
wilful killing in private life. The following verses

1 The manner in which Josephus finally escaped death, whilst.
all his companions save one lay slain around him, will be found
described in BJ iii. viii. 7.

2 Recorded in T.B. Gittin, 576.

3 See, e.g.. Genesis itabbilk, ch. 40; T.B. QUldushin, 816;
Rashi in the mention of Beruriah (a doubtful case, however) in
T.B. 'Aboddh Zarah, 186.

4 S^vullxoth, ii. 4 f.

5 Maimonides, Mishneh Torak, mikhoth Roseah, ch. ii.
" lb. ch. xi.

7 Also embodied in, e.(j., Y('>reh De.'nh, % 345.

8 See Hamburger, end of art. ' Selb.st.mord,' where references
relating to this point arc given.

will indicate the bearing of the Qur'an upon the
subject : ^

'It is not for any soul to die, save by God's permission written
down for an appointed time' (iii. 139; the reference is to him
who ' dies or is killed '). ' It is not for a believer to kill a
believer save by mistake ' (iv. 93). ' And whoso kills a believer
purposely, his reward is hell, to dwell therein for aye ; and God
will be wroth with him, and curse him, and prepare for him a
mighty woe ' (iv. 95). ' He respites them until a stated time ;
and when their time comes they cannot put it off an hour, nor
can they bring it on ' (xvi. 63).

The attitude of Muhammad has no doubt been
correctly interpreted by hadWis which Bukhilri
accepts as genuine :

' Whosoever sliall kill himself shall suffer in the fire of hell,'
and 'shall be excluded from heaven for ever.' -

At the present time, and for many centuries
past, there has been unanimity of opinion tlirough-
out Islam that suicide is a violation of a divine
command contained in the Qur'an and the Sunnah
of the Prophet. A tradition relates that Muham-
mad refused to bury a suicide, and his example
has established a law to that efl'ect in Islam. In
spite of the law, however, it is customary to accord
the funeral rites in such cases.

It is difticult to obtain statistics covering suicide
in Muhammadan countries, but all authorities
who treat of suicide in an exhaustive way agree
that in those countries the practice is almost
unknown. It is clear from the statistics presented
in scientific works on suicide that the physical
environment of different peoples offers no adequate
explanation of the varying ratio of suicides among
them, while difference of religious belief as between
groups always results in a varying proportion of
suicides. The regions of Islam show few suicides
precisely because of the nature of the Muslim's
belief in God and the future life. The right atti-
tude for the Muslim is islam, an acceptance of
life's events as settled by divine appointment, of
death as fixed as to both time and manner, and of
the hereafter as a pre-arranged order of retributive
rewards and penalties distributed according to the
individual's attitude of acquiescence in the arrange-
ment of life and destiny or of revolt against it.
Suicide is an act of revolt against God, and the
perpetrator of the act risks the wrath of God and
the indescribable penalties of the Fire. What-
ever else Islam may lack in the way of ethical
influence, its sense of obligation to make accept-
ance of Providence the cardinal factor in obedience
to God has been an eifective determinant of con-
duct, and its doctrine of future retribution has
been efficacious in strengthening this virtue of
active resignation to the will of God.

Literature. — Mo.st of the leading treatises on suicide contain
a brief reference to the Muslim attitude on the subject. In
none of these works is there any attempt really to cope with the
question, the available materials not permitting any well-
founded conclusions as to the extent and causes of the pheno-
menon. The most useful general discussion is found in liGG v.,
s.v. ' Selbstniord.' See also DJ, s.v. ' Suicide.'

Walter M. Patton.

SUICIDE (Semitic and Egyptian).— Among the
ancient Hamito-Semitic peoples the love of life
was strong. They were (with the possible excep-
tion of the Egyptians) still in the earlier and less
reflective stages of civilization, and consequently
showed little of that melancholy which leads to
frequent suicide.

I. Semitic. — Among the Semites not only was
the love of life strong, but their primitive religion
was a worship of the goddess of life. Most of their
deities of later time were gods that were in some
form closely associated with the idea that life was
divine. Their general attitude towards life was
one of joyous interest in objective things. Their
philosophical and reflective powers never attained
any great degree of vigour. There are, accord-
ingly, no cases of suicide on record except where

1 The translation is E. H. Palmer's, SBE vi. [1900].

2 See DJ, s.v. 'Suicide.'

SUICIDE (Semitic and Egyptian)

39

the deed was committed in order to avoid a form
of death that was considered particularly dis-
graceful.

An early and classical example of this is the suicide of King
Saul of Israel (1 S 31 ')• Israel's armies had been defeated by the
Philistines. Saul said to his armour-bearer : ' Draw thy sword,
and thrust me throusrh therewith ; lest these uncircuracised
come and thrust me throujjh, and abuse me.' Naturally the
armour-bearer was afraid to do this, so Saul fell upon his own
aword and ended his life. Clearly the deed would not have
been committed but for the desperate straits in which the king
found himself. To him, as to many in all parts of the world,
the foreigner was unclean. Philistine foreigners did not bear
the sacred mark of circumcision ; they were doubly unclean.
He took his own life in order to avoid dying by such unholy
hands after having been tortured by them.

A second case is that of Saul's armour-bearer. When he saw
that his king had connnitted suicide, he followed the example
of his master. His motive may have been in part the same as
Saul's ; it may have been in part despair at the death of his
chief. At all events the armour-hearer, like Saul, took his own
life only when a death which he regarded as disgraceful was
inevitable.

Closely analogous to the suicide of Saul was the death of
Abimelech, the son of Gideon (Jg 95J). Abimelech had made
himself king of Shechem and a small territory about it; he
sought to enlarge his dominion by the conquest of Thebez, a
city some miles to the north-east of Shechem. In attacking the
city he drew near to the wall, whence a woman threw a mill-
stone on his head and broke his skull. He thereupon com-
manded his armour-bearer to thrust him through, lest it should
be said of him that a woman slew him, and the armour-bearer
obeyed. Abimelech did not actually die by his own hand, but,
since the death-wound was inflicted by his own connnand, it
was practically suicide.

A similar case in the Maccabsean period is reported in 2 Mac
1437-46. A certain liazis, imprisoned in a tower in Jerusalem,
which Nicanor was besieging, when he saw that resistance was
useless, fell upon his sword. As the wound thus inflicted was
not fatal, he threw himself from the tower. When that did not
kill him, he disembowelled himself.

At least two instances are recorded among the
Hebrews in which traitors committed suicide.

Ahithophel. one of David's trusted advisers, betrayed his
master and conspired with Absalom. When he saw that David
had eluded the traitors and that civil war would follow, he
hanged himself (2 S 1723). Similarly Judas Iscariot, the be-
trayer of Jesus Christ, when he saw that, as a consequence of
his deed, Jesus was arrested and condemned, went and hanged
himself (Mt 27^). Possibly his effort to end his life in tliis
manner failed, for another account (Ac 118) implies that he, like
Razis, died from being disembowelled.

Conscience, tlienasnow, sometimes drove traitors
to end tlieir own lives. Both the reasons for suicide
Avhich can be traced in ancient Israel operated in
the case of Shamash-shum-ukin, king of Babylon,
668-648 B.C.

He headed an extensive conspiracy against his brother and
suzerain, Ashur-bani-pal, king of Assyria. When Ashur-bani-
pal, having defeated Shamashshum-ukin's army and the forces
of his allies, besieged him, Shamash-shum-ukin, reduced to
extremity, threw himself into a burning pit rather than fall into
the hands of his brother.! His rebellion had exposed him, in
case of capture, to the kind of barbarous torture inflicted by the
Assyrians on rebels — a prospect that might well drive a man to
the less painful death of a burning pit. Shamash-shum-ukin
might, however, have faced this, as many another had done,
had it not been for an accusing conscience.

The cases cited sufficiently reveal the ancient
Semitic attitude towards suicide. It was re.sorted
to only in extreme cases.

2. Egyptian. — The attitude of the ancient
Egyptians towards suicide was in general like that
of the Semites. The love of life was strong in
them, and their conception of the life beyond such
that it presented to them deterrents of varioits
kinds. The inscriptions present us with two
sources of information on the subject, one prac-
tical, the other theoretical.

In the reign of Ilamses III. (1198-1167 n.C.) a
conspiracy against the life of the king was formed
in the harim, in which a number of high officials
were implicated. The king appointed a commission
to investigate the matter and to try the criminals.
From the records of this commission we learn that
at least seventeen persons, who were found guilty,
were left to themselves and permitted to take their
own lives.^ It was in a way compulsory suicide.

1 Cf. KB ii. 191.

3 See J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, iv, £§ 1 14-4f>4,

Death by their own hands was, however, apparently
regarded as less humiliating than death at the
hands of an executioner. An eighteenth person,
when found guilty, committed suicide, apparently
to the regret of the commission.^ It appears from
this record that the punishment of high and for-
merly trusted officials was probably accomplished
by the ancient Egyptian government in this way.

An interesting document written during the
Middle Kingdom (2100-1800 B.C.), which has been
entitled by Erman and Breasted ' The Dialogue of
a Misanthrope with his 0^vn Soul,' ^ indicates that,
in the mel6c of Egyptian feudal development, as
the failure of old religious forms to satisfy increased
and a sense of the injustices of life attained power,
suicide was contemplated by some as an escape
from life's ills.

The beginning of the papyrus is lost, but from what remains
it is clear that a certain man of gentle spirit (his name is lost)
fell sick. He was forsaken by his friends ; even his brothers left
him uncared for. Deserted by all, he was robbed by his neigh-
bours. His former good deeds were forgotten. Although a
wise man, when he would plead his own cause, he was thrust
aside. His name, which should have been revered, was de-
famed. He then determined to take his own life, but, as he
stood on the brink of the grave, his soul shrank back in horror
and refused to acconipany him. The dialogue then began. The
soul's first reason for not going with him was the fear that there
would be no tomb to dwell in after death. This afforded the
misanthrope an opportunity to expose to his soul the utter
futility of all such preparations. The soul had counselled death
by burning, but had then shrunk from that, as there would be
no surviving friend to stand by the bier and make the mortuary
offering's. He urged his souf to undertake these duties itself,
but then the soul refused death in any form, declaring that,
even when the great built pyramids and endowed mortuary
services, their toml)s were in time neglected and permitted to
fall into ruins, so that they were in no better case than the poor.
His soul urged that it was good for men to ' follow the glad day
and forget care.' The misanthrope then proceeds to demon-
strate that lite, instead of being an opportunity for pleasure, is
far more intolerable than death. The demonstration is em-
bodied in four poems addressed to his soul. The first of these
pictures the unjust abhorrence in which the speaker's name was
held by the world. The second sets forth the corruption of
society. The third, which speaks of death as a glad release,
justifies suicide. It runs as follows : ^

' Death is before me to-day
[Like] the recovery of a sick man.
Like going forth into a garden after sickncsfj.

Death is before me to-day

Like the odour of myrrh,

Like sitting under a sail on a windy day.

Death is before me to-day

Like the odour of lotus flowers,

Like sitting on the shore of drunkenness.

Death is before me to-day

Like the course of a freshet.

Like the return of a man from the war-galley to his hou.ie.

Death is before me to-day

Like the clearing of the sky.

Like a man ^fowling therein toward^ that which he knew not.

Death is before me to-day

As a man longs to see his house

When he has spent years in captivity.'

The fourth poem contributes to the argument in favour of
suicide by expressing the conviction that in the ' beyond ' that
justice which is unattainable in this world will be experienced.

' He who is yonder

Shall seize (tlm culprit) as a living god.
Inflicting punishment of wickedness on the doer of it.

He who is yonder
Shall stand in the celestial barque,

Causiiv.; that the choicest of the offerings there be given to
the temples.

He who is yonder

Shall be a wise man who has not been repelled,

Praying to Ke when he speaks '■•

This document shows how world-weary Egyptians
looked at suicide 4000 years ago. An interesting
feature of the point of view is that it betrays no

1 Ancient Records of Egypt, iv. § 456.

2 For a more complete account of it see J. H. Breasted,
Development of Religion and Thoitght in Ancient Egypt, pp.
1S8-19S.

a As translated by Breasted, p. 195,
* lb. p. 197,

40

SUMBRO-AKKADIANS

consciousness that self-destruction is wrong. In
this respect it is in striking contrast to the Talmud.
Rabbi Eleazar says that Gn 9^ means that ' I [God]
will require your own blood from you'^ — a clear
recognition of the sinfulness of suicide. The
Egyptian misanthrope, so far from betraying any
such consciousness, seems to hold that the fact
that in the world beyond he can not only attain
the justice that is denied him here, but also assist
in the establishment of justice, is a reason for
hastening by his own hand his release from life's
intolerable conditions.

LiTBRATURB.— K. Kohler, Jetvish Theology, New York, 191S,
p. 484 ; J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Chicago,
1905-07, iv. 217-2-21 ; A. Erman, Gi'sprdch eines Lebensmiiden
mit seiner Seek, in ABAW, Berlin, 18Q6 ; J. H. Breasted,
Development of Uvliqion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, New
York and London, 1912. GEORGE A. BARTON.

SU KHARS.— See Rukhars.
SUMATRA.— See Java, Bali, and Sumatra.

SUMERO-AKKADIANS. — I. The term.—

The ethnic expression ' Sumero-Akkadian ' does
not occur in the inscriptions, but, as tlie compound
Kcngi-Ura, translated by the Semitic Sumer u
Akkad, 'Sumer and Akkad,' is found, it is a per-
fectly legitimate name for the mixed population
which of old occupied the alluvial plain of the
Tigris and the Euphrates, where they flowed into
the Persian Gulf.

2. Probable derivation of the names.— ;-Many
suggestions have been made as to the origin and
meaning of Ke7igi (or Kijigi)-Ura and Sumer u
Akkad, but it must be admitted that both these
points are doubtful even now.

J. D. Prince 2 suggrests that it may be a combination ol kin
(long form of ki), ' land,' and gi, 'reed,' 'land of reeds' being
'an appropriate designation of Babylonia.' In the lists, how-
ever, Kengi or Kiivji is rendered simply by miitu, ' country,'
and here stands for 'the country' in the sense of 'our native
land.' 3 This being the case, it is probable that the above
forms are nasalized from kigu, the name of the first character,
suggesting that kiki may have been the unweakened form. As

iur
to Ura, that is the pronunciation given to the characters bur,
superimposed, when they are used for Akkad. This group also
stands for the highlands of Armenia and of Palestine, and
therefore indicated a mountainous region. 4 That the Akkadian
Semites (not, as formerly supposed, the Sumerians) came from
some highland district is quite possible, and that may be the
meaning of Ura. Akkad, however, is probably shortened
from Agadii, one of the names of the old capital of the northern
district of Babylonia. In Gn lO'o Acc.ad is named as one of the
cities of Nimrod's kingdom, after Babel (Babylon), but Agade
seems to have come into pron;inence before the great capital
city. In addition to Kingi, Sumer is also expressed by the
characters Eme-ku ki, which have, perhaps, to be pronounced
Eine-la^, ' (the land of) the holy tongue (or language),' meaning
the idiom used in the religious services of the Babylonian
temples, and ^teemed as sacred from pre-historic times. The
connexion of Sumer with the OT Shinar (Shin'ar) is still un-
certain. Suggestions will be found in HDB iv. 503 f., that
•which makea it a changed form of Shingi-Ura, for Kingi-Ura,
being the best.

3. The earthly paradise. — The tract wherein lay
firidu, ' the good city,' and the land of Tilmun,*
which traditionally enjoyed, in the beginning, the
happiness and the innocence of the golden age,
seemingly always appealed to the imagination of
the Babylonians as being at that time the most
desirable ;.bode on earth. It was this, apparently,
which led to the designation of Adam's first
dwelling-place as ' a garden eastward, in Eden '
(Gn 2^) — i.e. in the Minnu (Sumerian edina) —
which, however, seems not to occur as a place-

1 Baha Qamma, 916.

^ Materials for a Sumerian Lexicon, Leipzig, 1905-08, pt. ii.
p. 206.

3 There is apparently another (variant) form for Kingi, viz.
Kibegi, but this may be due to a pun (see PSBA xxxv. [1913]
155).

bur

4 If, however. Bur stands for a reservoir or waterway, lur
would indicate the watershed of the Tigris and the Euphrates —
see § 6 (6).

5 See below, § 6 (c).

name except in the compound Sippar-edina (' Sippar
of the eden') and in the river-name id edina, 'the
river of Eden (or of the plain).' Nevertheless, the
idea always existed, and probably increased among
the Babylonians, that their land was the site of
the paradise of old time. This theory, moreover,
is in a measure supported by the fact that E, which
often stands for Babylon or Babylonia, may be an
abbreviation of &ridu, and Tin-dir, ' the abode ' or
' the grove of life,' probably refers to the wonderful
vine therein. Many things, in fact, support the theory
advocated by Friedrich L)elitzsch,i and treated of
by scholars and theologians before and since. ^

4. Ethnic position. — As remarked above, it is
probable that the Akkadians (the Semitic section
of the inhabitants) came from some mountainous
district, and it may have been originally an early
stream from the west (the Amorite or Palestinian
highlands) which preceded that of Hammurabi,
who, having installed himself at Babylon, made
that city the capital of the land. But both races
were apparently, in their origin, mountaineers, as
is suggested by the fact that the Sumerian word
kura is the common word for both ' mountain ' and
'country.' If de Lacouperie's contention* (after-
wards followed up by C. J. Ball ■*) is correct, that
Sumerian, both tongue and writing, is an early
form of Chinese, then their Mongolian origin
would seem to be proved. The likeness of certain
Sumerian words to Turkish suggests that they
may have been a pre-historic race from the Far
East, of Turko-Mongolian origin. Traces of
oblique eyes are to be found in the small head
from Tel-loh (Lagas in S. Babylonia), given in de
Sarzec ; ^ and another example is the bearded male
head in relief.' Good grounds for the theory exist.

5. Evidence of the Syllabary as to the probable
original home of the Sumerians. — It was long
ago noted that the absence of a special ideograph
for ' river ' implies that such a thing, in the ordinary
acceptation of the word, did not exist in the country
of their origin. This, in fact, seems to be true, as
the compound ideographic group for ' river ' shoAvs
the sign for ' water ' (a) followed by a square
representing a lake or reservoir with the character
for ' to run,' ' to flow,' within. The Sumerians
may, therefore, have come from a mountainous
region where lakes and ponds were common, and
rivers were mountain-streams or torrents. The
word kur, which stands for both 'country' and
'mountain,' and seems to be a picture of three
mountains, supports this. On the other hand, the
existence of a character for ' date-palm,' giMin-Dutr,
' the fruit-tree' in a special sense, somewhat nega-
tives this evidence.

In the list of characters known as 'Syllabary 6' we gather
from the first entry that the Sumerians thought of the heavens
(ana) as the abode of the deity (dingir). They believed also in
spirits (gidim, utuk, etc.), and made offerings (^iigissc) to the
gods. To all appearance they lived in houses (e), not tents, and
those houses had doors (gis-gal) furnished with bolts and bars.
The houses were situated in streets (sila), which formed cities
(uru, dialectic eri). Their fields were more or less rectangular,
and were protected, at least in Babylonia, by boundary-stones.
It was apparently not until they had settled in their new home
that their fields were called ' water-centres' (a-sajr). They had
dogs, and the dogs were faithful but quarrelsome. They also
possessed goats, sheep, oxen, and swine. They did not at first
know the horse, the ass (ansu) being the common beast of
burden. Naturally they knew of wool (nig), and it would seem

1 Wo lag das Paradiesi, Leipzig, 1881.

2 See also PSBA xxxiii. [1911] IGl, xxxv. [1913] 154 f. ; ExpT
xxix. [1918J 181 ff., 288; and cf. art. Blest, Abode of tub
(Semitic), vol. ii. p. 704b.

3 See ' Babvlonia and China,' in Babylonian and Oriental
Record, i. [1SS6-87] 113, 'The Old Babylonian Characters and
their Chinese Derivates,' ib. ii. [1887-88] 73 ; cf. also pp. 149 ff.,
184 ff., 221 ff., 251 ff.

4 See ' The New Accadian,' in PSBA xii. [1890] five papers,
' Ideograms common to Accadian and Chinese,' i6. xiii. [lS9i]
three papers.

5 Decouvertes on Chaldde, Paris, 1884-1912, pi. 25, no. 1.

6 lb. pi. 21, no, 6.

SUMBRO-AKKADIANS

41

that linen (kat, Semiticized as kiti'() was one of the fabrics
which they produced. They had pots (dttk, lut) and dishes
(banitir), and used ovens {udiin). Apparently the only simple
ideograph for a metal was urudu, 'copper,' silver and gold
being described as the ' day-bright ' and the ' reed-bright '
metals respectively. It is supposed that the onlj- iron at first
known — an-bar, 'the heaven-metal' — was meteoric. Tin was
called 7iigga or nagga, and was probably originally pronounced
anagga (Semiticized as anakv). They knew of fire, and used
braziers, and a modification of the character for 'fire,' ex-
pressing the word 'new' {ge), suggests the purilication of the
metals and the completion of pottery and the like bj' its means.

6. Languages and literature. — (a) There ha.s
been much ditl'erence of opinion as to the existence
of the non-Semitic Sumerian language as dis-
tinguished from tlie Semitic Akkadian. Hal6vy
and his followers have even contended that it was
merely an ' allography ' — an invention of the
Semites for expressing their own language in
another way. Such an expression as ' to pour out
speech ' {gu-de), however, for ' to call,' ' announce,'
is probably too foreign to the Semitic mind to
admit of such an idiom replacing the common
Semitic nabii — so, also, 'to set the breast' {gab-ri)
for 'to resist.' Sumerian, moreover, has an in-
volved and more widely-ditfering grammatical
construction. The complicated system of verbal
incorporations, the absence of case-endings, the
use of 'postpositions' instead of prepositions, and
other peculiarities, stamp Sumerian as being a
language which Semites would be most unlikely
to invent. Concerning its connexion with old
Chinese,^ there seem to be many analogies with
regard to both characters and words, but the
theory has not been very generally accepted.
Many admit, on the other hand, that Turkish
contains a certain number of similar roots, such as
mal (wal) and ol in olniak, 'to be ' ; ara and yu7nc
in yurumek, 'to go ' ; du and de in detnck, ' to
speak,' etc. Turkish, however, with its longer
history, has naturally developed many new forms,
and the numerals diti'er, but perhaps it is recogniz-
able as a very late relative of Sumerian in its
pronouns.

(b) Akkadian is now accepted as the correct
designation of the speech of the Semites of Baby-
lonia, derived from what was apparently the most
ancient Semitic settlement in the tract, viz. the
kingdom of Agade. Akkad, as already remarked,
was called by the Sumerians Ura^ and the ideo-

hur , . , . . , .

graph hur, by which it is expressed, is suggested by

J. D. Prince ^ as referring to the two rivers which
were regarded as 'the life of the land,' viz. the
Tigris and the Euphrates. There is some un-
certainty as to the division in which the Akkado-
Assyrian language should be placed, but it may,
perhaps, be regarded as the bridge connecting the
Aramaic and the Canaanitish forms of Semitic
speech. Its verbal conjugations belong to the
former, whilst the consonantal system of its roots
resembles that of the Semitic languages to which
Hebrew belongs. In the use of the words, how-
ever, Akkado-Assyrian struck out a line of its
own.

Thus 'hand' is not t<Zii (Heb., Arab., etc. yad), but qdtu;
' man ' is not ish, as in Hebrew, but dwelu ; ' servant ' is not
'ebed or 'abd, but wardii, the comparatively rare abdu having
been borrowed at an early date from W. Semitic speech. On
the other hand, the roots of the words for 'God' (Uu) and
' lord ' (bHu) are the same as in the other Semitic tongues. The
Heb. melek, 'king,' and sar, 'prince,' are represented in
Semitic-Akkadian by iarrit, 'king,' and malkii, 'petty king'
respectively. ' House ' (6U?;) an<i 'street' (swgu) are from the
same roots as in the other Semitic languages, but in Akkadian
a temple was simply a 'house' (biiu), whilst the other Semitic
languages used the word hfkal, from Sum.-Akk. (hy-kalht,
' -palace '—{hygala, 'great house,' in Sumerian. Similarly the
Sumero-Akkadian word for 'city' was dlu, but the Hebrews
used the Sumerian dialectic 'ir, which appears as yeru (for Sru
or uru) in the name of Jerusalem.

(c) Most of the Sumero-Akkadian legends and

1 See above, § 4. - See above, } a.

3 Pt. iii. p. 352.

mythical stories have been dealt with in the artt.
15ABYL0NIANS AND ASSYRIANS and HEROES AND
Hero-gods (Babylonian). It is naturally difficult
to distinguish the nationality of each legend, but
most or all of them! have a more or less Smnerian
foundation. Among the distinctively Sumerian
legends of Babylonia may be classed that of Alorus
and his five successors, as well as those of Alaparus
or Adapa, Tammuz, and Euedoreschus.^ From
their names it seems that the ancestors of the hero
of the Flood were Sumerian, and the origin of the
legend of the Flood itself is now proved to be so,
notwithstanding that his names, Atra-hasis and
Ut-napisti'", are Semitic. This is shown by the
very noteworthy earlier version in the Pennsyl-
vania University Museum,- which is written in
the Sumerian language, without any Akkadian
rendering.

In this text the mother-goddess (Nin-tu, Aruru, and Zer-
panitu" are some of her names) speaks of certain people whom
she had created. At that time — long, probablj', before the Flood
— five great cities existed, viz. Eridu, the paradise-city, pro-
tected bj' the god Ea ; Ddr-Kis, ' the fortress of Kis,' which pre-
ceded Babylon as foremost city of the land ; Larancha, allotted to
the god Papil-hursag, who apparently' became its patron ; Zimbir
(Sippar), which was given to t(je sun-god, and became the great
centre of his worsliip ; and Suruppak, now Fara, the Baby-
lonian Noah's birthplace, allotted to the god Sur\ippak or
Sukurru. It will be noted that in this list of primitive Baby-
lonian (Sumero-Akkadian) cities there is no mention of ' Babel,
and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh ' (Gn 101"). As in the case
of the bilingual Creation-story, ^ in which Merodach and Aruru
not only create, but also construct the cities wherein men are
to dwell, it may be supposed that these deities were not only
the guardians, but also the builders of the foundations of which
they were now appointed patrons. A fracture of the tablet
here makes an unfortunate gap, and, when the inscription is
again readable, we have, instead of the Creation, an old version
of the Flood-story. The mother-goddess, here called Nin-tu
('lady of reproduction'), like MaJ in the 11th tablet of the
GilgameS-legend,* bewails the destruction of the people whom
she had created, and the gods invoke the compound deity
Ana-Enlila (' heaven and welkin ') possibly to prevent the Flood
from taking place. At this point Zi-Cl-suddu (' the being [or
soul] of remote days'),^ an anointing-priest of the god Ea, went
through certain rites and ceremonies, apparently with the
object of saving mankind from the threatened destruction, but
without effect.

' All the powerful wind-storms as one rushed forth — a water-
flood raged over the [hostile]. After the water-flood had raged
over the land for seven days and seven nights — after the mighty
boat had been carried away by wind-storn)s over the swollen
waters, Utu [the sun-god] came forth again, on heaven and
earth shedding day. Zi-Ci-suddu opened a window of the
mighty boat — the "hero Utu maketh his liglit to shine within
the mighty boat. Zi-Cl-suddu, the king, prostrateth himself in
the presence of Utu — the king sacriflceth an ox, slaughtereth a
sheep.' 6

In the final column Zi-Cl-suddu and his companions conjure
Ana-Enlila, ' by the soul of heaven and Uie soul of earth,' to be
well disposed "towards them. This favour was duly accorded,
and the twofold divinity, as in the GilgameS Flood-story, con-
ferred immortality upon him. Afterwards, to make good the
ravages of the tempest, which had slain so many of the human
race, 'the seed of mankind' was taken uji, and made to live
again in the land of Tilniun,7 the district at the head of the
Persian Gulf, which at that time extended much farther inland
than now.

An analogous legend is that of Uttu (?)— prob-
ably one of the strangest records of the Creation
and the Flood in existence. It was found at
Nippur (Nitrer) and was tirst translated by Stephen
Langdoii.**

1 ERE vi. 642 f.

2 See Arno I'oebel's Historical and Grammatical Texts in
Pvhlications of the Babylonian Sectio7i 0/ the U'liiversity
Museu7n, vol. iv. no. 1 (Philadelphia, 1914), p. 7ff. ; T. G. Pinches,
in the Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Jiistitute,
London, 1915, pp. 307-312.

3 ERE ii. 314».

■» lb. iv. 5.^1■'', var. for line 10 : ' (The goddess) Maji called out,
making her voice resound.'

5 The Sisythes (for Sisydes) of Lucian'8 de Dea Syria, 12 (see
J. Garstang, The Syrian Goddess, London, 1913, p. 50).

6 The sacrifice seems to take place whilst the patriarch was
still in the ark, and not after its inmates had come forth. But
perhaps two acts of sacrifice were recorded.

7 See ExpT xxix. [191S] 181.

8 The Sumerian Epic of Paradise, the Flood, and the Fall
of Man, Philadelphia [1915] ; see notice by A. H. Sayce, ExpT
xxvii. [191G] use.; also S. Langdon, 16. p. 165 ff., and Pinches
in the Jottrnal of the Tramaclions of the Victoria Institute,

42

SUMERO-AKKADIANS

It begins with a description of Tilmun, the jjlorious and pure
(or holy). There Enki (Ea) and his spouse (Damkina) had their
home, and on that account the original condition of Tilmun
was that of the world during the traditional golden age of the
Greeks. The people who lived in this happ}' land were not
afflicted bv sickness and old age, nor, apparently, did crime
exist. This bapjiy state of things, however, was seemingly not
to last, for Enki, the water-god, announced his intention to
destroy the field (probably meaning the whole district) by
means of a flood. This was to last for nine periods of a month
each, during which mankind would disappear like butter when
it melts. There was one man, however, who was faithful to the
deity, and for him, according to Langdon's translation, ' Enki
the king ' waited on a boat. The context seems to show that
the great and pious personage whom the god thus favoured was
Uttu, saved by the deity owing to his faithfulness. After the
gap which occurs here Uttu seems to be engaged in gardening-
work, he having become, like Noah, an agriculturi.st.

After another gap certain plants, possibly cultivated by
Uttu, are spoken of, and it is stated which of them he (probably
Uttu) might or might not eat. One of the forbidden plants
Langdon regards as the cassia, but this is doubtful. The
parallel between this story and the Creation-story in Genesis,
where Adam is forbidden to eat of the tree of life and the tree
of knowledge, is noteworthy, though what is attributed to the
first man in the one is attributed to a prototype of Noah in the
other. But Uttu's plants were not trees, and they apparently
did not confer either life or wisdom.

Among other Sunieriau legends may be noted
the story of Enlil and Ninlil, the older Bel and
Beltis.i the legends of Merodach,^ the legend of
Tammuz, and probably tliat of Tatar's descent
into Hades to seek him.^ The myth of Ura ov
Nergal, the god of plague and death, Nergal and
Eres-ki-gal,"* Enlil, Tispak, and tlie Labbu- serpent/
together with others* of which the names only
are known, may be added.

But besides the legends there are many historical
documents, of which the most noteworthy are the
inscriptions of fi-anna-tura [SUle des Vautours),
En-anna-tum II. (cone), Uru-ka-gina (cones), Gudea
(statues and cylinders), with numerous others.^
As the dynasty of Ur seems to have been
Sumerian, it is probable that detailed histories of
the kings existed, and a fragment of one dealing
with Sur-Engur and his son Dungi is known.
This is the period (2300 B.C.) when the transforma-
tion of the Sumerian .states into a Sumero-
Akkadian collection of nations may be said to
have taken place.

There are also numerous temple-records and
accounts, inventories, lists, a few letters and con-
tracts, and chronological lists and mathematical
tablets. The Sumerian lists of words are un-
accompanied by Semitic - Akkadian renderings.
These, as well as the lists of names (places and
men), are generally classified.

[d) From a religious point of view, the Akkadian
legends are most valuable and interesting. It
seems not improbable that the accounts of the
Creation and the Flood first published by George
Smith were Semitic compositions, though based
upon Sumerian originals. This is iranlied by the
fact that most of the names, especially those of
d^eities (Anu, the heaven-god, Enlil, the older Bel,
Ea and Damkina, the god and goddess of the
waters, Merodach, the king of the gods, Ansar and
Kisar, the host of heaven and the host of earth,
etc.),* are Sumerian, though Tiamat (Tiawath),
the dragon of chaos, Kingu, her spouse, and
Mummu, their son, seem to be Semitic-Akkadian.
How Sumerian dominated in tlie religion of the
Sumero-Akkadians may be realized when it is
remembered that Sumerian names in their pan-
theon exceeded enormously those of Semitic origin
— Samas, the sun, Bel and Beltu (Beltis), which

lf)15, p. 312 f. Instead of Uttu (?), the name was at first read as
Tagtug (?), which is a transcription of the two characters by
which it is expressed.

1 ERE vi. 644b ; also JRAS, 1919, pp. 185 ff., 575 ff. (numerous
additions bv Langdon).

2 Ih. p. C4-1 f. 3 lb. p. 645*.
4 Ih. 5 Jh. p. G45b. 6 Ih. p. 64 4h.

7 See F. Thureau-Dangin, Inscriptions dfl Sumer et d'Akkad,
Paris, 190.5.

8 See art. Sabaotii.

generally stand for Merodach and his spouse,
Nabfl, the teacher, and his spouse, Tasmetu"*,
' she who hears,' Addu (Assyr. Adad) or Rammanu
(Hadad or Rimmon), and certain other descriptive
divine names which possibly came into existence
only after the Sumerian cult had conquered.
Everything tends to show that the Sumerian
element of the population preponderated in re-
ligious matters, as in the literature and the art of
the Sumero-Akkadians.

7. Social life. — Sumerian influence in the land
of the Sumero-Akkadians was, in fact, evident in
every phase of their life.

The system of government was by a ' great man ' (lugal) or
'king' (Sem. nami), who had under him various officers, and
was represented in the more important civic centres by a
' head-man ' (ifj-sag, Sem. i.^iakti, ' he who is head ') — viceroy or
mayor. To lighten the work of the supreme ruler, the tablets
indicate that he had numerous 'servants,' or royal or vice-regal
secretaries, whose cylinder-seals appear (generally beautifully-
engraved specimens of intaglio art) on the documents written
or drawn up on the king's or the iiiSaku's behalf. During the
time of the dynasty of Babylon the isiaku had sunk to the ■
position of administrative olticer — probably something like a
mayor.

Other officials were the superintendent (nuhanda), often,
apparently, the king's treasurer and palace-steward, and the
business-agent (damgar), who acted sometimes as superintend-
ent of the v.-omen's house or harim. Naturallj^, there were
business-agents of various kinds, and belonging to the same
class were apparently the messengers and ministers, political
and other. 'These two classes of officials had to do with the
transport of 'drink, food, and oil,' and apparently acted as
political ministers. The number of documents referring to the
transmission of goods, etc., suggests the existence of something
analogous to posts as early as 2300 years B.C. Passing over the
nimgir, 'director 'or 'governor,' of whom there were several
grades, and the qa-iu-du, 'grain-measurer' (Lau) or 'cup-
bearer' (Zimmern), we have the sag-nanga, 'district-chief,' the
nitngir-ahzu, director of reservoirs, springs, or watercourses,
the mmve, distributors of rations, etc. Among the humbler
civil servants were the carriers, labourers, gardeners, scribes,
barbers— tonsure-cutters of the religious orders and apparently
also hair-dressers (Sum. iui, Akkadian galluhu)—a few of them
being women. Connected with the royal and temple domains
were also smiths, shoemakers, carpenters, tailors or cloth-
workers, goat-herdsmen, shepherds, ass-herdsmen, boatmen,
gate-keepers, and \arious others.

Though it may be held that these details are of
but little importance, they all tend to show how
highly organized were the Sumero-Akkadians at
an exceedingly early date, and the social and
industrial system which they had initiated natu-
rally formed the foundation of those of the
Babylonians and the Assyrians later on. One list
of late date (perhaps a copy of an earlier one) from
Nineveh contained, when complete, about 190
official titles or designations, some of them ethnic,
like 'the Itu'ite,' 'the A.ssyrian secretary,' 'the
Aramoian secretary,' etc. Priests and temjile
officials, judges and law-court officers, were also
to be found with the Sumero-Akkadians, as with
the Babylonians and Assyrians at all times.

8. Ethical character.— The numerous names of
men compounded with those of deities show, in-
dependently of the temple worship and ceremonies,
how religious the Sumero-Akkadians were. Each
city had its favourite deity, and every man
worshipped the form or aspect, shown by the
appellation chosen, of the deity whom he regarded
as his or his family's special protector. In addition
to their religious tendencies, however, they were
exceedingly superstitious, and fond of incantations
and charms, of the efficacy of which they were
never in doubt.^ Every disease or sickness was
capable of being cured by these means, and in all
probability other advantages which men are
accustomed to seek could be attained by the same
means. Among these may be classed the destruc-
tion of one's enemy by melting away his waxen
effigy, the cutting off of his life by the cutting of
a string or thread symbolizing it, and the like.
When seeking a sign, they generally appealed to
the deities Samas and Hadad, whose rays and
wind, penetrating everywhere, revealed to them
1 See art. Charms and Amulets (Assyro-Babylonian).

SUMERO-AKKADIANS

43

everything that passed on the earth. Tliey ■were
therefore the gods of judgment and justice, and
appeal was made to theui that the sign or pro-
nouncement asked for miglit be true.

In the matter of morals the Humero-Akkadians
were probably not better than tlieir neighbours,
but there is one point which is worthy of note, viz.
that in their literature, so far as we are acquainted
with it (with the exception of the legend of
Gilgames and one or two others), immoral or
obscene passages are exceedingly rare. Moreover,
it is in the same legend of Gilgames that the
greatest hostility to the goddess Istar or Venus
is shown— hostility which brought upon that hero
all the misfortunes Avhich afterwards befell him.
Slavery seems to have been in full force among the
Sumero-Akkadians, but there is no proof that
slaves were ever ill-treated. Ruthlessness in war
was also not one of their failings, as far as their
records are preserved, and they were probably the
superiors of the Assja'ians at all times in that
respect. As a nation, whather the states be
taken individually or as a whole, there is no doubt
that they had a high opinion of learning and the
advantages to he gained therefrom. To all
appearance it was a meritorious thing to know
the mythology which, to them, occupied the place
of Holy Scriptures, and to be acquainted with the
history of their land, which enabled them to judge
of the dealings of their gods with their rulers
during their long existence as a nation. In like
manner, a knowledge of the methods of legal pro-
cedure enabled their scribes to employ themselves
usefullj' by drawing up contracts ; and those who
made a specialty of such things could read the
signs in the heavens and make known all kinds of
omens, thus earning the gratitude of their fellow-
citizens and their own living by the fees of those
whom they served. Whatever their defects, their
records exhibit them as worthy people, equal in
social progress to all their contemporaries at the
early age at which they flourished.

9, Early Sumerian dominion. — Whether the
Sumerians or the Akkadians entered Babj^lonia
first is another uncertain point, but it is to be
noted that the earliest documents are in the
Sumerian language, and the earliest records refer
to Sumerian kings. Legends, ritual-texts, hymns,
contracts, etc., and word-lists are all Sumerian at
the earlier periods, and, when these documents
came to be translated, tlie Sumerian text always
preceded the Akkadian or Semitic. Their entry
into the country must have taken place about
5000 B.C. or earlier, but the Semitic-Akkadians
])robably became prominent only about 2500 B.C.
The Semites, however, were certainly numerous
in the country at an earlier date, and were
steadily growing in power. Sargon of Agade or
Akkad seems to have reigned about 28G0 B.C.
(Nabonidus's date for this ruler is equivalent to
3800 B.C.), and he was certainly not the first ruler
of Semitic race. Tlie presence of such Semitic-
looking names as Qalumuin and Zuqakip, ' the
scorpion,' wlio reigned before the mythical
Etanna,^ notwithstanding that we have to make
allowance for the inordinate lengths of their reigns,
probably takes back Semitic (Akkadian) dominion
in Babylonia to a date which can hardly be later
than 4000 B.C. In that case we may carry ba<;k
Sumerian dominion to 4500 or 5000 B.C., and even
8000 B.C. has been spoken of.

10. Babylonia under Sumero-Akkadian rule. —
(«) The large states. — The number of states into
which Babylonia was divided until the time of
Hammurabi's dynasty (c. 2000 B.C.) is uncertain,
but it can hardly have been less than 40 or 50.

1 See ExpT xxvii. 51S». For the lepenrt of Etana see EIIK,
vol. ii. p. 315a, vol. VI. p. C44».

This, naturally, only shows that each state had
its own ruler, and claimed independence from all
its neighbours. As may be imagined, the total of
these states varied at dill'erent times, owing to
conquest of the strong by the weak and to the
gradual absorption of tlieir smaller neighbours
by the larger or more predominant centres of
civilization. The name of each little state was
generally that of its cai)ital, and it is thus that we
have the kingdoms of Agade or Akkad, Kis, Unug
or Erech, Uriwa or Ur, Isin, Muru, Larsa, Lagas,
Ka-dingira or Babylon, Nipri or Nippur, and
many others. Apparently after the Kassite
conquest of about 1700 B.C. Babylonia was called
Kar-Dunias, ' the district of the lord of the world,'
but the older name of Akkad, derived from the
state of Avhich Sargon the Babylonian was the
ruler about 2800 B.C., clung to it even in the time
of Assur-bani-ripli, ' the great and noble Asnappar,'
about 650 B.C. The name of Chalda?a seems to
have been applied to it, and that by non-
Babylonians, only after the time of the Chalda'an
dynasty to which Merodach-baladan belonged.
As has been remarked above (§ 4), the usual word
for ' country ' was kur, but another largely used is
worthy of notice, viz. kalavia, written with the
character un, which generally stands for ' people.'
This identification of the land with its people
implies a strong sense of nationality in the minds
of the non-Semitic Sumerians, but was less pro-
nounced in tiie minds of the Semitic-Babylonians
after the time of Nebuchadrezzar.

(b) The smaller foundations. — Though the
capitals and larger cities (as understood in those
days) >\ere numerous, there were many smaller
centres and settlements, sometimes founded by
prominent agriculturists or traders, but in many
cases they were religious foundations. Among
the former may be mentioned the city of Idi-Uras
[&l Idi-d UraS) and the ' upper city of Elnanu '
{dl Elnana elu) of tablet 23 of the Relph collection,^
where also we find Larsa and Pulukku {Larsa ki,
Dur dl Pidukku *;», ' the fortification of the city
Pulukku ') mentioned. No. 26 of the same collec-
tion refers to the cities of men named Amat-ili,
Sin-nlir-mati™, etc., the ' Taribu™-district ' (kar
taribuyn), the '(god) Enki-district ' (kar d Enki),
the ' new Broad-street district ' (kar sila dagala-ge),
etc. These ' districts ' were apparently instituted
for the reception of the temple revenues, paid in
kind.

II. The Sumero-Akkadians' vievv regarding
their native land. — The idea gained by tlie studj'
of the inscri])tions is that the people of JSaliylonia
(and probably of Assyria also) looked upon tlieir
dwelling-place as a holy land. Every state, every
foundation, had its deity, and visits to the holy
places were meritorious acts.'' First andjoremost,
apparently, we have the paradise-city Eridu, the
abode of the god Ea — the city whose ideograph
was sometimes used, in later times, to express the
land of Babylonia in general.^ Next came the
great capital, Bab-ili (Sum. Ka-dingira), ' the
gate of God' — probal)ly a folk-etymology brought
about by the name Bahilai"-^ which was possibly
(with BabaUfn) the true form. Near Babylon was
Gudua (Cutha), the city of the god Nergal, and
Dailem, the ancient Uelmu, where Uras (one of
the names of En-urta) had his seat. Otlier foun-
tlations were Muru, where tlie god Muru (lladad or
llimmon) was worshii>ped, Qatan, the seat of the
god Qatnu, and Lasima, that of the god Lasimu,
the swift runner. These similar names of the
cities and their patron-gods remind us of Assur,
the old capital of Assyria, the centre of the
worsliip of the national god Asshur, and Nineveh,

1 PSiBA xxix. [1917] 90 f.
'- .See KRK, vol. x. p. 12.

3 See § 3.

44

SUMMUM BONUM

imitated from the Babylonian Nina, the former
the city of the goddess Istar as the goddess of war,
and the latter that of Nina, her Babylonian
prototype. Greatly favouring the gods, Babylonia
was held to be greatly favoured by them— hence,
perhaps, the reputation of the land as the district
of the whilom Paradise (see § 3).

Literature. — L. W. King-, A Ilist. of Sumer and Akkad,
London, 1910, and the works mentioned at the end of the art.
Babylonians and Assyrians. See also artt. Crimes and
Punishments (Ass3'ro-Babylonian), Family (Assyro-Babylonian),
Conscience (Babylonian), Dbatu and Disposal of the Dead
(Babylonian). T. G. PINCHES.

SUMMUM BONUM.— Modern ethical philo-
sophy has at various times sought its constitutive
principle in the will of God, the law of duty, the
problem of the origin of the moral sense, the ideas
or ideals of perfection, personality, progress, and
evolution. For ancient ethics the ultimate refer-
ence was to the idea of good.

I. Definitions and early ideas of the good. — In
its broadest acceptation 'good' is simply the term
of general approval which no developed language
lacks. Etymology cannot help us to a closer
definition, for the etymology of dyad6s is not known
and cannot be identical with that of bonus or of
'good.' The conjectural psychology of primitive
man is of no avail, for it is uncertain, and in any
case Homer was already far beyond that stage.
It is obvious that primitive man did not draw our
sharp distinction between moral good and other
good or desirable things. There is abundant
evidence in and out of Greek literature for the un-
moral specification of good to courage in war, high
birth, wealth,' and other objects of approval or
desire. 1 A unifying definition of good will always
remain either a more or less plausible generaliza-
tion from extant literature or an arbitrary de-
duction from metaphysical first principles. The
Platonic Etithi/phro and Lysis may serve as antici-
patory illustrations of all such attempts, though
the one nominally discusses holiness and the other
the primal object of love or friendship (the (piXof).
The Euthyphro leads to the impasse of the problem
debated by scholasticism : Does God love holiness
(or the good) because it is holy, or is it holy
because God loves it ? ^ The Lysis refers all
particular loves to the primary love or end which
seems to be the good.^ Biit what intelligible
motive is there for loving the good save as a
remedy against evil ? * Near the end of the
dialogue the difiiculty is evaded by renaming
the good, in anticipation of Stoic terminology, the
o'lKeZov, the 'own,' the 'proper' (or, as Emerson
sometimes renders it, the ' friendly '), and by calling
evil the 'alien.'* The association in the Lysis oi
the good with the end or purpose dominates all
later discussions and is the basis of most modern
definitions from Schopenhauer to Herbert Spencer
and William James. It is of course not explicit in
pre-philosophic literatui'e.

2. Homer. — In Homer we find the ethical mean-
ing of good already existing side by side with its
unmoral or half-moral use in the sense of brave or
well-born. This has been and will be denied. But
it is the only reasonable interpretation of such
passages as Achilles' saying : ' Every good and
sensible man loves and cherishes his own bride.'*
The fact that Homer also speaks of a good meal,
and of the menial services which the worse sort

1 See art. Theoqnis.

2 10 A. 3 220 B.

4 Lysis, 220 E ff. ; cf. T. Gomperz's observation {Greek
Thinkers, Enp. tr., London and New York, 1901-12, ii. 149)
that ' in nearly all philosophies of any vogue the technical
terms denoting "the supreme good" were words of negative
import."

s 221 E ; cf. also Symp. 20.5 E.

6 II. ix. 841 ; cf. L. Schmidt, Die Ethik der a/ten Griechcn,
Berlin. 1882, i. 289.

render to the good,i need not signify more than
does our own language about a good dinner or
the best citizens. The abstract use of the neuter
dyaOdi', 'a good thing,' is also found in Homer and
in Hesiod's Theogony.'^

_ 3. The pre-Socratics.— The philosophic discus-
sion of the good begins with Socrates. But a few
passages of the pre-Socratics might be regarded
as anticipations. Several fragments of Heraclitus
suggest the idea of the relativity of the good
eloquently developed by the Platonic Protagoras.^
And Aristotle says that Empedocles' use of the
opposites love and hate is equivalent to the doctrine
that good and evil are the causes of things.* Later
philosophy found the beginnings of a classification
or scale of goods in the famous scolium :

' Health is the best when all is done,
The gift of beauty is next in worth,
The third is riches fairly won,
To be young with comrades is the fourth.'

It is with latent reference to that that Plato
affirms with emphasis that not even health takes
precedence of the virtue or good of the soul.* It
may be the highest of popular or so-called goods.
It is not the good.

4. Socrates and Xenophon. — The Xenophontic
Socrates identifies the good with the useful : ' If
you ask me for a good that is good for nothing, I
do not know it, nor have I any use for it.' * There
is no proof that this is a genuine report of dis-
tinctive Socratic teaching and no presumption that
Xenophon had any ideas on the subject which he
did not pick up from Plato.

5. Plato. — Plato's doctrine of the good has been
obscured by the unnecessary mystery that has
been made of its allegorical elaboration in the
imagery of the sun, the divided line, and the cave
in the Republic.'' The essential meaning of this
allegory is demonstrably quite simple. It is
merely the postulate that ethical, political, or
social science presupposes the conscious appre-
hension of some co-ordinating purpose and final
test of all endeavour.^ In the lack of such a vision
of the idea of good, the so-called statesman is only
an empiric and a rhetorician. The statesmen of
Plato's reformed republic must possess this vision
and this insight.^ They can attain it only through
the scientific and philosophic education which he
prescribes 1" and the practical experience of affairs
with which it must be supplemented." Further
than this Plato does not wish to define the idea
of good ^'■^ except through the implications of the
entire moral and social ideal embodied in the
Republic and the Laios.^^

Plato's is the earliest and most effective presentation of these
ideas. But so obvious a thought has of course occurred to
many other moralists. Locke 14 uses it to prove that moral
rules are not innate or self-evident, since their 'truth . . .
plainly depends upon some other antecedent . . . from which
they must be deduced.' Hoffdingis expresses it thus : 'Every
ethical reasoning has validity only so far as the disputants
recognize a definite primordial value which determines all more

1 Od. XV. 324.

2 For the further pre-philosophic history of the word and its
synonyms see Schmidt, Ethik der alten Griechen, i. 290 ff., and
art. Theognis. In this matter, as in all study of Greek philo-
sophy, entire precision is attainable only by thinking in the
Greek terms, if need be, transliterated.

3 Protag. 334 A ; cf. Heraclitus, frag. 52, 57, Gl, in HeraeliU
reliquicb, ed. Ingram Bywater, Oxford, 1377.

4 Met. 985 a 8.

» Rep. 591 C, Laws, 661 B, 728 D.

6 Mem. m. viii. 3. 7 508 A ff., 509 D ff., 514 ff.

8 See Rep. 519 C ; and P. Shorev, in Classical Philology, Oct.
1914, pp. 351, 366 ; Meno, 91 A, Euthydcm. 291 B, 291 D E,
Protag. 318 E with Rep. 428 B, Protag. 329 D ff., Gorg. 455 B
with 504 D, 507 D, 503 D E with Laws,' 635 E.

9 Rep. 504 C, 534 D. W lb. 533 A.
11 lb. 519 B C, 539 E. 12 /j. 506 D E.

13 E.g., the sketch, or vTroypa<}i-j, of Rep. 504 D is the system
of the definition of the virtues given in bk. iv.

14 Essay concerning Human Understanding, bk. i. ch. iii. § 4.

15 Problems o.f Philosophy, Eng. tr., New York, 1905, p. 1C5.

SUMMUM BONUM

45

snecial Roods.' In the words of G. Lowes Dickinson: 1 'For we
mustlive or die ; and if we are to choose to do either, we must do
80 bv virtue of some assumption about the Good ' Whether by
acddent or design, a witty page of G. K. Chesterton's Heretics 2
fs an Admirable statement of Plato's postulate that we must
know the good before we can rightly know or do anything else.
The conception pervades all Ruskin's preaching. •*

If these and countless other modern writers still
find occasion to dwell upon this elementary truth,
there is no presumption that it is too siniple to
constitute tlie underlying significance of Plato s
allegory. The difficulty is in the prevailing quest
for subtler or more mystical interpretations to
obtain a hearing for the demonstration that this
in fact was Plato's essential meaning. It is then,
as we shall see later, mere misapprehension when
modern scholars identify the idea of good with
God, confuse its plain ethical and political inter-
pretation by the introduction of the metaphysical
problems common to all Platonic ideas, or read
•into its ethical application in the Eqmblic all the
teleological developments of the Timccus.^

Apart from this misapprehension, Plato sdoctrine
of the good is his entire ethical and social philo-
sophy as collected from the minor dialogues, from
the discussion of utilitarian hedonism in the Fro-
taqorns, Gorgias, and Laws, and from the closer
psychological analysis of the same problem in the
Phihhus and the 9th book of the Republic, ?>m iin.
Throughout the minor dialogues the undefanable
good is the test that all tentative definitions of the
virtues or exaggerated claims of the sophists fail
to pass. The phrasing of Republic, 505 Bf., is
equivalent to a reference to these discussions. The
virtue which we are trying to define, the ability ot
which you boast, must be a good, Socrates urges,
and the interlocutor is unable to show that it is
always and unconditionally good. The consist-
ency and symmetry of this method point directly
to the idea of good in the Republic as the symbol
of such an absolute good, and to the Platonic
o-uardians' knowledge of it as distinguishing them
from the politicians, the sophists, and their pert
disciples whom Socrates puts to confusion.

The other approach to the problem of the good
is through the hedonistic utilitarian controversy.
Is the good pleasure or is it something higher --
virtue, knowledge, or communion with God?
The Socrates of the Protagoras formulates the
obvious hedonistic utilitarian argument m a way
that leaves nothing for Epicurus and very little
for Bentham and Mill to add. The eloquent
rejection of this point of view in the Gorgias and
Phmlo is an inconsistency only for critics who
fail to observe by what nice distinctions Plato s
affirmations are guarded or who refuse to interpret
the apparent antinomy by the psychology of the
Philebus and the conclusion of the whole matter
in the LawsJ' The measured preponderance of
pleasure might arguably be the good if pleasure
were really measurable and rightly measured" or
if what the multitude call pleasures were really
pleasant.'' Plato's final feeling is aptly expressed
in the words of Matthew Arnold

Plato did not object to the Greek equivalent of
utility, but he did to 7}dovq, as Cicero did to t/Soj-i^,
voluptas. In Laws, 733 A, Plato substitutes
xafpeti', but to make his meaning clear he, in a
sentence which Epicurus might have written,
allows i)8i(j}i'.^ , ^, c i.-

To return to the idea of good, the bocratic
censure of Anaxagoras in Phcedo, 98, is sometimes
misunderstood. What Plato plainly says is that
a teleological explanation of the universe in terms
of the good* would most completely satisfy his
feeling. He is unable to find or to construct such
an explanation "» and so falls back upon a diflerent
thing, the safe and second best method of the
ideas— a kind of working logic which renounces
both the speculative physical hypotheses of the
pre-Socratics * and the hope of a teleological
interpretation.^ In spite of this, interpreters
persistently identify the doctrine of ideas with
the method of teleological deduction from the
good. The Timreus does attempt such a deduction,
but avowedly in the form of poetry and as a
probable tale. There is nothing to justify the
transference of this line of thought to the idea
of good in the Republic. Amid the 'demonic
hyperboles ' of the Reptublic passage, 509 C, there
may be phrases that suggest the dependence of
the physical universe on the idea of good and the
subordination of all other ideas to this summum
genusJ But the main emphasis and purpose of
the passage is to stress the ethical and political
sioTiificance of the idea of good as we have already
met it in the minor dialogues. Plato does not
say that all other ideas are included in the good
as a logical summum genus, nor does he say that
mathematics and the sciences are to be deduced
from the idea of good. He says that, rightly
studied, these disciplines will quicken the mmd s
eye for the apprehension of all abstract truth and
so ultimately for that of the idea of good.s In
other words, the sociologist and the statesman
must be prepared for their tasks by the severest
scientific and philosophical education which the

age aflbrds. . . ,. ^ j.

"Space fails to show how every significant part
of the alle"ory confirms our simple and rational
interpretation." The idea of good is the cause of
both existence and knowledge because all human
institutions originate in the founder's purpose or
idea of good and are, as Coleridge often said,
best understood in the light of their puiTose-the
good they were intended to accomplish. Ihis
could be extended to the physical univ-erse by the
teleology of the Timmis and the Plmdo.'^ God s
idea of good in the Timmus is the cause of the
world, so far as necessity permitted; and we
understand the world best when we apprehend
His desin-ns. But the Republic is not directly con-
cerned with these applications, and we distwt
Plato's meanings when we force them into the
systematic metaphysical construction from which
he abstained.

' That iov and happiness are the magnets to which human
life inevitably moves, let not the reader . . . confuse his mine
bv doubtino-. The real objection is to low and false views ot
what constitutes happiness. Pleasure and utilUy are bad
words to employ because they have been so used as to suggest
such views.' 8 _^_

1 The Meaning of Good, Glasgow, 1901, New York, 1907,
p. 189.

2 London, 1905, p. 33. _, „ .,m■JJ/^7■.

3 See in particular the preface to The Crown of Wild Ohm
and in The Two Paths the passasre beginning : 'If you will tell
me what vou ultimately intend r.iadford to be, perhaps I can
tell you what Bradford can ultiiiiatfly produce ' (lect. in. ^ ov;.

* hep. 505 B, Phihb. passim, Thecet. 17C.

5 733 f. ; cf . Classical Philology, Oct. 1914, p. 364.

6 I,a?cs, 733, 734 A B. . ,,..^i in.

7 Cf. Syevo-Tos in Rep. 576 A, and Anst. Mh. Nic. 11(6 b 10 ,
fl?p. 58(iAff., 5S:'. 1!. ^ , ,„^„

« God ami the Bible, popular ed.. New York, 1SS>, p. 141.

The comparison of the idea of the good with the sun is of
oreat interest for the study of the history of religion, but need
not detahi us here-ii Nbr can we delay for the enormous
Influence of this passage in the history of Neo-Plalonism,

1734 A; cf. H. Usener, Epicvrea, Leipzig, 1S87, PP- 64,
72; R. D. Hicks, Stoic and Epicwean, London and ^ew xorK,

^^2 Cf^'shorey, Unity of Plato's Thought, p 22, Class Phil.
V 335- Jowett introd. to his tr. of the Philebus; Seneca,
Wpflt lxv°i! 15: 'Ego tam honesUe rei ac severae uumquam
.nolle nomen impona.n.'^^ ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^

6 100 6. ■' 509 B, 517 B, 532 A.

8 511 C, 534 C, 520 C, 521 D, 525 C, 527 A, 529 h.

9 Cf. Shorey, ' Idea of Good,' p. 225 iT. A,!o^r.tlP d»
10 97 D E ; cf. also the Platoniziiig passage in Aristotle, de

Ca'Jo, 288 a, 1-10. oo-.f . a r Pnr<!on on

11 Cf. Shorey, 'Idea of Good,' p. 22.5 f.; A. C. I car.wn on

Soph. frag. 752.

46

SUMMUM BONUM

mysticism, and superstition. In Apuleius ' Platonis to ayaeov '
actually occurs in a context which might cause it to be mis-
taken for one of a list of demons.l

6. The idea of good and God.— The identifica-
tion of the idea of the good witli God could do
no harm if talcen merely as religious poetry.
The goodness of God is His chief attribute both
as a negative criterion in the theological canons
of the Eepublic ■^— so the Stoics held that God was
the cause of good only, never of evil— and positively
in the teleology of the Timceus. Plato is perhaps
not unwilling to hint at the identification in such
passages as Eep. 508 C and 517 B. God and the
idea of good are both expressions of the highest
ethical ideal, and the language which Plato used
of both is, as Emerson and Arnold would put it,
an ejaculation ' thrown out as it were at certain
great objects which the human mind augurs and
feels after.' ^ As Epictetus says,

'God is beneficent, but the good also is beneficent. It is
natural therefore that the true nature of the good should be in
the same region as the true nature of God. ' ■*
But in fact the two terms and the two ideas came
to Plato in ditlerent trains of thought and as
symbols of distinct traditions, and they cannot be
identified without wresting the Platonic texts from
the plain purport of their contexts and attributing
to him a system of metaphysics which he did not
care to construct.^ By the same methods of inter-
pretation one could identify God and the idea of
good in the philosophy of Jesus with the aid of
Sit 19^', Mk 10'^ Lk 1819. .

7. The minor Socratics. — We shall make only
brief reference to the so-called minor Socratics.
The fundamental theory of the Cyrenaic hedonism
differed little from that of Epicurus and of the
Socrates of the Platonic Protagoras, though special
points of distinction were laboured in the schools.^
The alleged doctrine of Aristippus, that only the
pleasure of the present moment counts, perhaps
because ' the next may never come,' is a tempera-
mental attitude rather than a philosophy. This
attitude was illustrated by many anecdotes, and
strongly appealed to Horace.'' Walter Pater's
Renaissance and the chapter on the ' New Cyren-
aicism ' in Marius the Epicurean commend the
Cyrenaic summum bonum to an jiesthetic genera-
tion in the form : ' Be perfect in regard to what
is here and now.' ' Burn always with this hard,
gem-like flame.'

Cynicism is only a cruder, harsher anticipatory
form of Stoicism. Antisthenes is said to have
affirmed toil and hardship (irdvos) to be the good
and to have prayed, ' Let me be mad rather than
feel pleasure. ^

We do not know enough about the ' Megarians '
to interpret Euclides' pronouncement that the
one is good,* though Gomperz^'^ undertakes to
interpret it.

8. Aristotle. — The first sentence of Aristotle's
Ethics and the first sentence of the Politics repeat
as a truism the main thought that emerges from
the Platonic quest for the good. Aristotle recog-
nizes that the problem of ethical theory is to ascer-
tain and define the nature of this good that all
action and choice presuppose. As he proceeds,
Aristotle seems to repudiate the debt to his teacher,
to which every page of the Ethics testifies, by his
insistence on metaphysical oljjections to the theory
of ideas in general and so to the idea of good in
particular." The polemic has of course no relevance

'i Apol. \-xvii. 2 3790.

3 (rud and the BibU, p. 22 ; cf. Rep. 505 E : aTro/navT-cvo/ie'i'))

4 Discnurses, 281.

5 Cf. Shorey, 'Idea of Good,' p. ISSf., Unity 0/ J'lato'a
Thoiight, p. 17.

6 Diog. LaerL. ii. SS f. ; Cic. de Fin. i. 11 ; Gomperz, ii. 215.
1 Sat. II. iii. 100 ff., Ep. 1. i. IS, xvii. 14, 2.3.

8 Diog. Laert. vi. 104. ■' lb. ii. 100 ; Cic. Acad. i. 4:!.

10 ii. 173-175. 11 nth. Nic. 109G a 11 ff.

to the ethical problem. And, when Aristotle con-
temptuously asks,^ ' HoAV would a weaver or a
carpenter be profited by knowing the absolute
idea of good ? ', he forgets that he himself has just
borrowed the Platonic imagery of the imifying
ffKOTTos, or aim, to prove that a generalized concep-
tion of tiie good will be practically helpful.^ As Sir
Thomas Browne aptly puts it,

'Aristotle, whilst he labours to refute the ideas of Plato, falls
upon one himself : for his summum bonum is a chiniDBra, and
there is no such thing as his felicity.' 3
Aristotle himself admits that the synonym happi-
ness, evdaL/xovla, which he substitutes for the good,
is only a blank cheq\ie.^ Happiness is of course,
as Plato said before him and l'o[)e after, 'our
being's end and aim.'* Cicero, while repudiating
pleasure, assumed happiness to be the end as a
matter of course," and Leslie Stephen says :

' Good means everything which favors happiness . . . nor can
any other intelligible meaning be assigned to the words.' 7
It depends upon your conception of happiness or
your definition of pleasure whether, with Epicurus,
Bentham, and Herbert Spencer, you add pleasure
as a third synonym or with Plato, Cicero, Coler-
idge, Hazlitt, iMacaulay, Arnold, and Jowett, pro-
test that to do so is either to confuse the right use
of language or to suggest a false ideal of happiness.
The definition of hajtpiness with which Aristotle
fills out the blank cheque is a somewhat lame and
impotent conclusion of so elaborate a disctission.
What hinders us, he asks, from pronouncing happy
the man who energizes in accordance with com-
plete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with
external goods, not through any chance time, but
for a complete life?^ Later philosopliers inter-
preted the Aristotelian definition of happiness as a
trimming compromise between Epicurean hedonism
and the severe idealism of Plato's Gorgias and the
Stoics. Cicero sometimes argues that in theory
there can be no adequate sanction for virtue except
on the Stoic principle that nothing else is a good.*
Sometimes he affirms that in practice the Peripa-
tetics, who recognize external goods, give no
larger place to them in their own lives than do the
Stoics, who evade this concession by a change of
terminology and denominate what the rest of man-
kind calf goods not goods, but ' preferred. ''»
Otherwise Aristotle's contribution to our topic is
slight. He is not deeply interested in the funda-
mental problem. '1 He reviews the hedonistic con-
troversy, in substance concurring with Plato, but
unable to refrain from a tone of condescending
superiority to Plato's pursuit of edification. i" The
poetical allegory of the idea of the good in the
Republic would of course be unsympathetic if not
incomjirehensible to him. But the statement of
an eminent scholar, that he never alludes to it,
overlooks the fact that Plato's distinction there
between the method of pure dialectic and that of
the sciences 13 is one of Aristotle's fundamental
ideas recurring throughout his writings.

In the end Aristotelianisin, in this matter as
in others, comes back to an extreme form of the
I'latonism which it begins by repudiating. In
Neo-Platonic interpretation and in the piiilosoiihy
of the Middle Ages and tiie Renaissance the desire
by which the Aristotelian first mover moves tlie
heavens is the yearning of all creation towards him
as the suprem'e goodl This interpretation, sup-
ported by one metaphor and two or three ambigu-

1 Eth. Nic. 1097 a 8.

2 lb. 1094 a 24 ; cf. Shorey, Uniti/ nf Plata's Thuu>jht, u. 102.

3 Rflif)in Medici, pt. ii. § 15.

4 Eth. Nic. 1097 b 22. 5 Cf . Si/m. 205 A.
>' Dc Fin. ii. 27.

7 The Science of Ethics, London, 18S2, p. 42.

8 Eth. Nic. 1101 a 14.

» Dp Fin. ii. ISf., iii. 11, v. 2C-28, Tuse. v. S, U.

10 De Fin. iv. 26.

11 See art. PiiiLosoniY (Greek).

12 Eth. Nic. 1172 a 30-35. 13 Hep. 510.

SUMMUM BONUM

47

ous verbs in the Aristotelian text, was blended
with the poetical doctrine of Platonic love as the
aspiration for ultimate beanty^ identical with
ultimate good. But this theme would demand a
volume.

9. The post-Aristotelian schools. — The stimmum
bonum was one of the two or three chief topics of
debate in the post-Aristotelian schools.^ Cicero
tells an amusing story of a Roman pro-consul
wlio proposed to convene a world's congress of
philosophers and settle the question once for
all.='

Locke 4 argues from the diversity of human tastes that 'the
philosophers of old did in vain inquire whether sumnmm bonura
consisted in riches, or bodily delights, or virtue, or contempla-
tion.' Locke's argument has been used against the utilitarian
reference of all things to ' happiness ' or pleasure by Coleridge,
Hazlitt, Macaulay, and many others. But, as Mill ^ says, the
question concerning the summum bonum is the same thing
as that concerning the foundation of morality. And it is idle
to expect men to cease discussing that. Horace, e.g., was no
metaphysician. He is interested only in
' quod magis ad nos
pertinet, et nescire malum est,' 6
and he sums up this necessary knowledge in the three problems :
(1) ' Divitiis homines, an sint virtute beati,' which was the
ordinary man's conception of the difference between the Peri-
patetic and the Stoic good ; (2) ' Quidve ad amicitias, usus
rectumne, trahat nos,' the compatibilitj' of disinterested friend-
ship with Epicurean principles — a question much debated
between the Epicureans and their opponents ;7 (3) ' Et quae sit
natura boni, summumque quid ejus.'

Locke's impatience of the problem is perhaps a survival of
Renaissance distaste for the scholasticism of the mediceval
literature de bonitate pura as seen in Albert's report of the
treatise of al-Farabi.

The title of Cicero's de Finibus exhibits the con-
tinued association of the ' good ' with the ' end,' ^
and Cicero resumes for all practical purposes the
net outcome and the influence on modern literature
of the post- Aristotelian discussion of the suinmum
bonum.^

10. The Epicureans. — The Epicureans revived
the thesis of Plato's Protagoras and insisted that
pleasure ' rightly understood ' is the only conceiv-
able end for a sentient creature.^" They then, like
modem utilitarians, devoted themselves to the re-
valuation or the restatement in their terminology
of all ethical values — what the Epicurean in Cicero "
styles 'ad eam accommodare Torquatos nostros,'
* fit our examples of Roman virtue into the theory.'
They also, like their modern analogues, complained
bitterly of the critics who had misunderstood their
meaning. ^2 These tactics irritate Cicero, who
thinks that he knows the meaning of the Greek
T^SovT), a perfect synonym of the Latin voluptas.^^
The Epicurean sumnuim bonum may be discussed
in a corner. No one would dare proclaim it to a
large audience. 1* And the heroic deeds of Greek
and still more of Roman worthies who gave their
lives for their country" are sufficient proof that
' the quadruped opinion will not prevail.' *®

11. The Stoics. — The Stoic doctrine is more
sympathetic to the moralist and the orator and has
the further interest of a strictly deduced and in-
geniously elaborated scientific system." In essence

1 Cf. Emerson, Nature, ch. iL : 'God is the all-fair."

2 Cic. Lucxdlus, 9, 42 f. 3 De Leg. i. 20.
■* Human Understanding, bk. ii. ch. xxi. § 55.

s Dissertations and Dismssions, New York, 1882, iii. 300.

fi Sat. II. vi. 71 ff.

7 Cic. de Fin. i. 20, ii. 26. 8 lb. i. 4, 9.

9 The fragmentar>' Greek text-s are most conveniently con-
sulted in Usener's Epicurca, and von Arnim's Stoicoruin vetenim
fragmenta, 3 vols., Leipzig, 1903-05. The more significant of
these texts are correctlj' translated in B. D. Hicks, Stoic and
Epicurean.

10 Epicurus in Hicks, p. 171. " De Fin. i. 10.

12 See, e.g., Epicurus in Hicks, p. 172; Usener, pp. C4, 88;
Cicero, de Fin. i. 11, ii. 7.

13 De Fin. ii. 4, 33 ; cf. i. 5.

" lb. ii. 22-24, iv. 9, v. 22. 15 Tb. i. 7, ii. IS), 35.

16 Emerson, ' JJontaigne, or The Skeptic,' in liepret^entative
lien. Emerson, like Cicero, is thinking of the close of the
Pkilebus or of Republic, 580 A; cf. Acad. i. 2; de Fin. i. 21,
ii. 33: 'bestiis . . . quibus vos de sumnio bono testibus uti
eoletis.'

17 De Fin. iii. 8, 22, v. 2S.

it is tlie old parado.x of the Socrates of the Gorgias,
that nothing is really good except the good moral
will. All other so-called values are either non-
existent or insignilicant when weighed against
this. ' Sunt eniiii Socratica pleraque mirabilia
Stoicorum,' says Cicero in Lucullus, 44, and in the
Txisculans, v. 12, he takes for the text of the entire
doctrine a single sentence of Plato's Menexenus.^

In the refutation of Epicurean hedonism and the working out
of the sj'stem the supreme end was variously defined and
deduced, and the schools and sects of philosophy were minutely
classified by the various ' ends ' or principles of the supreme
good which they adopted. 2 The demonstration that pleasure
is not the end and the detailed deduction of Stoic ethical prin-
ciples could take their start from the idea of nature and the life
accordant with nature 3 or from the abbreviated formula, the
consistent life.-* The argument from nature, as set forth in
Cicero,5 presents startling analogies both with the 17th and
ISth cent, philosophy of 'self-love' and with the modern logic
of evolution. Pleasure is not the end, because it is not in fact
the beginning, of animal or human activity. 6 The earliest and
fundamental conatus of all sentient life is not towards pleasure
as such, but towards self-preservation. 7 Tlie pleasure is, so to
speak, a by-product.8 Upon this supervenes in the rational
animal man the recognition that the true self, the higiier self,
is the spiritual and moral self. The conservation of this self
then becomes the end. And it matters little in practice
whether all other ends are annihilated or merely dwindle to
insignificance in comparison with this. 9 Thus Cicero sometimes
treats the entire suppression of the animal or lower self as a
fallacy of Stoic paradox 10 and sometimes as a rebuke of Peripa-
tetic compromise and as an indispensable condition of absolute
and disinterested virtue.

12. The sceptics. — The various schools of sceptics
impartially assailed all dogmatic systems. But
they did not for that reason admit that they lacked
a moral ideal or the conception of the supreme
practical end. Their scepticism was a means to
the end of tranquillity or imperturbability of soul
and the guidance of life by reasonable probability.

13. Developments of Platonism : the ascetic
ideal. — In the Grajco-Roman empire the eclectic
literature of moral and religious edification repro-
duces all these points of vicAV and ideas, but retains
little interest in the dialectic of the schools and
the philosophic theory of ethics. The cumulative
influence of Platoni.sm reveals itself not only in
the softening and refinement of Stoic technicality
and paradox, but also in the increasing prominence
of another ideal, if not idea, of good— the ideal of
detachment from tlie world and the flesh and
approximation to God through the lonely purity
of a spiritual and contemplative life. Plato's
PhcBdo and the eloquent digression of the Thecetetiis
are the earliest explicit Greek expression of this
ideal. It is a hnman mood or temperament of
renunciation and reaction. The opposition of the
theoretic and the practical life was debated in the
Antiope of Euripides. ^^ And recent conjecture
attributes to Pythagoras the three types of life
associated Avith "the tripartite psychology of Plato's
Bcinihlie and employed as an ethical commonplace
in the beginning of Aristotle's ^'^/iic.y.^- Thence-
forth philosophy was the way of life, and_ the
summum bonum was the happiness embodied in or
to be attained by the wise man.^^ The latent and
still unresolved contradiction between the social
conception of virtue and this personal ideal of
salvation and happiness is apparent already in
Plato and Aristotle. Tiie artist Plato paints the
two companion pictures of the Socrates of the

1 23!) E.

2 Cic. de Fin. ii. 11 ; cf. Luculltt.^, 42, dc Fin. v. 7, Tusc. v.
30.

3 De Fin. iii. 9, iv. 11.

•* Von Arnira, i. 45 ; Diog. Laert. vii. S9.

5 De Fin. v. 11, 13. 6 /&. i. 16, ii. 11, iii. 5.

" lb. iii. 5, iv. 7, v. 9.

8 Diog. Laert. vii. 94 : eiriyeciji^iaTa ; cf. Arist. Eth. Xic.
1174 b 32 : (OS ejTiyiyvofifrdi' ti re'Aos.

9 De Fin. iv. V>, v. 24, 30, Tusc. v. 17.

10 De Fin. iv. 11, 14 f.

11 Roconstructetl from the rpiotations in Plato's Gorgias,
485 E ff.

12 1095 B 15.

13 Cf. in von Ariiiiu, iii. MG-71, the collc.-lion-; ' ilc saplente et
insipiente.'

48

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

Syinposiuyn and the Socrates of the Phcedo and
leaves their reconciliation to the ingenuity of
modern interpretation. Will the sage take part
in politics ? To this question of the later schools
the idealist Plato answers : ' Only in tlae politics
of his own city, the city of God.'^ But Plato's
practical decision appears in the prescription of
the Republic that the philosopher must descend
into the cave to help his fellowman," in his journeys
to the court of Syracuse, and in his devotion of the
last j'ears of his life to the laborious composition
of the Laws.

In Aristotle the contradiction is disguised, but
pervades the entire Ethics. Happiness is activity
in accordance with virtue,^ but it finally appears
that there are intellectual as well as moral virtues,^
and the highest activity is the pure contemplation
of thought which the student may enjoy inter-
ruptedly and God eternally.® The life in accord-
ance with ethical virtue is secondary.* The .Stoic
sage is distinguished from the Cyrenaic and Epi-
curean in Horace' by his immersion in political
activities,

Chrysippus said that Aristotle's theoretic life
was only a form of hedonism.^ The literature of
Stoicism harps on the word kolvu}V(.k6s, as the litera-
ture of to-day on the words ' social' and '.socialized.'
And many modern critics have taken the Stoics at
their own estimate and praised Stoicism on this
score as against Platonism. But Cicero points out
that in fact the Academ.y and the Lyceum were
the chief schools of oratory and political science.
And Seneca says epigrammatically :

' Quorum tamen nemo ad rempublicam accessit, ftt nemo non
niisit.'S

14. Neo-Platonism.— The divorce betAveen cul-
ture and life in the declining period of the Grajco-
Roman empire confirmed these tendencies, and

Neo-Platonism, the predominant philosophy of the
last three centuries, constructed its sy.stem and its
ideal out of the eloquent passages of the Phcedo,
the Goj-gias, the Republic, and the Thccetetus that
preach purification from sin or sensualism, flight
from the world, concentration of the mind iipon
itself, and assimilation of the human to the divine
as the way of salvation and of good.^ These con-
ceptions were blended with the doctrine, derived
from the Platonic Symposiitm and Aristotle's Meta-
physics, of the upward sti'iving and aspiration of
all creatures towards the primal source of the good
and the beautiful, God.

It is not a practicable final philosophy of the
supreme human good for any race of men in whom
the will to live persists. It is only the beautiful
legacy which the dying philosophy of Greece
bequeathed to the idealism and the religious
poetry of the world :

' If, in the silent mind of One all-pure,

At first imafdned lay

The sacred world ;

O waking on a world which thus-wise springs !
. . . O wakinj^ on life's stream !
By lonely pureness to the all-pure fount
(Only by this thou canst) the colour'd dream
Of life remount !'2

With this poetic interpretation of Matthew
Arnold we may compare the last words of Plotiuus'
Enneades, (pvyrj, with Plato, Thecet. 176 B, (j>\ryri 5k
o/Moluicns 0€i^ Kara ro dwardf, and with the closing
words of Emerson's last essay, ' Illusions,' in his
Conduct of Life: 'They alone with him alone.'
But the final good of Plato and of Greece in her
prime is rather that of Tennyson's Ancient Sage :
'Let be thy wail
And help thy fellow men.'

Literature.— See the works cited in the footnotes.

Paul Shorey

SUN, MOON, AND STARS.

Introductory (F. von Oefele), p. 48.
Primitive (E. N. Fallaize), p. 62.
American (S. Hagar), p. 65.
Babylonian. —See Introduction.
Buddhist (E. J. Thomas), p. 71.
Celtic (G. DoTTiN), p. 73.
Chinese (T. Fu), p. 74.
Egyptian.— See Introduction.
Greek and Roman.— See Introduction.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introduction).
— :In every quarter of the globe the star-studded
heavens have attracted the attention and challenged
the scrutiny of mankind. Very especially was
this the case in the low-lying plain of Babylonia,
Avith its pellucid atmosphere, and hence the study
of astrology and astronomy, Avhile practically
universal, reached a remarkably high stage of
development in that region. On the one hand,
the fixed stars, of various degrees of brilliance,
are ranged immovably in groups that stamp
themselves upon the visual organs ; while, on the
other, the moon, the sun, and the five visible
planets seem to be constantly changing their
respective positions. Such phenomena were inter-
preted by primitive man in a subjective and
anthropomorphic fashion, and his notions regard-
ing them were still in vogue when genuine scientific

1 Rep. 502 A B.

2 lb. 529 E, 519 B. The ingenious suggestion that this is the
Orphic Karapaa-i^ exemplifies again the danger of over-stressing
Plato's imagery as against his meanings.

3 1102 a 5 £f.

■» 1103 a 5, Ethics, bk. vi. ; Plato, Rep. 518 D E.

s 1177 a 12, 1178 b, de Ccelo, 292 a 22.

6 1178 a 9.

■? ^p. I. i. IGf. « Hicks, p. 54.

M De Tranquillitate Animi, i. 7.

Hebrew (M. A. Canney), p. 80.
Hindu (A. S. Geden), p. 83.
Iranian (A. V. W. Jackson), p. 85.
Japanese (M. Anesaki), p. 88.
Jewish.— See Introduction.
Muhammadan (C. A. Nallino), p. 88.
Semitic. — See Introduction.
Teutonic and Balto-Slavic (E. Welsford). p.
101.

inquiry entered the field, so that until about 1500
A.D. astrology and astronomy remained an in-
extricable mass of confusion.

I. The seven planets. — In the northern regions
of the Old World every object was regarded by the
primitive mind not merely as personal, but also as
sexual. In the north-east the tAvin concepts of
Yang and Yin long survived amongst the Chinese
as a philosophical formula, classifying all exist-
ing things as male (= good) or female (= evil).
Persian dualism retains the twofold principle in its
most incisive form. In the Middle Ages, Christian
ideas were for a time excessively influenced by
the antithesis of God and Satan, though here the
sexual dichotomy characteristic of the primitive
mind has disappeared.

NoAv this tendency of the aboriginal mind towards
sexual jiersonification left some of its earliest de-
posits upon the observation and study of the stars.
Even the simplest observations of the planetary
movements brought to light the striking fact that

1 On this aspect of Plato's own philosophy cf. E. Zeller, Plato
and the Older Academy, Eng. tr., London, 1S76, p. 440 ff., and
O. Apelt, Platonische Aufsdtzo, Leipzig, 1912, p. 147 ff., ' Der
Wert des Lebens.'

- Matthew Arnold, ' In Utrumque Paratus ' (Poeins, ed.
London, 1881, i. 70).

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (IntrodiTctory)

49

tlie elongations of the two inferior planets, Mercury
and Venus, never reached beyond a certain limit,
and that these bodies traversed the zodiac as if
held within the magic circle of the sun. Tlie
moon and the three superior planets were less
restricted in their motions. It was therefore
quite in keeping with the imaginative and sym-
bolizing proclivity of the primitive intellect to
represent the Sun, Mercury, and Venus as a
_y family, travelling, in relatively close company,
like nomads in the ecliptic. Of this family the
Sun came to be regarded as the father, Venus
as the mother, and Mercury as their son. The
other planets were looked upon as mere vagrant
males, who on occasion, however, might act as
a disturbing influence in the union of the Sun and
Venus.

In speculations of a still earlier period it was
the sun and moon alone that formed the marriage
relationship, the sun being usually the husband and
the moon the wife ; only in exceptional cases were
the positions reversed. Occasionally, too, the
relations between sun and moon were represented
as homosexual and pederastic. But in the ancient
Orient and in Egypt the septet of planets had
already attained to such prominence in comparison
with the two greater luminaries that the idea of a
marriage between sun and moon hardly left a
trace behind.

Even in the most remote ages the periods of
revolution peculiar to the several planets had
been studied, Avith results which led to their being-
arranged in the following sequence (with the earth,
of course, at the centre of the universe) — Moon,
Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. The
sun's superiority in size was enough of itself to
give him the median position. The planets named
before the sun alternated as morning and evening
stars, or in other ways; and of the twofold char-
^ acteristic thus exhibited one aspect might be re-

^ garded as good and the other as evil. The three

last-named, or exterior, planets formed a triad by
themselves, and they appeared to the observer as
less under the control of the sun than his oAvn
family or the moon. The middle place amongst
them was occupied by Jupiter, who might thus be
deemed their king ; and the king as such, accord-
ing to Oriental ideas, was good. But as the sun,
the giver of life and light, was likewise good, it
followed that Mars and Saturn must be evil —
by the principle of alternation, namely, whicli is
even yet resorted to, as, e.g., in the counting of
one's coat-buttons, in ideas about even and odd,
and in other primitive superstitions. Mars with
his relatively short period of revolution became
tlie youthful turbulent demon, while the slowly-
revolving Saturn was figured as the hoary-headed
begetter of evil.

Not only, however, do men look upwards towards
the planets, but the planets themselves look down-
wards upon men and events on the earth. They
were even supposed to impress their own characters
upon earthly aii'airs, intervening therein as their
nature prompted. In the case of the sun and
the moon such action was obvious to all, and by
analogy it was attributed to the other five planets
V as well. These ideas were so simple and natural

that, at the time when, in the oldest civilized
lands, such as Babylonia and Egypt, the earliest
scientific observations and records of the planetary
motions were collected, they had permeated all
study of the subject. The consequence was that
these naive ideas continued to mingle with the
subsequent results of genuine astronomical inquiry.

Aboriginal man came upon a fresh vein of ideas

when he divineil a mutual connexion between the

lustre of the stars and that of the metals. The

metals with which he was acquainted being pre-

VOL. XII. — 4

cisely seven in number, it was natural to associate
with them, not the fixed stars, but the seven
planets. The parallels were as follows : the Sun
with gold, the Moon with silver. Mars with iron.
Mercury with quicksilver, Jupiter with tin, Venus
with copper, and Saturn with lead. Hence in
mediaeval, and even until modern, times, the metals
were indicated by the planetary symbols. Then
alchemy attached special symbols to other sub-
stances ; and as alchemy and astrology were in-
timately connected with each other throughout
their entire course, it may be well to give a list
of the symbols used by alchemists in the Middle
Ages :—

© gold, d silver, <J iron, ^ quicksilver, 7/ tin,
? copper, fj lead, J antimony, ^ lime, -^ sulphur,
5 tartar, Q salt, Q saltpetre, 0 sulphuric acid,
^1^ ammonia, --^ distillate and sublimate, -u- pre-
cipitate. As will be shown in dealing with the
horoscope, the symbols of the four traditional
elements were derived from the two ' houses '
known as virSyeLop and /j.e(rcvpdi>T]iJ.a respectively.

We have thus sketched the main lines of thought
by Avliich the planets came to have their particular
significance in astrological speculation. More re-
mote considerations must here be left awde. Suffice
it to say that, in the final scheme of astrology,
i\Iercury became the lord of wisdom, cunning,
artifice, and craft, and was likewise bi-sexual;
Venus became the lady of love ; Mars, the lord of
M'ar and violence generally ; Jupitei', the ruler of
gods and men ; Saturn, the lord of cruelty and
truculence. The Sun, Jui)iter, and Saturn were
jiropitious by day, and the Moon, Mars, and Venus
by night. The planets infected with their own
qualities such as were born under their influence,
but in certain situations their normal action might
be completely reversed.

2. The ecliptic and the zodiac. — Civilized man
is still affected by the variation of times and
seasons, and in a yet higher degree this was the
case with primitive man. The latter could hardly
remain inattentive to changes of temperature and
weather in their connexion with day and night, or
Avith summer and winter, or, again, Avith the vary-
ing position of the sun in the sky. In his in-
gathering of marine products for daily food and
his cruising expeditions off the coast he became
aware of the connexion betAveen the ebb and floAv
of the sea and the course of the moon. His in-
terest in the chase and his sexual relations obliged
him to take notice of the fluctuating brightness of
the moon by night. He noted that the period of
menstruation coincided Avitli that of a lunar revolu-
tion. In the life of primitive man, accordingly,
there Avas no concern of importance but Avas sonie-
hoAv related to the movements of tlie sun or the
moon. As soon, however, as the planets came to
be regarded as endowed Avith personality, the in-
terventions of sun and inoon in human att'airs
began to be thought of as the conscious and volun-
tary actions of higher beings, Avliose purpose it Avas
to bring the fortunes of nations, monarchs, and
individual human beings into continuous corre-
lation Avith their oAvn particular activities in the
higher sphere.

The planets Venus and Mercury, being repre-
sented as respecti\'e]y the Avife and the son of the
sun, must incvitaldy, according to human notions,
exert an influence upon the actions of the being
personified as husband and father. But, this being
so, it was impossible to leave Mars, Jupiter, and
Saturn out of account. Noav these five smaller
planets, equally Avith the larger tAvo, confined
their movemenrs to a certain narrow belt of the
firmament. The only diflerence betAveen the
circular paths of the sun and the moon and the

50

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

paths of tlie smaller planets is tlia.t the latter
exhibit certain pecnliar convolutions, -which were
called epicycles, and may be illustrated by a

curved line as follows : "0"^0~T3~- The orbits

of the sun and the moon, no donl)t, also showed
many deviations from the path of simple revolu-
tion about the observer's own point of view. But
the only change which a dweller upon the earth
could discern in the smaller planets was the shift-
ing of their several positions among the lixed
stars, and their concomitant variations in apparent
magnitude. Investigation of these planets, there-
fore, did not reach beyond investigation of their
paths in the firmament.

After sunset about one-half of all the stars are
visible. The great mass of the.se lie in the broad
equatorial girdle of the heavens between the .sun
and a point 180° E. of the sun. The lines bounding
the stars of the circuinpolar vault and those of the
southern hemisphere are not constant, but fluctu-
ate inversely. The stars, however, that come into
consideration in regard to the planetary orbits
travel from east to west, passing below the horizon
one after another, so that just before sunrise the
other half of the stars, i.e. those lying between the
sun and 180° W., are within the field of view. Thus.
an examination of the sky made twice in one night,
viz. shortly after sunset and shortly l)efore sunrise,
will embrace ju'actically every important jiheno-
nienon in the starry heavens. These accordingly
were the two times of astronomical observation to
wliich prime importance was ascribed throughout
antiquity, and into relation with which all obser-
vations were brought.

In the course of one night, then, primitive man
could see almost all the stars visible in our latitude.
One of the few exceptions was formed by the stars
which happened to be situated in the sun's meridian
for the time being. Their light was lost in the
sun's lieams, and they were meanwhile invisible.
After sunset and before sunrise, moreover, there
was a short period of twilight, causing a degree
of obscuration such that brighter stars ronained
visible only when they were over 12°, and fainter
stars only when over 15% E. or W. of the sun.
In virtue of the sun's movement in the zodiac, the
observer of the morning and the evening sky might
witness the following phenomenon. On a par-
ticular evening of the year a star, especially one
situated in the zodiacal belt, would be visible for
a few minutes after sunset, and on the following
evening be seen no more. Now, such a star re-
mained invisible for a certain time every year, a.nd
the astrologer spoke of it as being 'combust,' i.e.
dissolved in the overpowering beams of the sun.
Then, .after a period of 24 to 30 days, according to
its brilliance, the same star reappeared shortly
before sunrise. The star's disappearance from the
evening sky in the west was termed its heliacal
setting, and its reappearance in the morning sky
to the east its heliacal rising.

In the astrology and astronomy of both East and
West throughout the entire ancient era the heliacal
rising of various groups of stars wp.s carefully
noted, and employed in registering the date of
events. So far, the earliest known instance of
this, found more than once in historical records,

is the heliacal rising of Sirius, the A'^ of the

Egyptians, which was pronounced ScD^u, and trans-
lated rh ixffTpov TO rr^s 'laios, by the Greeks. By
this means, long before the building of the pyra-
mids, was indicated tlie beginning of the sidereal
year, as well as a particular era of about 1500
years, at the end of which the first day of the
sidereal j^ear coincided with that of the trojiical
year. Half-way through the period of invisibility

the star and the sun lie in the same meridian.
The corresponding proximity of a star to any of
the planets but the sun is called a conjunction,
and every conjunction was astrologically of great
importance. But M'hen the sim is one of the
coincident pair, the occurrence is known as the
cosmical rising of the star in question. It is to
this cosmical rising, not as in aiicient times to the
heliacal rising, that special prominence is attached
Ijy modern scientiiic asti"onomy.

The Egyptian sacred year was subsequently
adopted by the Romans as the Julian year, with the
intercalation of a day in every fourth year. This
computation allowed for the fact that the sun seems
to move forward some ri*oT of his orbit every day.
This might have suggested a division of the ecliptic
into 365 jiarts, only a trilling error being thus in-
volved. What M-as actually done, however, was
to divide the great circle into 360 parts, involving
a still larger error of adjustment. The calculation
of the yearly period and its division into twelve
months — of which we .shall treat more fully below
— together with many other things, were thereby
greatly simpliiied. But the sun's orbit of 360
degrees, with a day for each degree, left som» 5|
days of every year out of account. Now we still
speak of a summer solstice and a winter solstice,
meaning thereby the two points at which the sun
reaches his greatest declination north and south
respectively. Originally, however, the residual
5^ days were divided between the two solstices, the
sun being actually re])resented as pausing in his
declination, so that he could still traverse the 360
ilegrees of the ecliptic in 360 days. In the ancient
Egyptian calendar this whole redundant period
was transferred to the time just anterior to the
heliacal rising of Sirius, five days being inserted in
ordinary, and six in leap (or temple) years. In
the early Roman calendar the intercalation was
made at the winter solstice. To the Babylonian
calendar, which, with a displacement of the
year's beginning, is still in use as the Jewish
calendar, we must return when we deal with lunar
computations. I Be it noted here, hoMever, that
for astrological and astronomical purposes the j.,
Babylonians placed the conipensatorjr interval for
the most part at the beginning of spring, but
sometimes at the beginning of aiitumn. |

The time at which this yearlj' intercalation
was made was dependent in the main upon the
lixing of the zero meridian in the movable vault of
heaven. The points through which this zero line
might be conveniently drawn were, of course, many.
Once it was fixed, astronomy and calendar Avere
brought into harmony, and a definite instant
estaldished for commencing the day. The Bnby-
Jsniaujj began the d.ay with sunrise, and the year
wltTi the spring equinox, thus placing the zero of
the ecliptic ujion the first point of Aries. \ Among
the Je\\s the day Ixjgan with sunset, and tlie civil
year with the autunm equinox ; and, had the Jews
studied astronomy independently, they would have
dr.awn tlie zero of the ecliptic through Libra.', In
the earlj' Roman, as in our modern, calendar the
day is reckoned from midnight, and the year from
the winter solstice ; here, therefore, the zero would
lie in the first point of Capricornus. The Romans,
however, as classical writers inform ns. borrowed
their asti-onomy and astrology fronr B;;liylouia, ^'
and accordingly it is the Jlairyilimian zero ]>oint
that is found among the Rom.ins, as also in later
developments, and even in the astronomy of the
present day. The Egyptians dated their year from
the rise of the Nile on the IDtli of July, and the
corres])onding zero meridian jiassed through Sirius.
With this, however, the beginning of the day did
not harmonize, for, according to notices found in
the Mantelpaviane and other hieroglyphic texts,

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

51

che Egyptian day was reckoned from sunrise. This
dislocation likewise is probably due to Babylonian
influence of a very remote date.

We have seen that the ecliptic, and indeed the
circle generally, was divided into 3G0 degrees, to
correspond approximately with the sim's daily
change of position among the stars throughout one
year. These divisions, however, were found in-
conveniently small, and the ecliptic was then por-
tioned out into constellations, each having an arc
i/ of 30 degrees, and three subdivisions of 10 degrees,
or decanates. This division came about in two
ways. In the first place, at any given time some-
thing like one-twelfth of the ecliptic was ' com-
bust ' ; and, secondly, each of these tweif tlis was
traversed by the sun in about the same time as
the moon required for one complete revolution.
In this way the annual course of the sun was
furnished with the 12 zodiacal signs of the ecliptic.
Moreover, in the earliest times the synodical
period of the moon was divided into three, viz.
waxing, dominant, and waning moon, and this
division was adhered to by later astrology. Now
to each of these synodical thirds of the moon's
course corresponded a movement of the sun extend-
ing to some 10 degrees, and thus in time arose the
division of the ecliptic into 36 decanates.

The trisection of the moon's period just noted
probably led in very remote times to the institution
of weeks of ten and five days. It does not appear,
however, from what we have so far learned of
ancient Eastern history, that these measurements
had any practical significance. It was only in
astrology and astro-mythology, with its historical
legends, that the 36 decanates (or the 72 semi-
decanates) were actually made use of. This chron-
• ometry, no less than that explained above, was in
vogue throughout Babylonia and Egypt, if not else-
where, (a final vestige thereof was the Egyptian
practice of assigning 401 ushabti for the dead —
365 for the days of the year and 36 as guardians
for the ten-day weeks.^ In astrology of the higher
type, to the time of Kepler, calculations were
made by means of the degree and, above all, of the
decanate ; and the moon from her tenth to her
twentieth day was always spoken of as being in
her domain. In genei-al, however, the method of
reckoning which superseded all others, for both
astronomical observation and astrological inter-
pretation, was that of the well-known 12 zodiacal
signs, although these were variously designated in
the several civilized lands of antiquity. It like-
y -svise forms the foundation of the .]^,hy1oii,ia.];i

V scheme of months, as appears from the following-

parallelism : Libra, ta&ritu (Bab.), Tishri (Heb. ),
followed by Scorpio, arah-samna (Bab.), Mar-
cheshvan (Heb.); then Sagittarius, A;i5^t»w (Bab. ),
Kislev (Heb.), etc. The names of the months were
also indicative of their meteorological conditions ;
thus, e.g., the winter rainy season was symbolized
by Capricornus (originally the marine animal
Hippocampxis guttulatus), Aquarius, and Pisces,
all in some way connected with water.

Here, moreover, Ave again meet with the practice
of portioning out good and evil, or ratlier male and
female, alternately. Astrologically the zero point
of this distribution lay between Cancer and Leo,
approximating, therefore, to that of the Egyptian
Sirius-year. Leo, Libra, and Sngittarius came to be
regarded as male ; Virgo, Scorpio, and Capricornus
as female. It is worthy of remark that as a result
of this law of alternation the astrologer was actu-
ally forced for thousands of years to s])eak of
Taurus as feminine. Then the constellations of
the zodiac were also allotted severally to the
planets ; thus Cancer was assi;rned to the moon,
Leo to the sun, Gemini and Virgo to Mercuiy,
Taunus and Libra to Venus, Aries and Scorpio to

Mars, Sagittarius and Pisces to Jupiter, and Capri-
cornus and Aquarius to Saturn. The particular
planet was called the ' lord of the mansion ' belong-
ing to its respective sign or signs. Tradition tells
us, however, tliat there were other 'gods (or lords)
of the mansion.' \Those of the Egyptians have
been transmitted to ns not only by the reports of
Marcus Manilius, but also by an almanac notice
found in the Ebers Papyrus ; some of their names
likewise survive in the Coptic designations of the
montlis. A comparison of the various lists shows
us that in the course of thousands of years the
tradition remained unaltered, though in that of
Manilius there is a dislocation to the extent of one
zodiacal sign.>

The ecliptic of the sun is traversed approxi-
mately also by the moon, and in relation to the
latter it was measured by a, unit of the sun's
course, viz. the arc described by the moon in one
day. In order to correspond, therefore, with the
moon's period of 28 days, the ecliptic was divided
afresh into 28 lunar stations. But as the sun,
during the moon's sidereal period, has moved
onward by about two lunar stations, astrological
calculation assumed a period of about 30 lunar
stations, i.e. the time between one new moon and
another, as the measure of a month. In order to
delimit these stations, however, the astrologer did
not portion out the ecliptic in a fresh series of
constellations, but distinguished each of the 28
by a dominant star in the ecliptic. In contradis-
tinction to the older method of dividing the 30
days of the moon's synodical period in three, there
arose subsequently the plan of dividing its sidereal
period in four. Once in each of these quarters
each of the seven planets was recognized as the
lord of a lunar station, the order of sequence being
the same as that in which, in the horoscope of the
hours, the planets became lords of the ascendant
at sunrise.^ Thus came about the division of the
sidereal month of 28 days into four weeks of 7 days,
with Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus,
and Saturn as successive lords of the lunar stations
in each week. This astrological scheme of naming
the days of the Aveck after the rulers of the lunar
stations still survives throughout Christendom,
while, on the other hand, the canonical books of
the Old and New Testaments entirely avoid the
use of such designations, distinguishing the days
of the Aveek by ordinal numbers alone.

The various locations of the five smaller planets
Avere usually designated by the 12 zodiacal signs
into whieli the sun's path is divided, as is speci-
ally shoAvn in regard to Egypt by the Berlin
Demotic Papyrus, p. 8279.

3. Spherical astronomy and the astrological
houses. — Observations of the astral motions
Avitliin tlie scope of natural vision are desig-
nated spherical, and Avhen these have been duly
adjusted they are, by Avay of contrast, called cos-
mical, Avhile the actual occurrences themselves are
spoken of as sidereal. Modern scientific astronomy
likeAvise must always take the direct spherical
observations as its starting-point, only then_ pro-
ceeding to elaborate its Avay toAvards the higher
levels of knoAvledge. The astrology and astronomy
of the ancient Avorld never got beyond the spherical
stage. Hence it was necessary from the outset to
lay down fixed bearings for observational pur[)oses,
such as Avould be furnished by two lines, one run-

1 If we take the planets, therefore, in the reverse order of
their propinquity to the earth, viz. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun,
Venus, ilercurv, lAIoon, and suppose that each planet in turn
presides over an hour of the day, then, if, e.g., Saturn presides
over the first hour of a particular day, he will also preside over
the Sth. l.'iih, and 2-2nd hours ; the 23rd hour accor(lin;,'ly will
fall to .fui)iur, the '24th to Mavs, and the 1st hour of the new
day to the Sun : hfTice Saturday is followed by Sunday, and
so on.

62

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

ning east and west, the other north and south,
through the observer's own position.

In connexion with nearly all ancient systems of
religion are found sacred edifices of great age
whose longitudinal axes lie exactly east and west.
The determination of this east and west line, i.e.
the parallel of latitude, was thus one of the early
triumphs of the human mind. The oldest known
instrument employed for the purpose was tlie
stile, which afterwards developed into the gnomon
of the sun-dial, and, indeed, the sun-dial itself.
The stile was a vertical shaft fixed in the centre
of a circle. In the morning, and again in the
evening, the shadow of the pillar extended a con-
siderable distance beyond the circle, Mhile for an
hour or two before, as also for an hour or two after,
midday the extremity of the sliadow lay within the
circle. It was necessary, therefore, to mark the two
points at which the shadow, forenoon and afternoon,
terminated precisely upon the circle. The straiglit
line joining these two points supplied an accurate
east and west alignment, which could thus be
secured on any sunny day at any season of the
year. The use of the gnomon, in some form or
another, seems to be common to primitive and
the older civilized peoples.

Simple trial and observation showed that a
stationary point was to be found in the north pole
of the firmament and the star lying nearest to it.
The direction of the meridian line through any
given point of observation could then be ascertained
by the following expedient. Two horoscopers stood
face to face upon a line lying roughly north and
south. The observer on the south, holding up
before him the split rib of a palm leaf, moved it
into such a position as enabled him through the
fissure to see the pole star directly above the crown
of his companion's head. Then the observer on
the north, looking through the slit, saw all the
then culminating stars from the southern point of
the horizon upwards, and in this way projected his
meridian upon the celestial vault.

The east and west points of the horizon, and the
meridian of the observer, having been ascertained,
the earliest facts of observation regarding the
paths of the planets could be brought into relation
therewith. The fixed stars, indeed, never varying
in their positions relative to one another, also rose
and set at constant distances from the east and
west points respectively. On the other hand, the
sun, the moon, and the five smaller planets rose and
set at points never twice the same successively,
and sometimes north, sometimes south, of due east
and west. As regards the sun, the most northerly
point of his rising and setting was reached as he
entered Cancer, and the most southerly as he
entered Capricorn, while his rising and setting
were due east and due west respectively twice a
year, viz. as he entered Aries and Libra. The
extreme limits of his northward and southward
movements in the ecliptic were called the tropical
points, and the two constellations concerned came
to be known in astrology and astronomy as the
tropical constellations of the zodiac. Correspond-
ing results were established with reference to the
other planets.

But there is likewise an apparent daily revolu-
tion of fixed stars and planets alike around the
position of the observer, each of them crossing his
nieridian once in every 24 hours ; while if tliey lie
in the equatorial circle the intersection takes place
exactly 6 hours after they rise in the east, and
6 hours before they set in the west. Hence the
observer's celestial equator, too, is alwaj's laid out
in 12 segments corresponding to the 12 constella-
tions of the zodiac ; and if we disregard the sun's
daily eastward movement of one degree, Ave find
that every two hours the zodiac changes its position

relatively to the equator by one whole zodiacal
sign of 3U degrees. Now the intermediate positions
of the signs during these two hours being left out
of account, the observer's celestial equator was
once for all divided into 12 apparently stationary
parts, each of these having its own meridian. The
illustration below shows an equatorial section
traversing the horizon and the celestial sphere.
These parts were called ' houses,' and all the con-
ditions found within them were treated as if
stationed in their respective middle lines. Now,
as the enumeration of the houses began in the east,
and then proceeded downwards under the eastern
horizon, i.e. according to the order in which the
phenomena of each successive house would appear
above that horizon, the due east point fell exactly
in the middle of the first house, the due west point
in that of the seventh, the meridian in that of the

£^st

tenth, and the opposite meridian in that of the
fourth. All primitive astronomical and astro-
logical study of the sky was occupied, and indeed
necessarily occupied, with the rising, culmination,
and setting of the heavenly bodies, with the
passage of planets, normal stars, and constellations
from one house to another, and with the mutual
positions of the planets as measured by the houses
they happened to occupy at any given time.

It would appear that these houses were some-
times divided in two, as, e.g., in Egypt in the time
of King Seti ; and this led quite naturally to the
division of the day into 24 hours, and eventually
to the arrangement of the dial-plate of our clocks.
For more exact observations, however, each house
was subdivided into three decanates, and each
decanate into ten degrees, the advantage of this
being that the sphere of the observer had the same
number of parts as the ecliptic, while the boundary
lines defining the parts of each coincided every
four minutes.

This method of parcelling out the sun's apparent
daily course must have been instituted at a very
remote period, in an age indeed when the astronomer
had not yet grasped the idea of a circular orbit,
but still thought of the solar path as a square. In

JJasf

West

the figure representing the horoscope this quadrate
form was retained, and it has remained in use till
modern times, and, in fact, till the present day.
To this method of delineating the stellar paths in

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

53

J

the horoscope by means of the square we shall
frequently liave occasion to return, as a consider-
able number of symbols relating to God and the
world were evolved therefrom. In interpreting
the horoscope the various positions were so far as
possible brought into relation with the first house,
and with the latter as starting-point the astrologer,
applying the principle of even and odd as in the
case of the exterior planets. Sun, Mars, Jupiter,
and Saturn, alternately assigned to the other
houses an essential character of benefit or bane.
Thus the twelfth house was unfavourable, the
eleventh favourable, the tenth — apart from its
special position — unfavourable, the ninth favour-
able, the eighth supremely unfavourable, and so
with the rest. This mode of interpretation was
also arrived at along another line of thought, and,
being thus supported by two ostensible proofs, it
was believed to be established beyond dispute.
The second proof in question was that supplied by
the 'aspects,' of which we shall treat presently.

The plan of indicating position by means of
zodiacal signs and houses could at best give
approximate results. EotJhe sake, of simplicity
it was assumed that the boundary lines of the
several signs always coincided Mith those of the
several houses, and that accordingly at the end of
a Babylonian double-hour each sign moved instan-
taneously into another house, whose number was
one less than that of the house which it had
vacated. For all further deductions within the
limits of plane geometry, the entire contents of
any particular zodiacal sign were regarded as con-
centrated in the middle point of the sign and the
house then congruent therewith.

The enumeration of the astrological houses from
the east doMmwards towards the west, then east-
wards again above the horizon, so that account is
first of all taken of the invisible regions of the
stellar heavens, had its origin in the fact that the
attention of the astrologer was primarily directed
towards the rising of the stars, and accordingly
the houses were numbered in the order in which
the stars contained in them at any given time
would reach the eastern horizon and become visible.

4. Aspects. — The term ' aspects ' was used in
astrology to denote the relative positions of the
houses and zodiacal signs, or of the stars situated
in the houses at any given time. Planets in the
same sign and the same house were said to be in
conjunction ; planets in opposite signs and houses,
in opposition. The other possible relations amongst
the celestial phenomena were defined with reference
to regular inscribed polygons. Thus, if a planet
were situated in the twelfth or the second house,
then the line joining the middle point of either of
these houses and that of the first house would
form one side of a regular inscribed dodecagon : in

which case the planet in question was said to be in
dodecagonal aspect to the east point, or 'horoscope'
in the original sense. As in the same way planets
in the eleventh and third houses furnished the side
of a regular hexagon, their aspect towards the east
or the horoscope was spoken of as sextile. Simi-
larly planets in the tenth and fourtli houses were in
quartile or square, and those in the ninth and fifth
were in trine. The line joining the middle point
of the eighth or the sixth house with the east

point was not a constituent jiart of any regular
figure within the circle, and suggested at best a
cross dodecagon, formed thus, which was regarded
as the violation of all order. But as conjunction
and opposition were reckoned amongst the regular
aspects, the eighth was the only visible house
having no aspect towards the horoscope. The prin-
ciple of alternate numeration likewise pronounced
this house unfavourable. In the astrological
application of spherical astronomy it therefore
signified the house of death.

Prior to the stage now reached, the exclusive
concern of the astronomer had been to map out the
heavens with such precision as would enable him
to fix his obsei-vations by means of a verbal record.
His conception of aspects, however, i.e. of the
relations of the stellar positions to the horoscope,
led him to assign values to the stellar positions
themselves, and as soon as these came to be re-
presented as anthropocentric or concentric, the
initiative was given to the science of Judicial
Astrolog}'. Nevertheless we must empliasize the
fact that the original scheme of the horoscope was
depicted as a square, and that, before it became
possible for astrology to speak of regular polygons,
the conception of the sun's apparent diurnal motion
as a circle must have come to the front. Thus the
very language of astrology shows it to have been
a kind of excrescence, not inherently connected
with astronomy at all. Even in the Middle Ages
a distinction was still maintained between Natural
Astrology and Positive Astrology. The former
dealt with the actual, and especially the baneful,
influence of the planets upon meteorological
changes — wind, storm, hurricane, thunder, flood,
and earthquake. It was accordingly bound up
with the naive and fantastic weather-lore of primi-
tive man, and is to some extent still in evidence in
scientific meteorology. In regai'd to the latter it
is even yet frequently true that sub iudice lis
est.

Positive or Judicial Astrology, on the other
hand, was concerned from the earliest times with
the supposed influences of the planets upon the
fortunes of men and nations. It is now regarded
by all sober minds as an extravagance of the human
intellect, as something that the race has finally
left behind. In Judicial Astrology it was no longer
merely the aspect of a star to the horoscope, i.e.
the east point, that was specified and appraised,
but also tlie aspect of two planets with respect to
each other. If one planet, for example, was
situated in the eleventh house and another in the
eighth, the two were said to be mutually in quar-
tile. Here again, moreover, we find the alternate
distribution of good and evil : conjunction was
good ; adjacent asjject or aspect in dodecagon was
evil ; sextile was good ; quartile relatively evil ;
trine specially good ; absence of regular aspect was
specially evil, and opposition relatively good.

Since the line between the eighth or the sixth
house and the east point did not form the side of
a regular inscribed polj'gon, these two houses were
deemed of inferior value. For the antliropocentric
mind of the astrologer it was therefore a sliort
step to regard them as houses of misfortune. The
eighth house thus became the house of tleath, and
the sixth the house of pains. We siiall see later
that in the reciprocal relations between the macro-
cosm and the microcosm the left arm became a
sjrnonym for the house of death and the left leg
for the house of pains, and tiiat in consequence
these bodily parts themselves came to be regarded
as of evil omen.

As emphasis was laid likewise upon the mtitual
correspondence of east and west — an idea that was
corroborated by the principle of alternate number-
ing— the twelfth and second houses were counted

54

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

unfavourable. In primitive plane geometry the
inscribed triangle and hexagon wei'e deemed pre-
eminently regular figures, and once more the
alternate enumeration gave the same result. Con-
sequently the eleventh, ninth, iit'tli, and third
houses were reckoned favourable ; while the tenth
and fourth, again, were relatively evil. These
symbolical interpretations, however, were some-
times set aside, sometimes even reversed, especially
those connected with the invisible half of the sky.

The tenth house, as that in which the stars
culminated, was supposed, by a very natural sym-
bolism, to preside over dignities and offices, while
the fourth house, lying directly beneath us, came
in similar fashion to be associated with parents
and ancestors, as those who had passed into the
under world, and inferentially with all the other
ties of kinship. On the ground of a certain analogy
with the eighth house, i.e. that of death, the
twelfth became the house of enmity {KaKoSal/jLcov),
and, by a further analogy, the second became the
house of poverty. As the second house, however,
was situated in the sky belonging to the under
world and therefore opposite to ours, it became the
house of fortune and riches, and for the same
reason the sixth house, that of pains (or, accord-
ing to another intei'pretation, that of service),
became the house of health. ]S ext to the house of
death came the ninth as the house of the tutelary
deity, while the eleventh, adjacent to the house of
enmity, became that of fi'iendship (dyadodalfiuv).
On the ground of similar considerations the third
became the house of brothers, and the fifth the
liouse of children. Finally, as the first house was
specially associated with the querent of the astro-
logical oracle, the seventh belonged to the qiierent's
counterpart, i.e. in the ordinary course of things,
wife or husband.

The designations of the various houses were
therefore as follows : (1) life, (2) riches, (3) brothers,
(4) parents, (5) children, (6) health, (7) marriage,
(8) death, (9) religion, ( 10) dignities, (11) friendship,
and (12) enmity. But this arrangement gave only
the general scheme of astrological prognostication,
and in the course of thousands of years various
changes were introduced. Our information regard-
ing any particular era of astrological speculation
is defective, and we speak only in a general sense
when we assert that from first to last the system
detailed above remained essentially unchanged.
It was all along recognized, moreover, that the
scheme must be specially adjusted to special cir-
cumstances. Thus in the case of sickness the real
querent was the invalid himself, and it was about
him, therefore, that the first house supplied in-
formation. The counterpart was meanwhile not
the wife, but the disease itself, upon which accord-
ingly light was cast by the seventh house. The
tenth house, in which the stars culminated over
the patient, symbolized the physician, while the
fourtii, lying directly beneath in the under world,
signified medicine. Account was also taken, of
course, of the eighth house as the house of death,
and of the sixth as the house of health. The
houses of friendship, enmity, riches, brothers, 3,nd
children were not supposed to Avield any influence
upon the course of the disease. Nor was much
importance attached, in such cases, to the sym-
bolism of the sun's planetary family ; and, in fact,
according to Greek accounts of Egyptian astrology,
neither Venus nor Mercury was taken into con-
sideration at all.

5. The astrological conception of the world.
— The enormous advances that have been made
within modern times in the study and practical
application of the natural .sciences, as ^vell as the
great contrast that obtains between the ancient
and the modern scientific point of view, are matters

of common knowledge. It is impossible to under-
stand the theories of nature held by the ancients
without a clear conception of the difference be-
tween their fundamental standpoint and our own.
According to the older view of the world, which
can be traced backwards for 51)00 years before
Christ, and which still held unquestioned sway for
1000 years after Christ, all natural objects issued
in parallel lines from certain primary causes of
universal operation. Modern science, on the other
hand, assumes that the various groups of physical
phenomena proceed by differentiation from certain
primordial forms. While the ancients, therefore,
looked upon the diversity of things as original,
and their common elonents as due to external
influences, the moderns assume that the properties
which objects have in common are inherited from
a single ]3rimary form, and that their differences
have been produced by external conditions, such
as, e.g., the struggle for existence.

The two conceptions, however, are not held
stringently apart, nor does history show a rigid
line of demarcation between the later and the
earlier. Even in Genesis (lO^**-)) for instance, we
have a table of nations which stands in complete
agreement with the modern jjoint of view, more
particularly in the circumstance that it traces back
the ancestry of all mankind in a series of con-
verging lines. Much more in accordance with the
ancient conception, on the other hand, is the Greek
Deluge-story of Deucalion, according to which
human beings were generated spontaneously from
stones acted upon by the formative powers present
in the air.

The theory of parallel processes may be called
the ' ancient astrological,' or, again, the ' Oriental
astrological' view of the universe. It had its birth
amongst the early civilizations of the East, and its
leading science was astrology ; nor is it yet a spent
force among certain Asiatic peoples of to-day.
Now even our modern science, with its discovery
of steam-power and its remarkable utilization of
electricity, does not enter so profoundly into con-
temporary experience as did the ancient astro-
logical conception into the life, thought, and feel-
ing of the distant past.

Perhaps the most etiective resistance to the more
harmful issues of the astrological theory of the
universe was made by the peoples living around
the Mediterranean. But the Scriptures of the Old
and New Testaments are likewise free from the
evil outgrowths of that view. Nevertheless, we
must remember that even the Biblical writers were
children of their time, and could therefore hardly
avoid expressing their thouglits in terms of the
recognized philosophy of their age. Hence, just
as we have come to recognize that the thorough-
going study of Biblical Hebrew cannot dispense
with the philological investigation of Arabic,
Ethiopic, Babylonian, Syriac, etc., so we are now
beginning to realize the impossibility of under-
standing the tenor of Biblical modes of expression
apart from a knowledge of the astrological con-
ception of the world common to the Babylonian,
the Egyptian, and other ancient civilizations.

We must again refer to the square form of the
horoscope, as furnishing tlie ground-plan of this
theory of the world. The figure shows us the link
which the theory had with astrology, and also
with other two occult sciences, viz. Alchemy and
the Kabbala.

It is of interest to note that the symbols used in astrology for
the four cardinal points were simply the triangles corresponding
to tlie first, fourth, seventh, and' tenth houses respectively.
But while, according to the expedient already noticed (p. 52"),
the positions of the stars in the ecliptic were determined by the
observer on the north, the fixing of the cardinal points was
etfeeted by his fellow on the south. The horoscope was there-
fore seen i)y the latter from the ojiposite point of view, and the

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

55

four houses in question took a reverse form, so that Za came to

mean north, V south, V> east, and <J west. With this
exception, however, all further inferences were drawn from the
proper form of the horoscope, i.e. from the figure it presented to
the observer on the north.

J&SSf

Wesf

The tenth house, as the siwimum ccelam, and the
fourth, as the imum coelum, embraced everything
in the world above and the world below respec-
tively. The upper world as a whole, however,
consists of the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh,
and twelfth houses. In the hieroglyphic script
of Egypt, accordingly, heaven is represented by
the exterior boundary of these live hou.ses, thus :

k"

^,M'

liich, of course, according to the

Egyptian practice in such matters, is only a con-
tour, and really stands for 1^^ >!. • ^^'^® same

proportions and angles are likewise retained in
the Egyptian representation of the goddess of
heaven, who broods over tlie earth-god— a pheno-
menon which will meet us again when we treat
of Egypt. The under world was represented, of
course, by the same ligure inverted. Now we find
two diilerent ideas attaching to each of the houses
numbered ten and four. According to one con-
ception the su^nmiim cccluTti contains the heavenly
upper ocean, from which rain falls (D^ns'ri na-it; in
the Biblical narrative of the Deluge), while tlie
imtim cxelum embraces both the ocean of the
under world and the subterranean water from
which the fountains of the deep are fed (c'l.i^ ni:;5.'s ;
also the sources of the Nile in Herodotus). Accord-
ing to the other coucei^tion there lies above us first
of all air, then fire ; and beneath us, first earth,
then water.

Now the latter theory furnished also the alche-

a = Fire /\

leui calure. Distilled alcoholic liquors were known
as 'burnt water,' and were denoted by a com-
bination of the symbols for water and fire, thus

To this day the lievice \

displayed

upon rustic inns indicates the licence to sell brandy.
This combined symbol xX ^^'^^ used not only

c = Earth V
rf= Water V

mistic symbols of the elements — symbols whicli
are still written by doctors in old-fashioned
mysterious receipts, and were in common use
among physicians and apothecaries a hundred
years ago. Thus, for example., "^sifjill. signified
terra sigillata; lumbric. ^restr.=lumhrici ter-
rcitrcs; SJflor. Q)rant.=aqua Jlorum nuranti-
ornm: or something was to lie boiled lr7ii Z^, i.r.

in alchemy but also in the Kabbala, where it re-
presented tlie,Siai_oLDaxid, It became, in fact, a
symbol for God (just as the fire-eye, i.e. /Qv , was

employed in Christian symbolism to signily the
Holy Spirit) ; for, by tlie rules of the Kabbala, the
combination of the principal consonants of ts'X
('lire') and a-o ('water') yielded the word a-a^
('heaven'), which in its turn was the cabalistic
equivalent of a-rh^ ('God'). Thus the term God

could be expressed by the secret sign

as the

synthesis of fire and water. In the synagogue all
pictorial representation of God was forbidden, nor
was it allowable to give utterance to the tetragram
mn' unless absolutely necessary. In the same way,
therefore, as the word ':nN had to be resorted to as

the oral designation of God, the symbol

came to be used in the architecture of the synagogue
as His graphic designation. This figure, more-
over, not only contains within itself the symbols of
the four elements, interlaced with one another,
but, besides the upper and lower triangles signify-
ing fire and water res|)ectively, it also shows four
extra-mundane triangles, which could thus be re-
garded on cabalistic principles as metaphysically
symbolizing the four consonants of the tetragram.
Hence, even in passages of ancient Christian
works where we might expect some such phrase as
' with God,' we actually find the cabalistic device

signifying n')n\

According to the astrological theory of the
world, however, not only the perpendicular section
through the universe, but the surface of the earth
itself, was thought of as quadrate, since the cube,
as the ideal geometrical figure, was the accepted
symbol of the world as a whole. This idea finda

Af.W.

Norfh

ME.

Wesf-

£3Sf

sw

Souflj

frequent expression even in later cabalistic writings
tre;i.ting of the origin of salt, which, of course, also
crystallizes in cubes. The sclieme of the horo-
scope, accordingly, became a comprehensive map
of the world as well. As previously explained in

56

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

connexion witli the points of the compass, the
horoscope was in this case constructed, as it were,
from the opposite point of view. In the centre
was the navel of the world, which every nation
sought to claim for its own territory, and as the
site of the national sanctuary. The hgure also
supplied the four pillars, viz. N.E., N.W., S.E.,
and S.W., upon which the heavens are supported.
Of these the best known was the S.W. pillar, as
it was there that Atlas had been relieved by
Hercules.

6. Anthropomorphic nomenclature of the
sphere. — Tlie square horoscope was not the only
expedient resorted to in setting forth the relations
of the stars, as another method was also in use
among the Egyptians. From a time anterior to
Menes until the iinal period, the high priest of

Ileliopolis was known as ^^rj ^^ ^a, i.e. ' chief

astrologer.' We may note in passing that this
olHce was held by Poti-phera (of which name the
literal Greek translation was Heliodoros), the
father-in-law of Joseph (Gn 41-'^). Tables of ob-
servations made in Egypt during the Twentieth
Dynasty are still extant, and in these are recorded
the times at Avhich the fixed stars cross the middle
lines of the houses, i.e. the beginnings of the
double-hours. The astrologer on the north found
the meridian of the place of observation by look-
ing through the .slit of the palm-leaf rib above
the bald croMTi of his companion. The middle
meridians of the tirst and seventh houses were
given by the horizontal line, while the observer
found those of the eleventh and ninth houses by
lines projected over his companion's right and left
eyes respectively, and in similar fashion those of
the twelfth and eighth houses by lines above the
right and left elbows. It is probable that the
sixth house was in like manner associated with
the left knee, and the second house with the
right.

From this point of view the left arm corre-
sponded with the house of death and the left leg
with the house of sorrows, aud on this account
there eventually arose a superstitious aversion to
using the word 'left' at all. In particular, all
actions performed by the left hand came to be
regarded as unlucky. It may well be the case
that mankind was right-handed rather than left-
handed before astrology asserted its sway, but
the ban thus laid upon the left extremities of
tiie body undoubtedly supplied a further reason
for excluding the left side and especially the
left hand from all actions of great and critical
moment.

7. Applied astronomy and astrology. — Alike in
the greatest and in the smallest attairs of life un-
civilized man is affected by the changes incident to
the day and the season, by the phases of the moon
by night, and by the ebb and flow of the tides.
Hence the observation of sun and moon with a
view to a standard measurement of time, or, in
other words, to the construction of a calendar, was
a vital condition of all progress in civilization.
But, as the periods of the earth's rotation about its
axis {i.e. the apparent diurnal movement of the
sun), of the moon's revolution, and of the sun's
apparent annual revolution, are incommensurable
with regard to each other, the early attempts to
frame a serviceable calendar were attended with
no small difKculty. As the lunar month made
more impression upon the primitive mind than the
actual solar year, endea%'ours were made in the
earliest calendars to base the latter upon an integral
number of the former, and all sorts of expedients
were tried in order to harmonize the two periods.
At a further stage in the growth of civilization

the determination of the true solar year became
the subject of inquiry, the length of the true lunar
month being then left out of consideration. Here
again, however, the residual fraction of days pro-
vided difficulties, and the difference between the
calendars of Western Europe and Eastern Europe
(Russia) shows that these difficulties have not yet
been overcome. In the pre-Christian era there was
a disparity between Babylon, with its cyclically
adjusted lunar year, and Egypt, with its solar year,
or, rather, its two unequal solar years. Other
civilizations employed other tyjies of calendar. A
purelj' lunar calendar is still in use among Muham-
madans.

The outstanding periodic phenomena of the
apparent courses of sun and moon were registered
in these calendars, and were celebrated as occasions
of joy or sorrow according to their influence upon
human life. In such feasts and fasts the moon and
the sun were, first of all, personified, and they still
continued to be revered as divine or heroic beings
even after the particular days connected with their
movements by astrology and astronomy had been
duly set down in the artificially corrected and
adjusted calendars of ancient and modern civilized
peoples.

8. Lunar, solar, and planetary deities. — The
ascertamment of such varying influences of the moon
and the .sun as could be registered in the calendar
was undoubtedly a forward step in the mental
development of primitive man. But the notion that
the movements of moon, sun, and planets were
elFected by powerful and conscious beings, more or
less endowed with free will, was an open door to all
illusion. The religion and mythology of the lowest
races are permeated with this idea. Amongst more
highly civilized peoples, again, we find a stock of
myths of like purport, which, partly indigenous and
partly exotic, forms a kind of illicit religion or
superstition, and which shows many points of con-
trast with the teachings of the recognized national
cult. In periods distinguished by a high state of
civilization this supplementary religion finds accept-
ance only amongst the lowest and least enlightened
ranks of the people, while at times, when culture is
at a low ebb, it extends its sway over the leading
classes as well.

In cases, however, where a relatively advanced
and purified form of religion found its way into a
region already civilized, the old representations of
moon and sun as personal beings, as also the
narratives that had grafted themselves upon their
festivals, degenerated into mere legends. As illus-
trations of the process we may name the Metamor-
phoses of ON'id in the Roman religion, the stories
of the Thousand and One Nights in Islam, and
Grimm's domestic and popular tales in Christianized
Germany.

But it was also possible that a fusion might take
place between the older and the newer narratives.
Thus, apart from the sphere of religious history as
such, there are many mediaeval kings and heroes
whose actual experiences, on tlie one hand, stand
forth in the clear light of history, but Avhose
legendary adventures, on the other, show un-
mistakable deposits from the personifying naiTa-
tives about the moon and the sun. The same
process has been at work practically everywhere ;
we trace it not only in the Nibelimgenlied and the
Iliad, but also in connexion with all the great
figures who as gods or proj^hets occupy the supreme
place in the various systems of religion. Popular
imagination, in fact, clinging as it does to the
ancient legends, is quite indifferent as to the figure
around which it throws them ; it may fix ui>on
Confucius, Buddha, Zarathushtra, Jesus, or Mu-
hammad. Even the older religions, with deities
unmistakably of planetary origin — the Babylonian

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

57

Shamash, the Egyptian Re, tlie Greek Apollo —
show such secondary deposits from various astro-
mythological sources.

The disengagement of this secondary astro-
mythological element from the Christian system of
thought has now become one of the prime tasks
of theological criticism. It is no longer possible
for any earnest scholar to reject the fundamental
idea of such analysis, and the extent to which the
work of elimination shall be pursued depends
entirely upon whether the individual theologian
leans towards the more orthodox or the more
liberal side. In regard to Confucius, Buddha,
Zarathushtra, and Muhammad, as also in regard to
the Alexander romances, the Christian theologian
concedes the rights of the method without hesita-
tion. Further, the OT and the Life of Jesus have
from ancient times been the nuclei of a mass of
legendary stories (the Talmud, etc. ; Gospels of
the Infancy, etc.), which all theologians have for
centuries regarded as apocryphal ; and it cannot be
disputed that the study of astro-mythology has
rendered valuable service in throwing light upon
the origin of these spurious additions to the lives
of the leading personalities of our religion. Once
more, there is a group of writings which, though
reckoned apocryphal by evangelical Churches, are
still included in the Roman Catholic canon ; and,
as might be expected, the bearing of the astro-
mythological theory upon these writings is esti-
mated by the two gi-eat parties within Christianity
in precisely opposite ways. And when at length
the theory is applied to certain constitutive ele-
ments in the OT, and to the life of Jesus as given
in the evangelical records, the theologians who
concede its rights in these domains are fewer still
in number. The explanation of this, of course, is
that such criticism seems to undermine the his-
toricity of the Biblical narratives, and to leave
nothing but a mass of mythical stories about the
planets, which have crystallized around certain
more or less unreal figures in the history of Israel.
The logical result of the process appears to be the
subversion of every constituent of Christianity save
its ethics.

Taken in this sense, the comparative study of
astrology and astro-mythology rests upon an im-
pregnable foundation. The implications of its
results, as was said above, may quite well be
brought into harmony alike with the most rigid
orthodoxy and the broadest liberalism. Hence it
cannot be non-suited by either of the warring
schools ; it is reconcilable even with the aims of its
critics. Just as comparative philology is an ideal
and impartial science, so must the comparative
study of myths assume a like impartiality ; and
the indispensable framework of this study is formed
by the planetary deities of astrology.

9. Prophetic astrology. — From the theological
point of view, prophetic astrology must be regarded
as a by-way towards superstition, and, indeed, as
one of the main sources of superstition. It was
evolved by gentle gradations from what we may
caU ' calendar astronomy.' Primitive man dis-
cerned parallelism not only in the processes of
nature, but also in the State and in human life ;
nay, even in the forms and organs of animals he
read analogies and homologies, and many other
fields of observation presented similar correspond-
ences. But by far the most obvious and unmistak-
able cases of parallelism were those which subsisted
between the motions of the sun and the moon, on
the one hand, and the periodic variation of the
tides, of light and heat during the day, and of the
seasons, on the other. Hence arose the notion of
planetary deities or angels — beings who acted
according to highly complicated laws, ordained
either by themselves or by a superior power, and

who souglit to bring all events, great and small
alike, within the range of parallel uniformities.
Where the trend of thought was polytheistic, the
planets were regarded as gods ; where it lay
towards monotheism, they were but the messengers
of a Divine will beyond them ; or, as the case might
be, an inevitable fate was supposed to hang over
the gods themselves.

From the standpoint of the ancient astrologer,
the supreme function of all learning was the ob-
servation of certain simple phenomena and the
drawing of inferences bearing upon a parallel series
of facts otherwise veiled. The primary task of
astrology was to ascertain the positions of the
planets in relation to one another, to tlie zodiacal
signs, and to the observer himself, and then to make
deductions therefrom. This was astrology properly
so called, and it required for every particular case
a direct reading of the sky. A cloudy niglit, how-
ever, rendered such direct readings impossible.
Now, the Kouyunjik inscriptions, dating from the
time of the Assyrian king Assurbanipal, yield
evidences for a continuous series of actual obsei-va-
tions. From these Ave learn that, notwithstanding
the complexity of the planetary movements, the
periodic repetition of essential phenomena had been
calculated for each particular planet. Thus the
astrologer could fall back upon tabulated records
covering every particular sequence of planetary
movement, and could substitute these for direct
observation. It is true that, owing to trifling in-
accuracies in the data thus supplied, this course
was avoided for thousands of years ; but at length
the momentous step was taken. No doubt, it still
remained necessary to bring certain recorded posi-
tions to the test of actual observation ; but, with
these exceptions, the researches of the practical
astrologer were thenceforth pursued in the study.
Our earliest evidences for this procedui'e date from
the period of the Persian monarchy.

So far as astronomy itself is concerned, this was a
progressive movement ; but, from the standpoint of
observational science, it was a backward step. It
issued finally in the determination and mathe-
matical calculation of the planetary orbits by
Kepler. But, in our estimate of Kepler's dis-
coveries, Ave must ahvays bear in mind that he Avas
still under the spell of the astrological conception
of the universe. It A\'as his firm belief that his
discoveries supplied the key to all events of history,
and had exalted astrology to the level of a perfect
and independent science of simple calculation, Avhile
in reality he had given the death-bloAv to its pre-
tensions.

From the time of the earliest attempts to draw
up a calendar — through the period of the Sum-
erians and Akkadians — to the days of Kepler
astrology underAvent no essential change, saA'e that
it gradually abandoned the method of direct observa-
tion of the heavens in favour of, first, a partial use
of tables containing earlier observations, and,
finally, a purely arithmetical determination of the
positions occupied by the planets at any given
time. Astrology, be it remembered, Avas a study
of international importance. Wherever, therefore,
in the history of any civilized country we can trace
some slight adA'ance in astronomical science, Ave
find corresponding records, practically contem-
poraneous, in all the civilized countries of that
epoch. Additions to men's knoAvledge of the stars
Avere valued only as ancillary to the determination
of the planetary positions. As all the available
CA-idence goes to shoAV, hoAvever, astrology, through-
out its entire career, had but one method of adapt-
ing this knoAvledge to oracular ends — the method,
namely, of symbolical interjiretation, Avith a more
or less clearly realized principle of alternation. In
the main, the positions of the planets were made

58

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

the basis of prognostications of the unborn future,
but they were also used as a means of tilling up
lacuncB in the knowledge of the past and the
present.

10. Astrology and medicine. — In the ancient
Oriental view of the world, astrology, religion,
and therapeutics went hand in hand. In the con-
viction that all things in the universe proceeded in
parallel lines, men spoke of a macrocosm (primarily
the stellar world as the province of Deity) and a
microcosm (primarily the human body), and sought
for far-reaching analogies between them. ' Thus —
to take one of many examples found in Sanskrit
literature — the Vedas and their allied texts exhibit
attempts to establish an exact equivalence between
the number of the bones in the human body and
that of the ilays in a year. Simple as would liave
been the task of enumerating the bones accurately,
they were purposely numbered wrongly, so tliat
the desired numerical relations might be educed ;
the lower jaw, for instance, was said to he com-
posed of eighteen single pieces, not including t'le
teeth, just because this number, while purely
factitious, could, as the twentieth part of 360,
be used for purposes of speculation. The method
was applied in every field, and things whicli did
not harmonize in fact were arbitrarily made to
do so.

In the ancient East the therapeutic art was based
upon the two fundamental postulates of air in
motion and liquid in motion, and it was supposed
that in the liuman body the air passed along the
artei'ies, while the liquid traversed the veins. The
solid substance of the body (its earthy constituents)
and its native heat (its igneous constituents) were
regarded as forming a fixed and constant mass :
earth and fire, in fact, were probably never con-
sidered in their pliysiological aspects until the
Hellenistic period. The astrological references
hitherto discovered in Babylonian and Egyptian
texts show that air and liquid alone were taken
into account. In the further develojjment of these
notions, sfiecial prominence was given to the air by
the pneumatists, and to the blood [i.e. liquid, and a
mixture of the four principal humours, viz. water,
phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) by the ha^ma-
tists. We cannot enter here into the particulars of
the antagonism maintained between the two schools
for several thousand years, an antagonism which
we can trace in the period when the Pyramids were
built, and which, again, moved the ha^matist
Aristoplianes to the mortal hatred wherewith in
the Cluuds he arraigned the pneumatism of Socrates
before the Athenian populace. Suffice it to say
that, in all references to the facts of nature found
in the Pentateuch, the Jahwistic sections (of Genesis
in particular) represent the pneumatic, and the
Elohistic portions the haematic, point of view,
whereas the Priestly Code exhibits no scientific
tendency at all. The pneumatists regarded the
nose as the most important organ of the body. We
may recall the numerous phrases formed with fjx in
the OT, and the large noses of the singers in the
chorus of the CloucU. Even amongst the inscrip-
tions from Nineveh, which must, on the whole, be
reckoned to the haematic school, the present writer
has found no fewer than fourteen diti'erent texts
referring to divination by the nose.

According to the ha^matist, life was concen-
trated in the liver, the i?3, or heavy organ, which,
accordingly, together with the blood, plays a
prominent part in the OT and the Talmud.
^:^ Among the Babylonians and Etruscans, again, as
^ also among the various peoples inliuenced by them,
haruspicy took tlie special form of divination by
inspection of the liver. The cuneiform texts which
treat of this hepatoscopy are without numl)er, and
have been read and translated mainly by .Tastrow.

In the ancient East, and even in Greece, the
hrematists were for the most part firm believers in
astrology, omens, and all that we now brand with
the name of superstition. To dreams, above all,
they attached great importance, while the pneu-
matists, on the other hand, as is shown by the
writings of Hippocrates, declared dreams to be
unwortliy of consideration. The pneumatists seem
to have Ijorne the reputation of being enlightened
persons, or sometimes even atheists, as was the
case with the pneumatist Socrates as delineated
by Aristophanes. From certain fragmentary
indications we may perhaps gather that in the
main the Christians of the early centuries were
pneumatists in their knowledge of nature.

Erom the mental standpoint of the ha?matic
astrologer every actual group of relations amongst
the planets mirrored itself in all synchronistic
events and conditions, and thus the entire lioro-
scope would be reproduced in the variations and
peculiarities found in tlie liver — the central organ
— of the newly-born sacrificial animal. An expert
examination of the liver could therefore quite well
take the place of a direct observation of the
sky. The practice of hepatoscopy was extensively
dittused, and diagrams illustrative of tlie art are
still extant. The method adopted by the Baby-
lonians was to portion out the liver in what may
be called oracular sqirares by means of a right-
angled system of ordinates* ^ device reminding
us of the square sections shown by the extant
Egyptian projection of the heavens made in the
time of King Seti, and likewise of the square
figure used as the' ground-plan of the normal
horoscope. Among the Etruscans, however,
hepatoscopy employed a polar projection in its
construction of oracular fields, and to this arrange-
ment corresponds the system of regular polygons
designed to represent the relative positions of the
planets in the circular horoscope.

Another way of dispensing with direct observa-
tion of the heavens was to watch the forms
assumed by certain substances when suddenly
placed under new conditions, as it was sujjposed
that the forms thus produced were determined by
the configuration of the planets at the time. Oil
or melted tallow was dropped into water, or water
into oil, and the diviner took note of the resultant
forms. We possess two comprehensive lists drawn
up in the reign of King Hammurabi of Babylon
for the express purpose of interpreting these
formations. This mode of divination still survives
in the superstitious practice of dropping molten
lead upon a cold surface.

A further variety of oracle was found in dreams,
to which reference has already been made. Dreams
also were believed to run parallel to the facts of
astrology, and might, therefore, be substituted for
the latter. But, as dreams were held to have their
origin in the blood, their significance was conceded
by the hsematists only.

Finally, every unaccountable phenomenon of
nature — from the movement of an animal to a
monstrous birth — everything, in short, that touched
human life at any point, came to be associated
with planetary influence, and might become the
basis of divination. The library of Sardanapalus
contains thousands of tablets in which such super-
stitious ideas and practices are expounded with
the most precise casuistry. They seem to have
been regarded as the supreme and final expression
of wisdom, and might relate to matters a thousand
years old. But these fallacious issues of man's
search for knowledge, involving such a prodigal
expenditure of energy in collecting data, find tlieir
ultimate explanation in the fundamental misc(m-
ception of astrology, viz. that the incidents of life,
being dependent upon the contemporaneous con-

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

59

figuration of the planets, must exhibit a parallel
order in their occurrence, and that accordingly
valid inferences regarding either of the parallel
series may be drawn from the other. The under-
lying conception of the whole procedure, liowever,
was that of the astrologer, and hence we lind that
in the system of divination by bowls which was
practised in the time of Hammurabi, the instan-
taneous formations of dropped grease were regarded
as yielding actual knowledge of the planetary
deities.

11. Subsidiary tables.— The various substitutes
for astrological di;ignosis might become, and,
indeed, necessarily became, very important, as it
was often ditiicult to detei'iuine the requisite facts
concerning the planets. We must remember that
the problem usually set before the astrologer was
to draw the horoscoije of the birth or conception of
an individual at a time when years had elapsed
since these events, and by this means to forecast
the future. His task was, in short, to re-construct
the astrological conditions of a past event, and he
had in consequence to refer to tables or lists of
earlier astronomical observations. As regards the
sun and the moon, the information he required
was furnished by the calendar, but special lists
were necessary for the live smaller planets. An
extensive table of this kind, written in the
Demotic character of Egyptian, and dating from
the reign of Augustus, has been preserved. The
Julian emperors, let us remember, used to settle
their retired soldiers in Egypt. Colonies of veterans
thus established in the Eayum would be largely
drawn from those who had been born in the reign
of Augustus. It was therefore necessary that the
astrologer who practised his art in this province
should possess lists of the successive positions of
the planets during that reign. The example before
us is but the transcript of a transcrii>t : whole lines
are wanting, and figures have been misread. We
may thus infer that such lists were produced in
gi'eat profusion to meet the needs of astrologers in
the various districts and villages. In order to
make the proper entries in tlie horoscope required,
the astrologer needed simply to know the zodiacal
signs in which the several planets were situated
at the time, and accordingly the information
supplied by the astrological lists regarding any
particular planet was confined to the day of the
month on which it entered a new sign. The
ancient lists of ephemerides were thus neither more
nor less than astrological tables.

For predictions of a general kind the astrologer
constructed ' nati^'ities,' while for cases of sickness
he drew hurortcopes of the KaraKXicris, i.e. the
inception of the disease, and otherwise adapted
his art to special circumstances. He had to be
informed of the day, month, and year of the
critical event. The signs occupied by the smaller
planets at the given date were then noted down
from lists like that of the Berlin Papyrus 8279 ;
the moon, togetlu^r with the day indicating its
age, was inserted in tlie proper sign according to
the calendar of the lunar cycle, its lunar station
being also fixed by established rules ; the sun was
placed according to the date. The next step was
to arrange these particulars systematically in the
twelve houses, the exact hour of the event, or,
failing that, the time of sunrise, being used as the
determining point. From this, again, the positions
of the planets relative to one another, to the eastern
point, and to the ditlerent zodiacal signs, were
deduced and interpreted.

12. The horoscope of Jesus Christ. — As an
illustration we shall take the horoscope of the
conception of Jesus, according to tlie form in
whicli we are able to re-construct it from the
Demotic table of the planets in the Berlin P. S279.

The dates given are themselves products of astro-
logical speculation, and cannot be regarded as
historically established, but they are nevertheless
worthy of notice. On the 24th of June, B.C. 7 (or
previously), took place the conception or birth of
John the Baptist. On the 15th of April, B.C. 6,
5 a.m., the annunciation to Mary (instead of the
conception of Jesus), and, at the same time, the
observation of this ' nativity ' by the Magi.
Between the 24th of June, B.C. 6, and the 25th of
November, B.C. 6, occurs the visit of the Magi to
Kinw Herod. After the 25th of November, B.C. 6,
the Magi notice the re-appearance of the stellar
configuration at the annunciation. On the 27th
of December, B.C. 6, the stellar configuration
becomes stationary (dffTTjp ^arr]), and the Magi
worship the infant at Bethlehem.

Now the horoscope of the 15th of April, B.C. 6,
can be re-constructed tlius :

and supplies the following apotelesmata capable of
interpretation :

(1) The horoscope of the day appears (with sunrise). (2)
Aries is in the ascendant. (3) Mars, as lord of the house of
Aries, presides over the birth. (4) Tlie sun is in the ascendant.
(5) Saturn in the ascendant. (6) Jupiter in the ascendant.
(7) Mercury in the ascendant. (S) Saturn in tlie ascendant,
and above the horizon. (9) Saturn is intercepted between the
favourable planets Venus and Jupiter. (10) Mars in the
second house. (11) The moon enters the eighth house. (12)
Venus is in the twelfth house. (13) Mercur\- in the house of
Mars, and lilcewise in immediate proximity to Mars. (14)
Saturn is in his TaireCuoyixa, or ' detriment.' (15) The sun in his
v>l/Mfi,a, or ' exaltation.' (IC) The moon in her TaTreiVojfio, (17)
Venus in her vif/ioixa. (18) Venus is matutina (morning star).
(19) Jupiter is in proximity to his house Pisces. (20) Jupiter
m trine (adspectus trigonalis) with his house Sagittarius. (21)
The sun in trine with his house Leo. (22) Saturn's motion is
direct. (23) Jupiter is direct. (24) Mara is direct. (25) Venus
is retrograde. (26) Mercury is direct. (27) Mercury is combust.
(28) Mercury in immediate proximity to the sun. (29) Mercury
is invisible. (30) Mars is not combust. (31) Mars is never-
theless invisible, and is, in fact, entering upon its invisible
period of three months. (32) Mars is separated from the sun
by Mercury. (33) Saturn is separated from the sun by Jupiter,
though the latter is combust. (34) Jupiter is comljust. (35)
Jupiter is separated from the sun bj" small planets. (36) All
the morning stars are visible. (37) All the evening stars are
invisible. (38) Mars is situated in his nocturnal triangle. (39)
The terrestrial triangle contains Mars only, its nocturnal lord,
situated in Taurus. (40) Mars is in opposition to his house
Scorpio. (41) The moon in trine with her house Cancer. (42)
The moon is in her domain. (43) The trigonum of fire contains
its lords conjoined in Aries. (44) The trigoi^um of water
contains its diurnal lady Venus. (45) The trigonum of water
contains its nocturnal ruler, the moon. (46) The moon and
Venus are in trine. (47) The trigonum of air is emjitv. (48)
Saturn and Jupiter are in conjunction. (49) This conjunction
occurs in Aries, and is thus coyijvnctio maxima, and dominates
the entire horoscope. (50) This coiijunctiu maxima was pre-
ceded by a conjiinctio magna, occurring in Pisces (indicating
the astrol(>gical necessity for the forerunner, John the Baptist).
(51) Saturn is in conjunction with the sun (but cf. 33). (52)
Saturn is in conjunction with Mercury. (53) Mars and Mercury
are in ditferent houses, but close together. (54) Saturn and
Venus are in the same relation. (55) Jupiter is in conjunction
with Jlercury. (56) Venus is visible. (57) Saturn is visible.
(5S) Jupiter is visible. (59) Saturn has no aspect with the
moon. (00) Saturn is in adspectiis conjinis with Venus. (61)
Saturn is in adjijiectus conjini.i with Mars', but triply intercepted.

60

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

(62) Jupiter has no aspect with the moon. (63) Jupiter is in
adspectus confinis with Venus, hut intercepted by Saturn. (64)
Jupiter is in adxpectus confinis with Mars, but doubly inter-
cepted. (65) The sun has no aspect with the moon. (66) The
sun is in adspectxui confinis with Venus, but doubly intercepted.
(67) The sun is in adspe.ctiis confinis with Mars, but intercepted
once. (6S) Mercurv has no aspect with the moon. (69) Mercury
is in adspectus confinis with Venus, but triply intercepted. (70)
Mercury is in adspectus confinis with JIars. (71) Mars is in
opposition to the moon. (72) Mars is in trine aspect with
Venus. (73) Full moon is just past. (74) No planets are in
quartile with each other. (75) Of the tropical si^'ns only Aries
is occupied, but it contains four planets. (76) All the planets
except the moon are clustered near the sun. (77) All the
planets except the moon and Venus are under the influence of
the sun (Mars as lord of the sun's house). (78) Jupiter
emerges from the sun's beams. (79) Hence the eonjunctio
■maxima also emer;;es. (80) All the visible planets and the moon
are situated in the diurnal sky. (81) All invisible planets are
in the nocturnal sky. (82) The lord of Saturn's house is Mars.
(83) The lord of Jupiter's house is Mars. (84) The lord of the
sun's house is JIars. (85) The lord of Mercury's house is Mars.
(86) The lord of Venus's house is Jupiter. (87) The lord of the
moon's house is Slars. (88) The lord of the house of Mars is
Venus. (89) Tlie horoscope, i.e. Aries, is masculine. (90) The
other occupied houses are feminine.

Several points of detail may be left out of
account. By making the horoscope more precise,
and dividing it into deeanate.s and degrees, we
might multiply indefinitely the ninety particulars
given above. These data of the positions occupied
by the planets were known as apotelesmata. The
ninety apotelesmata enumerated here can be
interpreted only in part at the present day, as our
information regarding ancient modes of astrological
interpretation is at best fragmentary. According
to rules still extant, interpolations and adjust-
ments, no doubt, have also been made in certain
particulars. So far, however, as we can test the
interpretations of this horoscope, it coiTesponds
with the evangelical narratives of the life of Jesus
even in its smallest details.

13. The development of astronomy and astro-
logy among the various peoples. — The foregoing-
sketch makes it evident that primitive peojjles
constructed their calendars by direct observation
of the heavens. Similarly, it is amongst these
primitive peoples, as indeed we might expect, that
we find the first steps of the transition from
astronomy to astrology. Thus, in the interior of
some of the larger South Sea Islands, as, e.g.,
Borneo, a primitive astronomy and astrology are
found amongst the aborigines, while the inhabit-
ants of the sea board, as also of the smaller
islands, exhibit a higher development in the science
of the stars, partly because their nautical interests
demanded a more thoroughgoing observation of
the heavenly bodies, and partly because they were
influenced by the higher standard of culture
attained by ttie Asiatic races, as is shown, for
example, by the fact that the Malay language
contains words borrowed from Chinese, Sanskrit,
Arabic, and Persian. Of the pictorial ^\Titing of
ancient Mexico, part of the calendar is all that has
hitherto been deciphered ; but even this suffices
to show striking correspondences between the
civilizations of America anterior to its discovery
by Columbus and those of the ancient Asiatic
races, and not least in astronomy and astrology.
/ Tbe development of these sciences already attained
*^ in the Babylonian period or later in the time of
Alexander tlie Great is practically the same as
now prevails througliout China, in part of Japan,
and, above all, in India.

In the West, likewise, the results of astronom-
ical inquiry were still encumbered with the old
superstitious conceptions. The earliest successful
attempts to eliminate these conceptions and their
effects from astronomy were made about A.D. 1500.
It is true that at the zenith of Roman civilization
the educated classes tried to throw the lumber of
astrology overboard. Certain of the Church Fathers
wrought strenuously to oust it from its place, gut.

(yj.tlae one baud, thu \exud question regarding the
date of Easter, wliicli wa.^* simply a consequeuce of
combining the lunar calendar of Babylon with the
solar calendar of Egypt, and, on the other, the
attempt to fix a year for the birth of Christ, gave
astrology once more a certain adventitious prestige
in ChiTstian life and theology. Fresh vantage
ground was also won for it in the secular learning
of tlie Middle Ages by the Western drift of Islam
and the Jewish Kabbala. As a matter of fact,
the astronomy of the West, and, in particular, the
coalescence of astronomy and astrology in the
later culture of Western lands, is a development or
an importation from the astronomy and astrology
of the ancient East.

Until the time of Kepler, astronomy was always
bound up with astrology, and its progress was for
the most part of a meagre kind. This may seem
incredible so long as we confine our investigation
to a short period abounding in records, but it is
always unsafe to argue from the silence of the
earlier records that tlie apparently fresh facts set
forth in the later constitute an actual advance.
No candid observer in the field of astrology could
fail to notice that, while this or that forecast might
happen to be correct, yet in many cases the con-
figuration of the planets, however skilfully inter-
preted, could not be reconciled with the facts of
experience. Certain details of astrological pro-
cedure were, therefore, constantly being left
behind, as in an ever-seething witches' caldron ;
and, on the other hand, long disused methods were
once more resorted to. This was especially the
case when, in periods of unrest, races and civiliza-
tions were shaken and mingled together. Detailed
research in a narrowly circumscribed period may
thus produce the illusion of rapid development in
a science which, in its leading features, really
remained unchanged from age to age.

The fundamental tenets promulgated by
astrology as inviolably true were manifold. From
the fourth house, as it seemed, welled up the sub-
soil water and the springs which fed the rivers,
while from the tenth house came the rain. Now
when primitive man found the moon in either of
those houses he anticipated a Hood. But the
moon was evidently connected also with the
occurrence of menstruation, which was regarded
as a periodic overflow of blood. The astrological
explanations of these phenomena tended to corro-
borate one another so fully that the sovereignty of
the moon over the liquid element was deemed
indisputable. An example of a difierent kind is
furnished by the horoscope of disease, or rather of
the Kard/cXto-is. Here the invalid was the querent,
and his malady the quesited, and information
regarding them was supplied by the first and
seventh houses respectively. Now, in the regular
horoscoj)e the sixth house was significant of pain
and the eighth of death, and thus the entire
western section of the sky from 45° above the
horizon to 45° below it was the region of disease.
In this expanse, however, the sun, distinguished
among the planets as the source of heat, is situated
between three and nine o'clock p.m., and this
again is the time when the invalid shows symptoms
of fever. An easy explanation was thus provided
for the increase of febrile temperature, while on
the other hand the validity of the science was
demonstrated once more. Astrology simply
abounded in spurious proofs of this type.

Thus the leading principles and ideas ot
astrology were looked upon for centuries as in-
controvertible. Its failures were attributed to
points of secondary moment, save in cases where
it seemed more convenient to change the time
premised by a whole double-hour, and so to shift
the entire horoscope by one house — an artifice

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Introductory)

61

which would in general quite invert the first
interpretation. Corrections and alterations were
thus made in matters of detail, while among the
more progressive peoples the general tendency was
towards over-retinement in interpretation and an
ever-expanding casuistry.

Accordingly there was no real development in
the astronomy and astrology of the ancient East
Avithin historic times. The extant evidences of
the inscriptions go as far back as the period of
Sargrmi-sar-ali and Narflm-Sin. From the reign
of the former eight short texts are all that have as

J'^et been brought to light, and from that of the
atter sixteen only, all of the same date. It is not
to be expected, therefore, that we shall trace all
the details of later astrology in such meagre
/ records. It is surely sufficient for our purpose that
V*"' the later period, the aixhives of which may quite

well extend backwards to the monarchs just
named, yields a mass of evidence to show that
astronomy and astrology had by this time reached
the status of a closed and rounded system. In-
scriptions from the age of Hammurabi make it
clear that full instructions had already been drawn
up for the practice of divination by cups in
connexion with planetary configurations. From a
period about a thousand years before Christ come
the inscribed boundary-stones, the dates of which
are indicated by their arrangement of the planetary
symbols. Thereafter the richest vein of astrological
records is found in the library of Sardanapalus.
We learn from these that there was a system of
observatories covering the whole kingdom, that
there was an established scheme of relays for the
professional astrologers and of serial reports
regarding their work, and that a State library had
been established for the purpose of supplying all
needed information in astrology and the auxiliary
arts of divination. It is to be regretted that as
yet only the Reports of the astrologers and the
instructions regarding hepatoscopy have been
properly edited. The cuneiform texts of the period
between Sardanapalus and the beginning of the
Christian era are not so rich in relevant information.
The astronomical texts of this epoch, however,
have found a thoroughly capable editor in Kugler,
whose labours were based on the preparatory
studies of Strassmaier and Epping, but who, un-
fortunately, engaged as he was with the productions
of a relatively short period, has failed to grasp the
subject in its entirety. A final residuum of Baby-
lonian astrology was the perfunctory knowledge of
' the science of the Chalda?ans ' current in the days
of the Roman Empire. From the beginning of our
era astrology and astronomy langviished on in the
various Asiatic countries, but they were borne
westwards by the Arabs. Mesopotamia always
remained more or less of a terra incognita for
countries influenced by Grjeco-Koman civiliza-
tion.

On the other hand, Egypt became permanently
mei-ged in the Roman Empire, and, at a later
period, in the Byzantine Empire. Itjvas Egypt,,
iherefore, Ihat -hltought Babylonian astronomy and
astrology into real contact with the West. Even
in the most remote times, in a period, it may be,
anterior to the First Dynasty, astrology, religion,
and medicine were combined as one science at
Heliopolis. The high priest of Heliopolis, officially
invested with the star-spotted panther's skin, was
all along the supreme State astrologer until the
imperial age of Rome, and he bore the title of
' great in vision ' already alluded to. A hierarch
of this order is named in the Bible (Gn 41'*^) as the
father-in-law of Joseph — of that Joseph Avho was
himself an interpreter of dreams (40^""- etc.), and

pr.nnfistivl t.bp .art, nf (livin.nfiini by . buwls (44^- "),

referred tuin conuexioii jwith. .y.auimuraiu. On the

wall of a tomb dating from the reign of Seti I. we
find lists of stars, times of culmination, etc.
Extensive tables of ephemerides and a fragment
of planetarj' divination according to the diS'erent
houses, together with corresponding dream-tables,
have survived from the age of Augustus. We

fossess even horoscope-texts drawn up in the
mperial period. Our minor records of later
Egyptian astrology are thus fairly numerous.

Grseco-Roman civilization throughout its entire
geographical and historical range, until the estab-
lishment of the world-empire and its swift decline,
never produced such monuments as we find in the
great empires of the East. Observatories of
colossal proportions, attached to primeval temples
containing archives by which the positions of the
planets nright be traced and tested for centuries
and millenniums, were never the work of Greece
and Rome. Among the Etruscans, therefore, and
subsequently among the Romans, it was the
surrogates of astrology that occupied the central
place. Apuleius explicitly asserts that the Chal-
dteans wei'e the founders of astronomy and
astrology. But, so far as the Romans concerned
themselves ■with the stiidy, they appealed to the
works of an assumed Egyptian king called
Nachepso and his astrologer Petosiris of Sais. At
a later period Claudius Ptolemreus (A.D. 100-178)
M'as regarded as the final authority in our twin
sciences, and beside him we catch a glimpse of the
somewhat legendary Hermes Trismegistos. But,
as has been already indicated, the claims of
astrology Avere not left unchallenged in this
period. About the year A.D. 200 the famous
physician Sextus Empiricus wrote a work in six
books irpbs fiadTifiaTiKovs, of which the fifth was
directed irpbs aarpoKbyovs. He prefaces his con-
futation by a sketch of the entire system of know-
ledge possessed by the XaXoatoi, and in this he
provides valuable materials for a tlioroughgoing
digest of the astrological texts in the library of
Sardanapalus.

In this later period, hoAvever, astrology has main-
tained some degree of progress in the Far East.
Among the Chinese and Japanese, occult art, in the
modern 'fengshui,' seems rather to have taken the
form of geomancy. Just as in the Near East
astrology gave birth to hepatoscopy, so in China
and Japan the interpretation of the planets
in the celestial vault has been transformed into
divination by the carapace of the tortoise.
Similarly tlie Gypsies have developed a system .oi
fortune-telling from the open hand ; and the
designation of the convexities of the palm as
' mounts ' of the various planets shows us that this
practice also is a surrogate of astrology.

Literature. — The significance of astronomy and astrology for
the interpretation of the religious conceptions of the ancient
East, as also for the exej^esis of the Bible, has only recently been
recogfnized. There is as yet no comprehensive work dealing with
the subject. Contributions to the study have come mainly from
the hand of H. Winckler (especially in Im Kainp/e um den
alien Orient, Leipzig, 1907), of whom A. Jeremias (Die Pan-
bahylonisten, der alte Orient und die aegi/ptische Religion,
Leipzig, 1907) has proved an able ally. Fugitive essays have
appeared in considerable numbers, principallj' in publications
of the Vorderasiatische Geselhchaft and the OHentalisti^che
Literaturzeitung ; Hinrichs (Leipzig) has also issued a number.
At first the new exegetical theory encountered very strong
opposition, but afterwards seemed to have won a general assent ;
more recently, however, the work of Kugler, already referred
to and appraised, has given it a partial reverse. K. SudhofiF
( fatromatliematiker, vornemUch im 15. tind 16. Jahrbvndert,
Breslau, 1902) and the present writer, starting from the history
of medicine, have studied the ancient astronomy and astrology,
and have arrived at the same results as Winckler, though
by a very different path. The present writer has also written
numerous essays on the subject, and these have appeared in
various periodicals, medical, philological, and theological,
esp. Die Angaben der Berliner I'lanctentafel, p. 8279,
Berlin, 1903, Dan Uornscop der Empfdngnisf Chriati, do. 1903.
These publications are based upon cuneifurm and hiero-
glj-phic (or demotic) texts which have only recently become
accessible.

62

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Primitive)

The leadinji work for the discovei->- of the relevant cuneiform
texts is C. Bezold, Calalogiie of the Cuneiform Tablets in the
Kouyimjik Collection of the British Mvseuin, 5 vols. The shorter
texts are to some extent accessible in Thompson, Reports of the
Magicians and Astronomers of Ninei^eh and Babylon (1900).
Out'Towths of Oriental astronomy and astrology are found in
the^vritiiiss of Claudius Ptolemasus, Cliiudius Valens. Paulus
.■Uexandrinus, Julius Firmicus Maternus, and Marcus Manilius,
and also in the works of opponents, such as Se.vtus Empiricus,
Cicero {df- Dimnatione), Horace, Juvenal, Pliny, and, in the 15th
and 16th cents., Hieronymus Cardamus and Pico de Jlirandola.
Boll, Sphcera, is a modem comprehensive work dealing with
classical astrology and astronomy, but the author had not the
requisite data for a corresponding: treatment of the ancient
ilast. The latest cuneiform texts from the period of the Persian
kings and the Seljuks have been utilized by Kugler in vol. i. of
a work to be completed in 5 vols. E. Stucken, Astralmythen
(Leipzig, 1907). admirably depicts the process by which the m.'.ths
and legends of the various races of mankind grow out of the
same original astrological conceptions, and arranges the stupend-
ous mass of materials according to their affinities with the
Biblical narratives regarding Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Esau, and
Moses. A short manual of astrology by Ernst Mayer, entitled
Kurzes Ilandbuch der Astrologie, and giving technical informa-
tion about the placing of the horoscope, was published by Dekker
(Berlin, 1S91). A vast aggregation of data relating to the vestiges
of astrologj' in Asia and the South Seas may be gleaned from the
Mittheilungen der deutschen Gesellschaft fiir Satur- und Volker-
kunde Ostasiens, in Der Janus (Archiv fiir Gesch. der Medicin),
and in the publications of Sanskrit scholars. The attempt to
furnisli a more detailed bibliography than the present is always
confronted with the difficulty of knowing which of the manifold
ramifications of our subject the reader is interested in. In one
or other of the leading works here cited, however, the student
will find a more complete list of works relating to the particular
field of inquiry with which he is concerned.

¥. VON Oefele.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Primitive).—
Knowledge of the movements of the heavenly
bodies is possessed in varying degrees by most
primitive peoples. In the earlier stages of civiliza-
tion tliat continued observation which is necessary
to arrive at a reasoned explanation, which is
the foundation of astronomical science, is not
possible through lack of proper means of recording
its results, nor is it called for by the practical
requirements of a population which lives chiefly
by hunting. For an agricultural people, however,
foreknowledge of the recurring seasons becomes
essential, and it is necessary that some means
should be found to mark the proper seasons for
performing the operations to ensure the food
supply. In the stars, witli their regular motions
of rising and setting, primitive man has found the
earliest and most convenient calendar. In default
of a theory based upon a series of observations, the
supposed movement of the sun round the earth,
the phases of the moon and the motion of the stars,
the shape and character of the sky, have been
explained by formulae composed of material drawn
from the texture of man's religious beliefs. The
celestial bodies, equally with his fellows and ma-
terial surroundings, he considers to be animated
with a personality like his own, though more
powerful. Starting from this fundamental assump-
tion, primitive man has fashioned for himself, in
his legends, a fairly complete explanation of the
celestial phenomena which come under his ob-
servation.

I. Sun and moon. —It is almost universal among
primitive races that both sun and moon should be
regarded as alive and quasi-human in nature.
Their sex dilTers among dilierent races, but the
moon is more commonly male and the sun female.
Relation between them, varying in character, is
also recognized. Among the Dieri of Australia
the sun is the daugliter of a Dieri woman, who
. after her birth sank into the earth in shame. The
natives of Encounter Bay say that the sun is a
woman who has a lover among the dead. Each
night she descends among the dead. At her rising
she appears in a red kangaroo skin, given her by
her lover. A Wotjobaluk legend relates that the
sun is a woman who was digging yams and reached
the West ; after wandering round the earth she
came back to the other side, and has done the same

ever since. The Wurunjerri sa^' that the suu is the
sister of every one. This may be compared with
the story of the origin of the sun told by the
Aruuta. At Alice Springs there is a tradition that
in the Alcheringa the sun came out of the earth at
a spot now marked by a stone in the country of the
Bandicoot people, in the form of a spirit woman,
accompanied by two other Panunga women, who
were sisters, the elder of whom carried a child.
The spirit woman went up into the sky, and she
does this every day, visiting the old spot at night
and rising in the morning. A medicine-man could
see her in the hole, but not a person with ordinary
vision. The two women settled among the Bandi-
coot people, and originated a local sun totem. This
totem may be compared with the sun totem of the
Incas. The sun has a definite relation to each
individual member of the various divisions, belong-
ing itself to the Panunga division, as did the two
women. Among these people a ceremony con-
nected with the woman and the child is perfonned,
in which symbols of the sun are worn.

The Masai say that the sun married the moon,
and they had a fight. Each damaged the other.
The stm was so ashamed that he became bright, in
order that people might not be able to look at him.
The moon was not ashamed, and it is possible to
see that her mouth is damaged and that one eye is
missing.

It is interesting to note that, while the sun is a
man and the moon a woman, the Masai word for
sun, cng-olrihg,\% feminine, and ol-apa, 'the moon,'
is masculine. The Bushman story goes that the
sun was an old man, from whose armpit light
radiated ; some children threw him up in the sky,
where he stuck.

Occasionally both sun and moon are feminine.
Among the Mantras the sun is a woman, who is
continually being pulled by a string held by her
lord. The moon is a woman, the wife of Moyang
Bertang, who sits in the moon making nooses for
men.

(a) Origin and Tnovements of the sun. — The origin
of the sun, as related in the Tembeh legend of
Sam-mor and his battle with Naing, has advanced
beyond the anthropomorphic stage. When Sam-
mor had imprisoned Naing, he rolled the fire with
which he had fought into a ball, and this, as the
sun, still revolves round the mountain to watch
Naing. This conception of the sun as inanimate
is probably due to external influence, but it has a
parallel among the Gallinomeros of Central Cali-
fornia, where the hawk and the coyote, after
jostling one another painfully in the darkness
which then ^jrevailed, collected two masses of
inflammable substance ; the hawk then flew up
into the sky with them, and lighted them with
ilint. They give light as the sun and the moon.
The Wurunjerri believe that the sun was made by
Puppu-imbul, one of the race inhabiting tlie earth
while everything was dark. This personage, it is
hardly necessary to point out, belongs to the race
of demiurges of which Prometheus is the type.

The sun did not always cross the sky in the same
leisurely- manner as at present. The great feat of
Maui, the Maori hero, was tliat he tamed the sun.
According to one version, he beat him so unmerci-
fully that he lamed him, and he has walked slowlj'
ever since. In Samoa the sun had a child by a
Samoan woman, who trapped the sun by a rope
made of vine. Anotlier Samoan lassoed the sun,
and made him promise to go slowly. The same
or an analogous explanation is found in Aztec
folk-lore and in North America. On the other
hand, in Australia and in Melanesia the sun did
not set. In the myth of the aborigines of Victoria,
Norralie decided that the sun should disappear at
intervals, and addressed it in an incantation, ' Sun,

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Primitive)

63

sun, burn your wood, burn your internal substance,
and go down.' The sun now burns his fuel in a
day, and goes below for fresh firewood (R. Brough
Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, iv. 430). In Mela-
nesia Qat (the Melanesian hero) went to Qong
('night') and begged assistance. The latter put
him to sleep, find, in twelve hours or so, credit up
from the horizon and sent the sun crawling to tlie
West (Codrington, JAI, Feb. 1881). In a Brazilian
myth, a man ('the great serpent') who owned night
sent it in a gourd to his daugliteron her marriage ;
the messengers opened the gourd and let it out.

Various explanations are given of the sunset.
The simplest is that the sun sinks into a hole,
occasionally the hole from which he arose. The
Dieri say it sinks into a I'.ole near Lake Eyre, and
in the night travels underground to the East, in
the same manner as it was believed to do in ancient
Egyptian belief. Not infrequently the sunset myth
takes the form of a legend of a personal hero plung-
ing into the body of a personal night. Maui was
caught in the mouth of Hine-nui-te-po, ' Great
Daughter of Night,' and t'lus brought darkness and
death into the world. Since then the sun descends
into the under world, and repeats the battle with
Hine-nui-te-po every night. An explanation of
sunset is that Maui took fire, and when it burnt
him he plunged into the sea. Among the Basutos,
all men but Litaolane were devoured by a monster.
He also was swpJlowed, but cut his way out. The
Zulu story of the rescue of Princess Utombende is
of a similar character.

(b) Origin and movements of the moon. — The
moon occupies a prominent place in primitive folk-
lore for wliich her periodical growth, diminution,
and disappearance, phases more marked than those
of the sun, may not unreasonably be held to be
responsible. Like the sun, the moon is regarded
as a living person. Allusion has already been
made to the variation in the attribution of sex to
the moon among dili'erent peoples. One or two
further instances whicli illustrate other points of
lunar mythology may be added. Among the
Aruntas the moon is a big man {etwa oknurcha).
They say that, when there was no moon in the sky,
a man died and rose again as a boy. The people
ran away. He said, ' Do not run away or you will
die. I shall die, but will rise again in the sky.'
He grew up and died, reappearing as the moon.
Since then he dies periodically. When he is not
visible, he goes away to his two wives who live in
the west. A second legend of the origin of the
moon, which is found among the same trilies,
relates that the moon was carried by a blackfellow
in the hollow of his shield, who hid it in a cleft of
the rocks during the day. Once it Avas stolen from
his shield while lying on the ground. He pursued
the robber but could not catch him, so he shouted
that the moon should go up into the sky and give
light to the people during the night. In South-
East Victoria in one myth the moon is an old man
who climbed a tree to pick gi'ubs. His sons made
the tree grow to the sky, where he became the
moon. The Dieri say that tliere was once no moon ;
the old men held a council, and a mura-mura gave
them a moon in order that they might know when
to hold their ceremonies. The same reason for the
moon's existence is given among the Todas.

The marks on the face of the moon are explained
in various ways. The Eskimos say that these
marks are the ashes which were smeared on his
face by his sister the sun, when he tried to embi-ace
her. Among the Besisi it is said that their chief an-
cestor Gaffer Engkoh once fell to earth and climbed
back to the moon by means of a festoon which
he plaited. His comrade Porang Aliyan ascended
witli Engkoh, but the latter slipped back quickly,
taking his rope with him. Porang now dwells in

the moon, protecting the souls of the dead who
visit the moon from wild beasts. The Mantraus
believe the dark spots on the moon to be a tree.
The Malays see in the moon a banyan tree, under
which sits a hunchback plaiting a fishing line.
When the line is tinished, he will iisli up everything
on earth, but a rat always gnaws away the line.
This belief also occurs in Sumatra. The Malays
ahso say 'the moon is great with a mouse doer,' a
belief possibly derived from the Sanskrit idea of
the hare which was taken up into the moon for
protection. In Mexico it was said that a god
smote the moon in the face with a rabbit (Sahagun,
viii. 2) ; in Zululaud and Tibet a hare was trans-
lated to the moon. The connexion lietween the
hare and the moon is also found among the Nama-
quas of South Africa. The hare was sent to men
to confer upon them a return to life after death,
but by a mistake in the message made them mortal.
In Fiji the same point of human mortality was
argued between the moon and the rat. The latter
prevailed.

The Wotjobaluk also connect the moon with a
resurrection after death. When all animals were
men and women, the moon used to say, ' You uj)
again,' and the dead came to life. An old man
said, ' Let them remain dead ' ; none then caifte to
life except the moon. Tlie connexion is obviously
suggested by the necessity for finding an explana-
tion of the phases of the moon. Various explana-
tions are current. The Masai say tiiat the sun
carries the moon in his arms when siie is tired.
After carrying her for two days, he leaves her in
his setting-place. On the fourth day she is
visible to donkeys. On the fifth day men and
cattle see her again. The Wiimbaio say that the
moon did not die periodically until so ordered by
Nurelli. The natives of Encounter Bay iield that
the moon was a dissipated woman who spent her
time among the men, but when she wasted away
they drove her out. While she is in seclusion she
feeds upon nourishing roots and becomes plump
again (Brough Smyth, op. cit. i. 432).

(c) Eclipses. — An eclipse, whether of the sun or
of the moon, is at all times regarded with dread ;
it is almost universally believed, at the early stages
at least, to be caused by a monster who devours,
or attempts to devour, the luminary. See art.
Prodigiks and Portents, vol. x. p. 368 f.

2. Stars. — The belief that the stars are great
men and divinities translated to the heavens occurs
among nearly every people in the world. Stars
are grouped together in constellations which re-
present persons, many of them large, sometimes
including one or more of the constellations of our
astronomy. The inhabitants of Torres Straits in-
clude in their constellation Tagai — a hero who
stands at the head of a canoe hoklhig a spear and
a bunch of fruit — the Southern Cross, Scori)io,
Sagittarius, Corvus, and stars of Lupus and Cen-
taurus. The ' Shark ' includes the Great Bear and
Arcturus and Gemma. In New Zealand Orion's
Belt is Maui's Elbow, while the Southern Cross is
identified with the stern of the canoe of Tamarete.
Among the Wurunjerri of Australia a and /3 Crucis
and a and /3 Centauri and other stars .are the sons
of Bunjil, the latter himself being Altair. Two
stars on either side of him are his wives, who belong
to the black swan totem, while his brother Nurong
and his wives are Antares jind adjacent stars.
Bunjil and his sons Avere translated to the sky in
a whirlwind. The whole group is intimately con-
nected with the totemic system, Bunjil or Pund-jel
being an Australian demiurge. At Alice Springs
in Australia the Aruntas saj^ the Evening Star is a
woman who went into the earth at a spot marked
1)y a white stone at Temple Bar in the Macdonnell
liange, leaving her churinga behind. Every child

64

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Primitive)

conceived at tliis stone belongs to the Evening Star
totem, although it is in the lizard totem country,
and any child conceived near the stone is a lizard.
Orion's Belt is said to be a gi'oup of young men
dancing corroboree. Jupiter, the ' foot of day '
(Ginabong-Bearp), was a chief among the old
spirits, a race translated before the appearance of
man. Among the Eskimos of Greenland, Orion's
Belt is 'the Lost Ones,' a number of seal hunters
who lost their way home. The Pleiades, an ex-
tremely important group of stars for primitive
peoples, Avere knoAvn to the Indians of North
America as ' the Dancers,' to the Lapps as a com-
pany of virgins, and to the Australians as a group
of girls plajnng corroboree. The Aruntas believed
them to be women who went up into the sky and
have remained there ever since. A legend of tlie
Wurun Jerri runs that, when some young women
were digging yams, the crow stole their yam sticks.
They were swept into the air, when Bellin-Bellin
let the whirlwind out of the bag, and the stars are
the fire on the end of tlieir yam sticks. Another
version says that the group is Bunjil's daughter
and two men who were turned into women by Bun-
jil's son, each receiving yam sticks from Bunjil's
daughter. The almost unvarying association of
the Pleiades with women among different races is
remarkable. It thus appears that the legends
which attribute an heroic and human origin to
the stars and constellations contain the germs of
conceptions which have been utilized by modern
astronomy in mapping out the heavens.

Stars, however, are not always translated human,
divine, and ' semi '-divine beings. Allusion has
already been made to the Malay and Sakai belief
that stars are clefts in a superincumbent rock.
Take-mahuta, in the Polynesian stoiy, after separ-
ating his father and his mother, stuck stars all
over his father's body. Maui, after slaying his
sons, placed an eye of each in the heaven as the
morning and evening star respectively — a story
which represents a transition stage between the
two groups of animate and inanimate origin.

It is not surprising to find the stars regarded as
the moon's children. The Mantras say that once
the sun and moon, who were both women, had
many children, the stars. They agreed to devour
them. While the sun did as agreed, the moon hid
her children, producing them afterwards. The sun,
being very angry, now pursues the moon but can-
not catch her, though sometimes she succeeds in
biting her, causing an eclipse. The same story is
told by the Hos of Chota Nagpur. In this story,
however, the sun threw a hatchet at the moon and
cut her in two.

For practical purposes among most primitive
peoples the stars perform a more important func-
tion than the sun. By their rising and setting the
times of the feasts and ceremonies are determined,
and among agricultural peoples their movements
serve as a calendar by which the various operations
in cultivating the soil are regulated. In the Torres
Straits, Tagai marks the time for new yams and
the migrations of turtle ; Seg, the time for another
kind of yam. The Murray Islanders also use
Tagai as a mark in navigation. The rising of the
constellation Doi-gai, winch coincides with the
North-West Monsoon, is the time to 'make dance.'
The natives of Borneo, especially the Dayaks,
watch for the Pleiades to determine when to
prepare their ground for planting. When it is
estimated that the wet season is approaching, men
are sent to the forest to watch for the rising of the
Pleiades. The Kenyahs and Kayans of Borneo
measure the length of the sun's shadow by means
of a marked stick with the same object (C. Hose,
JRAS, Straits Branch, Jan. 1905). The importance
of such observation of sidereal phenomena is evi-

dent when it is remembered that in tropical regions
the seasons bring little or no sign of change to
serve as the farmer's calendar. The Masai recog-
nize that the rainy season is approaching when
they see the Pleiades, while in the Society Islands
the year is divided into two halves, Matari-i-inia
and Matari-i-raro according as this constellation is
visible above the horizon after sunset or not. In
fact, over nearly the whole world the rising of the
Pleiades is the beginning of the year or a cycle,
marks the time for feasts, and is an occasion of
ceremonial observance. It may be recalled in
passing that Penrose found that the Hecatompedon
and the old Erechtheum had been ascribed to the
heliacal rising of the Pleiades on May day ; and in
Britain, it is suggested, winle Stonehenge appears
to have been built in relation to the rising of the
sun at the summer solstice, the ' Hurlers ' in Corn-
wall on prima facie evidence seem to have been
built in relation to the heliacal rising of the Pleiades
on May morning B.C. 1600 approximately.

In some cases the use of the stars as a calendar
is not immediately obvious, but is a matter of
interpretation. In Australia, Yuree and Wanjel
(Castor and Pollux) pursue the Kangaroo (Capella)
and kill him at the beginning of tTie great heat,
and the mirage is the smoke of the fire they roast
him by. Marpean-Kurrk and Neilloan (Arcturus
and Lyra) discovered the ant-pupa and the eggs of
the loan bird and taught the aborigines to use
them for food. As Tylor points out, these legends
and their analogues may fairly be interpreted as
indicating the seasons when the pupa and eggs
may be found, the great heat expected, and so
forth.

3. Signs and omens. — The train of thought
underlying primitive astronomical theory would
seem peculiarly adapted to foster the magical con-
ceptions and analogies upon which astrological
reasoning is based. Omens and signs, favourable
and unfavourable, are and have always been the
object of constant observation in the past of savage
and semi-ci\'ilized people. It is, therefore, not sur-
prising that peculiar powers in controlling human
events should be attributed to those heavenly
bodies which ai'e regarded as endowed with powers
similar to but greater than those possessed by
human beings. Even when a stage has been
reached at which the magic powers of the witch
no longer gain credence, belief in the power of the
moon or the first star of the evening to grant a
wish remains as evidence of a time when the favour
of the heavenly bodies w-as essential to success.
Lacking the knowledge necessary for the pseudo-
scieutilic cartography of astrology, primitive races
never attained the heiglits of judicial astrology.
Yet the belief that, for instance, a child born under
Leo would possess qualities usually associated with
a lion is one with which a savage would find him-
self in full sympathy. The Malays possess an
elaborate system by which the year is mapped out
into lucky and unlucky periods depending upon
a rotation of days, each associated with deities,
planets, and lucky and unlucky colours, and are
acquainted with the use of the magic squares.
But their astrological science has been borrowed
from the Hindus and Arabs. In the case of races
wliich may truly be described as primitive, the
germ of the science rather than the science itself
is found, while vestigial traces of these primitive
beliefs linger in the popular folk-lore of civilized
countries. The belief that the weather changes
with the phases of the moon is found among the
Ewe peoples of West Africa, where a certain
number of days' rain is said to accompany each of
the four changes of the moon. At these times they
are forbidden to take purgatives, and children and
cattle are bom. At the rising of Eza (Orion) rain

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (American)

65

falls for seven days in accordance with the number
of stars in the group ; three days' rain follows the
rising of the group Atielo, while the star Toro is
peculiarly favoura!ble to huntsmen, who call this
time Ladorgbe, ' animal chop grass ' (P. Fr. Miiller,
' Folkloristische Ewhetexte^ (Ge-Dialekt), Globus,
Ixxix. Jan. 17, 1901). These beliefs, however, may
be regarded as generalizations from imperfect data
assisted by magic, rather than as originating in
a magical connexion. A less doubtful case of
intimate relation between celestial and terrestrial
phenomena occurs in the ^\'idely distributed belief,
still common in European folk-lore, that fertility of
crops and success in an enterprise depend on an
action undertaken under a waning moon. The
Lithuanians wean boys on a waxing, and girls on
a waning moon, believing that in the one case it
provides strength, in the other, slenderness and
grace.

An instance of a belief which most nearly ap-
proaches judicial astrology is quoted by Tylor
(Prim. Cult.* i. 129) from Shortland. The Maoris
when besieging a *pa' believed that the result
could be foretold by the relative position of Venus
and the moon ; if the planet were above the moon,
the foe would conquer; if below, the home force
would be victorious.

LiTERATTTRE. — No Comprehensive study ot primitive astronomy
on scientific lines has been made ; reference to astronomical
legends and a few identifications of stars known to the natives
will be found scattered in works dealing with individual races.
General principles of study will be found in E. B. Tylor,
Prim. Cult* 2 vols., 1904, and A. Langr, Myth, Rit. and Relig.
1S99. See also Sir N. Lockyer, Dau-n of Astronomy, 1894.
For ceremonies connected with the Pleiades see R. Andree in
Globus, Ixiv. no. 22. Instances here quoted are taken chiefly
from W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, 1900; Skeat-Blagden,
Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, 1906 ; A. W. Howitt,
Aat. Tr. of S.E. Aust., 1906 ; Spencer-Gillen, Nat. Tr. of
Cent. Aust., 1898 ; A. C. H addon, fl'ead Hunters, 1901 ; A. C.
HoUis, The Masai, 1905 ; Sir G. Grey, Polynesian Mythology,

1855. E. N. Fallaize.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (American).—
I. Sources. — A large part of our knowledge of the
astrology and astronomy of the American Indians
is derived from their traditions as reported by
early European and American missionaries and
travellers. These writers had the advantage of
contact with the various tribes before European
influence had extensively modified their modes of
thought, but they paid little attention to astro-
nomical traditions. The few constellations men-
tioned by them are seldom identified, and the
identifications are frequently indefinite or in-
correct. A number of works by native authors
give tribal tradition in authentic form, but little
astronomy.

In Mexico and Yucatan a few codices, which escaped destruc-
tion at the hands of the Spanish priests, contain many complex
astronomical symbols of which little is definitely known as yet,
but from which, undoubtedly, much will eventually be learned.
They are supplemented by hieroglj'phs on structures and
monuments. In Guatemala there is the Popol Vuh, or ' Book
of the People ' (ed. and tr. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Paris, 1861),
and in Peru Salcamayhua's Spanish account of Aymara Quichua
antiquities (tr. ilarkham, Hakluyt Society, 1873). These
manuscripts either are of pre-Columbian origin or present
pre-Columbian material with slight European modifications.
They include some myths and legends having an astronomical
basis (cf. also Brinton, Annals of the Cakchiquels, Philadelphia,
1885 ; and Tres relaciones de antiguedades peruanas, ed.
Ximenez de la Espada, Madrid, 1879). Until recently even
scientific travellers have often shown indifference towards
astronomical traditions, but ethnologists now recognize the
importance of this subject and are collecting material which,
in spite of the long contact between Indians and Europeans,
affords sufficient evidence of native origin.

In North America these traditions are supplemented by a
few valuable star charts. Three have recently been collected
among^st the Osages, Pawnees, and Huichols (Dorsey, in
9 RBE]V, p. 378; Eield Columbian Museum Report, xi. pi. 72;
Lumholtz, in Memoirs of the American Mtiseum of Natxiral
History, iii. 57 ff.). The two first are intimately associated
with the ritual of the tribal secret societies. The Osage chart
represents the Hyades, Pleiades, morning and evening stars,
sun and moon, and probably the Milky Way and part of
Scorpio. The Pawnee chart shows the Pole Star, Great and
VOL. XII. — S

Little Bear, Northern Crown, Orion, Hyades, Pleiades, Milky
Way, and probably Capella ; that of the Huichols depicts as
stars or constellations the Scorpion (Scorpio) and its Heart
(An tares), the Deer (Taurus ?), which is pursued by the Dog, a
Woman bearing a child, the Crab, Beehive, Humming Bird,
and other objects. The winter counts of the Western tribes
represented each year by some important event, which is
pictured upon a buffalo hide. Naturally they include astro-
nomical figures. That of Lone Dog, for example, presents the
meteoric shower of 1833, a comet, and a solar eclipse. The
altars of Pueblo secret societies furnish numerous stellar
symbols, as is shown by the researches of Gushing and Fewkes
in RBEW, JAFL, and Amer. Anthropologist. Tablets in-
scribed wth astronomical characters have been found at Rock-
ford, Illinois, Mitchell Co., North Carolina, and in Missouri.
Excepting the rayed solar face, crescent moon, and morning
and evening stars, the characters upon these tablets have not
been satisfactorily deciphered.!

The Mexican calendar stones present another and an elaborate
source of astronomical symbolism, to which considerable study
has been directed (see Calendar [Mexican]). Inscribed stones
of astronomical significance have also been found in the Chibcha
region of Colombia. The symbols seem to correspond with
those ascribed to the Chibcha calendar and constellations by
Duquesne (cf. Bollaert, Antiquarian Researches, London, 1860 ;
also Humboldt, Researches, and Lemly, in Century Mag., 1891,
p. 885). A circular gold ' zodiac ' from Cuzco presents a solar
rayed face surrounded by twelve unknown symbols (Bollaert,
op. cit. p. 146 ; Markham, Cuzco and Lima, London, 1856, pp.
107-108 ; Winsor, Critical and Narrative History of ATUfiica,
Boston, 1S84-1889, i. 235). A wooden box from the west coast
of South America figured by Kingsborough (Mexican Antiqui-
ties, London, 1831, iv.) presents Peruvian symbols of the sun
and moon, Orion, Taurus, the Pleiades, and other constellations,
but they are associated with symbols of European origin.

A most valuable source of astronomical knowledge is the
Peruvian star chart of Salcamayhua, a pure-blooded Aymara
of the ruling class, who wrote during the first quarter of the
17th century. With the exception of a prudential reference to
the symbol of the Southern Cross, this chart presents only
native concepts. It gives symbols of the sun and moon,
morning and evening stars, southern pole. Coal Sack, Milky
Way, and all the zodiacal asterisms (cf. Hagar, in Compte Rendu
du Congris international des ArrUHcanistes, Paris, 1900, p.
271 ff.).

2. Scientific knowledge. — The use of gnomons,
natural and artificial, was wide-spread in America.
Amongst many of the tribes there are still old men
who delight in determining the seasons and the
time of day by the position and direction of the
solar shadows. The Pueblos have measured and
named the sunrise points on the eastern horizon so
as to divide the year into two periods of six
months, and the time of the equinox is determined
with great care. The Zunis used as a gnomon an
erect sandstone slab adorned with a solar effigy
(Dellenbaugh, North Americans of Yesterday, New
York, 1901, pp. 305-306; Fewkes, Annual Cere-
monies at Walpi, Leyden, 1895).

At Chapultepec, in 1775, a stone was found
under which three crossed arrows pointed accu-
rately to the equinoctial and solstitial sunrise
points (Bollaert, in Memoirs of the Anthrojiological
Society of London, i. 210 tt'.). The mala doorway
of the chief temple of Cuzco fronted the north-east,
so that at the June solstice the rays of the rising
sun would penetrate into the temple and illumine
the solar plate at the opposite end, thus recalling
the temples of Egypt and Greece ; and the early
Christian cathedrals oriented to the sunrise point
on the day of the saint to whom they were
dedicated. It is not unlikely that the orientation
of Mexican and Peruvian structures will enable
future investigators to determine the dates of
their construction by means of the method so
brilliantly pursued by Lockyer in Egypt and
Penrose in Greece (Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy,
London, 1894). Beebe has shown that the mono-
lithic gateway and a large stone platform at
Tiahuanaco probably served as a solar dial. The

1 See Proceedings of Davenport Acad, of Sciences ; J. P.
McLean, The Mound Builders, Cincinnati, 1879, p. 118 ; Short,
North Americans of Antiquity, New York, 1880, p. 38.
W. S. Beebe, who made a special study of the Davenport
and Piqua tablets, attempted a full explanation of both. He
makes the former wholly and the latter partly astronomical,
but his interpretation of the latter stands httle chance of
acceptance in the present stage of our knowledge. A copy
of his privately printed notes is deposited in the Davenport
Academy, Davenport, Iowa. One is in the author's possession.

66

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (American)

sides of the pyramids of Mexico and Central
America are often aligned to the cardinal points.
In Mexico, Nobel describes a perpendicular shaft
in the pyramid of Xochicaico which permitted the
rays of the zenith sun to fall upon an altar in an
interior chamber. The shadows cast by the steps
of the pyramid of Papantla were observed for
calendar purposes (Humboldt, Researches, ii. 87),
and tradition indicates a similar use of the steps
and platforms at Cuzco known as the ' Monkeys'
Dance.' Mrs. Zelia Nuttall, moreover (Boas
Anniversary Vohime, New York, 1906, pp. 290-299),
points out various pictographs in the Mexican
codices which represent priests observing the stars
to determine the time. The different divisions of
time were marked by the sounding of drums or
trumpets in the temples. The priests used various
methods to fix the position of the asterisms. They
observed them through the doorway of the temple,
which was elevated above the surrounding country,
sometimes placing forked or bifurcated sticks
■svithin the doorway to define the position more
exactly, and sometimes using a peculiar figure
representing the drawn-up limbs of a seated man
for tl»e same purpose. A possible use of rows of
upright sticks is also indicated.

The Peruvians are also said to have noted the
solstices and equinoxes by means of the shadows
cast by certain columns. Those on the equator
w-ere held most sacred, because at the equinox
they cast no shadow (Garcilasso de la Vega,
Commentarios reales de los Incas, vi. 22). These
columns have never been found, but circular
stone sun-dials, called intihuatana, ' the sun tied
up,' exist on the Carmenca hill at Cuzco, where
the 'columns' are said to have stood, and else-
where. A shadow is cast thereon by a small erect
stone, which, Squier suggests, may rightly have
been known as the inti rucana, or ' sun-finger.'

Alleged telescopic tubes have been found in the
mounds of the United States and in Peru (Bollaert,
op. cit. pp. 213, 276 ; du Gourcq, in Popular
Science Monthly, xlv. 832), but were probably used
by the physicians, who in the latter country were
expert in sucking poison from wounds and diseased
tissues. The Mexican astronomers, however, seem
to have employed obsidian mirrors in their observa-
tions (Nuttall, ' Fundamental Principles of New
and Old World Civilization,' in Peahody Miiseum
Publications, ii., Cambridge, Mass., 1901).

The more advanced American nations, such as
the Mayas and Aztecs of Mexico, and the Aymaras
and Quichuas of Peru, seem to have attained an
astronomical knowledge nearly, if not fully, equal
to that of any people prior to the invention of tele-
scopes ; they had learnt all that could be learnt
by the unaided eye. Their principal practical
incentive to stellar observation was the accurate
determination of seed-time and harvest, this being
elaborated into a calendar. They do not seem to
have attained to the heliocentric system, but
they knew the cause of the lunar phases, and
distinguished the five brighter planets. The
Mexicans estimated their synodic periods accu-
rately, and the Penivians observed the sun-spots
(Humboldt, Vuesdes CordilUres, ii. 302, Researches,
ii. 173 ; Salcamayhua, op. cit. p. 131 ; du Grourcq,
op. cit. p. 825), large spots being sometimes visible
to the naked eye through the mist or light cloud
(garua) which is of common occurrence in Peru,
fn some myths the sun and other celestial bodies,
and even the earth, are represented as balls or
globes. This does not necessarily imply either
European influence or exact knowledge. It may
be an analogy derived from the supposed hollow
ball of the sky.

3. Astrology. — A system of astrology was un-
doubtedly in vogue in America. The Tonalamatl,

or book of lucky and unlucky days, included in
the Mexican coclices, indicates the propitious and
unpropitious times for performing certain actions.
In the Codex Vaticanus a human figure appears
surrounded by the day signs, which have also
zodiacal associations. The commentator says that
the influence of month signs upon the moment of
birth was an established belief.

' The Mexicans,' says Sahagun [Historia general
de las cosas de Nueva Espana, iv. Introd.), 'take
much care to know the day and hour of birth of
each person in order to conjecture his destiny, life,
and death, but they do not base their prognostica-
tions upon the positions of the stars. ' Nevertheless,
the stars warn a god that he must go away in five
years (H. Phillips, jun., in Proc. of American
Philosophical Soc. xxi. 617 f. [Philadelphia]). In
Guatemala diviners were called upon to determine
the propitious date for each monthly festival. As
soon as a child was born, it was brought before
the diviner, who, observing the day of birth, told
what the child would be and what disposition it
would show. He announced these things after
consulting a book which contained the month and
day signs (Ximenez, Las Historias del origen de
los Indios de Guatemala, Vienna, 1857, pp. 158-
160). In Peru one class of priests devoted them-
selves to divination by observation of the stars,
and the chief priest dwelt away from the Inca
capital that he might observe them and meditate
more freely upon them. In the solitude of the
mountain deserts lived priests who contemplated
and adored the stars 'almost without ceasing.'
People visited them to learn about lost articles,
absent friends, and future events. Even the wild
tribes of Eastern Peru regard some constellations
as propitious to man, others as hostile (Lorente,
Hist, del Peru, Lima, 1860, p. 229; Markham,
Cuzco and Lima ; von Tschudi, Travels in Peru,
New York, 1854, p. 288 ; ' Relacion anonima,' in
Tres relaciones de antiguedades peruanas, pp.
157, 164, 178).

It is said that the coming of the Spaniards had been pre-
dicted many times by these observations. Atahualpa's general
is quoted as saying to his ruler just before the arrival of the
Spaniards became known : ' My lord, I watched the stars last
night, and saw in them the presage of a great calamity.'
Later, Atahualpa himself declared that the appearance of a
comet in the Sword of Perseus presaged the death of a man of
high rank, and that a similar sign had been seen in the skies
a short time before the death of his father, Huayna Ccapac.
He was murdered soon after. A diviner, by observing the
appearance of the moon, is said to have foretold to Huaj'na
Ccapac the civil war between his sons and the destruction of
the Inca rule. Comets and a thunderbolt which fell upon that
Inca's Cuzco palace occasioned analogous predictions. Similar
prophecies in Mexico were not so clearly attributed to the
stars (Garcilasso, Commentarios reales, tr. Markham, Hakluyt
Societv, V. 28, ix. 14 ; Humboldt, Views of Nature, London,
1856, p. 429 ; Prescott, Conquest of Peru, bk. ii. oh. 6).

4. Ritual. — The ceremonials of the various tribes
also include astronomical features ; in fact many
of their elements seem to have originated in the
Avish to imitate on earth the aspects and move-
ments of the celestial world. The imitations of
animals in the dances of the primitive tribes arise
among those more advanced to elaborate figures,
dances, and processions reflecting the orderly
movement of the sun and stars across the sky
and the progress of time and of the seasons. The
American Indians as a whole are a thoughtful and
religious race, much given to ceremonials. Even
their games and sports, even their ordinary details
of domestic life, are made part of the religious
ritual to be ceremonially performed, and from
the grandest to the most insignificant details of
their ritual much is based upon astronomical
symbolism.

In the various ball games found from one end of
the continent to the other, the movement of the
ball originally represented that of the sun (Brinton,

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (American)

67

Mijths of the New World, New York, 1868,
American Hero Myths, Philadelphia, 1882, p. 119).
Among the Cherokees, prior to the contest, the
opposing teams were carefully instructed in the
use of magic formulae, and the issue was sup-
posed to depend upon the amount of magic power
thereby developed (Mooney, in 7 BBEW, p. 301 ff.).
In Yucatan and Central America the ball court
itself represented the celestial field. The game was
won by the player who drove the ball through
a stone ring upon which two interlaced serpents,
symbols of the eternal years, were sculptured. The
Popol Vuh describes contests at this game, the
result of which determined the control oi Xibalba,
or Shadow Land ; and Mrs. Nuttall asserts that
the ball courts were also used as astronomical
observatories. The Aiaucanians saw the divine
will in the result of the game, and used it to
decide the fate of those accused of crime.

It is probable that the annual ceremonial hunts,
once common in the South-western United States,
formed a terrestrial imitation of the celestial
Hunter, as in Peru, and foot-races also symbolized
the solar journey. In the Mexican game of ' those
who fly' the celestial revolution was symbolized
by four men masked as eagles who ciixled about
a pole at the end of four cords wound round it
<Clavigero, Historia, ed. Mora, Mexico, 1844;
Nuttall, op. cit. p. 24 f.). Dice games, common
in North America, reflect the celestial imagery
on both dice and board. The Mexican game of
PatoUi uses a cruciform board representing the
four celestial regions, through the divisions of
which a stone marker progresses like one of the
celestial bodies (Sahagun, op. cit. vi. 8 ; Culin,
' American Indian Games ' in £4 BBEW ; Nuttall,
op. cit. pp. 82, 87). A serpent-dance in which the
dancers imitated the motion of the serpent existed
until recently among the Micmacs and other
Northern tribes, and in Peru. In the North the
dance symbolized the movement of the Pleiades
across the sky (Hagar, in Congrds international des
Amdricanistes, New York, 1902, and JAFL xiii.
92 ff. ). The famous serpent-dance of the Hopis,
figured on Mexican and Central American monu-
ments, was a rain-making ceremonial performed
in August under the sign of the Tiger Sun (Leo).
The well-kno\vn mural paintings in the Temple of
the Tigers at Chichen Itza represent a similar
ceremony also dedicated to the Tiger Sun. In the
Mandan buffalo-dance, twelve dancers divided into
groups of four represented the cardinal points, and
doubtless also the twelve regions and the months.
Two of the middle four were painted black and
dotted white to represent the night sky and the
stars. The other two, painted red, personated the
day (Catlin, in Smithsonian Report, 1885, p. 359),
and the movement represented alternating day
and night. The Natchez ceremonially gathered
to watch the rising and setting solstitial sun
through the doorway of their temple. The sun-
dances of various tribes dramatize the progress of
time and the seasons. The nocturnal Iroquois
feast of the dead seems to have celebrated the
return of the spirits to earth over the Milky Way
in spring and fall.

At the end of each fifty-two years' period the
Mexicans expected that the midnight culmination
of the Pleiades would mark the end of the cosmos,
or its renewal for a like period. All fires were
extinguished, and the advance of the Pleiades
towards the critical point was observed from the
summit of the mountain called ' Hill of the Star.'
The stars having passed the meridian, a fire was
kindled upon the summit, from which fires were
re-lighted elsewhere, and the people gave them-
selves over to rejoicing (Sahagun, op. cit. tom. L
lib. 4, tom. ii. Eb. 7; Torquemada, Monarquia

Indiana, tom. iL 292-295 ; Boturini, Idea, pp.
18-21 ; Clavigero, Storia antica del Messico,
tom. ii. pp. 62, 84, 85 ; Mendieta, HE, p. 101 ;
Acosta, Hist, de las Yndias, pp. 398-399). In
Peru as in Mexico this date marked the entrance
of the sun into the sign of the dead, symbolizing
death, destruction, and renewal.

The rising of the morning star, the Pleiades,
and Gemini was hailed with songs and dances by
many tribes. In Mexico there was an annual
sacrifice of a human being, who enacted the yearly
course of the sun. He ceremonially ascended the
steps of the teocalli, or god-house, to represent
the sun climbing from the south to the northern
solstice. At the moment when the sun reached
the meridian he was slain, and his body was
hurled down the steps to represent the declining
course of the sun after the northern solstice
(Hagar, Peruvian Astronomy). Similarly, among
the Chibchas a human victim fastened on a pole
was annually slain by the arrows discharged by
a ceremonial procession of people masked and
costumed to represent the various zodiacal aster-
isms (Duquesne, in BoUaert, Antiquarian Re-
searches, p. 47).

About the time of the December solstice, though
in recent times not every year, the Skidi Pawnees
sacrificed a maiden to the morning star. There
is no reason to doubt the indigenous origin of this
very remarkable and suggestive ritual, which is
described in art. Pawnee, vol. ix. p. 699*.

In similar obstacle legends among the more
advanced tribal families of the American Indians
there are indications that the astronomical sym-
bolism was itself used to typify as the ultimate
meaning the progress of the human soul (cf.
Dorsey, in Congrds international des Amirican-
istes, XV' session, Quebec, 1907, ii. 66-70, and
Natalie Curtis, The Indians' Book, New York,
1907, pp. 102, 103 ; the deductions are the writer's,
and will be found further developed in his Peruvian
Astronomy).

A monthly ritual is known to have existed
among the Pueblos, Mexicans, INIayas, Central
American tribes, Peruvians, and probably the
Chibchas. Among all of them the features of
these festivals referred to some attribute of the
zodiacal asterism through which the sun was
supposed to be passing at the time.

The plan of the Peruvian temple of Cacha, or
' the messenger,' as well as the remarkable legend
connected with it, points to a ceremonial procession
enacting the yearly course of the sun within the
building. The importance of tlie stellar cult in
Peru is indicated by the fact that the Peruvians
made images of all tneir constellations.

S. Mythology and star-lore. — The arch of the
sky was generally regarded as a kind of transparent
roof, over which the heavenly bodies walk. The
Chinooks on the north-west coast and the Peru-
vians represented it by two oblique lines meeting
in an acute angle. Possibly the ' Maya arch '
possessed a similar symbolism.^ On the Peruvian
box the sky is seen as a woman's breast. It forms
the clothing of the Huichol eagle-goddess and of
the wife of the Pawnee Spirit of Life, and is
symbolized by the concave interior curve of some
Central American and Pueblo vases (Dorsey, op. cit.
p. xviii ; Stevenson, op. cit. p. 24). Above the sky
dwells the Sun Father, with his wife the Moon
Mother (who is sometimes also his sister), attended
by the divine pair of the morning and evening
stars, and surrounded by their stellar children.

The sun and moon were regarded as the pro-
genitors of the stars and of mankind, but seldom
or never as the supreme celestial powers. They

1 Collection ol A. F. Chamberlam ; Hagar, Peruvian Astron.
amy, Salcaiuaybua Chart.

68

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (American)

were the objects of a celestial cult existing practic-
ally everywhere in America, in which, at different
times and places, sun, moon, and various constella-
tions seem to have assumed predominance without
occasioning more than a relative change of influence.
Nor is there much evidence of conflict between the
votaries of the various aspects of the astronomical
cults. Sectarianism was almost unknown in the
natural religions of America ; such tortures and
persecutions as existed in Mexico, for example,
had little or no connexion with religious or theo-
logical difl'erences. In Mexican tradition two
men, one of them leprous, threw themselves into
a Are and came out respectively the sun and the
moon.

The gender of the sun and moon is sometimes
reversed. A legend found in almost identical form
among the Eskimos, the Cherokees, and the
Amazon tribes personifies the moon as a man who
secretly visited his sister at night. She, desiring
to identify her unkno-svn visitor, rubbed upon his
face some black substance, which produced the
lunar spots. A similar legend occurs among the
Caddos (Dorsey, Traditions of the Caddo, Washing-
ton, 1905, pp. 11-12). The Iroquois saw in these
spots an old woman who each month stirs a bowl
of hominy Avith her cat (dog ?) seated beside her.
The Peruvians interpreted them as resulting from
the embraces of a fox enamoured of her beauty ;
the Mexicans as a form of a rabbit, with which the
gods struck the face of the moon, wishing to lessen
its light, which formerly was as great as that of
the sun. According to the Mexicans, the moon is
always running after the sun, but never overtakes
him. The divine being Quetzalcoatl made his son
the sun, the god of water made his the moon
(Phillips, op. cit.). The Onas of Patagonia make
the sun pursue the moon (his wife) because she
overheard some of the secrets of the male secret
society. In terror she sprang off a cliff, the sun
followed, and both jumped into the sky, where
the pursuit continues (Barclay, in Geographical
Journal, xxii. 62). In Corvichan tradition the
sun, moon, and stars were shut up in three boxes,
which were opened by the hero Yehl, whereupon
they escaped to the sky (Deans, in AAOJ x. 111).

In higher Peruvian symbolism, the sun was tied
by an invinible cord to the invisible pole of the sky,
and was driven round it like a llama by the
power of the Universal Spirit, although generally,
after passing over the sky, he was thought to
enter a cave in the west and to proceed by a
subterranean passage to emerge next morning in
the east. An equally interesting explanation of
the origin of night and day is found in the Wichita
legend (echoed by the Caddo) of the three deer,
who are three stars, pursued by a fourth, which
is a hunter who will overtake them at the end
of the world. One deer is white, representing
daj% one black, representing night, one half black
and half white, representing alternate day and
night. The last was wounded, whence we have
day and night (Dorsey, Myth, of the Wichita,
Washin-ton, 1904, pp. 21, 25-26, Traditions of
the Caddo, pp. 13-14).

Among tne Peruvian coast tribes, according to
Garcilasso, the sun plunged into the western ocean
and dried up the waters with his heat both where
he entered and where he emerged — whence, appar-
ently, the tides. In numerous North American
legends he is visited by terrestrial travellers, whom
he receives kindly, and to whom he sometimes
imparts supernatural powers. The Mexicans de-
scribed how he was once caught in a snare which
a hero had contrived for him. This legend, which
is also Polynesian, probably refers to the solstices,
when the Indians generally thought of him as
seated or resting, since they observed that for

several days at these seasons he moved neither
north nor south at his rising, but appeared at the
same point on the horizon. The Mayas accordingly
called these days ' the bed of the sun ' ; and at this
time the Mexicans, Mayas, and Peruvians refrained
from labour in imitation of the solar repose. The
Mayas symbolized the June solstice by a tortoise,
that of December by a snail, because of the sIoav
motion of these animals (Forstemaim, ' Com-
mentary on Maya MSS' in Peabody Museum
Papers, vol. iv. no. 1, p. 45, Cambridge, 1904 ;
Schellhas, ' Representation of Deities of the Maya
Manuscripts,' ib. no. 2, p. 115, Cambridge, 1906).

The Peruvians represented the sun as a bearded
man in the prime of life, who impressed his foot-
print on a rock to mark the height of his power.
This affords an explanation of a world-wide type of
solar legends. Throughout America the solar rays
were symbolized by hair. In Peruvian art the sun
becomes the conventionalized face of a man upon
which appear marks called tears by some, out
perhaps having a pathological meaning. The
Mexican hero Citli shoots three aiTows at the sun
and succeeds in wounding him. The enraged sun
returns one arrow, which pierces Citli's forehead
(Mendieta, op. cit. p. 77). The sun is the Spider
Woman of some western tribes, the Ojibwa Wig-
wam of the Great Spirit, and the Zuni shield of
burning crystal which he carries, while the Kutenai
Coyote manufactures the sun out of grease made
into a ball (Chamberlain, in AAOJ xvii. 69). In
Peru an oval plate, the symbol of the All-pervading
Spirit, ultimately manifested in fire, earth, air,
and water, was called the image of the true sun,
of which the solar orb was only the reflexion.
The sun, says the Quichua, Bias Valera, was the
child of the Creator, and his light was that part
of his divinity which the Creator had imparted to
him. It was considered sacrilegious to look at
his face ; but early writers give several accounts
of Inca rulers (particularly Huayna Ccapac) who
did so, and who declared their scepticism of the
supremacy of an object which never rested, but
eternally moved upon its track like a driven
animal, whose face the clouds obscured. From
the nature of their light, gold was sacred to the
sun and sUver to the moon.

Eclipses were regarded as attacks made by some
insect or animal upon the object enshadowed. In
accordance -with a world-wide custom, a terrific
noise was made to frighten away the attacking
monster, although the Tlascalans believed that the
sun and moon were fighting. To induce them to
cease, red-skinned people were sacrificed to the sun
and albinos to the moon. The Peruvians thought
the sun was angry when his face became obscured,
while under like conditions the moon was believed
to be ill. If her light disappeared altogether, she
was dead and would fall from the sky upon earth,
kUling every one upon it. Dogs were beaten, as
the moon was thought to be fond of them because
they had rendered her a certain service, and it was
hoped that their cries would induce her to uncover
her face. A similar custom existed in Mexico
(IxtlUxochitl, Hist, des Chichimiques, Paris, 1840,
cap. 6 ; Oviedo, Hist. gen. y nat. de las Indias,
Madrid, 1851, xxix. 5 ; Piedrahita, Hist, del Nuevo
Reyno de Granada, Antwerp, 1688, v. 1, vii. 6 ;
Garcilasso, op. cit. xi. 1).

The altruistic spirit of the Pueblo community
may be seen in the legend that the moon was once
as bright as the sun, but gave up part of her light
that people might sleep at night. According to
the Sioux, the diminishmg of the moon is caused
by the nibbling of field mice, who thus prevent it
from growing too large and injuring the earth
(Red Man, xvi. no. 45). The profile face of the
woman i»» the moon is figured on the Salcamayhua

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (American)

69

chart. The Osages and the Mexicans seem also
to have observed her. As the sun, being a male,
watches over the fortunes of men, so the female
moon is the guardian of women, to whom appeals
for help were addressed in childbirth.

According to the Micmacs and Ojibwas, the stars
are the lights of camp-fires before the wigwams of
the dwellers in the land of the sky. Here and
there we see them grouped in villages, and the
brightest represent the largest fires before the
dwellings of the chiefs. By other North American
tribes they are described as birds that fly to the
sky at night, by the Mexicans as eyes. Some
Brazilian tribes regard them as rifts in the canopy
of the eternally glowing sky-land (Seler, Codex
Vaticanus, London, 1902, p. 44 ; Hagar, ' Micmac
Star Lore,' MSS ; Nery, Land of the Amazons,
London and N.Y., 1901, p. 47). These simple and
primitive notions existed coincidently with the
division of the sky into constellations bearing the
names of animals, plants, and frequently of in-
animate objects.

Among the American tribes we find single stars
named after individual objects, and groups form-
ing true constellations ; but probably nowhere in
America is a constellation recognized which has
become conventionalized like our own to such a
degree that the derivation of the name is not really
apparent from the alignment or other features.
The morning and evening stars were naturally the
most important of the stellar host. In the legends
of the Cherokees, Peruvians, and others, the morn-
ing star appears before the first rising of the sun.
It is the great star, the warrior, or messenger who
goes in advance to announce the coming of his
solar master. Its advent was hailed with incense
and dances. It was widely symbolized by an
equal-armed red cross. An Ojibwa legend makes
it an older sister, who at her own desire was borne
by the winds into the eastern sky, whUst her
brother ran up a high mountain to hunt. So,
according to Diodorus Siculus, the divine youth
Hesperus went to the summit of a mountain at
night to study the stars and a great wind carried
him into the sky, where he became the evening
star (Schoolcraft, Hiawatha Legends, Philadelphia
and London, 1856, p. 90S.).

Among the Caddos the morning star was the
errand man selected by the moon to be his assistant
chief and to call the people together. He used to

fet up early during war expeditions, long before
awn, to go round the camps and wake the people
so that the enemy would not find them. That is
the reason why he gets up so early now. Morning
Star has three brothers, Evening Star, North (Pole)
Star, and South Star. Their father's name was
Great Star, and he was the chief of the people
(Dorsey, Traditions of the Caddo, pp. 7-8, 15).

In America the evening star was usually regarded
as a woman, because it governed the time of family
re-union at home, though among the Zuiiis it is the
twin brother of the morning star. In Mexico it is
the Lord who comes with his torch to light the
dwellings on high, in Peru the female maize-
grinder, the torch in the west, while among the
Micmacs it is leader of the stellar tribe. Its
symbol is frequently a white cross. It is the
mother of all things to the Skidi Pawnee, who
keeps a garden in the west in which the sun rests
at night, where the corn is always ripening and
much bufialo meat is stored (Schoolcraft, op. cit.
p. 90 ff. ; Cushing, Zuni Folk Tales, New York,
1901, p. 378 ; Dorsey, Traditions of the Skidi
Pawnee, pp. xv, 5; Hagar, Peruvian Astron.,
ch. on 'Cult and Symbol,' pp. xv, 3). As the
converse of the morning star, the Caddos believe
that the evening star would go back a long distance
upon the trail and warn his people if the enemy

approached (Dorsey, Traditions of the Caddo,
p. 15).

The identity of the planets, whether the morn-
ing or the evening star, was recognized in Peru,
Mexico, California, and parts of South America.
The Peruvians made Mercury the ruler of mer-
chants, travellers, and messengers. The Amazon
tribes call it ' Deprived of Fish,' since it is believed
to cause a scarcity of food fishes. Venus, in Peru,
governed the daughters of the rulers, and women
generally, dawn, rains, and flowers ; Mars, war
and soldiers ; Jupiter, public matters and food
supplies, and to him they oflered firstfruits. The
Peruvians placed Venus alone of all the stars in
the dominion of the sun, evidently because it
alone is sometimes visible in the full solar light.
Because of its brilliant rays they called it Chasca,
' Curling Hair.' Because of its beauty they said
that the sun never permitted it to wander far from
his presence — a poetical interpretation of the fact
that Venus never departs as far from the sun as
the major planets. They also called this planet
Chasqui, ' the Messenger,' because its swift pass-
age from star to star suggested the swift running
messenger upon the highways (Hagar, Peruvian
Astron., ch. on * Cult and Symbol'). In the
codices it is represented by numerous symbols, in
the temple of Mexico by a high column, and in
the myths it is identified with Quetzalcoatl. The
Californian Indians say that the sun has two
daughters. Mercury and Venus. Twenty men kill
them, and after fifty days they return to life
(Mendieta, op. cit. pp. 82, 83 ; Nuttall, op. cit. p.
53 ; Emerson, Indian Myths, Legends, and Tra-
ditions, Boston, 1885, p. 481 ; Nery, op. cit. p.
251 ; Explication Codex Telleriano-Ramensis in
Kingsborough, Mexican Antiquities, 191).

The MUky Way in North America generally,
and among the Guaranis of Paraguay, was the
path of spirits, over which the souls of the dead
pass between this world and the sky-land of the
hereafter. Those of the good follow the broader
and easier arm, those of the evil-doers the narrow
and difficult arm. It is the Cherokee and Pueblo
* Way of Meal,' the Micmac ' Ancient Trail ' and
' Way of Reeds,' the Californian ' Backbone of
the oky,' the Pa^^^^ee ' Dust raised by Buffalo
Racing.' A Zuni legend calls it the ' Great Snow
Drift of the Skies ' (Stevenson, op. cit. p. 25 ;
Cushing, op. cit. p. 581 ; Dorsey, Traditions of the
Skidi Pawnee, p. 57 ; Hagar, Cherokee Star Lore
[in Boas Anniversary Volume, p. 354 fl".]). In Peru
and at Zuni, as among the ancient Sumerians, it
is associated with a gigantic celestial serpent. On
the Osage star chart it is figured as a river, and
it appears as a celestial stream in the mythology
of the Peruvian and Amazon Indians. In Peru,
as in the legends of the Ojibwas and Cherokees,
and as in the Euphratean region, China, and
Japan, this river is associated with the passage of
souls. The Cherokees and the Kutenai also call
the Galaxy ' the Way of the Dog,' the tribes of
Guiana ' the Way of the Tapir ' and the ' Path
of the Bearers of Whitish Clay ' (Brett, Indian
Tribes of British Guiana, New York, 1852, p. 107 ;
Chamberlain, in AAOJ 7iv\. 69).

In the sand paintings of the Mission Indians of
California the outer circle is called ' Our Spirit,' a
name of the Milky Way. The whole represents
the world resting on the MUky Way. A gate or
door to the north permits the escape of the soul at
death.

The Cherokees recognize two dog stars, Sirius
and Antares. In spite of the identical name of
the former in our tradition, this is probably a
native name, for it is explained by a Cherokee
legend which bears no resemblance to its Oriental
analogue. In it the two dogs act as guardians of

70

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (American)

'the Way of Souls,' at the extremities of which
they are stationed, and they must be propitiated
witn food before they will permit the souls to pass.
The Winnebagoes, Ojibwas, and Huichols also
recognize a dog star, and the Hindus and Zoro-
astrians likewise place two dogs upon the way of
souls. The Caddos say that a dog gifted with
prophetic powers talked with its master, the pair
becoming two bright stars in the south (Dorsey,
Traditions of the Caddo, p. 25).

The Pleiades are the most conspicuous constel-
lation in the star-lore and ritual of the American
Indians, though in North America they share
the leadership vnih. Ursa Major. Throughout
America they are known as the stars of harvest
and of the propitious rains. Their Peruvian name
' Granary' is echoed by the Eskimo ' Sharing-out
of Food.' In allusion to their alignment they
were generally known as a group of various ob-
jects : in Peru 'the Doves,' in Guatemala 'the
400 Young Men,' and in Mexico ' the 400 Rabbits,'
patrons of feasting and of intoxication. They are
also the Algonquian ' Sweating-Stones,' referring
to the seven stones with which the sacred bath
of the medicine-man was heated. Their Maya
name and Micmac symbol, the rattle of the rattle-
snake, suggest an association with the group of
small mounds on 'the Way of the Dead' at
Teotihuacan, for these mounds are traditionally
dedicated to the stars, and from some of them
have been exhumed large and erect rattle figures,
which were e^adently used as altars.

Another important aspect of the group is that
of ' the Dancers,' suggested by the twinkling of
the closely grouped stars. The whole stellar
world follows the group, as they perform their
cosmic dance across the sky ; and so on earth
their rising was hailed by Brazilians, Cherokees,
Micmacs, and probably many other tribes, with
an imitative song and dance referring more or less
directly to the eternal procession of the heavens.
The Iroquois, Housatunnuks, and Cherokees have,
or had, an explanatory legend which describes
how a group of boys, while dancing, ascended to
the sky and became the Pleiades. Among the
Caddos there are seven brothers who played all
day long. Being scolded by their mother and
refused food, they danced round the house,
gradually rising from the ground until they
reached the sky. As they disliked work, they
disappeared in spring, when work time begins
(Dorsey, Traditions of the Caddo, p. 64). The
Blackfeet believe that they ascended because their
fathers gave to their sisters, instead of to them,
the yellow skins of the buffalo calves they had
alain. In revenge they determined to go away
each year when the buffalo calf skins became
yellow. This occurs in May, when the Pleiades
are hidden in the sunlight. The Kiowas call the
Pleiades ' the Star Girls,' and they are probably
represented by the dancing stellar maidens who
descend to earth in the poetic legend of Algon.
The seventh Pleiad appears in the Cherokee and
Iroquois legends, in the former as a boy who is
knocked down with a pole before reaching the
sky, in the latter as a star whose light is dimmed
because of his desire to return to earth (James
Mooney, letter to author; R. W. Wilson, AAOJ
XV. 149 ; Emerson, op. cit. p. 72 ; Sergeant, Housa-
tunnuk Indians, Boston, 1753; Domenech, Z>e^er!f.y
of North America, London, 1860 ; Schoolcraft,
Hiawatha Legends, p. 116 ff. ; Mrs. Erminie Smith,
m2 RBEW, p. 80).

Almost invariably seven stars are attributed to
the group, thus including one star which, though
of the sixth magnitude while its companions are
of the third and fourth, may be seen by one
with strong sight or in a clear atmosphere. The

Cherokees also relate that the seventh Pleiad
fell to earth, leaving a fiery trail. He became a
bearded man, who warned them of the coming
flood. So in Peru the approach of the Pleiades
to the meridian enabled the llamas of Ancasmarca
to warn their shepherd of the coming of the
annual deluge or rainy season in November. In
Mexico the six tzontemocque, or stars which fall
at the deluge, seem to have been Taurid meteors
(Mooney, in 17 BBEW, p. 621 ; Explication Codex
Telleriano ' Bamensis). 'If people will look at
these stars (the Pleiades), runs the Pawnee
song, ' they will be guided aright.' Many tribes
actually did use them as a guide by night
(Morgan, League of the Iroquois, Rochester, N.Y.,
1857, ii. 106). Everywhere the Pleiades are a
peaceful, beneficent, and friendly constellation ;
and there are some indications in Peru and else-
where that they were once regarded as being (or
having special influence over) the home of souls.

The pole star of the Northern hemisphere seems
to have been observed by all, or nearly all, tlie
northern tribes. It is the Ojibwa ' Man who
walks behind the Loon,' a disappointed lover,
who, metamorphosed inix) a firefly, flew to the
sky ; in another version a hunter of bears. The
Kutenai call it a female grizzly bear ; but this
apparently refers also to a constellation which
includes Ursa Minor and Ursa Major. The Sioux
declare that ' all stars walk aroimd the pole star,
which is the star that does not walk.' The Mic-
macs describe it as a bear hidden in a den, about
which a group of hunters (Ursa Minor) eternally
circle in a vain attempt to discover it. The
Pawnees call it ' the star that does not move,'
and regard it as the chief of the stars. In the
Southern hemisphere the pole is indicated on
the Salcamayhua chart as the apex of two slant-
ing lines, which form the sky roof of the world.
To it point three stars of the Southern Cross,
called the male group, and having phallic attri-
butes. The Maya name of Vega is ' Scrotum
Star,' but this star ceased to mark the north pole
several thousand years ago. The Peruvians used
the Southern Cross to indicate the divisions of the
night, the Mayas to indicate the seasons (Emer-
son, op. cit. p. 58 ; La Flfeche in AAOJ vii. 106 ;
Chamberlain, ib. 1770 ; Copway, Traditional His-
tory of the Ojibway Nation, London, 1850, p. 113 ff. ;
Dorsey, Traditions of the Skidi Pawnee, pp. 3-4).

The stars of Ursa Major seem to have been
called ' the Bear ' by the Indians of practically
the whole of British America and the United
States. An accompanying legend is found in al-
most identical form among the various Algonquian
tribes, the Housatunnuks, Iroquois, and the Chero-
kees, but is given most fully by the Micmacs.
The four stars of the body of Charles's Wain, or
the Dipper, as Americans call it, form the body of
the bear. The three following stars, e, f, ij, with
four trailing behind them in the form of a bow
(7, e, 7) Bootis, and Arcturus), are seven hunters,
who are pursuing the animal. The little star,
Alcor, close to the second hunter, is the pot in
which they intend to cook her meat. Corona
Borealis and /x, 5 Bootis form the den from which
she climbs down in the spring. In the summer
she runs across the sky with the hunters in fuU
pursuit ; in the fall she is overtaken and shot, and
begins to fall over on her back. The blood from
her wound causes an eternal stain upon the breast
of the foremost hunter, the robin, and, dripping
upon the trees of earth, it gives to the foliage its
blood-red autumn hues. But the bear eternallj'
returns to life. Through the winter she lives in
her den invisible (below the horizon), to issue forth
again in spring, and thus eternally to renew the
celestial drama. The seasonal features of the

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Buddhist)

71

legend correspond accurately with the actual posi-
tions of the stars in the early evening. There is
good reason to believe that this is a native legend,
or at least one of pre-Columbian origin, though
the earliest reference to it seems to be by Le Clerq
in 1691 (Hagar, in JAFL xiii. 92 ff.). In connexion
•with the hunting concept, it is noteworthy that
the Wichitas regard t!ie Great Bear as the patron
of those about to engage in war expeditions
(Dorsey, Myth, of the Wichita, p. 18).

The Blackfeet know the principal stars of Ursa
Major as seven boys, all save the youngest of
whom (Dubhse) had been killed by their sister.
The Sioux call the four body stars the coffin.
It is borne by four men who are followed by
mourners. Mizar and Alcor are called ' She who
Comes -with her Young One Weeping.' The O jib-
was also called these stars ' the Fisher,' and the
Zunis represented them by seven white pebbles in
the rites of the 'Priesthood of the Bow.' The
Pawnees described Corona Borealis as a circle of
chiefs, in whose honour was founded the society
of ' Chief Dancers.'

The Belt of Orion among the Point Barrow
Eskimos becomes three men who were buried in
the snow, the Micmac ' Three Fishermen,' the
Zuiii ' Hanging Lines,' and the Patagonian ' Three
Bolas,' or round stones with which animals are
slain by hunters. The Peruvians, like the Basques
and the people of Deccan, call it 'the Steps.'
The whole constellation is the Zuiii ' Celestial
Hunter ' pertaining to the sun. In Peru it is
symbolized by crossed arrows, and relates to
hunters and hunting. A myth makes it the
Promethean figure of a criminal raised aloft for
punishment by two condors. It may be connected
with the Mexican Citli, ' the Bowman.' The
names of a few other constellations and single
stars have reached us, but present no features of
special interest.

In view of the similar and wide - spread sym-
bolism associated with some constellations in
America, a more or less unifonu system of celes-
tial symbolism may have existed through a large
part of the continent, similar to the primitive
symbolism of the eastern continent in some ele-
ments, yet unique in others.

Unquestionably many of the symbolical con-
cepts nave been transmitted from tribe to tribe
for long distances. Many of them are of pre-
European, or at least of pre-Columbian, origin,
and the analogies which they present with Ori-
ental symbolism must be explained either as like
efiects of like independent causes or by pre-
Columbian intercommunication between the con-
tinents. The weakness of the former explanation
lies in the complexity and conventionality of the
concepts, and in the difficulty of tracing the
symbolism to any natural basis. The American
zodiacs, for example, reveal analogies with the
ancient Oriental zodiacs in every sign, yet in few
if any instances, either in the Orient or in the
Occident, are we able to explain why these signs
were so named or why their symbolical attributes
are what they are. The zodiac is older than
its seasonal associations ; its origin remains un-
known, yet we find it in similar form in America
and in the Orient. The same argument applies,
although perhaps less forcibly, to a large part of
the astronomical symbolism of America.

Literature.— The literature has been given throughout the
article. SXANSBURY HAGAK.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Buddhist).— The
astronomical ideas found in Buddhism do not form
an independent system, but have developed in
close relation with Hindu theories. The problem
is rather to determine what stages of development

are to be found in the canonical and later books.
Thibaut ^ divides Indian astronomy into three
periods : (1) that of the Vedas and Brahmanas, (2)
the middle period with a fully developed native
Indian system, (3) the third period, showing Greek
influence. The I3uddhist scriptures cover a long
time, some of the later containing references to
the Greeks, but it is to the middle period, and
rather to the early stages of this, that the astro-
nomical notions of these works belong. They are
in the main the same as those that we find in the
Purdnas. The Hindus had two important uses
for astronomy : the sacrifices and astrology, neither
of which was countenanced by the Buddhists.
The latter had no special motive for paying close
attention to astronomical theory beyond that
required for determining the periods of the lunar
month ■with its fast-days, the period of Retreat in
the rainy season, and the divisions of the day.
According to Vinaya, ii. 217, a monk wiio lives in
the forest is to learn ' the positions of the lunar
signs (naksatras), either the whole or one section,
and is to know the cardinal points.' * At the end
of the ordination service the process of ' measuring
the shadow,' i.e. calculating the time of daj% is
performed in order to determine the seniority of
the monk, and he is instructed in the length of the
seasons and division of the day.*

I. Position of sun and moon. — The heavenly
bodies that we see are the vehicles of gods, who
have been thus reborn through their merit, and
who are associated with the thirty-three gods, but
below them in rank.* The moon, the sun, and the
constellations come as gods in the retinue of Sakka
to visit Buddha,^ and in Dharmasamgraha, 10, the
moon, sun, earth, and the asura Rahu occur along
with the guardians of the ten quarters as world-
protectors. When sun and moon occur together,
the moon is always mentioned first.

In the scriptures there is no systematic descrip-
tion of the heavenly bodies, but the account given
in the Sdrasamgraha^ corresponds to scattered
notices in earlier works and probably underlies
them. The earth, a flat disk, is 1,203,450 leagues
(yojanas) in diameter and 3,610,350 in circumfer-
ence. In the centre is Mt. Meru, rising 84,000
leagues above the surface of the earth, and round
it circle the sun, moon, and stars, shining in tura
on the four continents round Mt. Meru.''_ Night is
caused by the sun passing to the other side of Mt.
Meru. The diameter of the moon is 49 leagues
and the circumference 147 ; of the sun 50 and 150
respectively. 8 The sun as the vehicle {vimdna) of
the god is one league higher in position than the
moon. It is of crystal outside, gold within,^ and
hot within and without. The moon is of silver
outside, of jewel within, and cool within and with-
out. The sun has three paths — ajavlthi, ndgavithi,
and grow^Ai— according to its apparent course in
the ecliptic during the seasons along the equator,
and above or below. i" This fact appears to be
referred to in the Sildni,^'^ where the sun and moon
are spoken of as going along their paths or out of
their paths. Whether there was any early theory

1 Astronomie, Astrologie, und Mathematik, Strassburg, 1899,
p. 4.

2 Vinaya Texts, pt. iii. (,SBE xx. [1885]) p. 294.

3 Upasarnpada-kammavdca, tr. J. F. Dickson, Venice, 1875,
p. 13 ; I-tsinp:, A Record of the Buddhist Religion, tr. J. Taka-
kusu, Oxford, 1S96, p. 100.

4 Jdtaka, no. 450. » Dlgha, ii. 259.

6 Cosmolo<,'ical passages are quoted in R. S. Hardy, Legends
and Theories of the Buddhists, London, 1866, appendix.

7 Afiguttara, i. 227.

8 The ratio of the diameter and circumference of a circle
is thus 1 : 3, as in Jdtaka, v. 271. This illustrates the rudi-
mentary character of Buddhist astronomy.

9 We should expect gold outside, but such is the text._

10 So, but more elaborately, in the Kjypw Purdva, bk. ii. ch. 8.

11 Digha, i. 10 ; cf. Dialogues of the Buddha, tr. T. W. Rhys
Davids, London, 1899, i. 20.

72

SUN, MOON, AND STARS rBuddhist)

of the cause of revolution, apart from the choice of
the god of the luminary, is not clear. The Chinese
sources of A. R^musat state that five vortices of
wind support and move the vehicle of the sun in
the required directions, and five other vortices
similarlj' move the moon.'

2. Eclipses. — Eclipses are due to the asura
Rahu, who is stationed at the moon's nodes, and
periodically swallows the sun and the moon. The
legend that Rahu is the monster's head, severed
when he was drinking the ambrosia produced at
the churning of the ocean, appears not to be early
Buddhist, nor even ancient Hindu. It is absent
from the account of the churning in the Visnu
Purdna.^ Buddhaghosa describes Rahu not as a
head, but as having a complete body, of which he
gives the dimensions.^ The Puranic notion of
Ketu as the severed body of Rahu at the descend-
ing node, although mentioned in ]\Iahdvyut2Jatti,
164, and implied in Abhidhrlnappacl'ipika,* 61,
among the ' nine planets,' is a late borrowing from
Hinduism. Two ancient suttas describe the moon
and sun as being afflicted by Rahu and appealing
to Buddha, who commands Rahu to let them go.*

3. Planets. — The stars also are said to move
along and out of their paths.* The term here used
for star is nakkJiatta (Skr. nakmtra), and probably
refers to the planets, as Buddhaghosa understands
it in this context.

The only planet distinctly mentioned in the Suttas is Osadhi-
taraka. That this is Venus may be inferred from its being
described as the brightest of the luminaries next to the moon
and as appearing' in the morning.7 The Sanskrit recension of
the Digha passage in Mahdvyutpatti, 71, definitely identifies it
with Venus by substituting Uiarias, one of the Sanskrit names
of this planet, for Osadhi. The name Osadhitaraka is un-
explained. The phrase Osadhi viya tdrakd, 'like the star
Osadhi, '8 shows that it does not mean 'star of plants' (as in
o^adhipati, ' lord of plants [or of the so?n<i-plantJ,' a title of the
moon). The possibility that osadhi is a corruption of aitfasi,
' star of dawn,' is attractive, but there is nothing in texts or
commentaries to support it. The same is the case with the view
of Kern tliat it is a corruption of o«a7ii=Skr. auiani, a deriva-
tive of vsanas.^

4. The lunar zodiac— The term naksatra has
been from late Vedic times applied especially to
27 or 28 constellations lying roughly along the
ecliptic and forming a lunar zodiac ; and from the
Buddhistic use of many of them as proper names it
may be inferred that they were known to the
earliest Buddhists. They are as follows :

(1) Assayuja (j3, y Arietis), (2) Bharani (35, 39, 41 Arietis), (3)
Kattika (Pleiades), (4) Eohini (Hvades), (5) Magasira (A., <^
Orionis), (6) Adda (a Ononis), (7) Punabbasu (Gemini), (8)
Phussa or Tissa (e, S, y Cancri), (9) Asilesa (e, 5, <t, tj, p Hydrae),
(10) Magha (Regulus), (11) and (12) Pubba- and Uttara-phagguni
(«, e, p, 93 Leonis), (13) Hattha (6, y, e, a, p Corvi), (14) Chitta
(Spica), (15) Sati (Arcturus), (16) Visakha (Libra), (17) Anuradha
(«, p, V Scorpionis), (18) Jettha (Antares), (19) Mula (A Scorpionis,
etc.), (20) and (21) Pubba- and Uttara-asalha (5, e, o-, f Sagittarii),
[(22) Abhiji (Vega)], (23) Savana (Aquila), (24) Dhanittha or
Savittha (Delphin), (25) Satabhisaja (A Aquarii, etc.), (26) and
(27) Pubba- and Uttara-bhaddapada or -potj-hapada (the square
of Pegasus), (28) Revati (f Piscium, etc.).'''

No. 22 in this list is not in the Abhidhdnappadipikd. It was
early omitted in Hindu astronomy, but the existence of Abhiji
(Skr. Abhijit) in the Buddhist system may be inferred from the
statement that the number of nak^atras is 28 n and from the

1 Ililanges posthumes d'hist. et de liU. orientales, Paris, 1843.
p. S3. ...

2 Bk. L ch. 9. 3 Comm. on Dinha, no. iv. § 6.
* This work (of the 12th cent.) was the chief source of the

astronomical items in R. C. Childers, Dictionary of the Pali
Language, London, 1875, but it is based largely on Hindu
sources, and forms no independent evidence for Buddhist astron-
omy. The nine planets are the moon, sun, five greater planets.
Rahu, and Ketu (Mahdiyutpatti, 104).

5 Sainyutta, i. 50 f., tr. C. A. F. Rhys Davids, in Kindred
Saytngs, London, 1918, i. 71.

6 Digha, i. 10. 7 jiajjhima, ii. 34.
° Vimdnavatthu, i. ix. 1.

9 Verspreide Gesehri/ten, The Hague, 1913, ii. 250.
10 From Abhidhdnappadipikd, 58-00. Kxact identifications of
them are given by W. D. Whitney in Sfiryasiddhdnta, tr. E.
Burgess, New Haven, 1860, p. 324; cf. Naksatra in A. A.
Macdonell and A. B. Keith, Vedie Index of Harries and Subjects,
London, 1912.

11 Mahanidesa, 882 ; Jataka, Com. vi. 476.

existence of Abhijika as a proper name.i It also occurs in
Mahdvyutpatti, 165, and in the list of R6mu8at.2

References to other fixed stars than naksatras
are rare in all Indian literature. The descent of
the Heavenly Ganges, a myth relating to the
Milky Way, is referred to in the canon, but never
in any astronomical connexion. In Jataka, vi. 97,
seven sages are mentioned, but their names are
not those which Hindu mythology gives to the
seven fsis, after whom the seven stars of Ursa
Major are named. The name Sakata, ' the cart,'
in Digha, ii. 234, is probably a nanie of Rohini,
as suggested by S. Konow.* It is so named by
several Hindu astronomers.*

5. Months. — The moon in the course of a year
may be full in any of the nalcsatras, and we find
such expressions as Visakhapunnamd, ' full-moon
when the moon is in Visakha ' ; but there had
been established earlier than Buddhism a sj'stem
of twelve lunar months, with names derived from
certain of the naksatras. These are :

(1) Chitta (Mar.-Ap.), (2) Visakha (Ap.-May), (3) Jettha (Maj-
June), (4) Asalha (June-Julv), (5) Savapa (July-^Aug.), (6)
Potthapada (Aiig.-Sept.), (7) Assayuja (Sept.-Oct.), (8) Kattika
(Oct.-Nov.), (9) Magasira (Nov. -Dec), (10) Phussa (Dea-Jan.),
(11) Magha (Jan.-Feb.), (12) Phagguna (Feb.-Mar.).

lliese names were later applied in Hindu systems also to the
twelve solar months, but in the canon the reckoning appears to
be always lunar, as well as in the Ceylon chronicles.

The month is divided into two parts (pakkha),
the dark [kdla] from full to new moon, and the
light (sukka, junha) from new moon to full.
Whether the month ended with full or new moon
is not clear, but the fact that the dark half is
mentioned first and that the months of Retreat
began the day after a full-moon day and ended on
a full-moon day, suggests that the full-moon day
was the end. Both methods were in use by the
Hindus in Vedic times, as they are at the present
day.*

6. The week. — The division of the half month
at the eighth and fourteenth or fifteenth day
easily led to the reckoning of seven days as a
usual period (sattdha), but there is no trace in the
Pali writings of the system (no doubt non-Indian
in origin) of naming the week-days from the names
of the sun, moon, and planets. These names occur
in the order of the days of the week as the first
seven of the nine planets in Mahdvyutpatti, 164.

7. The year. — In Ahguttara, i. 213, where the
length of a year of the gods is given, it is said to
be a year of twelve months, the month being made
up of 30 nights (and days). This gives a year of
360 days, and is the exact number in use in the
Vedic period.* The number 30 is probably
obtained by adding together the 15 days of each
half of the lunar month. In practice the number
would be sometimes 29 and sometimes 30, as the
synodic lunar month is rather over 29^ days.
There must have been a mode of intercalating
months to bring the lunar months and solar year
into harmony from time to time, as in the case of
the Hindu systems, but the process is unknown.
The modern Siamese have a year of 354 days, the
months being alternately of 29 and 30 days. In
every third or second year (seven times in 19
years) the eighth month is reckoned twice, and in
every fifth or sixth year one day is added to the
seventh month, bringing the lunar year into
harmony with the solar year.''

The Hindu systems have two modes of beginning

1 Sarnyutta, iL 204. 2 P. 85.

S JPTS, 1909, p. 13.

* H. Kern, note on Varahamihira's Bxhatsarjihitd, ix. 25, tr.
In Verspreide Geschri/ten, i. 217.

8 Thibaut, p. 12 ; R. Sewell and S. B. Dikshit, The Indian
Calendar, London, 1896, § 13; see art. Festivals axd Fasts
(Buddhist).

*> Thibaut, p. 7.

7 F. J. Wershoven, Lehr- und Lesebuch der siames. Sprach^
und deutsch-siames. Wiirterbuch, Vienna, 1892.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Celtic)

73

the year : (1) with the full moon of Kattika, (2)
with the month Chitta.^ The former is implied
in the usual Buddhist reckoning of the three
seasons, in which the cold season is always
mentioned first.'' This period was also the end of
the Retreat, in which the annual redistribution of
robes took place. The second mode of beginning
the year is implied in the Dlpavamsa and in the
list of lunar months in the Abhidhdnappadipikd,
which begins with Chitta.*

8. Seasons. — The ancient Hindu seasons are
three : hemanta, the cold season from Magasira to
Phagguna ; gimlia, the hot season from Chitta
to Asalha ; and vassa, the rainy season from
Savana to Kattika. These dates, however, would
vary from year to year through the irregularity
caused by the lunar months and occasional
intercalation.*

Dlpavarfisa, xii. 44, calls Jettha the last of the hot months.
Vassa in the sense of Retreat does not correspond with the
rainy season, but extends over three months of that period.
The Hindu subdivisions of the three seasons into five or six 5
are not found in Pali works, but there are occasional references
to autumn (sarada) as the early part of hemanta and to
spring (vasanta) as the early part of the hot season.6
Mahavyiitpatti, 253, gives the list of six, and I-tsing' also
describes other systems of division used in various localities.8

9. Astrology. — Indian astrology, as the science
of omens drawn from celestial phenomena, is a
branch of divination. It is stigmatized in Dlgha,
i. 10, as a base science and false means of
livelihood. In the Sutta Nipdta,921, the monk is
forbidden to devote himself to magic {dthabbana),
to (the interpretation of) the dream, the sign, and
the naksatra. That such a science is possible is
generally taken for granted, but in the Jdtaka
there is a tendency to ridicule the belief in lucky
naksatras,^ omens,'" names, '^ and sneezing. There
is no reason to think that this sceptical attitude is
primitive ; it is rather the rationalizing of a single
individual or of a school. The survival of the
belief within orthodox Buddhism is shown in the
collection of suttas dra^vn from the canonical
books called the Paritta, which, among other
formulas intended to ward off hostile powers or
to win their favour, contains the two suttas on the
eclipse of the moon and of the sun.'''

A fragment of a MS of an astrological work in corrupt San-
skrit has recently been discovered in East Turkestan at
Khotan.13 It is shown to be Buddhist by the phraseology, as
well as by the reference to the rfi Kharuste, who makes
known to the congregation the knowledge of ' nights, days,
moments, planets, half-months and months. ' i'* The matter is
similar to that in Hindu astrological works, such as : what
nak^atras are effective for conception, which are causers of
misfortune or success in certain undertakings. There can be
little doubt that it is borrowed from some Hindu work, and,

1 Whitney, p. 270. > Vinaya, i. 137.

3 There is no reason for thinking that the year ever began
with Savaija. The recurring phrase Komudi chatumasinl does
not mean the full moon of Kattika 'in the fourth month,' but
'at the Chaturmasva festival.' See T. W. Rhys Davids and
H. Oldenberg, in Vinaya Texts, pt. i. {SBE xiii. [18S1]) p. 324,
n.Z; Jdtaka, vi. 221; Dipavaijisa, xv.l. On the Chaturmasya,
or 'Four month' celebration, see art. Festivals and Fasts
(Hindu).

* See the Commentaries on Sutta Nipata, 233, p. 192, and
Vimdna Vatthu, viL 5, 6.

8 Thibaut, p. 11.

6 Majjhima, L 115 ; Jdtaka, i. 86 ; Com. on StUta Nipdta,
233.

7"Pp. 101, 219.

8 See also art. Calrndar (Buddhist).

9 49. 10 126, 155. " 97.

12 See artt. Maqic (Buddhist) and Divikation (Buddhist),
where the later developments of Buddhist astrology are given.
See also, for modern Sinhalese Buddhism, E. Upham, The
History and Doctrine of Budhism popularly illustrated ; with
2foticfS of the Eappooism, or Demon Worship, and of the Bali,
or Planetary Incantations of Ceylon, London, 1829; for
Tibetan, E. Schlagintweit, Buddhism, in Tibet, Leipzig and
London, 1863; for Chinese, R6musat, Melanges posthumes,
p. 84 ff.

13 Manuscript Remains of Buddhist Literature found in
Eastern Turkestan, ed. A. F. Rudolf Hoemle and others,
Oxford, 1916, i. 121.

" Ct. Digha, ill 85.

like later works of this kind, it shows the influence of Greek
astronomy in the use of such terms as hora, and the names of
the 12 signs of the zodiac (Pisces, Scorpio, etc.) along with
those of the nak^atras.

Literature. — The sources and authorities are given through-
out the article. EDWARD J. THOMAS.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Celtic).— i.
Very little is known about the astrology and
astronomy of the Celts. The Druids, as we learn
from Csesar (rfe Bell. Gall. vi. 14), discussed and
transmitted to their disciples many questions re-
garding the stars and their motion. They had
observed the course of the moon, and by it they
regulated their calendar. Their months and years
began with the sixth day of the moon (Pliny, xvi.
95, 250) ; they counted by nights (Caesar, vi. 18. 2) ;
and their cycle was one of thirty years (Pliny, xvi.
95, 250).

The discovery of the calendar of Coligny has
made it possible to determine these general ideas
for the Gallo-Roman period. This calendar gives
a year of 354 days, divided into twelve months
of twenty-nine and thirty days alternately. To
establish agreement between the lunar and the
solar year a month of thirty days was intercalated
every tAVO and a half years. At the beginning of
every fifth year there was complete agreement
between the two methods of calculation ; and pro-
bably this was the occasion, as Jullian remarks, on
whicn were offered the quinquennial sacrifices of
which Diodorus speaks (v. 32. 6).

Astrology, properly so called, does not seem to
have been practised by the pagan Irish. But in
the ' Lives of Saints ' there are to be found some
superstitious practices derived from the observa-
tion of the stars. The foster-father of Columcille
goes to ask a prophet when he should begin to
teach the child to read. The prophet after having
examined the heavens replies that he must begin
immediately {Lives of Saints from the Book of
Lismore, 1. 812). Manannan mac Lir used to
know by studying the sky when there would be
fine weather and when bad (Cormac's Glossary,
p. 114).

The scientific observation of stars was also in
use among the ancient Irish. Loeg observes the
stars to ascertain when midnight comes (Mesca
Ulad, 13). Some treatises on Irish astronomy
dating from the early Middle Ages have been
preserved. They are founded on the system of
Ptolemy, and seem to be translations of foreign
works. The words used to denote the sun-dial
are borrowed from the Latin. Yet the Irish were
particularly clever at calculating dates, and in the
Saltair na Eann it is told that every intelligent
person should know the day of the solar month,
the age of the moon, the flow of the tide, the day
of the week, and the chief saints' festival days.
Perhaps in the ancient Irish and Welsh texts
there are traces to be found of the primitive Celtic
calendar. The year was divided into two halves
or into four periods of three months, the month
being divided into two parts. The periods of time
most in use were those of three nights and three
days, or nine nights and nine days, while the
most common cycles were those of three years
and of seven years. In Armorican Brittany and
in Wales the names of the complementary days
which served to convert the lunar year into a solar
year (Brit, gourdeziou, Welsh dyddiau dyddon)
have been preserved. Several popular superstitions
are attached to them. Thus a medical manuscript
mentioned by O'Curry contains a list of unlucky
days, and in Irish literature there are numerous
examples of births delayed in order that they may
take place on a lucky day, and of disasters which
might have been prevented if an undertaking had
not been engaged in on an unlucky day.

74

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Chinese)

2, The Gallic god Belenos had been assimilated
to Apollo as a healer rather than as a sun-god.
We have no evidence of ■worship of the stars among
the Gauls except a few dedications to the sun and
the moon in Gallo-Roman inscriptions (A. Holder,
Altceltischcr Sprachschatz, 3 vols., Leipzig, 1896-
1913), and the mention of the worship of an image
of the sun [AS, 4 Sept. ii. 197 C). No conclusion
can be drawn from the representation of stars on
the shields of the Orange-arch, from the rouelles
dug out in so great a number, or from the wheel
that is an attribute of a Gallo-Roman god assimi-
lated to Jupiter ; for the stars may be ornaments
or armorial bearings, and the wheel may be a
divination-wheel or a symbol of the thunder as
well as a symbol of the sun. Some customs of
the ancients may be connected with the beliefs
relating to tlie stars — e.g. the gathering of the
mistletoe and the beginning of the years and
months on the sixth day of the moon (Pliny, xvi.
250), the dread of the Asiatic Galatians during an
eclipse of the moon (Polyb. v. 78).

The evidences of the worship of the sun and the
moon in ancient Ireland are not numerous. The
most explicit text is in the Confessio (§ 60) of St.
Patrick, in •which he alludes to worshippers of
the sun. G. Keating (History of Ireland, ed. D.
Comyn and P. Dinneen, 1902-1908, bk. i. § 12)
says that one of the DS Danann was named Mac
Gr^ine, ' Son of the Sun,' because his god was the
sun. A passage of Cormac^s Glossary (p. 54) tells
us that Irish pagans used to carve some pictures —
e.g. that of the sun — on the altars of tneir idols,
and Keating (ii. 11) relates that in Columcille's
time a priest of Tirconnel who had set up images
of the sun and the moon in the church was carried
off by a devil. The king of Ulster, Loegaire,
swore by the name of the elements — the earth,
the sun, and the wind (W. St. Boroma, RCel xiii,
[1892] 52 f.).

LiTERATimB. — J. Loth, ' L'Ann^e Celtique' in Revue Celtique,
XXV. (190i) 113-142 ; P. W. Joyce, A SocM History of Ancient
Ireland, London, 1903, i. 464-471 ; C. Jullian, Histoire de la
Gaule, Paris, 1907, i. 393, ii. 124, 141. (J. DOTTIN.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Chinese).— I.
Introduction. — The Chinese view of the sun,
moon, and stars taken as a whole may be likened
to a web woven of three different threads : the
thread of astronomy, the thread of religion, and
the thread of astrology. Astronomy means here the
observation of the heavenly bodies and the truths
deduced therefrom, chiefly for practical purposes.
It may therefore be called 'observational' astron-
omy, as distinguished from what is called
' pliysical ' or ' descriptive ' astronomy, founded bj^
Galileo after his invention of the telescope, and it
may also be called ' practical ' astronomy, as dis-
tinguished from what is called ' theoretical '
astronomy, founded by Newton on the hypothesis
of the law of gravitation. The religious view of
the Chinese concerning the heavenly bodies may
be called astrological, and their astrological view
may be called religious in the comprehensive sense
of the term. But a clear line of distinction can be
drawn between them. The idea of deity or God is
always present and predominant in the religious
view, whereas it may be vague and ev^n absent in
the astrological view. The latter is concerned
chiefly with the influences of the heavenly bodies
upon men, while the former is concerned chiefly
with the relation of God to men as revealed in the
heavenly bodies — i.e. God's messages and warn-
ings derived by means of the observation of the
heavenly bodies.

The Chinese term for the study of the heavens
is iien toen, literally 'the system (or order) of
heaven.' The term is not limited to purely astro-

nomical knowledge, but has been applied equally
to astrological and religious beliefs or views con-
cerning the heavens.

Chinese astronomy has been of much interest to
many European scholars, its great antiquity being
widely admitted.

' The progress of Astronomy among the Chinese,' says John
Williams, 'is a subject of highest interest whether it be con-
sidered as recording observations of the heavenly bodies made
by one of the most ancient and primitive races of mankind,
which appears in extremely remote time to have advanced to a
high degree of civilisation ; peculiar, however, to itself ; and
which has preserved the manners and customs established by its
early rulers more than two thousand years before the Christian
era, in a great measure unaltered to the present day. Or
whether the fact that at a period long anterior to the com-
mencement of civilisation among the Western nations, and
when almost universal barbarism prevailed among them,
astronomy had been carried to a great degree of perfection by
the Chinese, as manifested by their still existing records, whose
authenticity is not only strongly asserted b}' that people, but is
acknowledged by some of the most eminent European scholars
of the present day.' i

It has been' said by some of the authorities of our
o^vn century that the antiquity of Chinese astron-
omy is 'greater even than that of almost any
other nation.'^ But the study of the heavens in
China is not pursuit of knowledge, or astronomical
knowledge, for its own sake. Being a highly

Practical nation, the Chinese, when they seek to
now anything, generally have some end or ideal
in view to the attainment of which knowledge is
merely a means. The present case is not an
exception. Having to arrange all their religious
ceremonies, social and governmental affairs, and,
most important of all, their agricultural work
according to the seasons, the Chinese, even at the
earliest period of their history, felt the great need
of a proper calendar, the formation of which re-
quired astronomical knowledge. Apart from this,
there were other motives — the religious and the
astrological. The latter explains itself, and the
former has a double purpose. On the one hand,
the Chinese sought to know the laws of the
heavens, which were for them, in some sense,
di^^ne, in order to apply them to their own con-
duct, social as well as individual. The doctrine of
the imitation of, or the conformation of men's
conduct with, the laws of the heavens has been
much held by Confucianists, and especially by
Taoists, and can be found in most of the Chinese
classics. On the other hand, as they believed the
celestial phenomena to be God's revelations or
warnings to men, they wanted to know them in
order to re-adjust their conduct.

Both the astionomical and the religious views of
the Chinese concerning the heavens are as old as
their history, and it is difficult to tell which
is earlier ; their astrology is a later development.
The Chinese term for ' astrologer ' is Srh tse or sing
tse, which may be translated ' the man of sun ' or
•the man of stars.' According to the Cliinese
records, the former term did not occur until the
5th cent. B.C., and the latter is of still later date.
Kepler says that astronomy is the wise mother and
astrology the foolish daughter. If we may adopt
this saj-ing with a little modification, we can
regard the astrology of the Chinese as the daughter
of their astronomy and religion. These three
difierent views have for thousands of years influ-
enced the Chinese mind, and the astrological view,
though the latest, has almost since its birth been
the most powerful. Even at the present day
among many of the Chinese astronomy has not
divorced itself from religion, nor has it disowned
or rid itself of astrology, as Western astronomj'
has since the 16th century.

II. The astronomical aspects. — The

1 Observations of Cornets, London, 1871, p. vii.

2 E. B. Knobel, ' Abstract of a Lecture on Chinese Astronomy,
in Journal of the British Astronomical Association, xix. [1908-
09] 338.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Chinese)

75

Chinese are great believers in their ancient
classics, so that to deal with their ancient vie\vs
and beliefs is to a great extent to deal with their
modern ones as well. The great antiquity of
Chinese astronomy has been admitted by many of
the best European scholars of both the last and
the present century. According to tradition, a
sort of calendar was invented by Fu Hsi (3328
B.C.) as a result of observations of the phenomena
of the heavens. The reformation of the calendar
and the rectification of intercalation are attributed
to Hwang Ti, or the Yellow Emperor (2698 B.C.).
In the record called SsH Ki of Sstl Ma Chien,
China's most famous historian (2nd and 1st
centuries B.C.), it is recorded :

' Hwang Ti commanded Hi Ho to take charge of the observa-
tion of the sun, Yih Chans the obaervation of the moon, and
Yu Chu the observation of the stars.'

He is also said to have brought into use the lunar
cycle of nineteen years, by which the conjunctions
and oppositions of the sun and moon can be cal-
culated, and the intercalary months regulated.
This was more than 2000 years before the intro-
duction of the same system among the Greeks by
the astronomer Meton.^ The Annals of the Bamboo
Books ^ record that at the time of the reign of
Tsuan Hsu (beginning 2513 B.C.) a conjunction of
the five planets was observed by the Chinese in
the constellation called Yin Sliih or Shih.^ It has
been carefully calculated and asserted by the
French astronomer, Jean S. Bailly, that such a
conjunction did take place on 29th Feb. 2449 B.C.,
which would be the 65th year of Tsuan Hsu's
reign. In the time of the emperor Yaou (2356
B.C.) the Chinese already knew the exact, or
almost exact, number of days in a year, had a
way of determining solstices and equinoxes, and
had in use an intercalary system and some instru-
ments for the survey of tiie heavens, and the
knowledge of the five planets and of the twelve
zodiacal signs, and most probably of the 28 stellar
divisions.

In the ' Canon of Yaou,' * the first book of the
Shu King ('The Canon of History '), we read :

' Thereupon Yaou commanded He and Ho ' to have reverence
to the great heavens, and to calculate and delineate the move-
ments and appearances of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the
zodiacal spaces ; and so to deliver respectfully the seasons to
the people.

He separately commanded the second brother He to reside
at Ye-e, in what was called the Bright Valley, and there re-
spectfully to receive as a guest the Rising Sun, and to adjust
and arrange the labours of the Spring. " The day," he said, "is
of the medium length, and the star is in Neaou ; 6 you may thus
exactly determine mid-spring. The people begin to disperse ;
and the birds and beasts breed and copulate."

He further commanded the third brother He to reside at
Nankeaou, and arrange the transformations of the summer,
and respectfully to observe the extreme limit of the shadow.
"The day," said he, " is at its longest, and the star is Ho ;"!
you may "thus exactly determine mid-summer. The people are
more dispersed ; and the birds and beasts have their feathers
and hair thin, and change their coats."

1 See Williams, Observations of Comets, Introduction.

2 A large collection of ancient documents, discovered a.d.
279 ; see James Legge'e tr. in Chinese Classics, Hongkong, 1861-
72, vol. iii. pt. i.

8 One of the 28 stellar divisions determined by o, fi, and other
stars in Pegasus, extending north and south from Cygnus and
Piscis Australis and east and west 17° and comprising part of
Capricomus and Aquarius.

■» Legge, Chinese Classics, vol. iii. pt. i. [1865] pp. 15-27.

6 Names of two families which had been hereditary officers ol
the Board of Astronomy since the time of Hwang Ti.

6 Neaou is a space of heavens extending over 112° and em-
bracing the seven constellations of the southern quarter. The
star in Neaou is, according to the view held by Chinese scholars
and adopted by many Western scholars, such as James Legge,
John Williams, etc., the star Tsun Hwuo, corresponding to Cor
Hydra. After an elaborate calculation Williams says (p. xi)
that th.at star should culminate at sunset on the day mentioned
in the Shu King. He then says : ' Thus a strong presumptive
proof is again afforded of the veracity of the Chinese history as
recorded in the Shri Kinn.'

' The central star of the seven constellations of the eastern
quarter, corresponding to the heart of Scorpio.

He separately commanded the second brother Ho to reside in
the west, in what was called the Dark Valley, and there respect-
fully to convoy the setting sun, and to adjust and arrange the
completing labours of the autumn. "The night," he said, " is
of the medium length, and the star is Hiii ; i you may thus
exactly determine mid-autumn. The people begin to feel at
ease ; and birds and beasts have their coats in good condition."

He further commanded the third brother Ho to reside in the
northern region, in what wa-s called the Sombre Capital, and
there to adjust and examine the changes of the winter. " The
day," said he, " is at its shortest, and the star is Maou ;2 thus
you may exactly determine mid-winter. The people keep their
cosy corners ; and the coats of birds and beasts are downy and
thick."

The emperor said, "Ah ! you, He and Ho, a round year con-
sists of three hundred, sixty, and six days.s By means of an
intercalary month do you fix the four seasons, and complete
the determination of the year. Thereafter, in exact accordance
with this, regulating the various officers, all the works of the
year will be fully performed." '

In the 'Canon of Hsun,' the second book of
the Shu King, it is recorded that, having accepted
the throne which had been often ofiered to him by
the emperor Yaou, the emperor^Hsun examined the
gera-adomed sphere and the gem transverse tube
in order to regulate the seven directors or planets.

Both the commandment of Yaou and the ex-
amination of Hsun are supposed to have taken
place at the beginning of their reigns. The
observation of the heavens then must have been
of great importance. According to another book
of the Shu King, called ' The Punitive Expedition
of the Prince Yin,' in the reign of King Tsung
Kang (2159-2146 B.C.) there were astronomers who
failed to foretell an eclipse of the year 2158 B.C. (?),
and it was considered such a great crime that the
prince of Tin, who was then commander-in-chief
of the imperial armies, received orders from the
king to punish them with the imperial forces.

The Chinese then commenced their observation
of eclipses from a time not later than the 22nd cent.
B.C., though some European scholars regard the
eclipse of the sun on 29th Aug. 775 B.C., recorded
in the Shi King (' Book of Odes '),^ as the earliest
recorded eclipse in all history. In Ma Twan Lin's
Encyclopcedia more than 600 eclipses of the sun are
recorded from 2168 B.C. to A.D. 1223. There are
many other kinds of heavenly phenomena which
have been keenly observed by the Chinese from a
very early period as well. From 611 B.C. to A.D.
21 alone comets are recorded 372 times, as shown
in Williams' Observations of Comets. The spots of
the sun were observed and recorded by the Chinese i
not later than A.D. 301, i.e. 1308 years before the
assumed first discovery of solar spots by Galileo in
A.D. 1610 and 1300 years before the invention of the
telescope. 48 observations of solar spots, fi'om A.D.
301 to 1205, are recorded in Ma Twan lAn's Ency-
clopaedia, which was published in A.D. 1323, i.e. 288
years before Galileo's observation. In the same
Encyclopedia a great number of instances of the
obsei-vation of moving or shooting stars are recorded
from 1122 B.C. to A.D. 1230. Meteors have been
observed, and recorded by the Chinese since, as
early as 1578 B.C. The Bamboo Books record : ' In
the tenth year [of the emperor Kwei of the Hia
dynasty, i.e. 1579 B.C.] the five planets went out of
their courses. In the night stars fell like rain.'
Comparing it with the year A.D. 1866, remarks
E. B. Knobel, when they had the great display of
meteors, the interval gave 104 periods of 33"11 j^ears.
Now Leverrier's period for the November meteor
is 33-25. Thus it is hardly possible to doubt that

1 The central star of the seven constellations of the northern
quarter, corresponding to /3 Aquarii.

2 The culminating star of the seven constellations of the
western quarter, corresponding to the Pleiades.

3 ' When it it said,' says the editor of Yung Ching's Shxi King
(James Legge's Ir.), ' that the year consists of 3iiC days, we are
to understand that Yaou was speaking in round numbers. The
period in question is now called the value of the years. It has
been differently estimated by the astronomers of successive
dynasties.'

•» 11. iv. 9 ; Legge's tr., London, 1876, p. 229 f.

76

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Chinese)

we have here the earliest record of a shower of
those meteors.^

III. Division of the stars.— i. The 28 siiis
or shes. — In common with the Hindus, Arabs,
Babylonians, Persians, and Copts, the Chinese
have the division of the ecliptic into 28 mansions,
which are called sius or sMs. According to the
interpretation of Ssu Ma Kuang, a great scholar
of the Sung dynasty (a,d. 960-1279), she has the
meaning ' to reside (or to stop) somewhere ' and siii
means ' an abode,' and both words express the idea
of the sun, the moon, and the five planets in their
revolution residing in turn in the divisions of the
sphere indicated as the 28 abodes. This meaning
is very similar to that of the Hindu naksatras
('stars' or 'asterisms') and the Arabian mandzil
al-kamar ('lunar mansions'). There is, according
to Knobel's calculation, a concordance of the deter-
minants of the siiis, the nalcsatras, and the mand-
zils in fifteen divisions, of the siiis and the naksatras
in four divisions, of the siiis and the mandzils in
five divisions, and of the naksatras and the mand-
zils in four divisions. This remarkable resemblance
attracted the attention of many Western scholars
and seemed to them a sufficient reason for presum-
ing that all three systems sprang from a single
source. The conclusions arrived at are different.
Some hold that the system originated in India and
the Chinese borrowed it from there ; others are of
opinion that the Chinese borrowed from the Arabs ;
another opinion is that the Babj'lonians were the
originators ; while still others say that the origin
is to be found in Central Asia or some part of
Persia. Unfortunately none of these conclusions
is supported by satisfactory evidence.

But there are diff'erences as well as resemblances
between these three systems, and the Chinese
division has its own peculiarity. The Chinese
divisions are very unequal in the angular inter-
vals and therefore cannot present the daily stations
of the moon, as the Hindu divisions do. They are
measured on the equator rather than on the eclip-
tic. According to G. Schlegel,^ there is no con-
nexion at all between the Chinese asterisms and
the lunar zodiac. Some of the names of the 28 siiis
were known to the Chinese as early as the time
of the emperor Yaou (2356 B.C.), while the earliest
Babylonian record concerning the lunar mansions
and the earliest Hindu record of the naksatras
named after the Vedic deities are much later than
that.*

The naksatras, in their recent forms at least, are
apparently assimilated to the Chinese siiis, and the
whole system of junction stars is undoubtedly an
imitation of them.*

J. B. Biot and his son were the first to demon-
strate the identity of the Chinese siiis and the 28
lunar mansions of the Hindus and Arabs. They
concluded that this arrangement of celestial
divisions was invented by the Chinese and borrowed
from them by the Hindus and Arabs for purely
astrological purposes.

'To this day,' says J. J. M. de Groot, 'no considerations of
importance have cancelled these views [of Biot], and though
they have been rigorously combated by Weber, Max Miiller, and
other authorities of renown, yet it seems that most investiga-
tions of oriental astronomy silently subscribe to them.'*

1 Journ. of the British Astronomical Association, xix. 337-345.

2 Uranographie chinoise, The Hague, 1S75.

3 Observatory, xxxii. [1900] 187.

* According to Agnes M. Gierke's art. ' Zodiac ' in EBr^^,
the siiis were of Chinese invention and the mandzils were of
Indian derivation. The nakfatras in their recent organization
were, as far as possible, assimilated to the Chinese siiis. ' The
whole system of junction stars,' she says, ' was doubtless an
imitation of the sieu ; the choice of them" by the Hindu astrono-
mers of the 6th century a.d. was plainlj-" instigated by a con-
sideration of the Chinese, compiled with a widely different
intent.'

B The Religious System of China, Leyden, 1892-1910, bk. L
vol. ilL p. 974, footnote.

2. The twelve kungs. — Besides the division of
the lunar cycle into 28 unequal mansions, the
Chinese, in common with the Hindus and Western
nations, divide the zodiac into twelve equal parts
as follows :

(1) Ta Liang, Aries-Taurus ; (2) Hsi Chen, Taurus-Gemini ;
(.S)Tsun Hseo, Gemini-Cancer ; (4) Tsun Go, Cancer-Leo ; (5)T8un
Vi, Leo-Virgo ; (6) Hseo Sing, Virgo-Libra ; (7) Ta Ho, Libra-
Scorpio ; (8) Ssi Mu, Scorpio-Sagittarius ; (9) Sing Ki, Sagit-
tarius-Capricorn ; (10) Huan Hio, Capricorn-Aquarius ; (11)
Tsu Tsu, Aquarius-Pisces ; (12) Hiang Lo, Pisces-Aries.

These names are found in Chinese books ^written
several centuries B.C. — e.g., Tso Tsuan, Erh Ya,
etc. The Hindu zodiac signs, which are probably
of Greek origin, entered China at a much later
date.

3. The four quarters and the five kungs. — The
Chinese divide the heavens into four quarters.
The eastern quarter is called Tsang Lung ('the
Blue Dragon') and is associated for astrological
purposes with the season of spring, the planet
Jupiter, the element wood, the colour blue, the
taste sour, and the virtue of benevolence. The
southern quarter is called Chii Niaou ('the Red
Bird ') and is associated with the season of summer,
the planet Mars, the element fire, the colour red,
the taste bitter, and the virtue of propriety. The
western quarter is called Pe Hwu ('the White
Tiger ') and is associated with the season of autumn,
the planet Venus, the element metal, the colour
white, the taste hot, and the virtue of righteous-
ness. The northern quarter is called Hsiian Wu
('the Black Warrior,' or ' the Black Tortoise,' as it
has also been interpreted) and is associated with
the season of winter, the planet Mercury, the
element water, the colour black, the taste salt, and
the virtue of %visdom.

In Ssa Ma Chien's SsU Ki the stars are divided
into five kungs, or palaces — middle palace, eastern
palace, southern palace, western palace, and
northern palace. The middle palace consists of
the northern circumpolar stars, and the other four
are like the four quarters stated above. This
system of division is followed by Pan Ku in his
History of the Later Han Dynasty.

4. The three yuans and the two kuans. — The
three yuans (palaces or stellar spaces) are (1) Tsu
Vi Yuan (the Middle Palace), consisting of the
northern circumpolar stars, (2) Tai Vi Yuan (the
Upper Palace), consisting of stars in Leo, Virgo,
Corvus, etc., and (3) Tien Ssu Yuan (the Lower
Palace), bounded by two chains comprising Her-
cules, the upper part of Ophiuchus, etc.

The two kuans, or kinds of officers, are (1) tsung
kuan, the internal officers, consisting of groups of
stars inside the equator, and (2) vmsi kuan, the
external officers, consisting of groups of stars out-
side the equator.

This system of the division of the heavens is
peculiarly Chinese and is very ancient. In the
Tien Wun, consisting of eight chapters, written by
Wu Hian, an astronomer of the Yin (or Shang)
dynasty (1766-1122 B.C.), the astronomer assigned
to the Middle Palace four seats or officers, consist-
ing of eight stai's, to the Upper Palace one seat,
consisting of one star, to the Lower Palace four
seats, consisting of eight stars, to the internal
officers five seats, consisting of 24 stars, and to the
external officers nineteen seats, consisting of 93
stars. In the Tien Wen Sing Chan, written by
Kan Te, an astronomer of the state of Tsi, and the
Tien Wen, written by Hsi Hsen, an astronomer of
the state of Wui (both astronomers lived about the
4th cent. B.C.), the method of division is identical
with that of Wu Hian, but the numbers of officers
and stars are greatly increased. Adding these
estimates together, we get 283 officers, consisting
of 1464 stars.

5. The three yuans and the 28 siiis. — There is a

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Chinese)

77

popular book consisting of 31 songs by Tan Yuan
Tsu of the Sui dynasty (589-617), called Pu Tuen
Ko, It divides the stars into three yuans and 28
sius. There are in all 193 kuans, or officers, con-
sisting of 1457 stars. The stars which have been
named by the Chinese are not many more than this,
except in the book of Chang Heng, which gave
320 kttans, consisting of 2500 stars, and, besides
these, 11,520 stars. This system of division is
followed by Ma Twan Lin and others.

IV. Tee religious aspects.— i. Animistic
view. — The animistic view which the Chinese
took of many things in nature is seen in their
attitude to the sun, moon, and stars. Many of
them regard the heavenly bodies not as merely
inanimate bodies, but as dwelling-places of spiritual
beings or as spiritual beings themselves ; e.g., there
is, it is said, a cock in the sun and a hare in the
moon, the palace of angels ; the hare is said to be
sitting under a tree pounding medicine in a mortar.
Those spiritual beings have superhuman powers,
though the supreme power is not attributed to
any of them, but to Tien, Shang-ti, or God alone.
Hence the movements and appearances of the
heavenly bodies are not regarded as mechanical,
lifeless, or inevitable, for within or behind them
there is a -will which causes them. This will may
be the will of the heavenly bodies, of the spiritual
beings who dwell in them, or of God, the Supreme
Ruler.

2. Comparison of the heavens with the earth. —
In the heavens there are the sun and the moon ;
correspondingly on the earth there are the yang
and the yin, the two contrary conceptions api)lied
to phenomena mental and moral as well as physical.
Yang is the male principle, associated with heat,
da J', etc., and yin is the female principle, associated
with cold, night, etc. Hence the sun is called
'the great yang,' and the moon 'the great yin.'
It is also said that the sun is ' the crystallization
of the yang ' and the moon ' the crystallization of
the yin.' The five planets are said to correspond
to the five elements of the earth, and therefore
Mais is called ' the planet of fire,' Mercury ' the
planet of water,' Venus ' the planet of metal,'
Jupiter ' the planet of wood,' and Saturn ' the
planet of eartli.' Similarly, the different stars
and constellations are believed to correspond to
the various portions of the surface of the earth.
In the chapter called Tien Kwan {' The Heavenly
Officers ') in Ssd Ma Chien's Ssu-Ki, in which all the
beliefs mentioned above may be found, we read :
' The twenty-eight siii or constellations correspond
to the twelve chows, or provinces. . . . The source
of this (saying or belief) is of remote antiquity
indeed.'

It is a popular saying in China that * the stars
of the heavens above and the configurations of the
earth beneath correspond with each other.' A
great number of stars — e.g., the twenty stars con-
stituting the two chains of the Tien Ssu Yuan, or
the Lower Palace — are believed to correspond to
certain countries in China and are given the names
of those countries.

In some of the ancient books the heavens are
said to be spherical and the earth square, the
heavens dynamic and the earth static. There are
also ancient stories or mythologies which represent
the heavens as having a hollow place in the north-
west round which all the stars revolve, and the
earth as having a hollow place in the south-east
towards which all the waters run.

3. Comparison of the heavenly bodies with
men. — Heaven, earth, and men are believed to be
the three great powers or genii in the universe.
The heavenly bodies are regarded not merely as
separate individuals, but as having a society like
that of men. As the Chinese state was an empire,

so the heavenly society was believed to be an
empire. This can be observed in the names of the
stars. The coining of significant poetical or mytho-
logical names for the heavenly bodies was probably
to render easier the task of discriminating and
remembering them. Many stories grew round
those names, which are regarded by some as fables
and by others as true. According to the names
of the stars in the Tai Vi Yuan, the Upper Palace,
the northern polar star (Polaris) is where the
emperor is. The reason is quite plain, as Con-
fucius said : ' He who exercises government by
means of his virtue is like the northern polar star,
which keeps its place, and all the other stars turn
towards it.'^ The Great Bear, or the Spoon, as it
is called in China, is said to be the imperial chariot,
and its motion round the northern polar star is
said to be the emperor viewing his empire in all
directions. Names of some of the other stars are :
the Empress's Palace, Crown Prince, Prince,
Princess, Guards, Civil and Military Officers,
Law-Court, Prison, Armoury, Storehouse, Kitchen,
Bed, Canopy, etc.

4. Relation between the heavenly and the
earthly empires. — These two empires are not
separated from one another without inter-com-
munication. Tien, or Shang-ti, the Supreme
Ruler, governs both, but the heavenly one more
directly. The ruler of the earthly empire used
to be called Tien-tsu, 'the son of Tien (or God).'
Enthronement used to be regarded as the appoint-
ment of God, the rewarder of the good and the
punisher of the bad. Therefore, when the Son of
Heaven was good and his empire well governed,
auspicious phenomena used to appear from God in
the heavens, and, when he was bad and his empire
in disorder, threats used to appear. There are
many heavenly phenomena which are regarded as
God's threats — notably eclipses. The Canon of
Odes refers to an eclipse of the sun of the date
29th Aug. 775 B.C., which was carefully verified
by John Chalmers.

' The Bun was eclipsed —

A thing of very evil omen,

First the moon looked small,

And then the sun looked small,

Henceforth the people

Will be pitiable mdeed.

The sun and moon presage evil

By not keeping to their proper paths ;

All through the kingdom there is no [good] government.

Because good men are not employed.

For the moon to be eclipsed

Is a small matter,

But now the sun is eclipsed,

How dreadful is that 1'

In the Confucian classic called Tsiin Tsiu
('Springs and Autumns') the eclipse of the sun
which took place on 20th April 610 B.C. is recorded.
The writer says :

' On the occasion of an eclipse of the sun, the Son of Heaven
should not have his table spread so lavishly as usual, and should
have drums beaten at the altar to the spirits of the land, while
the feudal princes should present offerings of silk to the spirits
of the land and have drums beaten at their courts, thus mani-
festing their own service of the spirits and so teaching the
people to serve their rulers, according to the respective rights
of each, as was customary in ancient days.'

The word ' eclipse ' used here is the same as the
Avord ' eat.' The eclipse of the sun or the moon is
described, in some of the Chinese stories, as the
sun or moon being eaten by a certain animal, and
the beating of drums is said to frighten the animal
away.

The sun in the heavens is also said to correspond
to the ruler on the earth; e.g., when the people
wished the death of Kie, the tyrant (reigned 1818-
1753 B.C.), they said: 'O sun, why expirest thou
not? Let us aie together with thee.' Therefore
the eclipse of the sun is generally regarded as a
threat from God to the emperor. There are
1 Analects, bk. iL ch. 1.

78

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Chinese)

nunieroue examples, and the edict of the emperor
Ming Ti (A.D. 227-239) after the eclipse of the sun
in 233 is most illuminating :

' We have heard,' says the emperor, ' that if a sovereign is
remiss in government, God terrifies him by calamities and por-
tents. These are divine reprimands sent to recall him to a sense
of dutj'. Thus, eclipses of the sun and moon are manifest warn-
ings that the rod of empire is not wielded aright. Ever since
We ascended the throne, Our inability to continue the glorious
traditions of Our departed ancestors and carry on the great
work of civilization has now culminated in a warning message
from on high. It therefore behoves Us to issue commands for
personal reformation, in order to avert impending calamity.
The relationship, however, between God and man is that of
father and son ; and a Father, about to chastise his son, would
not be deterred were the latter to present him with a dish of
meat. We do not therefore consider it a part of Our duty to
act in accordance with certain memorials advising that the
Grand Astrologer be instructed to offer up sacrifices on this
occasion. Do ye governors of districts, and other high officers
of State, seek rather to rectify your own hearts ; and if anyone
can devise means to make up for Our shortcomings, let him
submit his proposals to the throne.' 1

Comets, even more than eclipses, are regarded
as God's threats. When the comets appeared in
524 B.C., travelling eastward towards the Milky-
Way, an officer said : ' This is a broom to sweep
away the old, and give us new. God often makes
us such signs. The feudal princes will sufler from
calamities by fire.'^ The stars or the spiritual
beings who dwell in them sometimes descend from
the heavens, either by themselves or by the will
of God, are born on earth, and go back to their
positions in heaven after their earthly life.

In The Annals of the Bamboo Books there are
the following legends :

' He's mother (the mother of Hwang Ti, 2968 B.C.) was called
Tu Paon. She witnessed a great flash of lightning, which sur-
rounded the star Chu (or Dubhe) of the Great i3ear with a
brightness that lighted all the country about her, and thereupon
became pregnant.'

' His mother was called Niu Tsie. She witnessed a star like a
rainbow come floating down the stream to the islet of Hwa.
Thereafter she dreamed and received it, and was moved in her
mind, and bore Shaon-Haon [the emperor Che, 2597 B.C.].'

' His mother was called Niu Chu. She witnessed the Yaou
Kwang star (or Bemtuash) go through the moon like a rainbow,
when it moved herself in the palace of Yio-Fang, after which
she brought forth Tsun Hu [the emperor, 2513 B.C.].'

' His mother was called Sis-Ki. She saw a falling star which
went through the constellation Maou, and in her dream her
thoughts were moved till she became pregnant, after which she
swallowed a spirit's pearl, . . . and gave birth to Yu (king
2205 B.C.) in Shih Nio.'

There are 28 heroes in Chinese history who were
believed to be the 28 siiis, or constellations, de-
scended. A great man on earth may become after
death a spiritual being in heaven and dwell in one
of the stars. Some stars are named after historical
heroes. There are a great many stories, love
stories, and mythologies based upon beliefs of this
kind.

S. Sacrifices. — We read in the 22nd book called
Ki Tung (' The Foundation of Sacrifices ') of the Lt
Kt {'The Book of Rites'), a collection of treatises
on the rules of propriety or ceremonial usages, one
of the five Confucian books or canons :

' Of all the methods for the good ordering of men, there is
none more urgent than the use of ceremonies. Ceremonies are
of five kinds, and there is none of them more important than
sacrifices.' *

Among various sacrifices there are sacrifices to
the sun, moon, and stars. We do not know when
these rites began, but they have been performed
under each dynasty from the 23rd cent. B.C. down
to the time of the present Republic of China. In
tlie 20th book of Li Ki, called Kt Fd {' The Laws
of Sacrifices'), it is said :

' With a blazing pile of wood on the Grand altar they [the
Emperors, from Emperor Shun 2255 B.C. to King Wu 1122 B.C.]
sacrificed to Heaven ; * by burying (the victim) in the Grand

1 H. A. Giles, Confucianism, and its Rivals, London, 1916,
p. 180.

2 lb. p. 53.

3Tr. J. Legge in The Sacred Books of CMtm, pt. iv. (SBE
xxviii. [1885] 236).

* On the blazing pile were placed the victim and pieces of
jade ; in the square mound were buried the victim and pieces
of silk.

mound, they sacrificed to the Earth. (In both cases) they used
a red victim.^

By burying a sheep and a pig at the (altar of) Great bright-
ness, they sacrificed to the seasons. (With similar) victims
they sacrificed to (the spirits of) cold and heat, at the pit and
the altar, using prayers of deprecation and petition ; to the
sun, at the (altar called the) royal palace ; to the moon, at the
(pit called the) light of night ; to the stars at the honoured
place of gloom ; to (the spirits of) flood and drought at the
honoured altar of rain ; to the (spirits of the) four quarters at
the place of the four pits and altars ; mountaius, forests,
streams, vaUeys, hills, and mounds, which are able to produce
clouds, and occasion winds and rain, were all regarded as
(dominated by) spirits.' ^

In the 21st book of Lt Kt, called Ki I {« The
Meaning of Sacrifices '), it says :

'The sacrifice in the suburb of the capital was the great
expression of gratitude to Heaven, and it was specially ad-
dressed to the sun, with which the moon was associated. The
sovereigns of Hsii [dynasty, 2205-1766 B.C.] presented it in the
dark. Under the Yin dynasty [1766-1122 B.C.] they did so at
noon. Under the Kau [dynasty, 1122-255 B.C.] they sacrificed
all the day, especially at daybreak, and towards evening.

They sacrificed to the sun on the altar, and to the moon in
the hollow; — to mark the distinction between (the) gloom (of
the one) and (the) brightness (of the other), and to show the
difference between the high and the low. They sacrificed to
the Sim in the east, and to the moon in the west ; — to mark the
distinction between (the) forthcoming (of the former) and (the)
withdrawing (of the latter), and to show the correctness of
their (relative) position. The sun comes forth from the east,
and the moon appears in the west ; the darkness and the light
are now long, now short ; when the one ends, the other begins,
in regular succession : — thus producing the harmony of all
under the sky.' 3

These are the sacrifices at the equinoxes ; that
to the sun at the vernal equinox in the eastern
suburb, and that to the moon at the autumnal
equinox in the western suburb. These had been
performed under each dynasty, and can also be
found in Ta Tsing Tung Li ('The Ritual of the
Manchu Dynasty'). The former is called Clww
Zi, ' The Morning Sun,' and the latter Si Yiie,
* The Evening Moon.'

In the dynasty of Chin (255-206 B.C.) they
sacrificed to what they called the eight gods, i.e.
the god of the heavens, the god of the earth, the
god of war, the god of the yin, the god of the yan.g,
the god of the sun, the god of the moon, and the
god of the four seasons. In Han Shu (' the Book
[or History] of the early Han Dynasty') [206
B.C.-A.D. 25] it is said : ' There were such eight
gods in the ancient times, but their origin is
unknown.'

In the dynasties after the China dynasty
different temples were built for their sacrifices.
Even at the present day temples connected with
the sun, moon, and stars can be found in difi'erent
places. In Peking there is the Avorld-famous
Tien Tan ('Temple of Heaven'), and in it there
are altars of the sun, of the moon, of the 28 con-
stellations, and of some other stars and groups
of stars. In the Manchu dynasty (1644-1911)
sacrifices were offered in the Temple of Heaven
once every spring and once every autumn. Even
since the establishment of the Republic of China
(1911), a grand sacrifice was offered in the Temple
of Heaven by Yuan Shi Kai, the first Chinese
President.

The 15th of the eighth lunar month is a Chinese
holiday called Ts^ung Tsiu Tse ('the mid-autumn
holiday'). The moon is said to be always at its
fullest and brightest on this evening if it is
visible, whereas this need not be so on the same
date of other lunar months. A family festival
used to be, and in some places still is, held in
Chinese houses on that evening. The offerings
to the moon consist chiefly of fruits, and the
ceremony is similar to that of Chinese ancestor-
worship. On this holiday schools, shops, etc., are
closed, and farmers cease work for a few days.
Relatives and friends exchange presents, chiefly

1 Red was the special colour of victims under the Chow
dj'nastv.

2 SBE xsviii. 202 f. 3 /&. p. 218 f.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Chinese)

79

eatables, and invite each other to dinner on one
or more of the days following the mid-autumn
holiday.

With regard to the sacrifices to the stars we
read in Urh Ya, an ancient dictionary, one of the
Thirteen Confucian Classics : ' The sacrifice to the
stars is called Pu.' Even in our day tablets of
stars can be found in public temples and private
houses in different provinces.

6. Significance or purpose of sacrifices. — The
significance of these sacrifices is not merely
religious, nor is their religious significance always
the most prominent. Sometimes these rites were
used for political purposes by the rulers. This
is the case not only in ancient times ; there was
a time in oui- present century when Shinkio Biyo
Mondai ('The Problem of the Utilization of
Religions ') was of great interest to statesmen and
politicians in Japan, and the political significance
of the sacrifices at the Temple of Heaven per-
formed by Yuan Shi Kai was sufficiently obvious.
When the sacrifices are performed by the people,
their purpose is sometimes social as well as
religious. In any case the idea of keeping up the
custom seems to play a great part. Western
scholars are apt to take these sacrifices purely
as the expression of religious faith and devotion.
The following passages in Lt Kt may show that
they are not always so.

Aj8 sacrifices are the most important of cere-
monies or rites, let us first indicate the purposes
for which they are oflered.

' The rites to be observed by all under heaven were intended
to promote the- return (of the mind) to the beginning (= Creator
<rf all) ; to promote (the ihonouring of) spiritual Beings ; to
promote the harmonious use (of all resources and appliances)
of government ; to promote righteousness ; and to promote
humility. They promote the return to the beginning, securing
the due consideration of their originator. They promote (the
honouring) of spiritual Beings, securing the griving honour to
superiors. They promote the (proper) use of all resources,
thereby establishing the regulations (for the vyell-being of) the
people. They promote righteousness, and thus there are no
oppositions and conflictings between high and low. They
promote humility, in order to prevent occasions of strife. Let
these five things be united through the rites for the regulation
of all under heaven, and though there may be some extravagant
and perverse who are not kept in order, they will be few.' i

There are two other passages, one of which
indicates the objects to whom sacrifices should be
ofi'ered and the other the purposes of the sacrifices.

' According to the institutes of the sage kings about sacrifices,
sacrifice should be offered to him who had given (good) laws
to the people ; to him who had laboured to the death in the
discharge of his duties ; to him who had strengthened the
state by his laborious toil ; to him who had boldly and success-
fully met great calamities ; and to him who had warded off
grreat evils.'*

'Sacrifices were for the purposes of prayer, or of thanksgiving,
or of deprecation.' 3

The sun, moon, and stars fall under none of the
above five classes except that in later dynasties
some stars were sacrificed to for the power of
warding ofi" evils. With regard to the three
purposes that of thanksgiving seems to be the
sole motive for which the Chinese sacrificed to
the sun, moon, and stars.

The Chinese were grateful to the sun, moon,
and stars, and expressed their gratitude by means
of sacrifices, because, says a passage : * As to the
sun and moon, the stars anu constellations, the
people look up to them.'* The phrase 'look up
to ' ijan yang) in this case has an ethical meaning,
as when we speak of looking up to a great man
with a view to modelling our behaviour on his.
The Chinese believed that they could adjust their
conduct by observing the appearances and move-
ments of tne heavenly bodies, which were regarded
as God's revelation.

1 lA Ki, XXL i. 20 {SBB r^vvi. 219 f.).

2 lb. XX. 9 {SBE xxviiL 207 f.).

» £4 X(, IX. iii. 28, in Saered Books of China, pt. iU. (SBE
xxvu. [1885] 448.
* U Kt, XX. 9 {SBE xxviiL 209X

There seem to be other reasons why the Chinese
should be grateful to the sun, moon, and stars —
especially to the sun for its great and various
benefits — but the fact is that they attribute these
benefits to Tien, God, rather than to the heavenly
bodies themselves. Indeed their sacrifices to these
bodies are sometimes an indirect way of expressing
their gratitude to God.

7. Sun-worship, moon-worship, and star-wor-
ship.— Is there, or has there been, sun-worship,
moon-worship or star-worship in China 1 The
answer to this question depends upon what we
mean by the term ' worship.' If by worship we
mean the 'adoration, sacrifice, praise, prayer,
thanksgiving, or other devotional acts performed
in honour of the Supreme Being or God,'^ it is
certain that there is no such worship in China,
and perhaps also that such worship has never
existed there. None of the heavenly bodies is
conceived by the Chinese as the Supreme Being.
The Supreme Being is, for them, Tien, God, and
God only. Nor can we find such worship in
China if we take the term 'worship' to mean (1)
the ' prostration which arises in presence of a
superior being on whom we are absolutely depend-
ent and whom we fear or reverence,' or (2) ' the
feeling and act of worship ' which ' involves
primarily submission and fealty,' and ' is the
attitude of the weak to the strong on whom they
are absolutely dependent.'^ The Chinese do not
regard themselves as absolutely dependent on any
of the heavenly bodies or on the spirits dwelling
in them, but they regard the heavenly bodies or
their indwelling spirits as dependent on Tien,
'God,' as they themselves are. It is true that
they believe these heavenly bodies to possess
powers which do not belong to men, but they also
believe that men have powers which these bodies
do not possess. What is more, some of them
believe that certain men have the power of
subjugating the spirits of the heavenly bodies, as
magicians have the power of controlling spirits.

There are certain passages which have been
regarded as evidence of sun-worship in China.
In the 9th book of Li Ki, called Kido Teh Seng
(* The Single Victim at the Border Sacrifices '), a
passage says :

'At the (Great) border sacrifice he [the Son of Heaven]
welcomed the arrival of the longest day. It was a great act of
thanksgiving to Heaven, and the sun was the chief object
considered in it.'
Legge, commenting on this, says :

'The sun became for the time the " spirit-tablet " of Heaven.
Fang Kiieh says : " (The Son of Heaven) was welcoming the
arrival of the longest day, and therefore he regarded the sun
as the residence (for the time) of the spirit of Heaven. That
spirit could not be seen ; what could be looked up to and be-
held were only the sun, moon, and stars." 'S
The present writer need not give his own transla-
tion here, but he must point out that the idea
that the sun was regarded as the residence of the
spirit of Heaven is not imijlied either in Fang
Kiieh's commentary or in the text.

With reference to the passage in the book * on
the meaning of sacrifices, namely :

'The sacrifice in the suburb of the capital was the great
expression of the gratitude to Heaven, and it was specially
addressed to the sun, with which the moon was associated,'
Khan H^o, a Chinese commentator, says, according
to Legge :

' Heaven is the great source of tAo (the course of nature and
duty), and of aU the visible bodies which it hangs out, there
are none greater than the sun and moon. Therefore, while
the object of the suburban sacrifice was a grateful acknowledg-
ment of Heaven, the sun was chosen as the resting-place for
its spirit (or spirits). The idea in the institution of the rite
was deep and far-reaching.' 6

1 The Century Dictionary of the English Language, London,
18S9, n.v. ' Worship.'
a DPhP ii. 822. 3 SBE xxvii. 427, n. 1.

* lAKi.xxi. i. 18. 6 SBE xxviii. 218, n. 2.

80

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Hebrew)

The same remark may be made on the translation
of this passage, viz. that there is neither in the
text nor in the commentary the idea that the sun
was chosen as the resting-place of the spirit (or
spirits). The ultimate purpose in both these
cases was to express gratitude by means of
sacrifices to Heaven, but not to the sun or the
spirit of tlie sun. Heaven is invisible, and they
thought that for the object of sacrifice something
visible was required. Therefore the sun was
chosen as a symbol. Neither of these two cases
therefore can be regarded as an example of sun-
worship. There does not seem to be any other
case. Legge says concerning the last example :

' It must be borne in mind that the rites described in the
text are those of former dynasties, especially of that of K9,u.
I cannot bring to mind any passages in.which there is mention
made of any sacrifice to the sun or sun-spirit in connexion with
the great sacrifice to Heaven, or Shang Ti, at the service on the
day of the winter solstice in the southern suburb.' i

Hence it is only by taking the term ' worship ' in a
very comprehensive sense, and by ignoring the pur-
pose of the sacrifices, that we may say that the fact
that the Chinese sacrificed to the sun implies that
they worshipped it. It is the same with regard to
their worship of the moon and the stars. In what-
ever sense we may be justified in saying that some of
the Chinese worshipped the sun, moon, and stars,
such worship occupies a very insignificant position
in China compared with the worship of other
natural phenomena or the spirits of them. If by
sun-worshipper, moon- worshipper, etc., we mean
one who regards the sun or the moon as the only
or the supreme object of worship, we may say with
conviction that the Chinese are not, as they have
never been, sun-worshippers, moon-worshippers, or
star-worshippers.

LiTERATDBB. — See the works quoted in the footnotes.

T. Fu.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Hebrew).—
The Hebrew conception of the universe, as we
find it in the OT, is not scientific in the modern
sense of the term. The cosmology of the Hebrews
(see art. COSMOLOGY [Hebrew]) is characterized by
the simplicity and naivete of primitive folk. The
attitude of mind is one of awe and wonder, not of
critical inquiry ; and to pry closely into the secrets
of the divine government is felt to indicate a want
of reverence, and even to be dangerous. More-
over, it would be natural to a people which seems
to have had an innate genius for religion to think,
even after it had progressed beyond the stage of
quite primitive ideas of the universe, that religion
itself constituted the whole of true science or know-
ledge. ^ We need not expect, therefore, to find in
the OT any inkling of the modern science of astro-
nomy. The Hebrew shepherds without doubt, like
the Phoenician mariners (cf. Pliny, HN vii. 57),
closely observed the sky, and learned from the
scrutiny many lessons of practical value for their
every-day life. It is equally likely that at an
early date the Hebrews were wont to worship the
stars and planets. There are later traces of this
worship in the OT (cf. 2 K 11^%^ And, besides

i SEE xxviii. 218, n. 2.

2 On this point Laurie Magnus's ' Religio Laid ' Judaica
(1907) will be found sugRestive. It has been argued elsewhere
(\V. Jay Hudson, Law of Psychic Phenomena ^'>, 1907) that
ignorance of, or indifference to, what we term science might
co-exist with a perfect knowledge of the laws of the moral and
spiritual life.

3 It is <iuite unnecessary to suppose that the idea of wor-
shipping the stars and planets was borrowed, though, of course,
the Hebrews came more and more into contact with people who
were addicted to this worship. Whether and to what extent
they came under direct Babylonian and Egyptian influence is
a disputed matter (see K. Marti, Religion of the OT, p. 36 ff.).
Cf. the proper names JITO!? (Jg 132^) and Tp?* (Ezr 48), de-
rived from tPCE*, ' sun '[; the Palmyrene 'riT, and the Biblical
inT, Jericho, derived from n"i.;, ' moon.' Of. also Beth-
shemesh, a place sacred to the sun-god. Commentators have
seen in Mai 320 (42) the conception of a winged solar disk such

this, the figures suggested by various constellations
no doubt gave rise to a number of curious fables
and fancies. On the other hand, the OT, as we
have it, a collection of much-edited writings, pre-
serves few traces of the astronomical and astro-
logical lore of the Hebrews themselves. Since in
the course of their national development the study
of the stars and planets became more and more
associated with the idolatrous practices of sur-
rounding nations, later editors would be anxious
to avoid, or even to remove, references to astron-
omy and astrology (cf. Dt 18^°). This would
account for the fact that most of the references
preserved in the OT are of a very general nature.

The chief planets are, of course, alluded to
frequently. The sun (shemesh) is spoken of as
ruling by day (Ps 136^), and is often referred to as
coming forth (from one chamber) in the morning
and going in (-to another chamber) in the evening.
Its magnificence (Jg 5^') and its wondei'ful power
for good (Dt SSI-*) or for evil (2 K 4i"- ; cf. Ps
121^) impressed the Hebrews, as they have im-
pressed all peoples. Jahweh Elohim Himself might
be compared to a sun (Ps 84").^ There are four
words for 'moon' in the OT. Ydreah is used
especially in poetry (Gn 37", Jos IQi* etc.). To
this word is closely related one of the words for
'month,' y6rah, a word which is common to all
the Semitic languages, though not in frequent use
in the OT. Another word, lebhdndh, which occurs
only three times (Ca 6i», Is 24^3 SO^^), designates
the moon as the 'white one' or the 'pale one.'
Rarer still is a word kese' (perhaps connected with
the Assyr. kuse'u, 'headdress' or 'cap'), which
denotes the full moon (perhaps the moon-god
clothed in the splendour of his tiara). ^ The most
common word is hodcsh, which means 'new moon,'
and also ' month.' Thus the new moon was re-
garded as marking a new period or month, and
the use of ydreah, yerah, and hodesh for both
moon and month shows that among the Hebrews
the month and year were lunar. The moon rules
the night (Ps 136^), and, like the sun, is a power
for good (Dt 33''*) or for evil (Ps 121«). Its pale
brilliance made it the emblem of beauty (Ca 6"^).
In a few passages reference seems to be made to
eclipses (Am 8*, Is 38**, Job 9'' etc.). And we are
once told that ' the sun stood still, and the moon
stayed, until the nation had avenged itself on its
enemies ' * (Jos lO^^'*)- In late writings there are
several allusions to the worship of the sun (Ezk
S^"-, Job 3P6'- ; cf. 2 K 235) and moon (Dt 41").

Other planets are mentioned more incidentally.
Thus, in all probability, Venus'* as the Morn-
ing Star is referred to m Is 14^^ under the name
hh^n, Mill, or '?Vn, Midi (lit. 'the glittering one'),
though it should be mentioned that some ex-
positors have seen in the term an Arabic name

for the moon (J Ha, hildl). W. Lotz {FRW, s.v.
' Sterne ') indeed argues that the Arabic word
means 'new moon,' which would be unsuitable;

as we find among the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians,
and Persians. But the present writer has pointed out (Journal
of the Manch. Egyptian and Oriental Society, 1917, pp. 67-70)
that the word usually translated ' wings ' will bear another
meaning. The meaning maybe 'skirts' rather than 'wings,'
and the figure that of the glorious robe that flows from the sun.

1 In Jg 14I8, Job 97 the word translated 'sun ' is not shemesh,
but hercs (cf. Is 1918, and the place-names in Jg 135 glS). Jt jg
probable that in Jg I4I8 the text is corrupt.

2 The name Sinai is probably derived from Sin, the name of
the moon-god in Babylonian. In Ex 31 Sinai is described as
'the mountain of Elohim,' i.e. the sacred mountain. This
suggests that it had long been sacred.

3 'The writer clearly intends a miracle to be understood (so
C. Steuernagel in Nowack's Eandkom,mentar, 1899). Other
expositors {e.g. W. H. Bennett in 'Joshua,' SBOT, 1899) regard
the passage as poetic and figurative (cf. Jg 52U).

^ Another designation of Venus is meleketh ha-shdmayim
D^DB'n nj^D, 'the queen of heaven,' mention being made of
cakes which were baked for her (Jer 7i8 4417. 25).

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Hebrew)

81

but, according to Zimmern and Buhl's edition of
Gesenius's Lexicon (Handworterbuch^*, 1905) it
can denote the old moon as crescent.^ Further, in
Am 6^* we probably have an allusion to Saturn
(map, sikkuth = map, sakkuth = Assyr. sakkut ; and
JV5, kiyyun — ]y3, kSvdn = AssjT. kaivdnu).

The stars, again, are alluded to frequently in a
general way ; but there are a few references to
particular stars or constellations, and these require
special attention. The earliest of them is found in
Am 5*. Since, however, the same terms occur,
with others, in passages in the late book of Job
which contain more precise references to astro-
nomy, it is best to consider the Job passages first.

In Job 9', in a description of God's almighty
power as manifested in the marvels of the material
world, Job is represented as pointing to God as one

' Who shaketh the earth out of her place,

and the pillars thereof tremble.
Who command eth the sun, and it riseth not ;

and sealeth up the stars.
Who alone spreadeth out the heavens,

and treadeth upon the waves of the sea.
Who m&keth.' ash, kesil,

and klmdh and the chambers of the south.'

The context indicates that the terms in the last
two lines (&])„ 'ash ; '7'p?, kesil ; no'?, kirncih ; 'i-in
jDn, hadri teTndn) designate particular stars or
constellations. We are helped, too, by the fact
that three of them occur again (kimdh in Am 5^,
Job 3831 . ^g^-ii in Am 6», Is W>, Job 38^1 ; 'ayish =
'ash in Job 38^^) ; but there is considerable uncer-
tainty as to the correct interpretation of some at
least of the terms.

I. v]i, 'ash, or better V]U, 'ayish, as in Job 38*^,
and better still e'jj^ 'dyush, as suggested by the
Syriac (Pesh. xnvy). In Job 9^ LXX has "EcrTrepos,
Vulg. ' Hyades ' ; in Job 38^2 LXX 'Eo-Trepoy, Vulg.
'Vesper.' Modem expositors have found in the
word either the Great Bear, the Pleiades, Hyades,
or the Northern |and Southern Crown. 'Ash in
Job 9^ has to be taken in connexion with the other
passage, 38'^, in which, according to the Massoretic
text, it is said : ' or dost thou guide 'ayish with her
young?' (cmn n'n-Vy ty'y]).^ It is noteworthy, too,
that what in Arabic corresponds to the Great Bear
is called na'sh, 'the bier,' and that the three taU
stars of Ursa Major are called banat na'sh, ' children
of the bier' (i.e., in this case, 'mourners'). It is
true that no philological connexion can be estab-
lished between the two words, but the Arabic
phrase ' children (or daughters) of the bier ' is sug-
gestive as regards 'ayish and her children. It
might seem natural to expect to find a striking
constellation like the Great Bear mentioned in
Job 9, and it would be fitting that it should
be assigned the first place, though it may be
mentioned in passing that possibly the Hebrews
thought of this constellation not as a Great Bear,
but as a lioness with her young (cf. with Ewald,
Ax&bic' ayuth, and see A. Dillmann's Commentary).
But there is some force in the argument that
'ayish can hardly be Ursa Major, because the con-
stellations in Job SS^i*- are referred to on account
of their meteorological importance. Some ex-
positors, therefore [e.g., M. A. Stern, Noldeke,
Schrader), have thought that 'ayish represents the
Pleiades. The great objection to this is that there
is very good reason to think another Hebrew term
(see below) designates that constellation. The
' children ' of 'ayish would certainly suit the
Pleiades, which are sometimes represented as a hen
with its chickens. But, on the other hand, the

1 P. Jensen, however, thinks (JE, s.v. 'Astronomy") that
there is little ground for supposing that any star or planet is
rsferred to ; the reference in Isaiah is too vague.

2 For Dnjn, however, it is better to read DnjR (' and dost thou
console 'ayish for her children ? '). See, further, below.

VOL. XII. — 6

smaller stars surrounding or adjoining a star of
the first magnitude might in several cases be de-
scribed as its children. The Pleiades not being
probable, some scholars agree with the Vulgate
of Job 9" in thinking that 'ayish represents the
Hyades (so, e.g., Hotimann, Schiaparelli) ; and this
view has the support of the Syriac (Pesh. Knry).i
Moreover, the constellation is suitable as being one
of great meteorological importance. Elsewhere in
Hebrew 'ash means 'moth.' PMedrich Delitzsch
has suggested that it may have the same meaning
here, since the name ' moth ' (sAsu) seems to have
been given to a star by the Assyro-Babylonians
(see T. G. Pinches, in Hastings' DB, s.v. 'Astro-
nomy '). Now, the Hyades, a great red star of the
first magnitude (Aldebaran) and five stars of the
fourth magnitude, resemble our letter V or the
Greek A. And Schiaparelli points out (p. 58) that
in the butterfly stage, when the moth is at rest,
' its wings are not held detached from the body, as
happens with most other butterflies, but spread
themselves over it in such a way as to form a
cloak, more or less similar (according to the several
species into which the animal can be divided) to an
isosceles triangle.' The suggestion is that to the
author of the passages in Job 'ash meant ' moth,'
which was a name for the Hyades. In that
case, assuming the identity of 'ash and 'ayish, the
' children ' of 'ayish would be the minor Hyades
which surround Aldebaran. Against this it might
be urged that it is easier to explain 'ash as short
for 'ayish than to account for 'ash as the original
form, and that ' moth ' does not seem a likely name
for a constellation (especially the Hyades, apart
from its form). The question of identification
cannot be decided definitely. But, as the Pleiades
has to be excluded (see below), there are reasons
for thinking that either the Great Bear or the
Hyades is intended. The Great Bear was no doubt
as well known to the Hebrews as to other ancient
peoples ; but it would not be in the least surprising
to find no mention of it in the OT, the references to
astronomy being so few.

2. Vds, kesil, usually translated ' fool.' In Job 9'
LXX has 'KpKTovpos, Vulg. ' Orion ' ; in 38^1 LXX
Qplu3v, Vulg. ' ArctuTus ' ; in Am 5^ LXX omits,
Vulg. ' Orion ' ; in Is IS^" (on'!?'?!, their ' kesillm )
LXX 'Clplwv, Vulg. ' splendor earum.' Some of the
Rabbis of the Middle Ages (Saadya, Abulwalid, and
others) identified the word with the Arabic Suhail
and interpreted it in its later sense, Canopus. The
preponderating view of the versions is in favour of
Orion, a constellation which was popularly thought
of as a giant who was bound in chains to the sky.
Kesil occurs elsewhere in Hebrew with the mean-
ing 'duilard' or 'fool,' and modern expositors
commonly think of the giant (Orion) as a fool in
the sense of an impious person who had rebelled
against God. But the Arabic equivalent of the

root {AmS, kasala) means 'to be thick, plump,'
which suggests that kesil itself need not mean any-
thing more than giant (the big, burly one) ; and, as
Cheyne says (art. ' Orion ' in EBi), kesil ought not
to be confounded with ndbdl (' fool ' in the sense of
impious person). In Job 38^' there seems to be a re-
ference to some myth current among the Hebrews,
the giant being spoken of as bound with cords ;
but what exactly the myth was is quite uncertain.
In Am 5* klmdh (see below) and kesil are again
mentioned together ('seek him that maketh klmdh
and kesil, and turneth black darkness into morn-
ing,' etc.) as well as in Job 38^1 ('Dost thou bind
the bands of Idmdh, or loose the cords of kesil ? '),
Further, in Is 131" we find the curious expression
' their kesHllm ' (often translated ' the stars of

1 It seems certain that the Syriac word does denote the
Hyades or the chief star of the group (cf. Barhebraeus).

82

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Hebrew)

heaven and tlie Orions thereof').^ This seems to
indicate that primarily kesllim was used to denote
stars of the first magnitude, in distinction from
lesser stars [kokdblm). In any case it is pretty
generally agreed that kesUl represents Orion. It is
one of the most brilliant constellations, and did
not fail to arrest the attention of the ancients.
3. nD'3, klmah, literally ' a group, cluster,'

cognate with Arabic kdrtia (^l^), 'to heap up.' In

Job 99 LXX has nXeicis, Vulg. 'Arcturus,' Pesh.
and Targ. kd'? ; in 38^^ the renderings of the
Versions differ only to the extent that the Vulg.
has ' Pleiades ' ; in Am 5* LXX omits, Vulg. has
'Arcturus,' Pesh. and Targ. ko'?. Most of the
ancient authorities, in fact, understand the
Pleiades by kimdh. Several modern expositors,
however, prefer to think of Sirius [e.g., G. Hoff-
mann). But the word itself suggests that we are
to look for a compact cluster of stars, and, of
course, we must seek for one that early attracted
attention. The Pleiades, as Schiaparelli says, is
the best known of such clusters, 'and also the
only one which has in consequence of its conspicu-
ous light awakened universal attention at every
time and among all peoples' (p. 62). ^ The ex-
pression ' the bands of kimdh ' in Job 38^- is no
doubt to be understood metaphorically.* The
Arabic name for the Pleiades, thurayya, also
means 'cluster,' and Bar Ali mentions it as an
explanation of kimdh. The word kimdh itself has
also been connected with the Arab, kumat^^,
•house,' and the Assyr. kimtu, 'family.' In either
case the name would suit the Pleiades.

It should be noted, further, that, according to
some ideas found in the Talmud [B^rakhoth, .586 ;
Bosh ha-shnnah, 116), God brought the flood by
causing kimdh to set instead of rise in the morning,
and by removing two stars from it. This is given
as the explanation of Rabbi Joshua. According
to R. Eliezer, the changes took place at a season
when kimdh is wont to set in the morning, and
what God did was to make kimdh rise in the
morning on the day in question and lose two stars.
This caused the flood. According to Stern, the
dates mentioned suit exactly the morning rising
and setting of the Pleiades, and seem to prove
that in the time of Rabbi Joshua and Rabbi
Eliezer (beginning of 2nd cent. A.D.) the Jews
identified the Pleiades with kimdh. It is further
represented in the Talmud {ib.) that God after-
wards set things right by taking away two stars
from 'ayish to diminish its rain-producing force*

4. I^?" 'lin, hadr^ temdn, lit. 'chambers of the
south.' The LXX renders ra/^eta 'S6tov, Vulg.
'interiora Austri.' We seem to require mention
of another definite constellation. This has given

1 Kittel would read Dn'apis, 'their stars.' But this is not
necessary. Nor is it necessarj' to follow Cheyne in emending
the whole of the beginning of the verse thus : ^'p?? riD'31 W']l
'the Great Bear, the Pleiades (■?), and Orion.' ' ' •' ■ '

2 An old English name for them is ' the seven stars ' (AV in
Am 58).

3 The Hebrew has n.p'S my^ia, ma'dannuth kimdh, which
AV translates ' sweet influences,' some such idea being suggested
by the root as found elsewhere. It is better, however, to follow
many modern expositors, and regard ma'dannoth as equivalent
to ma'nnddoth, 'bands' or 'fetters,' from "anad, 'to bind' (so
Ewald, Dillmann, Duhm, and others). It we translate 'bands,'
we may thmk of the Oriental poets' habit of comparing the
Pleiades with an ornament (Ideler, Sternnamen, p. 147)

J According to Stern, the Talmudists undoubtedly understood
the Hyades by 'ayis/i. Way there not be references to an earlier
form of this kind of legend in Job 3S3if.? The passage might
be translated thus (interchanging icpn and nnsn in ver. 31) :
Dost thou loosen the hands of the Pleiades (kimdh)

or bind fast the cords of a giant (-star, kesil)^
Dost thou lead forth the rainers {mazzdroth) in due season
and comfort the Hyades for its children ?
The 'rainers' (from m,;, lit. 'to scatter') would be the stars
taken from the Hyades, and are referred to in the next clause
as ' its children.'

rise to the suggestion that the phrase designates
the bright star Canopus or the constellation to
which it belongs (so Stern). Other expositors
regard the text as corrupt, and, emending [Dni mn,
see in the first word some uncertain constellation,
and in the second (iDn=ipxn) Gemini, 'the Twins.'
But we are not obliged to find in }},adri temdn a
special constellation. ' Chambers (or store-houses)
of the South' might, as K. Budde says ('Hiob,'
in W. Nowack's Handkomm. zum AT, 1806),
denote a whole group of constellations in the
southern sky. Dillmann {loc. cit.) thinks that
the author of Job cannot have known anything of
the stars of the southern hemisphere, but that it
was known to him, as one who had travelled, that
the farther one goes south the more stars and
constellations become visible. To those who dwelt
in the north these were, so to say, enclosed in the
inmost chambers of the vault of heaven, and were
therefore invisible. This would explain the ex-

Sression ' treasure-houses of the South ' (cf . Pr 24* ;
ob 37^). The word heder, coming from a root
meaning literally 'to conceal,' in the plural would
bear the meaning * penetralia.' ' Schiaparelli
gives reasons for thinking that the reference is to
the imposing constellation found on the charts of
to-day 'distributed between Argo, the Southern
Cross, and the Centaur ' ; but whether this was
visible to the author of Job depends upon the date
of the book, which is uncertain.

In Job 38^"- we find another difficult astro-
nomical terra. The passage is as follows :

' Dost thou bind the bands of kimdh,

or loose the cords of kesll ?
Dost thou bring out mazzdroth in his season,
or dost thou lead ovA' ayish with her young?'

We have already dealt with three of the terms
which occur here. We have now to consider —

5. n'niD, mazzdroth. The Vulg. has 'Lucifer';
Targ. N''7io nBc. The word may come from n-jr,
zdrdh, M'hich means literally ' to scatter,' but can
be applied to powder (Ex 32^"), hair (Ezk 5^, Is 30'-»),
etc. Mazzdroth would then mean * scatterers ' or
'sprinklers,' the reference being to rain. On this
supposition. Stern and Hoffmann understand the
Hyades to be meant, since the heliacal rising of
their chief star, Aldebaran, announces the season
of rain. 2 Gesenius derived the word from lu,

ndzar (Arab, .jj), and explained it as 'astra

Srfemonentia.' Another suggestion is that it is
erived from nnt, zdhar, viazzdroth being for
mazhdroth, and meaning the 'brilliant' stars
which shine with a special lustre, the planets,
either all of them or the brightest and most
striking. But the word is more commonly re-
garded as identical Avith mazzdloth (ni'jiD) in
2 K 23', the interchange of I and r presenting
little difficulty. The LXX has ixa^ovpdud in both
cases. In 2 K mazzdloth has been supposed by
some expositors to mean 'the signs of the zodiac,'
being apparently a loan-word from Assyr. manzaltu
or mazaltu, ' station, abode (of gods),' which, again,
is from nazdzii, ' to stand.' But in the passage in
question it Avould be more natural to find mention
of the planets, and some expositors so interpret
mazzdloth (in Rabbinic mazzdloth means 'planets'
as well as ' signs of the zodiac'). Mazzdloth would be
the stars and planets regarded as ' mansions ' (Assyr. )
of the great gods (see EBi, s.v. ' Mazzaloth ').*

1 Ct. A. B. Davidson, ' Job ' in Cambr. Bible, 1893 : ' probably
the great spaces and deep recesses of the southern hemisphere
of the heavens, with the constellations which they contain.'

2 Stern identifies mazzdroth with mazzdloth, and would
derive the latter from TJC. hizzil, ' to cause to flow.' This,
again, would give some meaning equivalent to 'rain-producers.'

8 P. Jensen (JE, s.v. ' Astronomy ') says that mazzdloth may
mean either 'planets,' 'signs of the zodiac,' or 'stations of the
moon.'

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Hindu)

83

It is not necessary, however, to regard mazzdroth
and mazzaloth as identical. We have found reason
to think that another word denotes the Hyades as
a constellation. That does not prevent us from
supposing that mazzdroth may be a further descrip-
tion of some of the stars in this group. ^ The word
mazzdroth has also been identified with the Great
Dog, whose chief star is Sirius. This, as the
brightest of the fixed stars, and for meteorological
reasons as well, everywhere attracted the notice
of the ancients.

6. It should be noted further that in Job 37®
another word occurs (d'I'P, m,ezdrlm) which bears
some resemblance to mazzdroth. The passage
runs : ' Out of its chamber cometh the whirlwind,
and cold out of mezdrlm.' This word might also
come from zdrdh, 'to scatter.' On that assump-
tion, it has been supposed to mean 'scattering' or
north Avinds. Another suggestion, however, is
that it is a corruption of the Babylonian miSri,
'the northern (star)' (so EBi, s.v. 'Mazzaroth').
A more recent conjecture is that of Schiaparelli
(p. 69 tf.). He suggests that the correct punctua-
tion of ontD is mizrlm or mizrayim, i.e. the plural
or dual of a word n-ijp, mizreh, which is referred
to in Is 30^ and Jer 15'' as an instrument for
winnoM'ing. Schiaparelli points out that the
arrangement of the stars of the Great Bear is
such that they might be thought to resemble a
winnowing fan. To the ancient Chinese these
stars actually suggested a ladle, which, with its
cavity and handle, is very like a Avinnowing fan.
Tlie plural mizrlm would indicate more than one
instrument. Schiaparelli therefore thinks that
the word might designate the Great Bear and the
Lesser Bear ; and in that case, of course, the dual
mizrai/im would be a still more suitable description.
The fact that the Phoenicians used the Lesser Bear
when at sea to find the direction of the north is
noteworthy in this connexion. The suggestion is
very ingenious. But unfortunately mizreh is not
the term which denotes a winnowing instrument
of the shape required. The word for that is
rahath (the other term mentioned in Is 30-*).
Mizreh is apparently the m,idhrd of modern Syria,
a pitch-fork with six prongs, and the Great Bear
can hardly be said to resemble that.

7. Some expositors have found yet another
reference to astronomy in the n-13 eJQi, ndhdsh
hdrlah, of Job 26^^. Meaning literally ' the fleeing
serpent,' the words have been supposed to refer
to the Dragon between the Great and the Little
Bear. There is nothing in the context, however,
to indicate that the author had any star or con-
stellation in mind.

The OT contains very few definite references to
astrology, though the prohibition in Dt 18^° shows
that it was practised. "We can hardly say that
there was no astrology amongst the ancient
Hebrews, in spite of the fact tiiat the present
allusions are late and due to Assyro-Babylonian
influence. In Is 47^^ (post-Exilic) we read : 'Yea
let them deliver thee, the dividers (?) of heaven
(D'cy '"!3h), the gazers on stars (0*5^133 O'lnn), those
who make known each new moon (QT^n^ D'ynto),
from the things that are coming upon thee.'
The word translated ' dividers ' occurs nere only,
and LXX has for the whole phrase ol LajpoKbyoi
Tov oipavoO. It has been connected with an Arabic
word ' to divide ' (habara, lit. ' to cut into large
pieces'), a meaning which suits very well, since
the Babylonians divided the sky for astrological
purpose into signs of the zodiac. 'Those who
make known each new moon' (or the 'monthly
prognosticators') would be persons, like the
Assyrian and Babylonian astrologers, who noted
lucky and unluclcy days, preparing monthly
1 See the conjecture made above on p. 82», note i.

almanacs or calendars based on astrological
calculations (see Cheyne, ' Isaiah,' PB, 1898). In
Dn 5", according to AV, Daniel became chief of
the 'astrologers' (psif'x) in Babylon; but the
correct translation of the word is ' conjurers ' or
'enchanters.'

LiTBaATURB.— M. A. Stern, 'Die SternbUder in Hiob 88,
V. 31 und 32 ' in Geiger's Jud. Zeitsehr. f. Wissenseh. u. Leben,
iiL 1864-1865, pp. 258-276 ; Eb. Schrader, 'Sterne 'in Schenkel's
Bibellexikon, 1875; G. Hoffmann, * Versuche zu Amos' in
ZATW m., 1883, pp. 107-110, 279; Ed. Riehm, 'Sterne' in
Riehm's HWB, 1894 ; T. G. Pinches, ' Astronomy and Astro-
logy ' in Hastings' DB, vol. i. 1898 ; F. Hommel, Der Geslim-
dienst der alien Araber und die altisraelitische (leberlieferung,
1901 ; ' Astrology ' and ' Astronomy ' in JE, vol. ii. 1902 ;
C. F. Burney, ' Stars ' in EBi, vol. iv. 1903 ; G. Schiaparelli,
Astronomy in t?ie Old Testament (Eng. tr.), Oxford, 1905;
A. Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients^,
1906; W. Lotz, 'Sterne' in PRE», 1907; E. W. Maunder,
The Astronomy of the Bible^, London, 1908.

Maurice A. Canney.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Hindu). — i.
The sun. — Solar worship has been described as the
real religion of India. Nor is it difficult to under-
stand how in a land flooded with sunshine, where
every phase and function of life is dependent upon
the kindly warmth of the sun and his destructive
energy and power are felt in the uttermost extremes
of heat, it should have been man's primary business
to win his favour and placate his wrath. In the
ancient verse of the Gdyatrl every Hindu begins
his day with prayer and ascription of praise to the
sun, the giver of light, heat, and fertility. In his
mid-day devotion also he remembers and renders
homage to the same deity. It is apparently true
that at no period in India was the worship of the
sun to any great extent exclusive. There are no
distinct sects at the present time who reverence
the sun alone and bear his name. The essentials
of his worship, however, are present everywhere
and in all the sects, more or less avowedly, or in
disguise, and combined with other cults ; and his
practical and decisive influence on daily life is
universally recognized.

In the Bigveda Surya, or the sun, is Avorshipped
under many names and forms. The three chief
aspects under which he presents himself to his
worshipper are the rising, culminating, and setting
sun. These are not separated or distinguished as
three deities, but are varying forms of one and the
same god, in each of which he displays himself
with ditterent attributes and as exercising diflerent
powers. Especially is he reverenced as Savitr, the
giver and sustainer of life, who each morning
wakes the universe and men from sleep. One of
his most ancient cults, perhaps the most ancient of
all, is under the name Mitra, the Persian Mithras ;
whence some have conjectured that India derived
her solar religion from the West. If borrowing
took place on either side, it is probable that in
those early days the indebtedness was Persian.
As Mitra, the sun was associated as a member
with an early triad, symbolized by the sacred
syllable Om, Agni or fire, Vayu the wind, and
Mitra. This triune aspect also was manifested in
the sun as the heavenly fire, and he bore corre-
sponding epithets or titles, &stripdd, 'three-footed,'
trivikrama, ' three-stepping,' and others. The last
name was appropriated more particularly to Visnu,
the sun as the all-pervader, who in three strides
traverses the tliree worlds, earth, heaven, and hell.
He is invoked also as Pusan, the guardian and
preserver of the cattle, the companion of travellers,
and guide of the soul on its perilous way to the
lower world.

In the mythology Surya is the son of Dyaus, the wide-spread-
ing sky, and is described as 'all-creatinj,' ' and 'all-seemg^ In
this aspect his most ancient and significant name is Praj.ipati,
the 'lord of creation.' He traverses tlie heavens m his golden
car drawn by seven steeds, of which Usas, or the Dawn, is the
charioteer ; and the Mvina, twin gods of the morning, are his
I children. Bv his power he drives away the demons of sickness.

84

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Hindu)

and expels diseases and all the subtle and dreaded influences of
darkness. The beneficent offices of phj'sician and healer of
bodily ills, which later are ascribed to the ASvins, are in the
first instance those of Siirya himself.

There seems no reason to reject or doubt the
statement of Sankara in the 10th cent, that in his
time there existed distinct sects of sun-worshippers,
Sauryas, of one at least of which the members
were accustomed to carry branded on their fore-
head and breast the symbol of their deity. They
have, however, all died out and been forgotten.^

Not many temples dedicated to the worship of
the sun have survived, nor is it probable that at
any period in Indian history they existed in any
considerable number. That at Konarak in Orissa
is the best known, and architecturally of the most
interest. It is, however, neglected and ruinous,
and attracts no Avorshippers. There is another at
Gaya, and a small but much-frequented shrine at
Benares, where the fire-sacrifice is offered in honour
of the sun.

Among the non-Aryan peoples of India and the
sub- tribes, who may be described as on the borders
of Hinduism, sun-worship is much more open and
confessed. By the Dravidians and Kolarians the
sun is widely invoked as Paramesvar, the creator
and preserver, and is worshipped with prayer and
sacrifice. The most popular form of offering is a
white cock, whose head is struck off at the village
shrine. He is Suraj Narayan (Surya-Narayana),
and the traders in the bazaars draw images or
symbols of the sun at the entrance to their booths
for good luck.- Similar representations or figures
may be often seen on pillars. The nlm-tree is
especially sacred to the sun, and there exists a
popular legend or story which records its associa-
tion with his cult. By many the Holl festival in
the south of India is believed to have been in-
stituted originally in order to propitiate the sun-
god. He is invoked also to avert or to heal disease,
and on the occasion of an eclipse the tom-toms are
beaten and other ceremonies observed to rescue
the deity from the powers of evil. The same con-
ception, that worship and sacrifice are efficacious
to avert disaster from the object of worship, may
perhaps be recognized in the especial frequency of
sun-ritual and adoration in the winter season
among some northeam- tribes, at a time when the
divinity may be supposed to be weak. A sacred
meal is partaken of ip his honour, and this must
be eaten without salt A similar ritual is observed
when the sun enters a new sign of the zodiac.
There are races and peoples in India at the present
time who believe themselves to be descended from
the sun.

2. The moon. — From the earliest times in India
it would appear that the moon has been a popular
subject of traditional story and mythology, but,
so far as is known, there never existed any formal
moon-cult or sectarian worship. A late work of
the 17th cent, mentions 'moon-worshippers' and
'star-worshippers.' It is improbable, however,
that any special sect was in the writer's mind.
Worship of the moon in one or other of her aspects,
either alone or in conjunction with other rites, is
common in India at the present day, and such
worship has in all probability never been inter-
mitted. There are, however, no exclusive votaries
or sects who make the moon their chief deity. In
thLs respect, therefore, the popular worship of India
is in contrast with the established cults of ancient
Babylonia and other countries.

In the Rigveda and the early literature Soma (q.v.) is identi-
fied mth the moon, and in one passage at least the waning: of
the moon is caused by the gods drinking up the nectar (amrta).^
The great deities Indra and Agni are identified with its phases,

1 See art. Sackapatas, Sadkas, or Saurtas.

2 See art. Symbolism (Hindu).

3 Rigveda, x. Ixxxv. 5.

representing the new and full moon respectively ; so also
Varuna and Mitra are deities of the waxing and waning moon.i
As usual among primitive peoples, the moon is a male divinity.
A title of ^iva is chandra-^ekhara, ' he whose crest is the moon,'
i.e. the moon-bearer, and in this sense he is contrasted with
Visnu, who represents the sun. The ancient lunar dynasty of
India (chandravathia), whose capital was at Hastinapura, or
Delhi, about 50 miles north-east of the modern city, claimed
descent from the moon.

The moon also (Soma) was one of the treasures recovered at
the churning of the ocean, together with the amrta (nectar).
Elsewhere he is enumerated among the eight lokapalas, or
guardians of the universe. He is lord of the planets and of
plants, of offerings and of penances.2 More often he is regarded
as one of the nine planets and is associated with them in wor-
ship, but especially with the sun. The departed go to the
moon, and there is the abode of the pitrs, 'fathers,' whither
they are borne on the smoke of the funeral pyre. A more
popular title or a more popular ritual for him is as Osadhipati,
or Osadhi^a, ' lord of plants.' Agriculture in general is under
his protection and is subject to his influence.

The phases of the moon are often decisive for
the work of the fields ; and the economy of the
household, with its various anniversaries and im-
portant events, is similarly determined by the
moon's position and aspects. The title 'lord of
plants' is probably derived from the practice,
common also in other countries, of collecting
medicinal herbs, etc., by the light of the moon. In
this character he is a god of healing, and for
certain diseases— e.g^., leprosy— to gaze at the re-
flexion of the moon in ghl or oil is an important
and efficacious remedy. The periods of new and
full moon are especially dangerous owing to the
increased activity of the spirits at these times. _ In
some parts of the country the conch-shell is a
symbol of the deity of the moon. Among some of
the primitive Ko'larian tribes, instead of being
regarded as a male divinity, the moon is mytho-
logically the wife of the sun, and the stars are
their children.

3. The stars. — The principal stars and constella-
tions are known to the Hindus by name, and are
recognized as beneficent or the reverse, especially
in their relation to family and individual happiness
or misfortune.

Thus the Pole-star is dhruva, ' fixed ' or ' stationary, ' although
the same title is given to some of the nak^atras (see below).
The seven stars of the Great Bear are seven r^is, translated to
the heavens. Canopus also is a r?h Agastya, the sage and
reputed evangelist of S. India. The Pleiades are the six
krttikdis, ' nymphs,' the nurses of Skanda, the god of war, who
bore from them the title of Karttikeya. Orion represents the
head of Brahma in the form of an antelope's or stag's head
(mrga^ras), struck off by Siva, etc. Great regard is paid
especially to the planets and the constellations or groupings of
stars known as nak^atras ; and the star, planet, or constellation
under which a man is born gives infallible indication of his
future lot. In parts of N. India the stars generally are the
cattle that the moon tends in the character of shepherd.

The full number of the planets is nine, but some-
times only seven or five are enumerated. There is
a temple at Benares dedicated to the nine planets,
where flowers and other offerings are presented.
The complete number includes the sun and moon,
and the others in order are Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, with Rahu and Ketu. The two
last represent the ascending and descending nodes
of the moon's orbit.

Rahu is the cause of eclipses, when he swallows the sun or
moon, and this he is said to do in revenge for the loss of his
head, which was cut off by Visnu as a punishment for his having
stolen and drunk part of the nectar churned from the ocean.
By drinking the amrla he became immortal, and his wrath is
perpetually exhibited in the eclipses, when the village folk seek
to propitiate him with various rites. Rahu is therefore known
as the bodiless, and there exists at Benares a shrine dedicated
to him under this form. Ketu is the progenitor of the numerous
tribe of meteors and comets. In the Purd'cias they are all
described as deities, each with his own car, that of Mars being
golden with eight red horses. The days of the week also are
named from them.

Some of the planets are favourable and some malevolent ; but
all need to be propitiated and their favour if possible secured
before a marriage or other important event in the household.
The omission of the idnti or ianti-kannan, the ' propitiation '
ceremony, would most certainly result in harm and disaster.

1 Satapatha Brdhmana, 11. iv. 4. 17 f.

2 Vishvu Pur&va,, 1. 22.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Iranian)

85

Rahu and Ketu, with Saturn, are deities of ill
omen who presage sickness and all kinds of trouble,
and to be bom when one of these is in the ascendant
is a grave misfortune. The remaining planets are
propitious, especially Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter,
in whose hands are the gifts of wisdom and all
knowledge and skill.

In the Bigveda naksatra is the name for a con-
stellation in general. Universally, however, in
later times and technically the naksatras are the
lunar mansions, or stations, through which the
moon passes, as the sun through the twelve signs
of the zodiac. Originally these seem to have been
27 in number, but in the later literature and in
astrological calculations more usually 28. Mytho-
logically they are the wives of the moon and
daughters of Daksa, one of the Adityas. Like
the planets, the naksatras are important and in-
fluential deities, whose countenance is sought before
undertaking a journey or making arrangements
for marriage or other domestic rites. Every Hindu
boy's horoscope contains a reference to the naksatra
under which he is born, and he bears a secret name
other than that which is given him at the special
name -giving ceremony (ndmadheya), which is
written in the horoscope and is stated to contain
always one letter at least from the name of the
naksatra through which the moon was passing at
the hour of his birth.

Literature. — M. Monier - Williams, Brdhmanism and
Hinduism^, London, 1891, pp. 341-346; W. Crooke, The
Popular Religion a7id Folk- Lore of Northern India, 2 vols., do.
1896, passim ; A. S. Geden, Studies in the Religions of the
East, do. 1913, pp. 212 ff. , 221 ff. ; S. Reinach, Cults, Myths,
and Religions, tr. E. Frost, do. 1912; H. Whitehead, The
Village Gods of South India, Oxford, 1916 ; W. J. Wilkins,
Modem Hinduism, London, 1887, Hindu Mythology, Vedic and
Puranic, Calcutta, 1882. A. S. GEDEN.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Iranians-
Astronomy received much attention in ancient
Persia, as is obviously implied by the current
tradition that the Magi, the sacerdotal class of
the Medes and Persians, were highly skilled in
divination, an art which depended largely upon
a knowledge of the heavenly bodies, astrology
and astronomy being sister sciences in antiquity.
The part which the veneration of the sun, moon,
and stars played in the national religion of early
Iran is well known (see art. Zoroastrianism),
and some of the Greeks regarded Zoroaster as
much in the light of a professed astrologer and
star-worshipper as in that of a wise man and
prophet (cf. Diogenes Laertius, Prooem. i. 6,
dffTpodijTTjv ; Scholiast on the Platonic Alcibiades,
i. 122 ; Cflementine Homilies, ix. 3-6, Becogni-
tiones, iv. 27-29 ; Suidas, Lexicon, s.v. affTpovo/j-la,
Zwpodcrrpr/s — all collected in Jackson, Zoroaster,
the Prophet of Ancient Iran, New York, 1899,
pp. 226-273), The Avesta and the Pahlavi books,
especially the BundahiSn and Dlnd-i Malnog-i
Khrat, contain frequent allusions of an astro-
nomical nature ; and Persian literature, after the
Muhammadan conquest of Iran in the 7th cent.,
contains similar references. These three sets of
sources furnish our chief supply of information,
supplemented by comparisons drawn from Baby-
lonia and Assyria, as well as by other material,

I. Conception of the universe. — The ancient
Iranians naturally based their astronomical system
upon a geocentric conception of the universe. It is
probable that in the earliest times the shape of the
earth was regarded as round and flat, although it
is not altogether clear whether the Avestan word
skar9na, ' round ' (cognate with the Greek ff<t>aipa),
signified merely circular, or whether it actually
meant spherical {YaSt, v. 38, x. 95, xvii. 19). It is
almost certain, however, that in later times the
globular form of the earth was recognized by
the Persian astronomers, possibly influenced by

Ptolemy, who was a great authority among the
Arab-Persian scientists. The spherical shape may
be inferred from two Pahlavi passages which ap-
parently contain the idea of the cosmic egg — a
wide-spread notion in antiquity. The first of these
passages occurs in the Dind-i Malnog-i Khrat, xliv.
1-11 (tr. West in SBE xxiv. 85): 'The sky is
arranged above the earth, like an egg, by the
handiwork of the creator Auharmazd ; and the
semblance of the earth, in the midst of the sky, is
just like as it were the yolk amid the egg.' The
second Pahlavi passage is found in the Dlnkart, ii.
74. 2 (ed. Peshotan Sanjana, Bombay, 1876, ii. 72) :
'The world and the other creatures are placed
together in the midst of the sky, like the bird in
the midst of the egg ; the sky surrounds all, as the
egg does the bird' (tr. Casartelli, Mazdayasnian
Philosophy, Bombay, 1889, p. 107). In the arrange-
ment of the universe the earth was regarded as en-
compassed by the atmosphere ( Av. vayu. Phi. vdi ;
or Av, dwdsa. Phi. spihr), above which was the
sky or firmament (Av, O.P. asman. Phi. Asmdn,
lit. 'stone'), beyond which again rose the em-
pyrean realm (Av. anayra ratxcd, lit. ' endless
lights'), the abode of Ormazd and his angels.
Through a misapprehension of the true facts,
moreover, the sun and moon were located beyond
the sphere of the stars (cf. Phi. Artd-Vlrdf, vii.
1-x. 13 ; BundahiSn, iv. 4 ; Zdt-Sparam, vii. 6 ;
Sdyast Id-Sdyast, xii. 5 ; Gr. Iran. Bund,, tr.
Darmesteter, Le Zend-Avesta, ii. 310 ; Ddtistdn,
ii. 1, xxxiv. 2; Av. Vendiddd, vii. 52; and consult
Jackson, ' Die iranische Religion,' § 66, in Geiger
and Kuhn, Grundriss der iranischen Philologie,
ii. 671-672).

2. Sun and moon. — In the Zoroastrian ritual, as
preserved in the Avesta, both the sun (hvar) and
the moon (mdh) receive high veneration individu-
ally, and each has a special hymn of praise devoted
to its glorification ( YaSt, vi. and vii. ) ; besides,
minor litanies and prayers are consecrated to their
particular service (Slrozah, i. 11, ii. 11 ; YaSt, vi.
1-7, vii. 1-7 ; NydiS, i. 1-10, iii. 1-11). A similar
degree of reverence was accorded them during
Parthian and Sasanian times, as is shown by the
Pahlavi texts themselves and by allusions in the
Greek and Latin classics-(6.g'., Phi. Sdyast Id-Sdyast,
vii. 1-3 ; Dinkart, i. 51, 6, the former translated
by West in SBE v. 297-298, and the latter by
Peshotan Sanjana, Bombay, 1875, i, 47, and tr.
p. 48 : cf. also such classical writers as Strabo,
XV. 3. 13, p. 732 ; Ammianus Marcellinus, Hist.
xxiii. 6, xvii. 5; Dio Chrysostomus, Orat. Borys-
thenitica, xxxvi. ; and Nicolaus Damascenus, frag.
66, p. 401, ed. Miiller). The supremacy of the sun
among the heavenly bodies is naturally emphasized
in the Avesta (e.g., YaSt, vi.), and its various posi-
tions in the heavens are described in BundahiSn,
V. 1-7, and Sdyast Id-Sdyast, xxi. 1-7. In the
latter passage there are to be found special ob-
servations of the midday and afternoon shadows
with respect to the sun's altitude in the various
zodiacal constellations. Solar observations were
important in determining the various times of day
for performing the sacrifice.

The moon, like the sun, is invoked because of
its beneficent influence (YaSt, vii. 1-7), and there
are several specific allusions to its periodic phases
(e.g., Yasna, xliv. 3; YaSt, vii. 2-4; fragment,
viii. 1 ; Ddtistdn-i Dlnlk, Ixviii. 1-6, Ixxi. 2, tr.
West, SBE xviii. 210-211, 215). The connexion
between the moon and the tides was fully recog-
nized in Sasanian times, and a crude attempt was
made to explain it (see BundahiSn, xiii. 13-14;
Zdt-Sparam, vi. 14-17). Eclipses, both of the sun
and or the moon, were regularly taken into account
'in the calculations of the astronomers,' at least
under the Sasanians, as is shown by Ddtistdn-i

86

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Iranian)

Dlnlk, Ixix. 1-7, and the cause of these obscura-
tions was thought to be the intervention of two
bodies that revolve below the two greater lights
(Dat. Ixix. 1-7 ; Sikand Gumanig Vijar, iv. 46, tr.
West, SBE xviii. 212-213, xxiv. 132).

3. Stars. — There is an abundance of star-lore
throughout the entire literature, and particular
stars, or groups of stars, are alluded to as guarding
the quarters of the heavens into which the Zoro-
astrians divided the firmament. The chief star in
the Avesta, as elsewhere, is called Tishtrya (Av.
tiStrya, Phi. tiitr), and it is usually identified with
Sirius. Tishtrya is regent of the eastern division
of the sky, an opponent of the meteors, and the
bringer of rain by overcoming Apaosha, the demon
of drought (Yait, viii. Iff. ; Bundahiin, ii. 7, v. 1,
vii. 1, ix. 2). The fixed star Satavaesa (Av. sata-
vaesa, Phi. sat-ves, ' having a hundred servitors' ),
which is possibly to be identified with Fomalhaut,
is an ally of Tishti'ya, and lord of the southern
heavens (Yait^ viii. 9, 32, 43, 44 ; BundahiSn, ii. 7,
V. 1, xiii. 12; Sdyast Id-Sayast, xiv. 5, vi. 16). The
guardianship of the west is entrusted to Vanant
( Av. vanant, Fhl. vanand, ' victorious ' ; cf. YaSi,
xxi. 1, viii. 12, xii. 16 ; NydiS, i. 8 ; BundahiSn,
ii. 7, V. 1 ; jkalnog-i Khrat, xlix. 12 ; Sikand
Gumanig Vijar, iv. 28-38), while the keeping of
the north is consigned to the constellation of Ursa
Major, called Hapto-iringa (Av. hapto-iringa, Phi.
hapto-ii-ing , ' with seven signs ' ; cf . Ya^t, viii. 12,
xii. 28, xiii. 60 ; BundahiSn, ii. 7, v. 1, xiii. 12 ;
Malnog-i Khrat, xlix. 12 ; Sikand GUmdntg Vijar,
iv. 28-38). The Pleiades (Av. paoiryaeinl) are
mentioned in the Avesta {Yait, viii. 12), and there
are certain other allusions that may contain the
names of special stars, though their interpretation
is open to question (see Kuka, 'Stars mentioned
in the Avesta' in Zartoshti, IL 7-22, Bombay,
1904). In giving an account of creation, the
Pahlavi book BundahiSn (ii. 5) sets the number
of stars at 6480 (or 6,480,000, according to another
reading). This figure is not uninteresting when
taken in connexion with the fact that astronomers
generally allow that between 5000 and 8000 fixed
stars are visible to the naked eye. Regarding the
identification of certain of the major stars, though
some are positively sure, reference may be made
to a monograph by Muncherji P. Kharegert, ' Some
Heavenly Bodies mentioned in Old Iranian Writ-
ings,' in the Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Madressa
Jubilee Volume, Bombay, 1914, pp. 116-158 ; see
also Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, London,
1913, pp. 23-27, 210-213, 279-281.

4. Planets, meteors, and comets. — In contrast
to the fixed stars and regular constellations, the
planets, meteors, and comets were held by Zoro-
astrians to be disturbers of the established order of
the universe, and consequently to be of Ahrimanian
origin and evil nature — a point of view directly
opposed to that of Babylonia, where the planef>a
were looked upon as distinctly beneficent in
character (cf. Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and
Assyria, Boston, 1898, p. 373). To the planets
Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn (the
only five then known, but making seven with the
sun and the moon, by the side of which they were
usually mentioned) there were given, respectively,
in Pahlavi the euphemistic names Tir, Vahrdm,
Auharmazd, Andhid, and Kevdn, derived from
divine names, including the name of the god
Ahura Mazda himself, because these beneficent
powers curb and restrain the maleficent influence
exercised by the planets (BundahiSn, v. 1-2 ;
Sikand Gumdnig Vijdr, iv. 1-5 ; Zdt-Sparam, ii.
10, iv. 7-10, vi. 1-2 ; and consult the list in al-
Birunl, Chronology, tr. Sachau, London, 1879,
p. 172). The Persian treatise Ulamd-i Islam
(tr. VuUers, Fragmente iiber die Religion des

Zoroaster, Bonn, 1831, p. 52) states that they
originally bore the names of demons, but were
afterwards given designations of good omen. At
the same time it is not impossible that Ave have in
their nomenclature a translation of the Babylonian
names of the planets, Nabu, Nergal, Marduk,
IStar, Ninib, as may be surmised from the equa-
tions, Marduk (lord of the gods) = Auharmazd =
Jupiter; Nergal (god of war) =Vahram = Mars;
and Istar = Anahid = Venus ; on the confusion
between Tishtrya ('Sirius') and Tir ('Mercury')
compare the note by Gray, ERE i. 798"; and,
for the Babylonian names of the planets, consult
Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, Strassburg,
1890, pp. 134-139 ; Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia
and Assyria, pp. 370, 454-466. This parallel, in
any case, is of interest because the Sanskrit names
given by the Hindus to the planets show no like-
ness to the Babylonian (cf. Weber, Vorlesungen
iiber indische Literaturgeschichte^, Berlin, 1876,
p. 267 f.). Shooting stars are alluded to in the
Avesta (YaU, viii. 8) under the name of kdrdmd
stdro, a designation meaning, perhaps, ' worm
stars' ; and there are several passages, in both
Avesta and Pahlavi literature, which allude pre-
sirmably to comets ( Yasna, xvi. 8 ; BundahiSn, v.
2, xxviii. 44, xxx. 17 ; Ddtistdn-i Dlnlk, xxxviL
55, Ixix. 2).i

5. Signs of the zodiac. — The names of the
twelve signs of the zodiac, at least in Sasanian
times, correspond in concept with those familiar
to us through the Greek and Latin designations,
and are parallel likewise with the Babylonian,
from which, like the Indo-Germanic zodiac in
general, they ai'e believed to be derived, and of
which their names are translations — a phenomenon
precisely paralleled in India and in other Asiatic
countries (see Ginzel, Handbuch der Chronologie, i. ,
Leipzig, 1906, pp. 78-88). Thus in Pahlavi we
find Varak (' Ram,' Aries), Tora ('Bull,' Taurus),
Do-patkar ('Two-figjires,' Gemini), Kalakang
('Crab,' Cancer), Ser ('Lion,' Leo), KhuSak
('Maiden,' Virgo), Tardzuk ('Balance,' Libra),
Gazdum (' Scorpion,' Scorpio), Nemasp (' Half
horse,' Centaur or Sagittarius), Vahlk ('Goat,'
Capricorn), Dul ('Waterpot,' Aquarius), Mahik
('Fish,' Pisces). The names of the twenty-eight
lunar mansions, as recognized in ' the subdivisions
of the astronomers ' ( Phi. xurtak-i hdmdrikdn), are
given in the BundahiSn (ii. 3) ; but the reading of
the various designations is by no means sure, and
the individual identification of the names remains,
therefore, iincertain, even when compared with
those in the Soghdian and Khorasmian list, given
about A.D. 1000 by al-Biruni {Chronology, tr.
Sachau, p. 227 f.).^ Possibly some further light
may be gained from a study of the terminology
used for these asterisms by the Hindus, Chinese,
and Arabs, if not by the Babylonians (see Ginzel,
op. cit. pp. 70-76). Such an attempt has already
been made from the Sanskrit side, in comparison
with Avestan and Pahlavi, by a Parsi scholar
named Anklesaria, in an article entitled ' Asterisms
in Iranian Literature ' in Cama Memorial Volume,
Bombay, 1900, pp. 216-227.

6. Prediction of events. — Like the reference in
the preceding paragraph to the minute subdivisions
used by the astronomers (Bund. ii. 3), there are
kindred allusions in Sasanian literature to ' the
calculations of the astronomers ' or to ' the com-

i The Soghdian names of the planets given by Manicjisean
fragments discovered at Turfan, in Chinese Turkestan, corre-
spond in general to the forms given above (see F. W. K. Miiller,
'Die " persischen " Kalendarausdriioke in chinesischen Tripi-
faka,' SBAW, 1907, pp. 458^65).

* The zodiacal names given by the Turfan fragments (Miiller,
loc. eit.) are identical with those of Eastern Asia, as found in
China, Siam, and Cambodia, as well as in Tibet and in Old
Turkish inscriptions (Ginzel, pp. 85-87, 404, 411, 452, 501), thus
differing entirely from the Babylonian nomenclature.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Iranian)

87

putations made by astrologers' with regard to
observing favourable or unfavourable conjunctions
of the stars (e.g., Ddtistdn-i Dlnlk, Ixix. 3 ; Sikand
Gumdnlg Vijdr, iv. 28 ; Epistles of MdnuSclhar,
II. ii. 9-11 ; see West, SBEv. 11, xxiv. 130, xviii.212,
333-335, xxxvii. p. xlvii). Ardavan, the last of the
Parthians and predecessor of Ardashir Papakan,
who founded the Sasanian dynasty in the 3rd cent.
A.D., is represented as consulting on grave matters
with his ' wise men and constellation-knoAvers '
(ddnakdn va axtar-indrdn, in the Pahlavi text
Kdrndme-i Artakhshlr-i Pdpakdn, ii. 4-5, iii. 5-6,
ed. Darab Peshotan Sanjana, Bombay, 1896, pp.
10-11, 15-16), and their knowledge of the position
of the stars at the moment enabled them to predict
to him future events. In a Pahlavi work dated
A.D. 881 and entitled Epistles of MdnvMihar,
II. ii. 9-11 (re-translated by West, SBE xxxvii.,
Introd. p. xlvii), there is a specific allusion to a set
of astronomical 'tables' (Phi. zik, cf. Arab, zij, and
the Byzantine Gr. f^fi of Theodorus Meliteniotes,
ed. Usener, Ad historiam Astronomice Symbola,
Bonn, 1876, p. 14), which were constructed by 'the
great Shatro-ayar.' See, more fully, art. SUN,
Moon, and Stars (Muhammadan), p. 95'' below.
The passage cited mentions the tables alongside of
those of Ptolemy and of the Hindus.

7. Astronomical ■works. — Some of the works
from which citations have been drawn above, like
the one last quoted, actually belong to the early
Muhammadan period of Persia, even though written
in Pahlavi. Astronomy, influenced by Arab science,
continued to flourish in Iran under Muslim rule.
The notable scientific achievements of the great
savant and chronologist, al-Biruni of Khiva (973-
1048), are sufficient to prove that fact, and it is
certain that computations of the positions of the
heavenly bodies must have played an important
part in the reform of the calendar and establish-
ment of the new Jalalian era, in 1079, by the Seljuk
sultan, Jalal-al-din Malikshah, under the direction
of a commission of scholars headed by the well-
known astronomer poet, Omar Khayyam. Omar,
in fact, had been summoned to Merv by the sultan,
four years previously, to make observations in the
royal observatory, and there he constructed the
Zlj-i Malikidhi, ' Astronomical Tables of Malik-
shah,' which were employed in the calendar reform.
The names of two of his colleagues engaged upon
the reform were Abu'l Mu?affar al-Isfizari and
Maimun ibn Najib al-Wasiti (see Browne, Literary
History of Persia, London, 1906, ii. 181, n. 2). A
section of a large work composed in 1082-1083 by
Kai-Ka us and entitled QdbUs-Ndmah (ch. 34) was
devoted to ' astrology and mathematics ' (ed.
Teheran, 1285 A.H.; tr. A. Querry, Paris, 1887;
cf. Browne, Lit. Hist. Pers. ii. 277). The Persian
poet Anvari, of the 12th cent., was a great astrolo-
ger, and a conjunction of the planets in the sign of
Libra, calculated to take place on September 16,
11S6 (or in October of the preceding year, accord-
ing to other accounts), led him to predict dire
calamities for that day ; but happily they did not
occur (see Browne, Lit. Hist. Pers. ii. 368 ; Horn
in GIrP ii. 262-263). In the 13th cent, the Mongol
ruler Hulagu Khan, grandson of Chingiz Khan,
established a celebrated observatory at Maraghah,
in Azarbaijan, Western Persia, the building of
which was begun in 1259, and traces of its ruins
are still to be seen (cf. Wilson, Persian Life and
Customs, New York, 1895, p. 77). Hulagu's
astronomer-roj-al was the learned Na§ir-al-Dln of
Tus (1201-1274), whose Zlj-i Ilkhdnl, or almanac
and astronomical tables, was a notable contribu-
tion to science (see Browne, Lit. Hist. Pers. ii.
484-486). The names of several other mediaeval
Persian astronomers, with a mention of their tables,
are found in the Bvzantine treatise of Theodorus

Meliteniotes, referred to above (ed. Usener, pp.
13-14). Best known among the astronomical
tables, however, are those of Ulugh Begh, grandson
of Timur and founder of the observatory at Samar-
kand, in which city he died in 1449. These tables,
written in Arabic, were translated into Persian
and were made accessible in Europe through
a Latin version by Greaves (Gravius, London,
1652), and again by Hyde in Persian and Latin
(Oxford, 1665), and more recently by Baily
(London, 1843) in Memoirs of the Boycd Astronomi-
cal Society, xiii. 79-125. With reference to the
present status of astronomical studies in Persia
itself, one of the largest meteorites in the world is
preserved as a curiosity in the Shah's palace at
Teheran to-day ; but there is no astronomer-royal
to know its true value, and Persia must still wait
a renaissance before independent work in studying
the heavens is done by those of native birth.

8. Influence of the heavenly bodies. — The astro-
logical aspects of Persia's early studies of star-lore
have already been indicated above. In fact, there
is little reason to doubt that 'judicial astrology,'
or the attempt to determine scientifically the
presumed influence of the heavenly bodies upon
the destiny of human events, was often regarded
more highly than natural astrology, or astronomy
in our sense, which confines its investigations to
determining the motions and positions of the stars,
sun, and moon, in order to gain more strictly
scientific results, as we regard them.

In some of the paragraphs given above there
have been allusions to the beneficent part played
by the sun and the moon in the clevelopment
of the world and in advancing the welfare of
mankind [e.g., YaSt, vi. 1-5, vi. 5; BundahiSn,
vii. 2-4, and elsewhere), while the stars also entered
into the sphere of human activity by exercising a
kindly sway over the earth. Thus the great rain
star Tishtrya, aided by Satavaesa in the Avesta
(Ya^t, viii. 1-62; Sirozah, i. 13, ii. 13), combats
the demon of drought, when invoked by men, and
confers blessings upon his faithful worshippers.
The victorious star Vanant {YaSt, xx. 1) repulses
the influence of evil ; and Hapto-iringa (Ursa
]Major) is effective even in tempering the torment
of tlie souls in hell, a region located in the North
[Mainog-i Khrat, xlix. 15-21 ; &ikand GUmdnig
Vijdr, iv. 31-33). The three fixed stars or con-
stellations just named are regarded in the Pahlavi
book iSdyast ld-&dyast (xiv. 5-6), which was written
about the 7th cent., but contains older material, as
exercising an influence upon the efficiency of the
sacrifice during the time of their ascendancy. In
another chapter of the same work (Sdyast Id-
^dyast, xxi. 1-7) a specifically fortunate character
is ascribed to the shadow of the noonday and
afternoon sun when occupying certain positions in
the zodiacal signs ; and in Ddtistdn-i Dinik, vi. 9,
the stars are synonymous with destiny. The
malign influence ascribed to the planets has been
sufficiently indicated above, and need not be re-
ferred to again in this section.

Suflicient reference has likewise been made to
the part played by astrology, astrologers, and
horoscopes both in Sasanian and in Mulianiinadan-
Peisian times. We need only recall the allusion
to the last of the Parthian kings, Ardavan, and
his astrologers (Kdmdme, ii. 4-5, iii. 5-6), and
we have the authority of the great Khorasmian
scientist al-Biruni for the fact that the Persian
astrologers, like others, held that the zodiacal
sign of Cancer was ' the horoscope of the world '
(al-Biruni, Chronology, tr. Sachau, p. 55). A good
illustration, in the 17th cent., of ephemerid tables
that were used also for horoscopic purposes may
be found in a work translated from the Arabic,
Persian, and Turkish, with a Latin commentary.

88

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Japanese)

by Beck, in his Ephemerides Persarum per totum
annum, Augsburg, 1696 (especially chs. iii.-iv., vi.)-
Even to-day the astrologer's art in casting a horo-
scope holds an important place in the life of the
ignorant and superstitious folk of Persia, and it
still survives, though it is gradually disappearing,
among the Zoroastrian Parsis of India (cf . Karaka,
History of the Parsis, London, 1884, i. 160-162).

Literature. — For a translation of the Avesta and the Pahlavi
books consult the versions by Darmesteter and West in SBE,
vols. iv. , xxiii. ; and v., xviii., xxiv., xxxvii., and by Mills, ib.
xxxi. ; likewise the French translation by Darmesteter, Le Zend-
Avesta, 3 vols., Paris, 1892-1893. The more important single
works on the subject have been given in the course of the
article. A, V. WILLIAMS JACKSON.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Japanese).— In
the ancient mythology of Japan the sun-goddess
plays the most important r61e, while the moon-
god, her brother, occupies an insignificant place,
and almost nothing is told about stars. The
commonly accejited story is that the sun-goddess
(Amaterasu, ' the heaven-shining deity ') and the
moon -god (Tsuki-yomi, ' the ruler of the moonlight
niglit') were born, together with the storm-god
(Susa-no-wo, ' the swift- impetuous '), of the couple
who were the progenitors of the Japanese archi-
pelago.^ In this story the creation of these deities
is conceived evidently as a generative act, whereas
another version makes the emergence of the two
deities from the ' white copper ' mirrors the work
of the male progenitor alone. Perhaps a more
interesting version of the story is that the sun and
the moon were produced out of the eyes of the
progenitor, when he was washing in order to purify
himself from the stains with which he had been
contaminated on his visit to the infernal world
after the death of his consort.^ Though there are
these different versions, the common trait and pre-
dominant factor in the story is that the sun-
goddess is considered to be the supreme ruler of
heaven and earth, and also the progenitrix of the
ruling family, Avho claim to have handed down
from the goddess herself the three insignia of the
throne (see below). Now the relation between
the sun-goddess and the moon-god is based on the
natural phenomenon that the two are visible
alternately by day and by night. The story is as
follows :

Tlie sun-goddess once commissioned her brother, the moon,
to go down from their heavenl3' abode to earth to see Ukemochi,
the female genius of food. When the latter entertained the
moon with the food-stuffs taken out of her body, the moon
became flushed with anger and slew the goddess of food. The
Bun-goddess was so displeased with her brother's wantonness
that she said to him : ' Thou art a wicked deity. I must not
see thee face to face.' Hence the sister and brother appear
alternately in heaven.3

The intention of the story is evident, but at the
same time it shows a characteristic of the sun-
goddess as the matron of agriculture, which plaj^ed
a great part in the myths and worship of the
goddess.* Thus, in contrast to the prominent role
played by the sun-goddess, the moon plays a very
inferior part, and a much smaller part is played by
the stars. A star-god is mentioned in the ancient
myth, but his r61e is quite ambiguous, while a
festival in honour of certain stars (the stellar
constellations called the Herdsman and the Weave-
maid) was derived from China. All other stories
and worship of stars are much later and were
introduced chiefly through Buddhist agency,

1 See Nihongi : Chronicles of Japan, tr. W. G. Aston (Proc.
Japan Sac. of London, Suppl. to vol. i. [1896]), p. 18 f. ; and, for
the following- stories, pp. 20, 32, etc.

2 See Ko}i-ki, or Records of Ancient Japan, tr. B. H.
Chamberlain (TASJ, Suppl. to voL x. [18S3]), pp. 42-44. This
version is preserved also in Nihongi, p. 32, and, for its connexion
with the conception of life and death, see art. Life amd Death
(Japanese).

8 Nihongi, p. 32.

* Aston, Shinto, London, 1905, p. 282 f., where the ritual to
the goddess for harvest is cited.

though some of them may have been derived from
other sources — Hindu, Persian, or Chinese. The
most prominent star-worship is that of the Pole
star, together with Ursus Major. These stars,
conceived as one deity, are worshipped by the
Buddhists as the protector of the country a.s well
as of individual fortune, while the Shintoists
identify them with the Taoist ' palace of iridescent
subtlety ' (Shi-bi-kyu in Sino-Japanese), where the
highest deity of Shinto, the ' eternal -ruling'
(Minaka-nushi), is believed to reside. But this
Shinto worship is of late origin ; it was specially
emphasized by a Shinto theorizer in the early part
of the 19th century.

When Buddhism was introduced into Japan
(6th cent.) and questions came up as to the
relationship between the indigenous deities and
the Buddhist pantheon, the Buddhist teachers
tried to discover analogies between them and to
explain that the Buddhist deities were the original
noumena and the native ones their lateral mani-
festations. The most striking analogy was found
between the sun-goddess and the aspect of Buddha's
personality conceived in the sun-myth. The
difference in gender concerned the syncretist but
little, partly because the Japanese language had
no genders and partly because the nounienon and
the manifestation may take any sex. The result
was an identification of the Japanese sun-goddess
with Buddha Vairochana ('the illuminator'), and
this conception exercised a wide influence on
doctrine and worship during the sway of the
syncretic Shinto from the 8th cent, down to the
middle of the 19th, when the combination was
dissolved by force. Among the theorizers of the
syncretism we may cite one, Kanera (1402-81),
who explained sun, moon, and stars as correspond-
ing to the three insignia of the throne, i.e. the sun
to the mirror, the moon to the jewel, and the stars
to the sword. 1 This eclectic theory was backed by
the popular conception of the ' three illuminating
bodies' (San-ko) and their worship. People even
nowadays regard a simultaneous appearance of tlie
three as an auspicious occasion for worship and as
a sign of special blessing to the country — e.g.,
when on an autumn day the clear sky and the
comparatively weak light of the sun cause the new
moon and a certain star (Venus) to be visible to
the eyes. Naturally, various configurations of the
celestial bodies were used for methods of divination
and predictions. In these methods Hindu, Persian,
and Chinese elements may be detected, and their
influence is still a living force among the mass of the
people.

Literature. — Besides the works cited in the footnotes, see
M. Anesaki, Japanese Mythology (=vol. viii. of The Mythology
of All Races), Boaton, 1^20. M. ANESAKI.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Muhammadan).
— I. Astrology. — i. Name.— Among the Mus-
lims the technical name of astrology is 'ilm
(or sind'at) ahkdm an-nujum,^ 'science (or art)
of the decrees of the stars,' 'ilm al-ahkdm,
'science of the decrees.' Sometimes, though
rarely, in place of ahlcdm its synonym qadayd is
found. Another name is an-najdmah (nijdmah) or
'ibn an-najdmah. On the other hand, the names
'ilm [sind'at) an-nujum, 'science (or art) of the
stars,' 'ilm at-tanjlm, mean astronomy as well as
astrology, and they also mean both of these sciences
taken together. The word ahkdm, also signifies
' judgments,' 'judicial decisions ' ; accordingly the
first of the denominations given above was in
the Middle Ages translated in the Latin versions
of Arabic works by scientia judiciorum stell-

1 See art. Philosopht (Japanese), vol. ix. p. 870.

3 As in the case of the other branches of scientific literature,
so for astrology the Musalman peoples made use of the Arabic
language.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Muhammadan)

by

arum, and thence came the name of astrologia
judiciaria or astronomia judiciorum, astrology,
as opposed to astrologia (astronomia) quad-
rivialis (or doctrinalis), which is astronomy.
Thus in the denomination of astrology among the
Musalmans there is a concept somewhat difierent
from that contained in the Greek term [jixvri]
diroreXefffiariKT^, ' science of the fulfilment [of as-
trological prognostications].' The astrologer is
usually called by the same name as the astronomer,
viz. munajjim (much more rarely najjdm) ; some-
times, however, he is called by the special word
ahkdm,i (plur. ahkdmiyyun, ashdb sind'at al-
ahkdm). It was only in the 19th cent, that the
distinction between munajjim,, ' astrologer,' and
falaki, 'astronomer,' was introduced into Arabic
(at least in Egypt and in Syria).

2. Divisions. — The Muhammadans usually ar-
range the science of astrology under five principal
heads :

(a) The fundamental principles of astrology, viz.
the different divisions of the ecliptic, the properties
of the various celestial places and of individual
planets, the methods of determining the ascendant
and the 12 celestial houses (buyut, 'domus'), the
planetary conjunctions, etc.

(6) Prognostics of a universal character (al-ahkdm
'aid umilr al-dlam), viz, those which refer to the
vicissitudes of kingdoms, dynasties, religions, and
cities, to wars, epidemics, famines, winds, rains,
the prices of goods, etc. This part of astrology,
which Ptolemy calls diroreXea-fiaTLKri KadokiKrj, ' uni-
versal apotelesmatics,' is usually called by the
Arabs tahdioil sinl al-dlam, 'revolutiones annorum
mundi,' since a great part of these prognostics is
deduced from the planet which has the dignity of
' significator ' (d(p^T7]s, dalil, hayldj) at the moment
when the sun enters Aries, i.e. at the beginning of
each tropic year. This universal part of astrology
is subdivided into three sections: (i.) predictions
drawn from the various kinds of planetary con-
junctions (qirdnat, iqtirdndt), (ii.) predictions
based on the 'revolutiones annorum mundi,' (iii.)
predictions relating to the ' mutationes aeris '
(taghayyur al-hawd'), i.e. to meteorological phen-
omena, and which are deduced from the lunar
stations, or from the heliacal rising of Sirius, etc.

(c) Individual prognostications relating to the
vicissitudes of individuals, derived from the planet
or other celestial place which may happen to be
the ' significator ' at the moment of birth, and
then from the 'significator' at each revolution of
successive tropic years. This part of astrology
Ptolemy calls yevedXiaXoyiKij, and the Arabs al-
matvdlld, 'nativitates.'

(d) Masd'il, ' interrogationes ' {ipuyrrja-eis), or that
part of astrology which is concerned with replies
to questions, e.g., the circumstances of a distant
relative, the author of a theft, the hiding-place
of a runaway slave, etc. The 'interrogationes'
are always connected by the Muhammadan as-
trologers with the division of the heavens into
12 'domus.' The astrologers who follow the pure
tradition of Ptolemy do not admit the 'interro-
gationes.'

(e) Ihtiydrdt, 'electiones,' i.e. the choice of the
propitious moment for doing any particular thing.
The most common method is that of determining
such a moment by seeking in which of the 12
celestial ' domus ' the moon is found at that par-
ticular moment. This was also very probably the
method employed by the Greeks ; but along with
this some Muhammadan astrologers use another
method, of Indian origin (but also attributed to
Dorotheus), which consists in deducing the fitting
moment for action from the place which the moon
then occupies in one of the 28 lunar stations or
mansions (mandzil). The ' electiones ' also are not

admitted by the astrologers who follow Ptolemy's
teaching.

3. Place amongf the sciences. — The science of
the stars, says Ptolemj at the beginning of his
Tetrabiblos, or Quadripartitum, consists of two
parts : the first studies the appearances of the
motions of the heavenly bodies either with respect
to each other or with respect to the earth ; the
second seeks to deduce, from the physical qualities
of those appearances, the changes which take place
in the sublunar world. The first part is a science
which stands by itself, and can be studied inde-
pendently of the second ; this, on the contrary,
cannot do without the first. This conception that
astrology is but the sister of astronomy, a branch,
that is to say, of the ' science of the stars,' which
in its turn is a part of 'mathematics' ('ulum
riyddiyyah, ' ulum,td llTniyyah, ta'dlwi), is common
to all the Musalman astrologers and astronomers,
and is accepted also by some philosophers (al-
Farabi in his de Scientiis, and the Ihwan as-safa',
or ' sincere companions ' of the 10th cent, in their
Epistles), by the author of the Mafdt'ih al-'ulum,
or ' Encyclojjsedia of the Sciences' (10th cent.),
and by the great historian philosopher Ibn Haldun
(Proleg. lib. vi. cap. 13; M. G. de Slane's Fr. tr.,
Paris, 1862-68, iii. 122 f.).

Astrology, however, is classified in a different
way by the majority of the philosophers. Musal-
man writers commonly divide aU science into two
great categories : (a) sciences which relate to re-
ligious law ('ulum, shar'iyyah), that is to say, in
addition to theology and canon law, the learning
which serves as an introduction to them, namely,
grammar, lexicography, rhetoric, poetry, history,
etc. ; (b) intellectual or philosophic sciences ('ulum
'aqliyyah or Jyikmiyyah), which the author of
the Mafdtih al-'ulum,, thinking of their origin,
calls 'ulum al-'ajam, ' foreign sciences.' ^ The in-
tellectual or philosophical sciences in their turn
are for the most part divided into the three sec-
tions - already fixed by the later Greek peripa-
tetics and by the Neo - Platonic expounders of
Aristotle (e.g., Ammonius, Simplicius, and Johan-
nes Philoponus), namely : (a) metaphysic (al-
hikmah al-ildhiyyah, deoXoyia, to, fierd to. ^vcriKa) ;
(b) natural sciences (al-hikmah at -tabl'iyyah,
' natural philosophy,' <pvaiK7j) ; (c) mathematical
sciences (al - hikmah ar-riyddiyyah, fiadij/iariK-^).
These last correspond to the Quadrivium of
Boethius, namely, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy,
and music ; on the other hand, the natural sciences
are subdivided into eight fundamental parts, named
for the most part after the titles of the corre-
sponding Aristotelian works, namely : A uscultatio
physica, Generatio et corruptio, Ccelum et mun-
dum,, Mcteorce, Mineralia, Vegetalia, Animalia,
de AniTna. Avicenna (Fl aqsdm al-'ulum al-
'aqliyyah, in Tis'rasd'il, Constantinople, 1298 A.H.
[ = A.D. 1881], p. 71 tf.), Muhammad al-AkfanI as-
Sahawi (Irshdd al-qdsid, ed. A. Sprenger, Calcutta,
1849; the author died in 749 A.H. [ = A.D. 1348]),
IJajji g^lifS'h (in the introduction to his Lexicon
bibliographicum et encyclopcedicum),^ and others
consider astrology as one of the 7 (or 9) furu',
' secondary branches ' of the natural sciences, plac-
ing it, that is to say, beside medicine, physiog-
nomy, interpretation of dreams, alchemy, the
science of talismans, etc. This same classification
of the natural sciences is found in al-Ghazali
(t 505 A.H. [ = A.D. 1111]), who, in his Tahdfut al-

1 E^ch of these two great categories afterwards gives place
to the distinction between theoretical (naiariyyak) and prac-
tical ( 'amalij/yah) science — a distinction which has its origin in
Aristotle (E. Zeller, IHe Philoaophie der GriechenS, Tubingen,
1875-Sl, II. ii. 177).

2 Other divisions, indicated in the writings of the I^wan a;-
fafa', in the Mafdtiji al-'tUicm, etc., are useless for our present
purpose.

3 Ed. G. Flugel, 8 vols., London, 1835-58.

90

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Miihaminadan)

faldsifah, Cairo, 1319 (1901), p. 63 f., refersto it as
common amongst the Musalman jieripatetics, and
approves of it.

Averroes, in the Tahdfut al-tahdfut, Cairo,
1319 (1901), p. 121, admits, as corresponding to
Aristotelian teaching, the eight fundamental parts
of the natural sciences ; but he denies that the
so-called derived branches are sciences. Medicine,
he says, is an art (sind'ah) and not a science ; it
has a practical and not a theoretical character ;
accordingly astrology is included in the same
category with divination from the flight of birds
and from the movement of quadrupeds (zajar),
with divination in the form of vaticinations (kahd-
nah), with physiognomy and wdth the interpreta-
tion of dreams, all being arts which have as their
aim the prediction of the future, but which ' are
not sciences either theoretically or practically,
liowever it may be supposed that one may some-
times derive some practical advantage from them.'
A curious classification is found at the begin-
ning of the unedited book de Interrogationibiis
{Fll-masd'il) of the astrologer Ya'qub al-QasranI,
who lived in the 3rd cent. A.H. (9th A.D.). Ac-
cording to the catalogue of the Arabic MSS of
Berlin (W. Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss der arab. Hand-
schriften, Berlin, 1887-99, v. 275, no. 5877), he main-
tains three degrees (mardtib) of science : theology,
medicine, science of the stars ; the last, being based
not on observation, but on deduction from analogy,
occupies a place between the other two.

4. Sources.^ — (a) Greek. — These are represented
by the classic (if we may call it so) astrology of
the Tetrabihlos or Quadripartitum of Ptolemy ;
by the writings of Dorotheus Sidonius (1st cent.
A.D.), which go back to the Graeco-Egyptian
tradition ; by the great eclectic compilation of
Vettius Valens (2nd cent. A.D.);^ by the book
on the 'decani,' the 'interrogationes,' and the
nativities of Antiochus of Athens (2nd or 3rd
cent. A.D.), which appears especially to follow
the Babylonian tradition ; by the Kap7r6y, or Centi-
loquium,^ falsely attributed to Ptolemy ; by some
works ascribed to the mythical Hermes ; * and by
an author whose name (Rimos ?, Zimos ?) is cited
by Arabic writers in a form so corrupt as to be un-
recognizable. Of another Greek writer, Teucer
or Teucrus of Babylon, the Arabs had knowledge
through Iranian sources.

{b) Indian. — The Musalman writers mention
seven or eight Indian astrologers, whose names,
however, it lias not as yet been possible to identify
with the corresponding Sanskrit. Tlie most im-
portant is K.n.k.h or K.t.k.h, who, according to
some Arabic Avriters, appears to have come to
Baghdad to the court of the khalif al-Mansur,
bringing thither astronomical books of India, and,
according to others, making known Indian arith-
metic. The Arabs attribute to him writings on
the numuddr (that is, on the method of ascertain-
ing a factitious ascendant of the nativity), on the
nativities, and on the conjunctions of the planets ;
it is therefore plain that he had also treated of
the part of Indian astrology called in Sanskrit hard
or ^jdtaka, which arose through Greek influence.
This confirms a conjecture of F. Boll [Sphaera,
Leipzig, 1903, p. 414 f.), who, from the citations
contained in the Introductorium of Abu Ma'shar

1 For details see the present writer's Arabic lessons on the
oripina of astronomy among the Arabs ( '/Zjn al-falak, ta'rilyiihu
fi l-gurun al-umstd, Rome, 1911-12), pp. 189-215 (Iranian
sources), 216-220 (Greek sources), etc.

a Muhammadan astrologers were also acquainted with the
Anthologice of Vettius Valens throui,'h an Arabic translation of
a Pahlavi version ; cf. below, under (c).

3 The Arabic tr. is rather a paraphrase, which attempts to
interpret the theories obscurely indicated in the Greek text.

* Some of the works attributed to Hermes seem to be Musal-
man falsifications— «. jr., the book de Revolutionibus nativitatttm,
which has reached us in a Latin translation.

(or Albumasar), infers that K.n.k.h had before
him materials of distant Greek origin for his re-
presentation of the figures arising in the heavens
together with the ' decani.' But in general,
Musulman astrologers cite simply ' the Indians '
[al-Hind), without particular names of authors.
We must further add that the influence of Indian
astrology made itself felt sometimes through
Iranian writings and oral teaching, as is apparent
from some Indian words which have passed into
Arabic termintJogy in an Iranian form — e.g., darl-
jdn (Ind. drekkdna).

(c) Iranian. — These are in the Pahlavi language
or Middle Age Persian. The writings of Teucrus
of Babylon (second half of the 1st cent. A.D.)
on the figures arising in the heavens together
with the ' decani ' reached the Arabs through a
Persian version, where the name of the author, on
account of the ambiguity of the Pahlavi writing,
was afterwards spelt by the Persians and Arabs
Tinkalus (also Tankalush or Tankalusha) ; so that
in the Introductorium of Abu Ma'shar his teach-
ings were given as ' teachings of the Persians '
(madhhab al-Furs) and contain also some Persian
names of constellations (cf. Boll, p. 415 f.). An-
other source was Buzurjmihr's commentary on the
astrological 'AvdoXojiai of Vettius Valens ; the
Pahlavi translation of the Greek title was viildhak,
'selected,' which became in Arabic al-bizidhaj and
was afterwards variously and strangely corrupted
by Arabic writers.^ The Musalmans also cited as
a source of astrological teachings the mythical
Zoroaster (Zaradusht in Arabic ^vritings, Zardusht
in modern Persian wi'itings), whose name indeed
was already frequently found in Greek astrology
of the 4th and following centuries. A fourtn
source is the book on ' nativities ' of [al-]Andar-
zghar, son of Zadanfarruh ; but we lack informa-
tion about this personage, whose name is corrupted
into Alendezgod in the Latin version of Alcabitius
(al-Qabisi), and into Andru9agar in the Latin
version of the book of the Jew Ibn 'Ezra on
nativities (which always draws on Arabic sources).
Those astrological writings which are ascribed by
the Arabs to Jamasp the Wise (the trusted coun-
sellor of the mythic king Gushtasp) seem to be
late Muhammadan falsifications.

We do not know exactly when all these works
hitherto mentioned were first translated into
Arabic, but it is certain that the great majority
of them were known in the second half of the 8tn
cent. A.D., that is, when Musalman culture began.
If the indication placed at the end of the unedited
' Ard miftdh an-nufum of Hermes (MS in Biblioteca
Ambrosiana in Milan) is true, this book would seem
to have been translated in the month Dhu 'l-qa"dah,
125 A.H., namely, in September 743 A.D., while
the Umayyad khalifs were still reigning. The
first version of the Tetrabiblos is due to Abii
Yahya al-Batriq, a translator of the time of al-
Mansur, the second 'Abbasid khalif (136-158 A.H.
[A.D. 754-775]) ; Dorotheus and Antiochus are
already mentioned in the writings of Ma sha'
Allah (Messahala) in the second half of the 8th
cent. ; all the other Greek authors mentioned
above are amply cited by the astrologers of the 9tli
century. As has already been said, the writings
of the Indian K.n.k.h seem to have been known
at Baghdad in the time of the khalif al-]SIansur ;
and sibout the middle of the 9th cent, we have
already several small astrological works of al-
Kindi (Alchindus) formed expressly on Indian
models. It is almost certain that the Persian
books were translated by members of the family

1 In the Latin version of Albohazen Haly filii Abenragel, De
iudiciis astrorum, Basel, 1571, the name of the book is Yndidech
(p. 149, col. b), Enzirech (p. 176, col. a), Endenadeyg Persarum
(p. 347b), Endeynaylejjft P^r.''artim(MSh), AndUarekprosu(iOih).

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Muhammadan)

91

Nawbaht, known by their translations from
Pahlavi into Arabic (cf. Kitab al-Fihrist, pp. 244,
274), whose head was astrologer at the court
of al-Mansur ; and in any case the antiquity of
Iranian influence in astrolo^ is attested by the
fact that in the works of Ma sha' Allah, accord-
ing to the Latin translation of John of Seville,
technical terms of Iranian origin are freely used :
e.g., alhyleg [alhayldj), alcochoden {al-kadhuddh),
alinvbutar (al-jdnbahtdn).

Side by side with the written sources there was,
without doubt, the oral tradition of the peoples
converted to Islam. ^ Among the Syrians Chris-
tianity had almost suflbcated astrology, although
Bardesanes (154-222) had reconciled Christian
dogma with an attenuated form of predestination
by means of the stars ; all the same we know that at
^arran, the ancient Carrhse, special astrological tra-
ditions flourished along with other pagan sciences.
It is further probable that Theophilus, son of
Thomas, a Christian of Edessa who was astrologer
of the khaM al-Mahdl (A.D. 775-785), and who has
been cited by several Musalman astrologers as
an authority on the subject of ' electiones,' again
took up with Syrian oral tradition. In the same
manner it is natural that there were absorbed into
Musalman culture the astrological beliefs and prac-
tices of the Aramaic centres (tending to paganism)
of Mesopotamia and Babylonia, of the Egyptians,
etc. Finally, we must not forget the Judaic ele-
ment which had a notable part in the first ages of
Musalman astrology ; in fact, among the principal
writers on astrological matters in Arabic in the
2nd and 3rd centuries of the Hijra are the Jews
Ma sha' Allah, Sahl ibn Bishr, Rabban at-Tabari,
and Sanad ibn ' All.

5. Special character. — The civilized peoples
over whom the Arabic domination of the 7th, 8th,
and &th centui'ies extended, viz. Greeks, Copts,
Syrians, Persians, and Indians, had already
imagined all the possible fundamental combina-
tions concerning the influence of the stars over
mundane events ; consequently it was impossible
for the Musalman astrologer to find out anything
substantially new. On the other hand, the
principal justification of astrology consisted pre-
cisely in presenting itself £is the jealous preserver
of that which an age-long experience had taught
the wise of preceding generations. The office of the
Musalman astrologers consequently was reduced
to a choosing of what seemed suitable among the
many principles and methods of their predecessors,
and at times to a harmonizing of elements of
very diverse origin, amplifying and completing
particular points on which it was easy to give free
rein to fancy. All this, as we have said, was done
with the widest eclecticism. But, though nothing
really original is met with in the field of apoteles-
matics properly so called, there is, all the same, a
point on which Arabo-Musalman astrology is far
superior to other astrologies, including the Greek,
and represents a real progress. This consists of
a wide and continued application of spherical
astronomy and of exact mathematical processes
to the methods of astrological research. Among
the Greek astrologers the calculations are very
rough ; arcs of the ecliptic are substituted for
arcs of the equator, right ascensions for oblique
ascensions ; rough tables, useful for a determined
terrestrial latitude, are also employed for diiierent
latitudes ; the latitudes of the planets are neglected
in the calculation of the radiations ('projectiones
radiorum,' matdrih ash - shu'd'). Among the
Greeks we seek in vain for a clear exposition of
the method of determining mathematically the 12
heavenly 'domus,' which, however, form one of
the hinges of the astrological system. Ptolemy
1 Cf. Nallino, 'Ilm al-fcUak, pp. 326-332.

himself, teaching minutely in the Tetrabiblos how
the 'directio' (6.(j)e(n%) is calculated, completely
neglects the latitude of the planets. Characteristic
is the fact that Ptolemy, in the Almagest, occupies
himself \vith three problems useful only to astro-
logers (inclination of the shadow of the eclipses
with respect to the ecliptic and to the horizon,
position of the stars with respect to the sun
in consequence of the daily motion of the sphere,
appearances and occultations of the planets with
respect to the solar rays), and which even in
astrology aje of veiy small importance ; and, on
the other hand, he does not make the slightest
allusion to other problems of spherical astronomy
which would be of capital importance for apoteles-
matics. Musalman astronomers, on the contrary,
teach exact calculations, and often even prepare
tables for all the mathematical problems required
by astrology : determination of the 12 celestial
houses, 'directio,' ' revolutiones annorum,' 'pro-
fectio,' 'projectio radiorum.' Thus astrology,
among the Musalmans, becomes an art which
demands a solid scientific preparation, and which
tends to give an ever greater mathematical com-
plication and exactness to its methods of research
among celestial phenomena. E.g., the nuimarr
( ' passage [of one planet over another],' almanar, or
' supereminentia,' of our astrologers) corresponds
exactly from an apotelesmatic point of view to the
Kadvwepriprjais of the Greeks ; but whilst for the
Greeks this takes place when a planet is situated to
the west of another, viz. has a lesser longitude, for
the Arabs the mamarr takes place when a planet
in its own epicycle is distant from the apogee of
the epicycle less than another planet is distant from
the apogee of its own epicycle. Consequently, its
calculation in Musalman astrology is not a light
matter, and requires the employment of complete
planetary tables. M^e can understand, therefore,
why the theory of the mamarr of the planets is not
only expounded in several treatises of spherical
astronomy, but has also given rise to special
monographs. The importance of all this is plain :
in the Hellenistic world astrology flourishes while
astronomy decays ; in the Musalman world of the
Middle Ages astrology becomes a potent ally of
mathematical and observational astronomy.

6. Polemic concerning astrology. — From Islam
astrology at first had a much less unfavourable
reception than from Christianity. The latter had
to combat in the teachingg of astrology an entire
world of pagan ideas and cults ; it had to contend
against the concept of necessity, which excluded
Christian free will. In the 7th and 8th centuries
A.D., however, the pagan elements of astrology
were completely modified ; they were so entirely
hidden under a verbal formalism as to be no
longer recognizable ; and, on the other hand,
orthodox Islam, with its doctrine of predestination,
which excluded the freedom of human actions,
was, at bottom, not very far removed from the
elpLapfjL^vT) of the Stoics and of many astrologers
of antiquity. When we consider that the first
Musalman theologians took no heed whatever of
the sciences which did not appear to have any
relation to the religious content of Islam, we
easily understand how astrology had been able to
advance unimpeded through its first stages almost
up to the end of the 2nd cent, of the Hijra. It
is not, therefore, astonishing that AbCL Ma'shar,
writing his Introductorium in 848 A.D., among the
ten categories of persons hostile to astrological
teaching, makes no mention whatever of opponents
influenced by strictly religious reasons,^ and he
makes his defence of astrology to consist {Introd.
I. 5, fol. b 2 v.-b 3 V.) only in an amplification of
the arguments with which Ptolemy (Tetrab. i. 3)

1 Introductorium, l 4 (Augsburg, 14S9, fol. a 7 v.-b 2 v.) .

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Muhammadan)

had already maintained the material and moral
advantages of foreseeing the future, even if this
should appear to be adverse to us. The ' philo-
sopher of the Arabs,' al-Kindi, who died a little
after 870 A.D., regards astrology as an integral
part of philosophy (hikmah, falsafah) ; he seeks
its basis not only in the four mathematical, but
also in the physical and metaphysical doctrines ; ^
and he opposes it to many popular prejudices.
Al-Kindi was perhaps the only one who endeavoured
to reduce to a completely rational and systematic
form the principles and the methods of astrology.

But matters soon underwent a change. Towards
the end of the 2nd cent, of the Hijra the know-
ledge of Aristotle's teaching grew more definite and
profound, and in this there was no place for
astrology ; hence the philosophers commenced to
make war against it. On the other hand, the theo-
logians were not slow to see in the influence
attributed to the stars over human actions a
menace to the severely monotheistic conception of
Islam, more especially when later on there filtered
into Musalman theology an opposition to the idea
of necessary causality, and the atomistic doctrine
of continued creative acts became more prevalent.
Moreover, the daring predictions concerning the
duration of Islam ^ became an evident danger
to dogma. Thus the polemic against astrology
became very acute. ^

The most ancient confutation which we possess
is that of Abu '1-Qasim 'Isa ibn 'All,'' drawn up
in the first half of the 10th cent.," and preserved
in a work of the ^anbalite theologian, Ibn Qayyim
al-Jauziyyah, Miftdh dar as-sdddah.^

After an exordium in which he admits that the stars may
have some influence on such natural phenomena as climate and
temperament, but denounces the practice of foretelling the
future by their means, he divides his dissertation into three
distinct parts. The first has reference to the discordance among
astrologers as to their fundamental principles concerning the
nature of the influence of the stars, and an exposition follows of
several fundamental principles for astrological calculations on
which the various writers disagree — e.g., the method of deter-
mining the planetary ' termini,' the ' significator ' (dalil, arjiirq^),
the ' pars fortunae,' the male and female zodiacal signs. The
second part consists of the examination of many principles
which are afl5rmed by the astrologers, but which are repugnant
to good sense {rmistabsha'). In the third part 'Isa ibn 'Ali cites
some of the arguments adopted by the astrologers in favour of
their science, and refutes them.

Contemporary with 'Isa ibn "Ali is the famous
philosopher al-Farabi (q.v. ; t A.D. 950), who, as a
profound student of Aristotle, could not but be
opposed to astrology. We have a work of his
against astrology,'' which, however, is not so
vigorous a confutation as we should have ex-
pected from such a philosopher and contains some
chUdish reasonings. This is explained by the fact

1 Of. the quotations in M. Steinschneider, ZDMG xviii. [1864]
134 ; and chs. x. and xi. of the anonymous Latin pamphlet De
errorilms philosophorum (written in the second half of the 13th
cent.), ed. P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant^ Louvain, 1908-11,
pt li. pp. 18-21.

2 E.g., Theophilus, son of Thomas, the astrologer of the third
'Abbasid khalif (see above, § 4), maintained that the reign of
Islam would last only 960 years (Ibn Haldun, Proleg., lib. iii.
ch. liv., tr. de Slane, ii. 222 f.). The philosopher al-Kindi
calculated that the duration of the kingdom of the Arabs would
be 693 years (see O. Loth, 'Al-Kindi als Astrolog,' in Morgcn-
Idndische Forschungen, Festschrift an H. L. Fleischer, Leipzig,
1S75, pp. 263-309).

3 Men like al-Jahi? (t 255 A.H., 869 A.D.) and the famous
theologians al-Jubba"i (t 303 a.h., 915-916 A.D.) and al-Ash'ari
(t 324 A.H., 936 A.D.) were declared enemies of astrology.

* According to Ibn al-Qifti, ed. Lippert, p. 244 f., he died
on Friday, 28 Rabi" ii., 395 A.H., i.e. 28th March, 1001 A.D. ; cf.
also Fihrist, p. 129.

8 It is, in fact, cited in the preface of the Libellus isagogicus
ad magisterium judiciorum _ astrorum, which al-Qabisi had
written for Saif ad-daulah, prince of Aleppo, who reigned from
333 to 356 A.H. [A.D. 944-967].

« Cairo, 1323-25 a.h. [A.d. 1905-07], ii. 156-196.

7 Al-Farabi, Philosophische Ahhandlungen, tr. F. Dieterici,
Leyden, 1892, pp. 170-186 (pp. 104-114 of the text published in
1890X Dieterici at some points has not understood the meaning
of some technical terms of astrology, so that his version is not
always perfect.

that the work is merely a series of notes, published
by a disciple just as he found them.

The philosophers contemporary with al-Farabi
did not all share his hostility to astrology ; in fact
the schools which had been less subject to Aris-
totelian influence favoured it, as was already the
case with al-Kindi,

With reference to this a special place is held by the Ihwan
as-Safa", 'Sincere Companions,' who flourished in al-Basrah
towards a.d. 950-960, and whose writings set forth the philo-
sophic doctrines of the heretical Batinites, a branch of whom
were the Carmatians (al-Qaramitah), who towards the end of
the 3rd cent. a.h'. (9th cent, a.d.) caused political disorders in
the "Iraq, and who founded an independent kingdom in N.E.
Arabia which lasted until after a.h. 474 (a.d. 1081-82). The
Carmatians had reaped great advantage from astrological pre-
dictions based on the theory of the great planetary conjunc-
tions.! One can therefore understand that the I^wan as-Safa'
not only admitted, with Aristotle and other Arabic philo-
sophers, that the changes (generation and corruption) of the
sublunar world were consequent upon celestial movements,
but also that the planets foretell the future and have a direct
influence upon the will and the moral character. The great
encyclopaedic work of the IJiwan is imbued with those astrological
ideas, among which the theory of planetary conjunctions
occupies the principal place.

Favourable to astrology also are those other philosophers who
lead up to Abu Sulaiman Muhammad ibn Tahir ibn Bahram
as-Sijistani al-Mantiqi, who, in the second half of the lUth
cent., gathered about him at Baghdad a number of learned men
for the purpose of discussing various subjects. Notes and
summaries of many of these discussions were collected in the
Kitdb al-muqdbas(lt of Abu Hayyan at-Tawhidi, a philosopher,
mystic, and jurist(t after 400'a.h. [a.d. 1009-1010]), about whose
orthodoxy there is some suspicion. A record of a meeting in
reference to astrology is preserved almost entire in the work
already cited of Ibn Qayyim al-Jauziyyah. 2 Some of those
present had attacked astrology, declaring it to be useless, since,
after so much study and effort on the part of its supporters, it
does not succeed in modifying those events which overwhelm
both the wise astrologer and the ignorant man. There then
rose up several questioners to refute these accusations, and they
set themselves specially to explain how predictions can fail in
spite of the truth of astrology, and that, in any case, the efforts
of astrologers to discover the truth are always noble. Their
defence of practical astrology is somewhat weak, and is prob-
ably the last that has been made in the field of philosophy.

Avicenna {q.v. ; + 428 A.H. [a.d. 1037]) contends
against astrology, not only in his great encyclo-
ppedia, ash-ShifaJ, 'The Recovery of the Health
[of the Soul],' and in the an-Najah, but also in a
special work of which a full r6sum6 was made by
Mehren.' He demonstrates that astrology has no
foundation, and proceeds to show that, even admit-
ting its theoretical truth, it would be impossible
for men to acquire a knowledge of it.

Averroes (q.v.), or Ibn Rushd (+ 595 a.h. [a.d.
1198]), is also a decided adversary of astrology, as
appears from the severe judgment referred to
above (§ 3) and from some passages of his comments
on Aristotle. But it would be useless to continue
the review of the philosophers, who after the 10th
cent. a.d. are all in agreement on this question.
It is more interesting to consider the position
taken up by the theologians, who — from the
motives indicated at the beginning of this section
— engaged, towards the end of the 9th cent. A.D.,
in a relentless war against astrological theories.^

We have already seen the attitude of al-Jubba'L
We may add here that Ibn Hazm (t 456 A.H. [A.D.
1064]), who fiercely opposed the scholastic or '
speculative theology of al-Ash'ari in Spain, gives
his ideas on astrology in Al-Fisal fi 'l-milal iva
'l-ahwa wa 'n-nihal.'^ He divides those who be-
lieve that the future can be foretold by means of
the stars into two classes: (1) misbelievers and
polytheists, and (2) persons who are in error. The
first are those who maintain that the stars and the

1 Cf. M. J. de Goeje, Mimoire sur les Carmathea du Bahram
et les Fatimides^, Leyden, 1886, pp. 115-129.

2 ii. 185-193.

s A. F. Mehren, 'Vues d'Avicenne sur I'astrologie,' Ifws^on,
iii. [Louvain, 1884] 383-403, reprinted in ' Homenaje d D. Fran-
cisco Codera,' Estudios de erudicidn oriental, Saragossa, 1904,
pp. 235-250.

* See also a brief account by I. Goldziher, ' Stellung der alten
islamischen Orthodoxie zu den antiken Wissenschaften '
(ABA W, 1915), pp. 20-26.

5 Cairo, 1317-21 a.h. (a.d. 1899-1903), v. 37-40.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Muhammadan)

93

heavenly spheres are intelligent beings, agents, of
eternal duration, and disposing of earthly things
either with or without God. The second are those
who hold that the stars and the celestial spheres,
whilst without intelligence, have been created and
established by God as indicators of things which
are to take place.

The preserver of Ash'arite dogmatic theology,
al-Ghazali (t 505 A.H. [a.d. 1111]), opposes astro-
logy in his Ihya 'ulum ad-din, ' The Revival of
Religious Sciences.' ^ And the same attitude we
find in the books of the famous ^anbalite, Ibn
Taimiyyah (t 728 A.H. [A.D. 1328]).^

But the most vigorous and complete confutation
of astrology is contained in the Miftdh ddr as-
sdddah of Ibn Qayyim al-Jauziyyah (t 751 A.H.
[A.D. 1350]),' one of the most noted theologians of
the ^anbalite school. Only the famous work of
Pico della Mirandola, Adversus astrologiam, can
be compared to the 110 closely printed quarto
pages of the confutation written by this Muham-
madan theologian, whose impassioned polemics
press upon the adversary with an infinity of subtle
distinctions which prove the force of his dialectic.

In the theological world perhaps the sole de-
fender of astrology is Fahr ad-din ar-RazI (t 606
A.H. [A.D. 1210]), cited above. Famous especially
for his great commentary on the Qur'an, he
composed also many theological, philosophical,
and astrological works, and studied medicine and
mathematics. Without doubt his confidence in
astrology is due to his cultivation of the sciences,
and this confidence already appears in his com-
mentary on the Qur'an.

No theologian seems to have followed Fahr ad-
din ar-Razi in his bold interpretations of Qur'anic
passages and of religious traditions. Besides,
after the writings of Ibn Qayyim al-Jauziyyah and
his predecessors, polemics about astrology could
no longer reckon on any novelty of argument.
The considerations developed by the great philo-
sopher of history, Ibn Haldun (t 808 A.H. [a.d.
1406]), in his historical "^Prolegomena* are alone
deserving of notice.

7. Astrology in|common life. — The four orthodox
schools of jurisprudence and the Shiite school were
already in existence when the war of the philo-
sophers and theologians against astrology became
fierce ; accordingly, the anathema launched against
it in the name of religion did not occupy much
space in Muhammadan law, notwithstanding the
fact that this had its chief foundation in religious
doctrine. Among some jurists of a rather later
age, however, we meet with open hostility to
astrology. In Muhammadan law the buying and
selling of useless things is forbidden ; therefore
some jurists" teach that one may not sell or buy
books of astrology. Another legal prescript does
not admit the testimony of misbelievers ; therefore
some jurists, regarding the astrologer as a mis-
believer, deny him the right of acting as a witness.^
But, before theological anathema smote it, astro-
logy was deeply rooted among all lay classes of
society. The courts of the "Abbasid khalifs at
Baghdad and of the numerous small dynasties
which arose in the Muhammadan world after the
3rd cent, of the Hijra received astrologers with
great favour and consulted them on affairs of State
as well as on trifling matters of daily life. At the

1 Cairo, 1302-03 a.h. (a.d. 1885-86), i. 27 f. All this passage is
copied without indication of its source in ad-Dainirl, Haydt air
l^ayawdn, Cairo, 1311 a.h. (a.d. 1893), i. 12 f., s.v. ' Asa'd."

2 Majmu'at al-fatdwd, Cairo, 1326-29 a.h. (a.d. 1908-11), i.
323—336

3 Ed. Cairo, 1323-25 a.h. (a.d. 1905-07), ii. 132-240.
•» Bk. vi. ch. 26 (tr. M. G. de Slane, iii. 240-249).

5 E.g., al-Bajuri, Hdshiyah 'aid Ibn Qdsim al-Ghazzi,
Bulaq, 1292 A.H. , i. 445.

<> Cf. the quotations in Sahniin ibn "Uthman al-Wanshariai,
Mvfid al-7mi}itdj ft sharfy as-krdj, Cairo, 1314 a.h., p. 5.

foundation of Baghdad in a.d. 762, and at that ol
al-Mahdiyyah (in Tunis) in 916, the astrologers,
summoned for the purpose, indicate the propitious
moment for beginning the work. Many writings
on apotelesmatics are dedicated to khalifs, sultans,
and princes. In Turkey, even at the beginning of
the 19th cent., one of the chief posts at court was
that of munajjim-bdshi, or chief astrologer ; and
the case was similar in Persia, in India, and in
Muhammadan central Asia.^ In the Thoiisand
and One Nights not only is the astrologer with his
astrolabe mentioned several times {e.g., Nights 28
and 50 of the Egyptian edd.), but there is also a
complete dissertation on the elements of astrology
(Nights 254-257, in the story of the slave girl
Tawaddud). Further, the considerable number
of old AralDic astrolabes still existing in the East
and in South Europe would alone suffice to prove
the great diffusion of astrology throughout the
Muhammadan world ; and it found strong support
among the students of astronomy. Cases of perse-
cution of astrologers by the State are extremely
rare. Al-^akim, Fatimid khalif of Egypt, who in
404 A.H. (A.D. 1013-1014) prohibited the study of
astrology and banished from Cairo those who
cultivated it, was an astrologer himself, and that
decree of his is one of many acts of madness com-
mitted in the last years of his life.

In the Muhammadan countries into which Euro-
pean civilization has penetrated (which with the
Copernican system has destroyed the bases of
apotelesmatics) astrology has lost its importance
and remains the monopoly of the popular classes,
among whom it has degenerated into a form of
prediction without any serious mathematical and
astronomical basis. On the other hand, in coun-
tries where there is little or no European influence
(e.g., in many parts of Morocco) apotelesmatics
still flourish, but accompanied by only rudimentary
astronomical knowledge. To-day in S. Arabia the
function of the astrologer is exercised especially
by the qddi,^ i.e. by those whose duty it is to see
that canon law is observed !

8. Influence on European astrology. — The
astrology of the Latin Middle Ages from the
beginning of the 12th to the end of the 15th cent,
is really Arabic astrology. Its sole sources are
Arabic (Albohali, Albohazen, Albumasar, Alca-
bitius, Alchindus, Almansor, Alphadol, Aomar,
Gergis, Hali, Haly Heben Rodan, Messahala,
Zahel, and some pseudepigraphical works), or at
least translations from Arabic {e.g., the Tetra-
biblos or Quadripartitum of Ptolemy, and the
Kapirds or Centiloquium) ; the teclinical termino-
logy is literal translation or mere corruption of
Arabic words. In the 16th cent, the humanists
rescued from oblivion the poem of Manilius and
the crude compilation of Firmicus Maternus ; but
this was a mere literary exercise of no import-
ance for the astrology of the 17th century.

In the Byzantine world also Muhammadan
astrology leaves deep traces in many versions from
the Arabic and from the Persian ; ' so that side by
side with the works derived from the classic Greek
authors appear those of ' Airo/j,d(Tap (Abu Ma'shar),
'AxM^ (Ahmad ibn Yusuf ibn ad-Daj^ah), Mfo-o-dXa
(Ma sha' Allah), 2^xX (Sahl ibn Bishr), and other
Arabic writers. Thus there frequently occur in
Byzantine astrological AVTitings Arabic and Persian
names of planets or technical terms which no
longer correspond to those of classical Greek.

1 Cf . e.g. , F. Bemier, Evinements partietdiers deg flats du
Mognl, Paris, 1671, p. 96. See also J. T. Reinaud, Monumens
arabes, persans, et turcs, Paris, 1828, ii. 367 f. For Persia see
Vovnqes du chevalier Chardin en Perse, et autres lieux de
I'O'ri^'nt, new ed., Amsterdam, 1735, i. 242, iii. 163-165, 174-183.

2 R. Manzoni, El Yimen, Rome, 1884, p. 209 ; H. von
Maltzan, Reise nach Sudarabien, Brunswick, 1873, p. 164.

3 The Arabs and the Persians are called indifferently Tlf'pa-ai.

94

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Miihammadan)

Finally, the Jewish astrological literature of
Europe, in which a conspicuous place is occupied
by the works of Abraham ibn 'Ezra (t 1167), is
based exclusively on Arabic sources.

Literature. — There is no work setting forth the content and
history of Muhammadan astrology. For biographical and biblio-
graphical notices of individual astrologers reference may be made
to H Suter, Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber
und ihre w'erke, Leipzig, 1900 (completed in ' Nachtrage und
Berichtigungen zu " Die Math, und Astron.," ' in Abhandlungen
zur Gesch. der mathematischen Wissenscha/ten, xiv. [1902]
157-185). The mathematical side of Muhammadan astrology
and the explanation of several technical terms are set forth m
the present writer's annotations on al-Battani, Ofms astronomi-
cum, 3 vols., Milan, 1899-1907. Beyond two or three small
pseudepigraphical writings of no importance, printed or litho-
graphed in Cairo, and the dissertation of al-Kindl published by
O. Loth (see above, p. 92», n. 2), there are no edd, of complete
astrological works in the original text ; there are, on the other
hand, edd. of Middle Age Latin versions (15th-16th cent.),
several of which have been cited in the course of the article.

II. Astronomy.— 1. Name. — The names 'Urn
(or sinaat) an-nujum, ' science (or art) of the stars,'
'ilm (or sinaat) at-tanjim denote both astronomy
and astrology. For the former science Averroes '
adopts the expression $inaat an-nujum at-ta-
'dllmiyyah, ' mathematical art of the stars,' which
is found also in the original Arabic of the de
Scientiis of al-Farabi, where Gerard of Cremona
translated it by ' astronomia doctrinalis,' misled by
the double signification of the adjective ta'dlimi.
The astronomy of observation is designated by
Averroes* sinaat an-nujum at-tajribiyyah, 'ex-
perimental art of the stars.' Special names of
astronomy are 'ilm al-hai^ah, ' science of the
form [of the universe],' and 'ilm al-ajldk, ' science of
the celestial spheres.'' The branch of astronomy
which deals with the construction and use of
instruments for determining the time, especially
for the purpose of regulating the times of the
religious services in the mosques, is named 'ilm
al-mlqdt, ' the science of the time appointed [for
the canon prayers],' and he who cultivates it is
called muwaqqit.

2. Scope. — The Greek and Muhammadan con-
ception of astronomy does not exactly correspond
to the modern conception.

Al-Farabi says in his treatise de Scientiis* that astronomy
has for its object the study of the celestial bodies and of the
earth from these three points of view : (a) number, figure,
order, and respective position of the spheres and of the celestial
bodies ; their magnitudes and distances from the earth ; immo-
bility of the earth ; (6) celestial motions and their consequences
with regard to the stars themselves (conjunctions and opposi-
tions, eclipses, etc.) ; (c) magnitude of the inhabited part of the
earth and its division into zones or climates ; determination of
geographical co-ordinates ; effects of the rotation of the celestial
sphere in regard to parts having different latitudes (varying
length of the day, right and oblique ascensions of the points of
the ecliptic, etc.). This scheme of the content of astronomy is
found also in later writers, 8 with the sole difference that the study
of the magnitudes and distances of the celestial bodies and spheres
comes to be considered under a category (d) separate from (a).

According to Avicenna, the astronomer studies ' the parts of
the universe as far as regards their figure, their respective
positions, tlieir magnitudes, and their distances from each
other ; he further studies the motions of the spheres and of the
celestial bodies, the estimate {taqdlr) of the globes, of the axes
(I. 5U(u6) and of the circles [ideal] on which those motions take
place. AH this is contained in the Almagest.'^

The limits of astronomy are well defined by Ibn
Haldun (f A.D. 1406) :

Astronomy consists of the study of the celestial bodies and

1 Ibn Eushd, Metaphysic, Cairo, n.d. [1902], p. 65, 1. 3 from
end (ed. and tr. by O. Quircis Eodriguez. Madrid, 1919, bk. iv.
§13).

2 P. 83 (Quir6s, bk. iv. § 77). 3 See also above, i. t.

4 This has reached us only in the Latin version of Gerard of
Cremona (t 1187), Paris, 1588. The part relating to the mathe-
matical sciences has been translated into German by E. Wiede-
mann, 'Beitr. zur Gesch. der Naturwissenschaften,' xi. {Sitz-
xmgsherichte der physik.-medizin. Sozietdt in Erlangen,
xxxix. [1907] 74-101.

6 E.g., Muhammad al-Akfani aa-Sa^awi, Irshdd al-qdfid, Cal-
cutta, 1849, p. 84 f .

« Risdtah /i-aqsdm al-'ulUm al-'aqliyyah, in the Tis' rasa'il,
Constantinople, 1298 a.h. (1881). The same definition is found
in the Chahdr Maqalah, written in Persian about 1160 by
Ni^mi-i-'Arudi-i-Samarqandi (tr. K Q. Browne, Hertford,
1899 [extract from JRAS], p. 89).

motions as they appear to us ;' it is a most noble science, but
it does not give, as is often supposed, the form of the heavens
and the disposition of the spheres and of the stars as they are
in reality. It only indicates that from those motions there
result for the spheres these forms and these dispositions. Now,
as is known, it is not strange that from one and the same
thing there should result necessarily two different things ;
therefore, when we say that those motions give as a result
[those celestial configurations], we seek to arg^e the mode of
existence of the result by means of the necessary cause ; a pro-
ceeding which does not at all guarantee the truth. Neverthe-
less, astronomy is an important science, indeed one of the
fundamental parts of the mathematical sciences.' i

The diversity of criteria and of purposes by and
for which the physicist (' naturalis ') studies celestial
phenomena, in contrast to the astronomer ('astro-
logus'), is sho^vn also in a passage of Averroes.*
This conception of the philosophers is shared by
the Muhammadan astronomers, for whom astron-
omy embraces spherical astronomy (with the
theory of instruments), mathematical chronology,
spherical trigonometry, and geography as based on
mathematics (like that of Ptolemy) ; and it excludes
all that for us would enter into the field of stellar
physics and celestial mechanics. This is evident
from the summary * of the best systematic treatise
on Muhammadan astronomy, viz. the unedited
al-Qdnun al-mas'udl, composed in Arabic by al-
Biruni (t A.D. 1048) :

(a) General notions and fundamental hypotheses for the geo-
metrical representation of celestial phenomena ; (6) mathema-
tical chronology, conversion of one era into another, festivals of
various peoples ; (e) spherical trigonometry ; (d) circles of the
celestial sphere and systems of co-ordinates ; phenomena of the
diurnal motion of the sphere with reference to the earth (ampli-
tudes, solar altitudes, right and oblique ascensions of the
points of ,the ecliptic, etc.) ; (e) form, dimensions, etc., of the
earth ; problems relating to terrestrial longitudes and latitudes ;
the direction of Mecca with regard to other places on the earth ;
geography on a mathematical -astronomical basis ; (/) theorj' of
the sun ; {g) theory of the moon ; solar and lunar parallaxes ;
(A) syzygies, eclipses, appearance of the new moon ; (i) fixed
stars and lunar stations ; ( j) theories of the five planets ; geo-
centric distances and magnitudes of the celestial bodies and
spheres ; {k) problems of spherical astronomy as subserving
astrology (calculation of the twelve celestial ' domus,' of the
' applicationes,' of the ' projectiones radiorum,' of the 'direc-
tiones' and 'profectiones,' of the ' revolutiones annorum,' of
the mamarr, of the planetary conjunctions, of the millenary
periods).

Muhammadan astronomical writings, almost
always in Arabic, can be classified under four
groups :

(a) General elementary introductions which represent a per-
fected form of what the Isagoge of Geminus and the Hypo-
theses of Ptolemy were for the Greeks ; belonging to this cate-
gory— to cite only writings translated into European languages
and edited— are : the de Itnaginatione Sphoeroe of Thebit (or
Thabit) ibn Qurrah (t a.d. 901), the compendium of Alfraganus
or al-Farghani (t after 861), and the compendium of al-Jaghiuini
(t 1344-45) ; 4 (6) systematic treatises corresponding in type to
the Almagest, but more perfect — e.g., the unedited work of
al-Biriim cited above ; the Latin translation of the Almagest of
Geber (or Jabir) ibn Afla^ printed at Niirnberg, 1534, would
belong to this category if it had not omitted all the mathe-
matical and astronomical tables ; (c) treatises of spherical
astronomy for the use of calculators and observers ; these are
called zij (plur. zijat, azydj, ziyajah) ; they presuppose a know-
ledge of the general principles of cosmography and consist
essentiaUj' of tebles for calculation, illustrations of the use of
the tables, and indications as to the manner of solving problems
of spherical astronomy (for the most part without demonstra-
tion) ; the only treatise of this kind published and translated is
that of al-Battani ; 5 of the Persian treatise of Ulugh Beg only
the prolegomena (explaining the use of the tables) and the
steUar catalogue have been edited and translated ; (d) writings
on special subjects — e.g., stellar catalogues, treatises on
instruments, etc.

1 Prolegomena, bk. vi. ch. xvi. (tr. de Slane, iii. 145 f .).

2 Com,m. de CcbIo, bk. ii. ch. 57 (Aristotelis Opera omnia cum
Averrois Cordubensis commentariis, Venice, 1562, vol. v. fol.
136r.-v.).

3 According to the indexes of the chapters given in the cata-
logues of the Arabic MSS in Oxford and Berlin.

4 Sulldlfd Haunandyd, the course of astronomy of Barhebrseus,
ed. and tr. F. Nau (Le Livre de I'ascension de I'esprit sur la
forme du del et de la terre, 2 pts., Paris, 1899-1900), although
written (in 1279) in Syriac by a Christian bishop, belongs to this
categorj-.

6 "To which ia to be added the Latin translation, made in the
12th cent, by Athelhard of Bath, of Maslamah al-Majriti's recen-
sion of the tables of al-Huwariznu, ed. with an excellent
German commentary by H. Suter, 1914.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Muhammadan)

95

3. Relation to Islam.— Muhammadan religious
ritual bases some of its prescriptions on elements
of an astronomical character. The hours within
which each of the five daily ritual prayers is
valid depend on the latitude of the place and on
the epoch of the solar year ; further, the legal time
for tne night prayer is between the end of the
evening and the beginning of the morning twilight.
The ritual prayer is not valid unless the face is
turned in the direction of Mecca ; hence the neces-
sity of solving the astronomical-geographical prob-
lem of the azimuth of Mecca. The beginning and
the end of the month assigned to the fast are deter-
mined not by the civil calendar, but by the actual
appearance of the new moon; and the beginning
of the daily fast is given by the morning twilight.
Finally, special ritual prayers are prescribed at
eclipses of the sun and moon, for which it is well
to be prepared in time. All this presupposes a
certain degree of astronomical knowledge ; and,
although the majority of theologians and jurists
are not content with pure calculation for the appear-
ance of the new moon, but require the actual sight
of the phenomenon, it is evident that the religious
precept must be a real stimulus to scientific study.
This explains also why the Muhammadans have
undertaken so much research into the complex
phenomena of the twilight and of the conditions
of visibility of the new moon — phenomena which
were almost entirely neglected by the Greek
astronomers. On the other hand, many passages
of the Qui'an set forth the benefits which God has
vouchsafed to men by means of celestial bodies and
motions ; at least they invite reflexion on the
goodness and providence of God. Astronomy thus
becomes an ally of religion.

4. Sources.^i — (a) Arabian. — A first element of an exclu-
sively practical character is due to the Arabs before Islam.
Like all other peoples who dwell in hot countries and are
compelled to prefer night to day for travelling, the Bedawin
made use of the stars for guiding their wanderings and for
calculating (approximately) the hours of the night ; they were
thus familiar with the principal appearances of Venus and of
Mercury, the places of the rising and setting of the more
brilliant stars, and above all the annual course of the moon
determined by noting its position in relation to 28 successive
groups of stars called for this reason mandzil al-qamar, ' lunar
stations.' Further, among the sedentary agricultural tribes,
the seasons and many meteorological provisions (especially
those for rain) were strictly connected with the annual rising
of certain fixed stars 2 or else with the cosmic setting of the
lunar stations. Hence, even in the 16th and 17th centuries,
Arabic \vriters on astronomy still occupied themselves with the
lunar mansions S and their anwd', or cosmic settings.

(6) Indian. — The Muhammadans owe the first scientific
elements of astronomy to India. In 154 a.h. (a.d. 771),* there
came to Baghdad an Indian embassy one learned member of
which introduced to the Arabs the Brdhmasphu^asiddhanta,
composed in Sanskrit in a.d. 628 by Brahmagupta. From this
work (which the Arabs called as-Sind-hind) Ibrahim ibn
pabib al-Fazari drew the elements and the methods of calcula-
tion for his astronomical tables (2y) adapted to the Muham-
madan lunar year. Almost contemporaneously Ya'qiib ibn
Tariq composed his Tarkib al-aflak, 'The Composition of the
Celestial Spheres,' which was based on the elements and
methods of the Brdhmasphutasiddkdnia and on other data
furnished by another Indian scientist (K.n.k.h), who came to
Baghdad with a second embassy in IGl a.h. (a.d. 777-778). It
seems that almost at the same time there was translated into
Arabic under the name ai-Arkand the Khan(}akhadyaka,
written about a.d. 665 by the same Brahmagupta, but contain-
ing elements different from those of his other work. Abii
i-hasan al-Ahwazi, a contemporary of al-Fazari and of Ya'qiib ibn
Tariq, probably drawing on oral teachings of learned Indians,
introduced to the Arabs the planetary motions according to al-
Arjabhad(a corruption of Aryabhaja, the name of an Indian
astronomer who wrote in a.d. 500). These Indian works had
many imitators in the Muhammadan world up to the end of the
first half of the 5th cent, of the Hijra (11th cent, a.d.) ; some

1 For details see Nallino, 'Ibn al-.faiak, pp. 104-140, 313-323
(for Arabic so\irces), 149-180 (Indian), 180-188 (Persian), and
216-229 (Greek).

2 Alois Musil and Antonin Jaussen have found this usage still
in vogue among the Bedawin of Moab. Eduard Glaser indi-
cates it for the Yemen.

3 These correspond only approximately to the nakfatraa of the
Indians.

4 So al-Biruni. On the other hand, Ibn al-Qifti (a source of
lese authority) has 156=773.

astronomers (e.g., Habash, an-Nairizi, Ibn as-Samh) wrote con-
temporaneously books based on Indian methods and elements
and books with Graeco- Arabic elements ; others (e.^., Muhammad
ibn Ishaq as-Sarabsi, Abu '1-Wafa', al-Biruni, al-IJazini) adapted
elements calculated by the Muhammadan astronomers to great
artificial cycles of years constructed in imitation of those of the
Indians. For one of the characteristics of the astronomical
books of India is their representation of the mean motions of
sun, moon, and planets by the number of their revolutions in
cycles of millions of years, starting from the supposition that at
the beginning of creation sun, moon, and planets were all in
conjunction m a given degree of longitude (e.g., at the first
point of Aries), taken as the initial point of the celestial sphere,
and that at intervals of milUons of years thej' wUl all be in con-
junction again at the same point. 1 Further, many treatises
composed by the Arabs gave the roots of the mean motions for
the meridian of Uzain (corrupted later into Azin and Arin, the
Sanskrit Ujjayini), supposed to be the central meridian of the
inhabited earth (90° E. of the first Ptolemaic meridian). From
those Indian books the Arabs also derived their first knowledge
of trigonometrical sines, of course in the form employed in
India, i.e. for arcs of 3° 45' and for the radius of 343S'.

(c) Iranian. — A few years after the introduction of Indian
astronomy, and before the end of the 8th cent. A.D., there was
translated into Arabic the Pahlavi work entitled Zik i Shatro-
aydr, ' Astronomical Tables of the King,' a name which became
in the Arabic version Zij ash-Shdh or Zij ash-Shahriydr. The
original was certainly composed in the last years of the kingdom
of the Sasanids, since the tables were based on the epoch of
Yazdagird ill. (16th June, a.d. 632) ; its elements were derived,
not from Persian observations, but from Indian books. It
appears also that the roots of the mean motions were referred
to the meridian of the mythical castle Kangdizh, which Persian
epic legend placed in the Far East. The Arabic version met
with great favour among the Muhammadans. We know that the
astronomer and astrologer Ma Sha' Allah (t at the beginning of
the 9th cent, a.d.) made use of it for his calculations, that in the
first half of the 9th cent. Muhanmiad ibn Miisa al-Huwarizmi
had deduced from it the equations of the planetary motions,
whilst he had drawn the mean motions from the as-Sind-hind and
other elements from Ptolemy, and that Abii Ma'shar(t a.d. SS6)
used it for his astronomical tables. After the 9th cent. a.d. the
Zij ash-Shdh rapidly fell into disuse ; but a passage of az-Zarqali
(Arzachel) shows that towards the middle of the 11th cent, some
astrologers in Spain still calculated the longitude of the fixed
stars according to the tables of the Persians.

(d) Greek. — Last in chronological order is the influence of
Greek astronomy. At the end of the 8th cent, or at the
beginning of the 9th a.d. a rich patron, of the family of the
Barmecids, Yahya ibn Qalid (t 191 a.h. [a.d. 807]), caused the
Almagest to be translated for the first time into Arabic. But
this book, full of diBiculties and obscurities, could not, at first,
compete with easier and more practical works of Indian and
Persian origin. It acquired influence later, when the mathe-
matical preparation of the Muhammadans was more advanced,
and when better translations appeared. In the first half of the
9th cent, also Arabic translations were made of the Geographia,
the Tabulae Mamiales, the Hypotheses Planetarum, the
Appa7-itioTies (<j>dcrei.t) Stellarum fixaium, and the Planisphce-
rium of Ptolemy ; the Tabulae Manuales of Theon of Alex-
andria ; the book of Aristarchus on the magnitudes and dis-
tances of the sun and moon ; the Isagoge of Geminus ; two
tractates of Autolycus ; three of Theodosius ; and the little
work of Hypsicles on the ascensions. To the 9th cent, also
probably belongs the Arabic translation of the astronomical
tables of Ammonius, of which we still find traces in the 11th
cent., when they were remodelled by az-Zarqali, to pass after-
wards into mediieval Latin literature under the names of
Humenus, Armanus, etc. Finally, there appear to have been
translated in the same century the book of the constellations
of Aratus and a book on the magnitudes and distances of the
celestial bodies, which, falsely attributed to Ptolemy, is known
by the Arabs under the name of Eitdb al-manshurdt.

5. Some astronomical teachings. — We may here
refer to some special points, which have an im-
portance for the history of the general ideas of
celestial phenomena. The only system received
by the Muhammadan peoples was the geocentric.
Aristotelian philosophy, the authority of Ptolemy,
and the requirements of astrology were insur-
mountable obstacles to the conception of a
heliocentric system, which, in any case, could not
have been demonstrated by irrefutable reasons or,
in the absence of telescopes, have procured any
real advantage to practical astronomy. The lack
of telescopes kept Muhammadan astronomers from
becoming acquainted with other planets tliau those
already known to the Greeks. The mode, too, of
representing their motions is always tliat of the
Greeks, viz. by means of combinations (sometimes
very complicated) of eccentrics and ei>icycles ; nor

1 This Indian idea occurs also in some Arabic works which are
not astronomical — e.g., Ibn Qutaiba, Liber poesii et poetarum,
ed. M. J. de Goeje, Leyden, 1904, p. 503 f.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Muhammadan)

do the modifications of certain parts of the
planetary theories of Ptolemy introduced by some
(e.g., Nasir ad-din and Qutb ad-din ash-ShirazI)
depart much from this principle. Only among
-writers who are philosophers rather than
astronomers do we meet with theories that
supersede those of eccentrics and epicycles.' In
any case, among them all, the Aristotelian and
Ptolemaic doctrine of the circular form of celestial
motions reigns supreme, for the elliptic orbit
indicated by az-Zarqali for Mercury ^ is merely
a graphical construction on the lamina of the
astrolabe, and not a theoretical representation.

(a) Number of the spheres. — The number of the
spheres, i.e. of what in the Middle Ages in Europe
were called 'heavens,' is eight in Aristotle and
Ptolemy, viz. seven for the planets (including the
sun and the moon) and one for the fixed stars.
This number of eight is preserved by the first
Arabic astronomers — e.g., al-Farghani and al-
Battani, for whom, however, these ideal spheres,
created to satisfy the requirements of physics and
not those of astronomy properly so called, had no
practical importance. Still the number of eight,
combined with the Aristotelian theory of solid
spheres in which the heavenly bodies are infixed
without being able to move themselves, did not
easily agree with the other teachings of the
Ptolemaic system. Aristotle, who was ignorant
of the motion of the precession of the equinoxes,
and who consequently held that the fixed stars are
really immovable, assigned to the eighth sphere
the apparent diurnal motion of the celestial vault
from east to west, a motion which the eighth
sphere impressed also on all the others. But
Ptolemy, accepting from Hipparchus the pre-
cession of the equinoxes on account of which the
fixed stars have a slow and continued increase of
longitude, came implicitly to attribute to the
sphere of the fixed stai^s two motions in opposite
directions — one (diurnal) from east to west, and
the other from west to east. Ptolemy had no
occasion to notice and correct this contradiction,
which was soon perceived by the Arabic writers.
The contradiction wovild have been easily eliminated
by supposing that the fixed stars moved by the
precessional motion within their own sphere,
supposed accordingly to be fluid and not solid ;
and perhaps al-Battani had in mind the possibility
of this hypothesis when he entitled ch. li. of his
book* thus: 'Of the motion of the fixed stars,
whether they move in their sphere, or whether
the sphere moves with them.' Another solution
of the difficulty would have been to suppose the
fixed stars to be infixed in the convexity of the
sphere of Saturn, itself naturally subjected, like
all the planetary apogees, to the motion of the
precession ; then the eighth sphere, no longer con-
taining the stars, Avould only have had the office of
impressing the diurnal motion on the spheres
below. This solution was actually given by
Muhammadan writers, some of whom indeed took
advantage of it for reducing the number of the
spheres to seven, to conform with the seven
heavens of the Qur'an ; but this was never accepted
by the astronomers.* Therefore, when Ibn al-
Haitham (t 1039) introduced into pure astronomical
teaching the doctrine of the solid splieres of
Aristotle, it was necessary for the physical reasons
set forth above to add a ninth sphere without stars,

1 Cf. below, § 6.

2 In the Libros del saber de astronomia, iii. 280. In any case,
the earth there occupies the centre of the ellipse and not one
of the foci.

3 Ed. Nallino, i. 124.

•* Cf. Ni?ani ad-din al-Hasan an-Naisaburi, Tafslr (in marg.
to the Tafgir of at-Tabari), 1st ed., i. 205 (comm. on Qur. iL 27) ;
Fahr ad-din ar-Razi, Mafdtlfy al-ghaib, Cairo, 130S-10 A.H., ii.
■60 (comm. on Qur. ii. 159).

impressing on the other spheres diurnal motion.
This ninth sphere, accepted by all the later
astronomers, was called ' the universal sphere,' ' the
greatest sphere,' ' the sphere of the spheres,' ' the
smooth sphere ' {al-falak al-atlas), ' the sphere of
the zodiac,' * the supreme sphere.' In general also
the philosophers — e.g., Avicenna and Ibn Tufail —
accept these nine spheres ; Averroes,^ however,
under the influence of Aristotle, cannot bring
himself to exceed the number of eight. In the
theological camp the nine spheres did not find
many opponents, in spite of ' the seven heavens '
mentioned in Qur. ii. 27 ; it was held that the
specification of the number seven did not imply
the negation of a superior number.^ In fact,
several theologians saw in the eighth and ninth
spheres respectively the 'seat' (kursi) and the
' throne' (arsh) of God mentioned in the Qur'an.*

Doubts were not wanting, however, concerning the unity of
the sphere of the fixed stars. Fahr ad-din ar-Razi •* informs us
that Avicenna, in his book ash-Shifd', declared : ' Up till now it
has not been clear to me whether the sphere of the fixed stars
be a single sphere or be several spheres, placed one above
the other." Aiid Fahr ad-din ar-Razi 5 adds that the hypothesis
of the single sphere for all the fixed stars rests only on the
assumption of the equality of their motions, but that this
equality is not at all certain. He further says that, even if the
equality of the motions were a certainty, he would not deduce
from it the necessitj' of a single sphere bearing all the stars
infixed in it. In face of these criticisms, one comprehends the
scepticism of Ni?am ad-din al-Hasan an-Naisabiiri : ' In con-
clusion, to none of the ancients or of the moderns is the
number of the heavens quite certain, either by the force of
reasoning or by the way of tradition.' 6

(b) Order of the planets. — The order of the
planets followed by almost all the Muhammadan
astronomers is identical with that of Ptolemy,
although they recognize, together with the Greek
astronomers, the lack of absolute proofs in the
case of the two inferior planets and the sun.
Without telescopes they could not see the transits
of Venus and Mercury across the sun or determine
the parallaxes of the planets situated above the
moon. Some Arabic authors believed that they
had perceived transits of Venus or of Mercury
across the sun ; but what they really saw was
solar spots.'' On the other hand, the postulates of
astrology continued in the Muhammadan age to
guarantee, from lack of scientific reasons to the
contrary, the Ptolemaic series : moon, Mercury,
Venus, sun. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. Spain alone
had astronomers who departed from this order.
Jabir ibn Aflah (c. 1140) held it more probable
that Mercury and Venus were above the sun on
account of their analogy to the superior planets in
having epicycles and eccentrics, stations and
retrogradations. Al-Bitruji (c. 1200), moved by
physical reasons connected with his special system
of planetary notions, placed the sun between
Mercury and Venus.

(c) obliquity of the ecliptic. — The obliquity of
the ecliptic with regard to the celestial equator is
one of the fundamental elements of astronomical
calculation. The Greeks, from Eratosthenes (230
B.C.), had assigned to it the constant value of 23°
51' 20"; i.e., they held it to be invariable. The
astonishment of the Arabic astronomers must have
been great when they found by their observations
an obliquity sensibly less ; at first they could not
decide whether the discrepancy was due to a real
diminution of the obliquity or to a defect in the
ancient observations. Al-Battani leaves the ques-

1 Metaphys., Cairo, n.d. [1902], p. 66 (ed. and tr. Quirds,
bk. iv. § 16).

2 Nizam ad-din al-Hasan an-Naisaburi, loc. cit. ; Fa]jr ad-din
ar-R.azi, i. 260.

3 See al-Qazwini, Cosmography, ed. F. Wiistenfeld, Gottingen,
1848, i. 54; the glosses on Mawdqif ol "Adud ad-din aM ji ;
E. W. Lane, Arabic- English Lexicon, 8 vols., London, 1863-93,'
s.v. ''Arsh,' etc.

* ii. 59; cf. Avicenna, Ash-Shifd', Teheran, 1303-05 a.h., i
175 (in the 6th ch. of the ind fann of the Tf^bViyyat).
B ii. 59 and i. 259 f . 6 Loc. cit. 7 See § 7 below

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Muhammadan)

97

tion undecided and declares that he chooses the
excellent value found by himself (23° 35'), ' since
this was observed by us witli our own eyes ; the
other, on the contrary, was received through the
information of others.' ^ Some, less prudent, de-
duced the theory of libration ^ from the discrepancies
as to the obliquity of the ecliptic combined with
those relative to the precession of the equinoxes.
But the continued series of observations left no
doubt by the 13th cent, that the obliquity of the
ecliptic was subject to a very slow regular diminu-
tion,^ which therefore came to be admitted by all
the astronomers ; in Europe, on the other hand,
we must come down to Tycho Brahe (ISiS-lGOl)
to see it affirmed in the midst of opposition which
lasted through the greater part of the 17th
century. The Muhammadan astronomers had no
means of determining whether this diminution
was continuous or periodical and within what
limits it was contained.* Abu 'Ali al-IJasan (c.
1260), who had accepted the hypothesis of az-
Zarqali as to libration, believed that the obliquity
oscillated between a maximum of 23° 53' and
a minimum of 23° 33' ; Fahr ad-din ar-Razi ^
admitted a continuous diminution on account of
which the ecliptic will coincide one day with the
equator and then will depart from it again, so
that the Tropic of Cancer will pass to the south
and that of Capricorn to the north. Nasir ad-din
at-Tusi (t 1274 A.D.) confined himself to setting
forth the eight possible lij' potheses as to the con-
tinuity or the periodicity of the diminution,
without giving preference to any.

(d) Precession of the equinoxes. — The precession
of the equinoxes, on account of which the equi-
noctial points retreat from east to west along the
equator and cause a continuous increase in the
longitude of the fixed stars (calculated precisely
from the point of the vernal equinox or the first
point of Aries), is one of the greatest discoveries of
Hipparchus, accepted by Ptolemy. It was ac-
cepted by all the Muhammadan astronomers, who,
from the first half of the 9th cent., assigned it a
value much more exact than that of Ptolemy (36"
yearly), viz. 54" 33'" ; later, a continued series of
observations indicated other values still more
approximate to the true one. There remained a
question which celestial mechanics alone has been
able to solve with certainty : Is the precession to
be regarded as continuous, so that in many thou-
sands of years the retreating equinoctial points
will accomplish the entire circuit of the ecliptic,
or is it coniined within limits so as to be reduced
to one oscillation, more or less great, of the equi-
noctial points ? The first hypothesis, which is the
true one, is accepted by Ptolemy ; the second was
followed by some Greek astrologers after the
Christian era, who held that the equinoctial points,
after having advanced 8° in 640 years, retreated 8°
in a similar lapse of time, returning thus to the
primitive point. According to them, the pre-
cession was 45" a year. Finally, it is necessary to
note that, while some Indian writers are quite
ignorant of the precession, others admit it in an
oscillatory form with arcs of 54° or 48° (namely, 27°
or 24° from the one part and from the other of f
Piscium), which they imagined by gross mistakes
and not for scientific reasons.

(e) Hypothesis of libration or trepidation. — The
great majority of Muhammadan astronomers held
that there was a continuous precession, rightly

1 Ed. Nallino, i. 12.

2 See below, § (e).

•* This was already the opinion of Ilamid al-IJujaiidi, about
A.D. 1000.

* Only in the second half of the 18th cent, has relestial
mechanics been able to establish the fact that it is a question of
a very slow oscillation contained within limits of less than 2J°.

5 Ma/alili al-ghaib, i. 260, ii. 59 f.
VOL. XII. — 7

attributing the discrepancies concerning its value
to the imperfection of the observations of the
Greeks. We know only three writers of tlie second
half of the 9th cent, who, through Indian influence,
accepted the idea of the oscillatory precession in
the empirical form of the Greek astrologers men-
tioned above and of the Indians. On the otiier
hand, Thabit ibii Qurrah (t 901) suggested tliat
the discrepancies in the estimate of the annual
precession were due in reality to an apparent ir-
regularity of that motion, and that they were con-
nected with the discrepancies relative to the
obliquity of the ecliptic. In an epistle which is
preserved by Ibn Yunus he says that he had up
till then kept his own calculations private, because
he regarded them as uncertain and only pro-
visional. It seems that these secret papers formed
the tractate whicli has come down to us only in
two une<lited Latin translations under the title De
motu octavce sphcene or De motu accessus et re-
cessics.^ In this tractate Thabit notes that, if all
the known observations were exact, there would
be a slackening and an acceleration in the motion
of precession and in the increase and diminution
of the obliquity of the ecliptic. In order to ex-
plain these apparently irregular variations, he pro-
poses tlie following hypothesis :

The eighth sphere, viz. that which contains the fixed stars,
has a movable ecliptic, the extremities of whose axis rotate
about the equinoctial points of an ideally fixed ecliptic inclined
23° 33' in respect of the equator ; the complete rotation on
those two small circles, having' 4^ 18' 43' of radius, is accom-
plished in 4171^ lunar years. In this period the equinoctial
points would seem to accomplish, with a motion not uniform,
an oscillation of 21° 30' (10° 45' forwards and the same back-
wards) ; in a similar time there will take place an unequal varia-
tion of tlie obliquity.

The hypothesis of Thabit was received in its entirety hi
Europe by Purbachius (1423-62) and by his commentators
Reinhold and Nonius. The oscillation of the equinoctial points
is called by the Arabs harakat al-iqbCil wa 'l-idbdr, ' motion of
advance and of retreat,' whence the Latin name motns accessus
et recessus ; this was also called in Europe mollis octavce sphcera;,
in contradistinction to the motion of the ninth sphere, to
which was attributed the motion of the continuous precession ;
finally, since the longitude of the fixed stars underwent the
same oscillations of the equinoctial points, it was often called
in Europe trepidatio Jixarvm. This does not seem to have had
supporters among the Muhammadans of the East after the 11th
century. It had greater fortune among the Muhammadans of the
extreme West (Spain and Morocco). Towards 1060-70, at Toledo,
az-Zarqali, in order to make his observations ajrree with those of
his predecessors, sujrgested that the poles of the ecliptic circu-
lated about the equatorial poles, so that the equinoxes advanced
by one unequal motion towards the east about 10' and then re-
treated irregularly by 20°, accomplishing, i.e., an oscillation of
10° forwards and 10° backwards with reference to an equinoctial
point ideally fixed. Every arc of 10° would have been jmsscd
over in 750 j'ears, so that the complete cycle of the libration
would be accomplished in 3000 years. The hypothesis of az-
Zarqilli, explicitly denied by Averroes,^ was accepted by al-
Bitruji (c. 1200) in Spain and by Abu 'AH al-IIasan (c. 1260) in
Morocco ; it also found great favour among the Jews and
Spanish Christians and had an influence on tlie Hebrews, who,
on a basis of Arabic sources, compiled about 1270 the Tabula
Alphonsince.'^

(/) Motion of the solar apogee. — Ptolemy
(followed by all the later Greeks) says that he
found the longitude of the solar apogee to be equal
to that observed by Hipparchus, and consequently
believes that it is immovable at 65° 30', while the
apogees of the five planets move with the motion
of the precession. It is a merit of the Arab astron-
omers of the khalif al-Ma'mun (813-833) that they
recognized that the solar apogee is subject to the

1 A suspicion arises, however, that this tractate may rather
be by a grandson of Tiiabit, viz. Ibrahim ibn Sin.an ibn Thabit,
who wrote concerning libration (as al-Biruni and (^i.-iiliziidch
attest).

2 Metaphys. p. 66 (Ouircis, bk. iv. § 15).

3 It must be noticed that these Hebrews combined the hypo-
thesis of Az-Zarqiili with fantastic elements ; viz. they a<lmitted
a continuous precession accomplishing the circuit of 360° in
49,000 years (i.e. just about 26' 27" a year), which precession
was to be always corrected on the basis of an inequality acconi-
l)lishing its own period in 70(30 years. They evidently wished
to introduce into the hypothesisof trepidation Judaic clementa
— a thousand jubilary periods of 49 years and a thousand sab-
bati(;al jieriods of 7 years !

98

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Muhammadan)

motion of the fixed stars aud of the planetary
apogees, i.e. to the displacement of longitude due
to the precession of the equinoxes. But the solar
apogee has also another very small proper motion
in longitude which, according to Leverrier, is only
11 •464" yearly. This motion must have escaped
the Muhammadan astronomers. The determina-
tion of the longitude of the apogee is not easy and,
in times when telescopes and pendulum-clocks
were lacking, could not be eflected with absolute
certainty in the minutes of arc ; on the other hand,
there was no term of comparison with ancient
observations. One understands, therefore, why
the majority of Muhammadan astronomers did not
give to the solar apogee any other motion than
that of the precession, attributing the small dis-
crepancies to the imperfection of instruments and
observations. It seems that Thabit ibn Qurrah,
however, had dared to affirm the existence of a
proper motion. Al-Biruni ^ informs us that Thabit,
author of a tractate on the inequality of the solar
year, had determined 365 days, 6 hours, 12 minutes,
9 seconds, as being the length of the year which
we call anomalistic, i.e. the time which the sun
takes to return to its own apogee. If, then, the
same Thabit (if we may rely upon a jiiece of in-
formation which Regiomontanus and Copernicus
seem to have derived from the De motu octavce
sphcerce cited above) determined the length of the
sidereal year as 365 d., 6 h., 9 m., 12 s., it is plain
that he must have attributed to the solar apogee a
small projjer motion added to that of the preces-
sion.^ Certainly the values found by Thabit are
excellent, since, according to the moderns, the
anomalistic solar year is 365 d., 6 h., 13 m., 54 "9 s.,
and the sidereal year 365 d. , 6 h. , 9 m. , 10-7 s. It is
beyond doubt that az-Zarqali determined with great
exactness {\2i^^' every Julian year) the proper
motion of the apogee, as distinguished from that
due to the precession ; and lie therefore sujjposed
that the centre of the eccentric of the sun moved
over a very small circle, and by this was also
settled the variation of the eccentricity of the
solar orbit. Among us the proper motion of the
apogee was discovered only in the 16th cent, by
Kepler and Longomontanus.

(g) Third lunar inequality. — We need not notice
other modifications of special points of Ptolemaic
doctrines. It will be enough now to make a refer-
ence to a controversy carried on from 1836 to 1871
in the Academy of Sciences of Paris without any
definite conclusion being arrived at, viz. : Is the
discovery of the variation or third lunar inequality
to be ascribed to Abu 'I-Wafa' (t 998), as L. A.
S6dillot maintained, rather than to Tj^cho Brahe?
There would have been no reason for this disjjute
if that part of the Almagest relative to the move-
ments of the moon had been better studied, and if
the analogous discussions in the works of other
Arabic asti-onomers had been examined with care.
Carra de Vaux ^ has demonstrated that the hypo-
thetical theory of the variation was nothing else
than the ■jrpdavevffi.s of Ptolemy, i.e. the difference
between the true and the mean apogee of the epi-
cycle by which diflerence the mean anomaly is
corrected so as then to calculate the simple equa-
tion of the moon. Al-BattanI opportunely calls it
'equation of the anomaly.' It is cm-ious to note
that no one has observed that already in 1645
BuUialdue (I. Boulliau) had recognized that the
■n-pdavevais corresponded to about half of the ' varia-
tion ' of Tycho Brahe, and that consequently the

1 Chronology of the A^icient Nations, Eng. tr., London, 1879,
p. CI f.

2 The fact that Thabit wrote a tractate to maintain that the
solar ajioyee does move is of no importance, since it is probably
merely a confutation of the Ptolemaic imnioliility.

3 ' L'Alniageste d'Abil 'l-VVcifa al-Bazdjani ' in JA viii. xix
flSnS] 440-471.

tables of Ptolemy for the moon were sufficiently
near to the truth.

6. Opposition to Ptolemy. — The many modifica-
tions of the doctrines of the Almagest never
abandon the geometrical foundation followed by
Ptolemy for the representation of the motions of
the sun and planets, viz. a combination of eccentric
circles and epicycles. This permitted the repre-
sentation of celestial motions with all the exact-
ness of which astronomical instruments were
capable before the discovery of pendulum-clocks
and telescopes ; it was further obedient to the
Aristotelian principle that celestial motions are
circular only. Practical astronomy therefore did
not feel the need of theories based on different
geometrical principles. The difficulty arose only
from a physical point of view, since the idea of
numerous circular motions round an imaginary
point was repugnantto the principles of Aristotelian
physics. It was precisely in the name of Aristo-
telian natural laws that the battle began among
the Arabs of Spain in the 12th cent, against the
eccentrics and epicycles of Ptolemy ; but their
opponents were philosophers.^

The first of these was Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn as-Sa'igh,
known bj' the name of Ibn Bajah or Avempace (t 1139), who is
said to have explained the celestial motions bj' means of
eccentrics only, rejecting the epicycles as repugnant to the
physics of Aristotle ; but we have no particular account of his
systein.2 After him we find Abii Bakr ibn f ufail {q.v. ; f llSo-
86), famous in Europe for his Pliilosophus autodidactus, who
said to al-Bitriiji that he had found a theory of those motions
quite different from that of Ptolemy rejecting both eccentrics
and epicycles, and that he had promised to put it in writing.
But it seems that the promise was not fulfilled. The ideas of
Ibn Tufail probably influenced his friend Averroes (q.v. ; 1 1198),
who affirms •> the physical impossibility of the geometrical
hypothesis of Ptolemy. The astronomers, he continues, assign
an eccentric to the moon because, since she is eclipsed now
more and now less in one and the same point of the zodiac, they
suppose that she traverses the cone of shade at different dis-
tances with regard to the earth. ' But this may happen also on
account of the diversity of her position, if we imagine that the
poles of the lunar sphere move around the poles of another
sphere. If God shall prolong our life, we will investigate the
astronomy of the time of Aristotle, since this seems not to con-
tradict physics ; it consists of motions which Aristotle calls
laulah [i.e. spirals]. I believe that this motion consists in this,
that the poles of one sphere move about the poles of another ;
since then the motion [resulting] is according to a line leulebia
[i.e. spiral], just so is the motion of the sun [combined] with
the diurnal motion [of the celestial sphere]. Perchance it is
possible by means of such a motion to represent the inequalities
which take place in the planetary motions.'

In his commentary on the Metaphysic, xii. 47,^ Averroes does
not succeed in forming a clear idea of the system of Eudoxus
from the scanty allusions of Aristotle and from the commentary
of Alexander of Aphrodisias, which is very defective in this
part, it not being clear in what manner the ' motus gyrativi ' 5
arise from two contrary motions, unless two different poles be
supposed. 0 He observes that by this hypothesis one could
explain all the appearances of the planets : ' et iste motus, ut
mathematici Hispanise dicunt, existit in orbe stellate, et vocant
ipsum motum processus et reversionis.'^

Although Averroes did not complete his exposition, 8 he had
guessed a notable part of the hj^iothesis of E\idoxus (c. 409-356
B.C.), which was for the first time reconstructed by G. Schia-
parelli in 1S75. Averroes, like Eudoxus, allows only spheres
concentric with the earth ; he admits that the line lanlabl may
be the apparent result of two contrary circular motions— one of
the sphere of the planets, and the other, in an opposite
direction, of another sphere whose axis is inclined in respect of
the axis of the first sphere ; finally, the line laulabl corresponds
to the LirnoneS-q of Eudoxus, in the form of oo, which, according
to the Greek geometricians, belongs to the category of spiral
lines (o-TTfipai), and, according to modern geometricians, would

1 Cf. L. Gauthier, ' Une Rdforme du systfeme astronomique de
Ptol6m6e tentde par les philosophes arabes du xii^ si6cle,' in JA
X. xiv. [1909] 483-510 ; but this article is insufficient from a
mathematical-a.stronomic point of view.

2 See Maimonides, Le Guide des igaris, ed. and tr. S. Munk,
Paris, 1856-66, ii. 185 f.

3 Comm. de Ccelo, ii. 35 (Aristotelis Opera omnia cum Averrois
Cordubensis cmnmentariis, Venice, 1562, v. fol. llSv.-119r.).

4 Ed. cit. viii. fol. 331v.-332r.

6 Thus the Latin translator in the commentary on the
Metaphijsic renders the Arabic adjective laulabl 'spiral, in
the form of a spiral or of a screw.'

6 And, in fact, this was the hypothesis of Eudoxus.

7 I.e. the motion of the libration of the fixed stars in the
hypothesis of the Spaniard az-Zarqali (see above, § 5, (c)).

^ C!f. also ed. cit. viii. fol. 329v. (on Metnphys. xii. iU).

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Muhammadan)

99

be a lemniscate described on a spherical superficies instead of
on a plane. There naturally occur in the hypothesis of Eudoxus
some special conditions, of which Averrocs does not seem to
have thought ; one does not understand, then, how the Arabian
philosopher thougrht to save himself from the greatest objection
which could be made to the system of concentric spheres, \ iz.
that by making the distance of the celestial bodies from the eartii
always equal it did not permit of an explanation of the variation
of the diameters of the sun and moon.

Another friend and disciple of Ibn Tufail, al-Bitriiji (a native
of Pedroche to the north of Cordova),! attempted a conii)lete
system as a substitute for the geometrical hypothesis of
Ptolemy,2 by placing the data of observation of the Almagest in
agreement with the peripatetic philosophy. He says that,
moved by discourses of Ibn Tufail to meditate on this question,
he had arrived at new theories by a kind of divine i-evelation.
He admits with Ptolemy the nine spheres concentric with the
earth; on the other hand, he denies the eccentrics and the
epicycles. He finds it to be contrary to natural order that,
while the ninth sphere impresses on all the others the diurnal
motion of rotation from east to west, the spheres below the ninth
should have besides a motion of their own in an opposite
direction. In order to remove this contradiction, he conceives
a whimsical theory which lictrays the inexperience of the author
in the field of practical astronomy.

Ac<;ording to him, the movements of the planets and of the
fixed stars in longitude take place in reality from east to west,
like the diurnal motion of the rotation of the heavens ; those
movements which astronomers have judged to be from west to
east are simply illusory appeai'ances due to the progressive
diminution of the angular velocity of the spheres, according as
a gradual approach is made from the ninth sphere to the earth."
The ninth sphere accomplishes the 3GU° of circumference in 24
hours and communicates this motion to the spheres below ; but
the impulse grows weaker from sphere to sphere. That of the
fixed stars, which is innnediately under the ninth, accomplishes
in 24 hours something less than 360° ; and this little retardation
brings it about that after 36,000 years'* it has accomplished a
whole circuit less than tiie ninth sphere and appears to be
moving very slowly in a direction contrary to it. Under the
sphere of the fixed stars comes that of Saturn, considerably
slower ; it accomplishes in the space of about 30 years 5 a whole
circuit less than the ninth sphere. Thus Jupiter loses a whole
circuit in 12 years ; Mars in two ; Venus, the sun, and Mercury
in one ; and the moon in a little more than 27 days. This, then,
is the reason why all the spheres under the ninth appear to
move in a direction contrary to it.

For physical reasons, therefore, al-BiJriiji believes that
the sphere of Venus is to be placed above the sun and that
of Mercury below it. There remain to be explained the in-
equalities of the motions of the sun, moon, and planets. He
says that he drew inspiration for this from constructions
analogous to that by which az-Zarqali had imagined the motion
of the libration of the fixed stars. While az-Zarqali made the
poles of the ecliptic rotate parallel with the plane of the equator,
al-Bitriiji, in the case of the planets, made the poles of the
planetary spheres move on inclined planes round the poles of
the equator or of the ecliptic ; from this it results that the
planets describe lines laulabince, i.e. spiral, on a spherical
superiicies. Thus are also explained the stations and retro-
gradations of the planets. For this part, therefore, we have
the partial resuscitation of the hypothesis of Eudoxus. The
ideas of al-Bitruji were accepted by a fair number of Christians
and Jews in Sv>ain and Provence ; and they had also an echo in
Italy in the ICth century.

7. Celestial physics. — As is said above,® celestial
physics, according to Muhammadan and Greek
writers, lies outside the field of astronomy ; its
problems are discussed in books of metaphysics, of
physics in an Aristotelian sense, and of theology,
or at least in special works, of which the greater
part are now either lost or unedited.

Like Ptolemy, the most ancient Arabic astrono-
mers neglect to define the idea of the celestial
spheres and limit themselves to considering them
in the mathematical aspect of ideal circles repre-
senting the movements of the heavenly bodies.

1 Alpetragius of our mediaeval writers.

2 Of the book of al-Bitriiji there has been published only an
obscure Latin tr. (Venice, 1531) made from a Hebrew version.
The Latin tr. made in 1217 at Toledo by Michael Scotus is un-
edited, as is also the Arabic text.

3 This idea was already maintained by the IJjwan a?-Safa'
about the middle of the 10th cent, (see their Rasd'il^ Bom'liay,
1305-06 A.n., ii. 22-26) and by Fahr ad-din ar-Uazi, Mafdt'il) dl-
ghaih, Cairo, 1308 a.h., ii. 60 f. (comm. on Qur. ii. 159) and vi.
117 f. (on Qur. xxi. 34). But they admit Ptolemy's eccentrics
aiui epicycles.

■* This is the period of time in which, according to Ptolemy,
the fixed stars accomplish the circumference, proceeding
towards the cost.

■■> The duration of the heliocentric sidereal revolution of Saturn
is a little less than 20.} years ; it is, in the Ptolemaic hjiiothcsis,
the revolution of the centre of the epicycle of Satiirn in the
zodiac.

!■■ See 5 I.

The Aristotelian conception of solid spheres was
introduced for the first time^ into a purely
astronomical treatise by Ibn al-Haitham ; and he,
in his unedited compendium of astronomy, gives
the definition which was accepted afterwards by
all the other writers of elementary treatises: 'A.
celestial spliere (falak, plur. aflCik) is a body com-
pletely spherical, bounded by two parallel spherical
superficies having the same centre.'^ In this, as
lie himself says, he drew his inspiration from the
Hypotheses Vlanetavum of Ptolemy ; in fact, as we
see from a passage of Nasir ad-din at-TusI, he
followed the Hypotheses also in expounding how
the celestial motions can be represented, and also
by supposing simple equatorial zones of those
complete spheres, so tiiat the spheres of the
epicycles become, as it were, tambourines (dnlf')
rotating on tlieir own axes, and the other splioies
like armils.^ This second form of representation
was soon abandoned, as contrary to the principles
of natural philosophy.

Muiiaiumadan writers agree with Aristotle in
holding that the spheres and the celestial bodies
are a simple unique substance, difierent from the
four elements of the sublunar world, and forming
a fifth element. The solidity also of the spheres,
by reason of which the stars remain infixed Avithin
them, and by which the stars are carried round, is
accepted by almost all,'* except a few theologians
who, to support a strictly literal meaning of a
passage of the Qur'an,^ maintain that the stars
move within the spheres like fish swimming in
water. The ideas of the majority of writers after
the 4th cent, of the Hijra are those set fortii in
the dogmatic theology of al-Baidawi (t 1286) as
follows :

' The spheres are transparent ; since if they were coloured,
our eyes could not possibly see that which is within them.
They are neither hot nor cold ; since otherwise the heat and
cold would dominate in the elements of the sublunar world on
account of their contiguity to it. They are neither light nor
heavy ; since otherwise in their nature there would be a
tendency to rectilinear motion. •> They are neither moist nor
dry ; otherwise the facility or difficulty of taking certain forma
or of attaching themselves would be manifested in rectilinear
motion. They are not capable of quantitative motion ; since,
if the convexity of the external superficies were to increase, it
would be necessary that there should be a void above it, which
is absurd ; and the same is to be saiil regarding concavity,
since if this were to increase it would be necessary that one
sphere should enter into another or that between the two there
should be a void.' 7

So also it is proved by Aristotelian reasonings that the motion
of the spheres must be circular.

The greater number of Muhammadan philo-
sophers accept the peripatetic doctrine that the
spheres and the stars are living beings, rational,
operating by their own will ; that the sjjheres
have souls which exist in their bodies as our souls
in our bodies ; and that, as our bodies move under
the impulse of our souls towards the ends we have
in view, so also do the spheres, which have as
their end the serving of God. This doctrine is for
the most part repudiated by the theologians : al-
Ghazali (t 1111) does not deny the possibility of it,
but he affirms that we are incapable of knowing it ;
on the other hand, Ibn ^lazm (t 1064), Ibn Qayyini

1 This follows from the preface itself of Ibn al-Haitham and
from tlie attestation of Muhammad al-AkfanI as-Saljawi, Irshdd
al-qd?id, p. 85.

^ Only the spheres of the epicycles are full, i.e. are true
globes.

3 These two forms of hypothesis are always found side by
side for every planet, in bk. ii. of the Uypothexes, published for
the first time (1007) in German according to the Arabic version
which takes the place of the lost Greek text (in Ptolemy, Opera
aatronoiiiica minora, ed. Heiberg, p. 113 ff.).

4 The ancient Arab astronomers — e.g., al-Eattani (i. 124)—
leave the question uncertain.

6 xxi. 34.

6 According to the Aristotelian theory {de. Cfp/n, i. 8f.), heavy
bodies tend in a straight line towards the cendv of the \\orld,
light bodies tend to withdraw in a straight line from the
centre.

7 Mot.nlV nl-anwdr, Constantinople, 1.30."i A.H., p. 262.

100

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Muhammadan)

al-Jauziyyah (t 1350), and many others absolutely
deny life and intelligence to the heavenly bodies.
The philosophers of the peripatetic school and
several theologians {e.g., al-Baidilwi) hold that the
movers of the celestial souls and consequently of
the spheres are pure intelligences. Concerning
their origin al-Farabi, Avicenna, and their followers
maintain a Neo-Platonic emanatory theory : from
the iirst principle emanates the first intelligence,
and from this are derived all the nine spheres by
means of successive triads always composed of
intelligence, soul, and body, until one arrives at
the final or active intelligence from which is de-
rived all the material of the sublunar world. This
theory is vigorously opposed by al-Ghazali and the
other theologians.

The question of the marks on the moon is either
neglected or only hinted at in the works hitherto
published. The idea that the moon had valleys
and mountains like the earth — an idea set forth bv
several Syriac writers — did not harmonize witn
the Aristotelian conception of the nature of the
heavenly bodies and so could not be accepted by
Muhammadan writers.

Observation of the solar spots is almost im-
possible to the naked eye ; Fahr ad-din ar-Razi,
however, explicitly affirms : ' There are those who
believe that there exist on the surface of the sun
spots, in the same manner as there are marks on the
surface of the moon.'^ These spots were actually
seen on some occasions, but were erroneously
believed to be transits of Mercury and Venus
across the sun.

The comets a,nd the other meteors (in an Aris-
totelian sense) were the subjects of observations
and of numerous monographs. But, judging from
the little that we know about them, Muham-
madan writers followed in this matter the theories
set forth by Aristotle in his books on meteor-
ology. ^

8. Conclusion. — The importance of Muham-
madan astronomy in the history of science has
been variously judged ; sometimes Muhammadan
astronomers have received excessive praise, some-
times unjust criticism, as if they had done nothing
but preserve and transmit to Europe Greek science,
improving it only in minor details. This harsh
verdict is due not only to very imperfect knowledge
of the Arabic writings on astronomy (of which the
greater part is still unedited), but also to the fact
that no account has been taken of the special con-
ditions of astronomy in the glorious period of
Muhammadan culture. The system invented by the
Greek geometricians, and completed by Ptolemy,
for representing all the celestial motions had
mathematically all the precision that could be
desired or attained by the use of the best instru-
ments ; it produced no sensible discrepancy between
theory and the result of observation. The elliptic
orbits of Kepler would not have given the theory
greater perfection than it received from the com-

{)licated system of eccentrics and epicycles ; the
atter indeed had the advantage of preserving the
Pythagorean and Aristotelian principle, which
denied any but circular movement in the heavens.
One must not forget that even in the heliocentric
system of Copernicus the motions of the planets
were still explained by means of combinations of
epicycles — combinations which were in several
cases less perfect than those employed by the
Ptolemaic astronomy. To change the method of
geometrical representation would therefore have
been whimsical — a mathematical trick, which no
datum of observation would have justified ; and, in
fact, those Arabs who wished to eliminate the

1 Mafatlli al-ghaib, i. 259, on Qur. ii. 27.

- On falling: stars see present writer's art. in Rivista degli
Sludi Orientali, viii. [1920] 375-388.

eccentrics and the epicycles^ were philosophers
rather than astronomers, and they propounded
their hypotheses from data based only on Aris-
totelian physics.

It is thus easy to understand how it was that,
e.g., the astronomers of the khalif al-Ma'mun and
tlieir successors saw no necessity for drawing from
their observations of the movement of Venus ^ the
final conclusion that Venus revolved round the
sun. From the point of view of such phenomena
as could be observed without telescopes, this second
hypothesis had no higlier value than that which
made Venus revolve round the earth. In a word,
celestial appearances gave no cause to shake the
foundations of the geocentric system, which agreed
very well with every religious notion, and which
was supported by the authority of both Aristotle
and Ptolemy, reinforced by a very potent element
in Hellenistic and mediseval culture, viz, astrology.
Giovanni Schiaparelli, in one of his monographs on
Greek astronomy,^ has set forth clearly the decisive
influence which astrology, brought into Greece by
the Chaldsean Berosus (3rd cent. B.C.) and conse-
quently received with great favour by the Stoics
and Neo-Pythagoreans, had in the abandonment
of the heliocentric system of Aristarchus. Astro-
logical doctrine, based on the immobility of the
earth in the centre of the world, was irreconcilable
with any system which made the earth revolve
round the sun or round any other body ; astrology
was thus a very powerful additional obstacle to the
abandonment of the geocentric idea. Further, we
must not forget that it was only in the 17th cent,
that European physics reached clear proofs of the
diurnal rotation of the earth and justified elliptic
orbits and tlie heliocentric system, and that the
really irrefutable argument for the revolution of
the earth round the sun was furnished only in 1728
by the discovery of the aberration of the fixed
stars.

An essential condition of all astronomical
progress is to have at disposal a long series of
methodical observations ; and in this matter
Muhammadan astronomers were obliged to begin,
so to say, from the foundation. Ptolemy was the
last Greek observer ; but not even all the observa-
tions which he says he made are true. In several cases
of capital importance— e.g'., regarding the obliquity
of the ecliptic and the longitude of the solar apogee
— he gave as agreeing with his own observations
data found about 270 years before his time by
Hipparchus, thus causing certain elements to be
believed constant which are really variable. In
other cases — e.g., regarding the precession of the
equinoxes — his observations are very rough.
Theon of Alexandria (4th cent. A.D.) and Proclus
(5th cent.) do no more than accept Ptolemy's
elements, in some ways aggravating his errors ;
accordingly, during the seven centuries from
Ptolemy to the first flourishing of Arabo-Muhani-
madan astronomy, we have not even one observa-
tion which is of use to the science. The first task,
therefore, of the Arabic astronomers was to revise
all the Ptoleirwiic elements of the celestial motions ;
it was a time not to form new theories but to collect
the indispensable elements of fact by means of con-
tinuous observations more accurate than those of
the Greeks. This task was accomplished by the
Muhammadan astronomers in a marvellous manner;

1 See above, § 6.

3 They found (contrary to Ptolemy) that Venus has the same
longitude of apogee, the same eccentricity, and the same
equation of centre as the sun ; and so the true longitude of the
centre of the epicycle of Venus is always equal to the true
longitude of the sun. This was the same as to suppose that the
orbit of Venus is an epicycle whose centre is always the true
place of the sun and runs" over the solar orbit ; in other words,
it was equivalent to making Venus a satellite of the sun.

3 Origine del sistema planetaria eliocentrico presso i Greci,
Milan, 1898, § 65.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Teutonic and Balto-Slavic)

101

indeed, we must come down to the time of Tycho
Bralie (1546-1601) to find observers and observa-
tions comparable to those of the Muiiammadan
Middle Ages. Further, by founding trigonometry
in a modern sense and developing it to a high degree
they furnished astronomical science with an excel-
lent instrument for its worlc.

The influence of Muhamraadan astronomy in
Europe is so far-reacliing that to treat of it at
length would be to give the liistory of some cen-
turies of European astronomy. From tlie 12th
cent, to the end of the 15th the compendiums used
in the schools were translated from Arabic or were
based on Arabic writings ; the astronomical tables
and the processes of calculation were derived from
Arabic works, among which must be classed (from
the point of view not of their language but of their
contents) the celebrated tables of Alfonso which
were still used by many in the 16th century.
Spherical trigonometry in Europe started from
Arabic treatises ; the famous Regiomontanus him-
self (1436-76) borrows more than appears on the
surface from al-BattJlni. Through the influence
of these Arabic sources the ancient Latin technical
terminology was greatly modified, and not only do
Arabic astronomical terms enter into European
languages, but Latin words acquire new signifi-
cations by imitation of corresponding Arabic
words. The words ' degree,' ' minute,' ' equation '
(in its astronomical sense), ' equation of the centre,'
• argument ' (of a table), and some others, owe their
technical signification to ridiculously literal trans-
lations of Arabic writings. We cannot enumerate
all that European astronomy owes to Muhamma-
dan observers ; it will be enough to recall that they
rendered inestimable services even to writers of
the 17th cent. — e.g., Halley — precisely because
they ottered the only certain means of checking
elements determinable only by a comparison with
observations separated by long intervals of time.
The books of liegiomontanus, Purbachius, Coper-
nicus, Tycho Brahe, Riccioli, etc., cite the observa-
tions which were known to them of their Oriental
predecessors. The theory and practice of instru-
ments in Europe has also Arabic sources. Finally,
we must not forget the influence exercised by the
Arabs in the way of example. They infused into
the Christians and Jews of Spain a passion for con-
tinued observations and an idea of the perfecti-
bility of astronomical science ; from Spain this
passion and idea spread through the rest of Europe,
preparing the way for modern astronomy.

The conditions of the Byzantine mediaeval world
were not favourable to the development of the
sciences. Nevertheless, Muhammadan culture,
which left many traces in Byzantine astrology,
had also its part in astronomical studies. In 1323
an anonymous Greek introduced the Persian astro-
nomical tables of Shams ad-din al-Buhari (Sa/i^
Mirovxapris), which were at once widely used ; in
1346 George Chrysococces made a new redaction
of them, preserving at the same time many Arabic-
Persian technical terms; and finally, about 1361,
Theodore Meliteniotes reproduced these methods
and these Persian tables in the third and last book
of his 'AffrpovofMKTi Tpl^i^Xos, after having set forth
in the first and second books the methods and
the tables according to Ptolemy and Theon of
Alexandria. Thus there was created at Byzantium
also a new astronomical terminology diflerent from
that of the classic Greek ; and sometimes even
Greek proper names appeared transformed by their
passage through Arabic-Persian sources, as BaoiyvT/s
in place of Qiuf.

Literature. — There is no satisfactory exposition of the astron-
omy of the Muhammadan peoples in the Middle Ages; the
general histories of astronomy— cf?., those of F. Hoefer, J. H.
von Madler, R. Wolf (the best of all), and Arthur Berry-
are inadequate, antiquated, and often erroneous. J. B. J.

Delambre, Hist, de I'astronomie du moyen dge, Paris, 1819, pp.
1-211, and 513-539, is not a history but an analysis (of very un-
equal value) of various works of Muhammadan authors ; the
part devoted to the unedited book of Ibn Yuims (pp. 76-156) is
especially noteworthy, but it has the usual defect of Delambre—
instead of the analyzed processes of the author, it substitutes a
series of formulas found by Delambre himself. Useful, but to
be used with great caution, is L. A. S^dillot, MaUriaux pour
servir d I'hist. compaHe des scieiices rnath&inatiqtus chez les Grecs
et les Orientaux, 2 vols., Paris, 1845-49 ; see also his Mimoire
sur les instruments astronomiques des Arabes, do. 1841
{MAIBL, Savants itrangers, i.). The present writer's Arabic
book quoted above, p. 90», n. 1, concerns only the earliest
period (summary of H. Suter, in Bibliotheca Mathematica, in.
xii. [1912] 277-282). Many historical notices concerning the
development of astronomical theories are to be found in the
present writer's commentary on al- Battani, Opus astronomicum,
3 vols., Milan, 1899-1907 ; short notices are to be found here and
there in E. Wiedemann, ' Beitrage zur Geschichte der Natur-
wissenschaften,' nos. iii.-xxxviii. (in the Sitzuufjsherichte der
physikal.-mcdizinischen Sozietdt in Erlangen, 1904-1914) and
in other small pamphlets by the same author. For biographical
and bibliographical notices concerning individual writers see the
excellent book of H. Suter, Die Mathematiker und Astronomen
der Araber und ihra Werke, Leipzig, 1900, and ' Nachtrage und
Berichtigungen zu Die Math, und Astron.,' in Abhandl. zur
Gesch. der mathemat. Wissenschaften, xiv. [1902] 157-185. For
edd. and tr. of original texts see above, n. 2.

Carlo Alfonso Nallino.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Teutonic and
Balto-Slavic). — I. TEUTONIC— 1. Archaeological
evidence. — The Avorld-wide symbol of the sun-
wheel occurs in the earliest Scandinavian rock-
markings. Rude representations of horses and
ships, which may have solar significance, are also
found. In 1902 a curious object, apparently con-
nected with the sun-cult, was discovered near
Trundholm in SAvedeu. It is a representation of
a disk, having gilding on one side and spiral
ornamentation on the other, with a horse in front
of it, both horse and disk being drawn on a
waggon.

2. Solar myths. — Sun and moon, day and night,
summer and winter, are personified in the poems
of the older Edda. The Valkyrie Sigrdrifa invokes
Day and the sons of Day, Night and her kins-
woman.^ Various passages from Grimnismdl,
Vafprii'Snismdl, and Vbluspd are summarized by
Snorri : ^

' Night, who was of Jotun race, married Delling, who was of
Aesir race, and their son was named Day.' 'Then Allfather
took Night and her son Day and set them up in heaven and
gave them two steeds and two chariots and the)' were to drive
round the earth every twenty-four hours.' The earth is be-
dewed by the foam which falls each morning from the bit of
Hrimfaxi, the horse of Night. Day's steed is called Sklnfaxi
and he lights up the whole world with his mane. ' Then said
Gangleri : " Who steers the course of the sun and of the
moon ? " ' Mundilf ori had a son Mani and a daughter Sol,
whom the gods set up in heaven. ' They let Sol drive the
steeds which drew the chariot of that sun which the gods
made to light the world, from the sparks which flew out of
Muspellheim [i.e. the world of fire and heat]. . . . These steeds
are called AU-Swift and Early-Awake, but under the withers of
the horses, the gods set two wind-bellows to cool them, but in
some old records that is called " isarnkol " [i.e. iron-coolness].
Mani steers the course of the Moon and rules over waxing and
waning.'

The belief in the chariot and horses of the sun
is very wide-spread ; in Scandinavia, judging by
the archaeological evidence, it must have existed
in very early times. We may have a reference to
the same idea in Tacitus :

' Beyond the Suiones is another sea, sluggish and almost
stagnant, by which the whole globe is imagined to be girt
about and enclosed, from this circumstance that the last light
of the setting sun continues so vivid till its rising as to obscure
the stars. Popular belief adds, that the sound of his emerging
from the ocean is also heard, and the forms of horses and the
rays streaming from his head are beheld.' 3

Like most other primitive people, the Scandi-
navians were struck by the phenomena of the
eclipses, which they thought were caused by
wolves.

' He who pursues her [i.e. the sun] is called SkoU ; he
frightens her and he will catch her ; but he who is called Hati

1 Sigrdrifumdl, 2. 2 Gylfaginning, x.-xii.

i Germ. 46. Unfortunately the text is uncertain ; some
editors read deoriim for cqtioruin in the last sentence.

102

SUN, MOON, AND STARS (Teutonic and Balto-Slavic)

IlrotJvitiiison leaps in front of her, and lie will catch the moon,
and so it must be.'i 'Skoll is the name of the wolf, who imr-
sues the gleaming goddess to Ironwood. Another called llati,
son of HroSvitni, goes before the fair bride of heaven.' 2

Sun and moon will be involved in the final
world-catastrophe.

'Then said Gangleri : "Of what race are these wolves [i.e.
Skoll and Hati]?" Hdr said : . . . "The old giantess rears the
sons of many Jotuns and all in the form of wolves, and it is said
that of the race of these wolves, there shall come one mightier
than all, called Moon-Swallower and he ... in demon's form
shall seize the moon. . . . He shall fill himself with the bodies
of doomed men, he shall stain the god's abode with red blood ;
the sunshine shall be black, and all the weather treacherous
during the following summer." '2
' Wlience conies a sun, in the smooth sk.v,
When Fenrir [i.e. a monstrous wolf] has overtaken this one,
One dan,>;hter alone, shall the Elf-beam [i.e. the sun] bear,
Before Fenrir overtakes her.
The maiden shall ride on the mother's paths
After the Powers have perished.' »

3. Sun-worship. — Our knowledge of the religious
practices of the Teutons is very meagre, and it is
difficult to say how far the stories told in the two
Eddas formed part of a living religion, even among
the Scandinavians. We have, however, various
references to the sun-cult from other sources.
Procopius^ describes how in the island of Thule
[i.e. Scandinavia] the sun does not ajjpear for
40 days at the winter solstice. At the end of this
period messengers are sent up into the mountains
to watch for the rising sun. They send word to
the people below that the sun will shine upon
them in five days : thereupon begins ' the greatest
feast of the inhabitants of Thule.'

The positive side of Caesar's well-known descrip-
tion of Teutonic religion^ is probably true. The
Teutons may well have acknowledged as gods
such things as are ' objects of sight and by whose
power they are apparently benefited, the sun,
moon, fire,' although these were not their only
deities. Observances in connexion with the sun
and moon are foi'bidden in Christian sermons and
])enitentiaries. St. Eligius (588-659) tells his
hearers that no Christian person 'calls sun or
moon lords.' In the 11th cent, the Decrees of
Burchard of Worms mention pagan traditions :

' Id est ut elementa coleres, id est lunam aut solem, aut
stellarum cursum, novam lunam, aut defectum lunae, ut tuis
clamoribus aut auxilio splendorem ejus restaurere valeres.'B
From Canute's Anglo-Saxon Laws 'we learn that
'heathenship is to honour heathen gods, and sun
or moon, . . . etc' We have perhaps a trace
of sun-worship in Landndmab6k :

'Thorkell Moon, the law speaker, was of the best conversation
of any heathen man in Iceland ... He had himself carried
out into the rays of the sun in his death-sickness and com-
mended himself to that god which had made the sun.'**

We know little of Anglo-Saxon paganism. Bede,
liowever, mentions a goddess Eostur, in whose
honour April was called 'Eosturmonath.'^ The
word ' Eostur ' is identical with the Latin, Greek,
Sanskrit, and Lithuanian names for the goddess
of the dawn, or Morgeni'dthe, probably the same
being who is referred to in the Lithuanian and
Lettish folk-songs as the daughter of the sun.

Throughout Teutonic territory the first and
second days of the week are named after the sun
and nioon. Sunna is mentioned with Wodau and
Fr6a in the Merseberg charm. Sol is counted as
one of the asynjur. '"

It is noteworthy that Snorri (see above) dis-
tinguishes between the physical sun and moon
and the beings Avho rule over them and guide their
movements. This distinction has been partly
preserved in tiie Old Norse language, where the
word Umgl (A.S. timgol, Goth, tiiggls, 'a star')
1 Gylf. xii. 15. 2 Grimn. xxxix. 88.

3 Vafhru'Snismdl, 4C f. 4 /),. Sell. Goth. ii. 15.

5 De Bell. Gall. vi. 21. 6 pj, cxl. 9G0.

■? Ancient Laws and Institutes of Enrjland, ed. C. Thorpe,
London, 1840, p. 162.
8 i. 9. 9 De Temp. Rat lone, 15.

^^ Gylf. XXXV. 45.

tleriotes the actual moon, and Miini tlie super-
natural being who directs his course. Tlie same
idea suems to underlie many of the Lithuanian
and Lettish folk-songs.

II. Lettisu, Lithuanian, and Old
Prussian. — I. Mythology. — Our chief know-
ledge of the solar mythology of the Baltic peoples
is derived from Lettish and Litliuanian folk-songs,
the most signilicant of which liave been translated
and analyzed by W. Mannhardt.' In these poems
the changes which pass over the face of the sky,
especially at dawn and sunset, are viewed as a
drama, the chief actors being sun, moon, the
daughter of the sun, the sons of God, Perkun, the
thunder deity, 'God' and. ' dear Maria ' — the last
two being as frankly pagan as the rest. Often, of
course, the poems are confused and inconsistent,
and it must be remembered that the terms 'sun,'
'moon,' etc., sometimes stand for the presiding
deity, sometimes for the actual sun, etc., per-
sonified :

'The Sun, in the apple garden,
Weeps bitterly.
The golden apple hath falleu
From the apple tree.' 2
(Here there is a clear distinction between the deity and the
physical sun.)

' The Sun dances over the silver mountain,
Silver shoes she hath on her feet.' 3
(In this case sun and sun-goddess appear to be one and the
same.)

'God,' who was at war with the sun for three
nights and three days, is evidently a sky-deity.
The sky itself is described as a ' great water ' or
a mountain :

' The Sun with two gold horses
liides up the rocky mountain.
Never heated, never weary,
Never resting on the way.'
(In this and in other songs we get the wide-spread myth of
the horses of the sun.)

2. The sun.— The sun is called in many of the
songs ' daughter of God,' in Lettish sources saitles-
maat, ' mother of the sun.' She is married to the
moon, who is, however, an unfaithful husband.

'It happened in the spring-time
That sun and moon did wed,
But the sun rose up early
And from her the moon fled.
The morning star was loved then
By the lone wandering moon.
Who with a sword was smitten
In deep wrath by Perkun.'*

The children of the sun and moon arc tiie stars,
who are called orphans, because they a]»])ear only
at night after their mother, the sun, has abandoned
them.

3. The sons of God. — The morning and the even-
ing stars play an important part in the folk-songs,
sometimes as a single being, sometimes in dual
foiin. In Lithuanian sources they are called
Auszrine and Wakarine " and are described as the
handmaids of the sun.

' " Dear sun, daughter of God,
Who kindles your fire in the morning?
Who spreads your bed in the evening?" . . .
"Auszrine kindles the lire.
Wakarine spreads the bed." ' G

In Lettish songs the morning and the evening stars
are called the 'sons of God' — an epithet exactly
equivalent to the Greek Dioskouroi. Like the
IJioskouroi and the Asvins of Indian mytliology,
the Lettish sons of God are connected with horses :

' Hither rode the dear sons of God

With steeds dripping with sweat.' 7
' Folks say the moon has no steeds of his own.

The morning star and the evening star

They are the steeds of the moon.' «

1 ' Die lett. Sonnenmythen,' ZE vii. 73-101, 209-244, 280-330.
■^/6. p. 91ff. s ]b. ■i lb.

5 Nom. fern, of adjective derived from Lith. auszra, ' dawn,'
vakaras, 'evening.'

6 ZE vii. loc. dt. "• lb. 8 Ji,

SUNDAY

103

4. The daughter of the sun.— A favourite theme
of the Lettish folk-^iongs is the wooing of the
daughter of the sun hy the son of God, tlio sun
providing the dowry, often most unwillingly.

' why are grey steeds standinfjf
By the house-door of the sun?
Tliey are the grey steeds of the son of CJod
Who woos the daughter of the sun.
The son of God stretches out his hand
Over the great water
To the daughter of the sun.
The sun cries bitterly
Standing on the mountain.
Why should she not weep?
She sorrows for the little maiden,
She sorrows for the dowry,
For the chest which is laden
With gold and silver gifts." 1

This is a good example of a sunrise or sunset
myth. The daughter of the sun is the red glow
winch is in the sky when the planet Venus appears,
but soon afterwards melts into darkness or the
full light of day. The ' dowry ' seems to be the
rays of the sun which light up the edges of the
clouds and the tops of trees and mountains.

'The sun prepari'tfi the dowry herself, gilding the edge of
the forest of pines.' 2

Tiie daughter of the sun is almost certainly
identical with the goddess mentioned by Lasicius.^
'Ausca dea est radiorum solis, vel occumbentis
vel supra horizontem ascendentis.''*

5. Dear Maria. — JNIannhardt considers that the
name Maria has been substituted for that of
various pagan deities, but it is also possible that
she stands for a particular goddess, perhaps the
Perkuna tete (i.e. the aunt of Perkun) mentioned
by Lasicius : ' Perkuna tete is the mother of
thunder and lightning ; who receives into a bath
the weary and dusty sun, and sends her out again
next day washed and shining.'" Maria also pre-
sides over a bath-chamber :

* Behind the mountains smoke is risiucf.

Who is it hath kindled fire?

Dear Maria heats the bathroom

Where bathe little orphan maidens [i.e. stars].''
' I ran down into the valley, into the bath-chamber of dear
Maria.' 7

According to Praitorius,^ the Nadravians wor-
shipped a star-god Szweigsdukks, who is evidently
tlie Suaixtix worshipped by the Sudavians in
Samland and equated with Sol in the Constit.
Synod. Evangel, of 1530. Lucas David ^ calls
Suaixtix the god of light and mentions him as one
of the four deities who were invoked at agricultural
festivals. 1" This deity seems to have been wor-
shipped in both male and female form : ' They
more commonly called this godhead Sweigsdunka, a
star-goddess, whom they consider the bride of the
.sky and through whose power the morning .and
evening stars are guided. '' Is this perhaps ' the
maiden who weaves star-coverings,' mentioned in
one of the folk-songs, and also tlie goddess wliose
jilace has been taken by dear Maria, and who was
also kuown as the aunt of the thunder-god ? The
underlying idea may be that she is a goddess of

lire, light, and heat.'^

6. Cult.— We know little of the sun-cult of the
r.altic peoples, although wo know from Peter von
Dusburg'^ and Erasmus Stella'* that sun, moon,
and stars were worshipi)ed as important deities.

1 ZE vii. loc dt. 2 lb.

3 l)e Diis Samagitarum, in licspublica sive Status regni
Polonice, Lilitanice, Prussice, Livonice, etc., Leyden, 1627, oh.
viii.

■i Ausca, in Lith. Auszra, a word which is connected with
Skr. usas, Gr. 'Huis, Lat. Avrwa, O.E. Kostur, all of which
(with the possible exception of Eostur) denote goddesses of tlie
dawn.

B P. 300. « ZE vii. loc. cit. ^ lb.

8 Di'licice Prufsicce, rd. W. Pierson, Berlin, 1871, p. 2(i.

9 Preussische Chronik, cd. E. Uennig, Kijnii^sberg, 1S12, i, SO.
10 lb. p. 91. U Prietorius, p. 26.

'■- See art. Nature (Lettish, Lithuanian, and Old Prussian).
^'■^ScriptoresRerum Prusnicannn, Leipzig, 1301-74, i. hi.
» lb. iv. 291.

Praitorius ' tells us that Bretkius (a historian of
the 16tli cent.) had observed that the Nadravians
did honour to their gods by worshi[)ping the
different phases of the moon at various stages of
their agricultural work.

In the course of his missionary journeys among
the Lithuanians Jerome of Prague met with a
people who worshipped the sun and who had a
strange cult of a huge iron hammer. The priests
justihed this cult by telling Jerome that formerly
the sun had been invisible for many months be-
cause a king had imprisoned it in a tower. ' The
signs of the zodiac brought help to the sun, and
broke the tower with the huge hammer, and
restored the liberated sun to men, and therefore
that which had been the instrument by which
mortals had received liglit was worthy of venera-
tion.'^ According to Kendel Harris, the signs
of the zodiac here stand for the Heavenly Twins
or ' Sons of God ' : ' These and similar cases all
ari-se out of the same theme, that the Sun (or the
daughter of the Sun) has been carried olf, or
swallowed or impi-isoned, and must be recovered.'^
They use the hammer, the weapon of the thunder-
god, because sacred twins are universally con-
sidered as children of the sky or thunder-god. In
one of the Lettish songs they are described as
' workmen of Perkun.'

Literature. — (L) See works cited in art. Natcpe (Teutonic).
(II.) W. Mannhardt, 'Die lettischen Sonnenmythen,' ZE vii.
[1875] 73-104, 209-244, 280-330 ; J. Rendel Harris, The Cult of
the Heavenly Twins, Cambridge, 1906, Boanerges, do. 1913 ;
see also art. Old Prussians tor further literature.

Enid Welsford.
SUN-DANCE.— See Phallism, ix. 823.

SUNDAY.— I. History of Sunday before the
Christian era. — Only three times in the NT is
there any reference to a religious observance of
Sunday. St. Paul urged his converts at Corinth
to put aside money for charity every Sunday (1 Co
16^). Shortly after writing this he preached at a
service held at Troas, which is mentioned as if it
were a regular institution (Ac 20'). Thirty years
later, perhaps, the author of the Apocalypse wrote :
' I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day ' (Rev 1'").
Though not quite conclusive, the evidence makes
it probable that the observance of Sunday began
among St. Paul's churches, which were predomi-
nantly Gentile. Now we cannot suppose that
Gentile Christians, who were taught by .St. Paul
to protest against having the Sabbath impo.sed
upon them, would yet accept from the Jews a,
whole system of reckoning time by weeks. It is
important, therefore, to inquire how far t!ie week
was recognized in the Grajco-lloman world in-
dependently of the Jews.

The week originated in Babylon, where it was
invented for astrological reasons, but came to bo
used as a civil divi.->ion of time. At lirst each
month began with a fresh week, so that there
were two or three odd days at the end. This was
too inconvenient to last ; and the weeks, emanci-
pated from tlie month, ran on in an unbroken
series. The gradual diffusion of Babylonian astro-
logy carried a knowledge of the week into \V.
Asia, then into Egypt, and later still into E.
Europe. The Israelites, when they invaded Can.aan,
fouiul it established there and adopted it, as they
did many other elements of Amorite culture ; but
the emphasis laid upon the Sabbath was their own.

In considering the recognition of the week in
Europe it will be convenient to trace the evidence
backwards. \Ve may begin with Dio Cassius.
Writing soon after a.d. 230, he says:

'The dedication of the days to the seven planets originated
in Egypt, but has spread over all the world in comparatively

1 Ddiciai Prus.sicw, p. 18.
3 Boanerges, p. 334.

2 ..Eneas Syh ius, in ib. Iv. 239.

104

SUNDAY

recent times. The ancient Greeks, at any rate, knew nothing
of it : but now it is established not only among- all other peoples
but even among the Romans, who already regard it as more or
less a national tradition.' i

In the middle of the 2nd cent. Justin Martyr,
writing for heathen readers, speaks of Saturday
and Sunday {tt]v KpoviK'/jv, tt]v 'R\lov ijfiipav) as if
they were familiar names to all.'^ Near the end of
the 1st cent. Josephus boasts :

' Nor is there any city of the Greeks, nor any barbarian city,
nor any nation, where our custom of resting on the seventh day
has not reached.' ^

That, no doubt, is an exaggeration ; but it would
have been meaningless unless division of time into
weeks had been so familiar that any one niiglit
know which day was a Saturday. The belief that
such was the case in the 1st cent, is supported by
a picture which was found at Herculaneum, and
therefore painted before A.D. 79. It contains the
heads of the seven planetary deities in the order of
their days — Saturn, Apollo, Diana, ]\Iars, Mercury,
Jujnter, Venus. Numerous references in Latin
literature assure us that the Jewish Sabbath was
well known as early as the Christian era. But
onlj' those are to our purpose Avhich imply
familiarity Avith the week. Such are the passages
in TibuUus,'* Ovid,^ and Martial,* which mention
the observance of Sabbaths by Komans. But more
remarkable is the fact that Horace,'' writing about
35 B.C., could represent an ordinary superstitious
mother as making a vow for next Thursday [Jovis
dies) and could describe how he himself attempted
to escape from a bore by pleading that it was a
special Saturday.^ Neither the vow nor the plea
would be intelligible ■without the week as a familiar
background.

2. Sunday in the primitive Church. — It was
therefore not only the Jewish proselytes among
St. Paul's converts, but all his Greek and Roman
disciples, who reckoned their time by weeks and
therefore found a weekly day of worship natural.
To such, again, as were Jews by race it seemed
actually part of the order of nature. That is why,
we may well suppose, St. Paul's protests against
the observance of the Sabbath or of any fixed days ^
were but partially successful. The Sabbath, in-
deed, was given up by the churches which he
founded. But, as a concession to his converts'
habit of mind, another day of the week was chosen
for worship. There could be no question what the
choice should be, for the Loi'd's resurrection had
given the first day of the week an unquestionable
pre-eminence.

The name of this day which was current in the
Roman Empire was ' the day of the sun' (r/'UXiou
T]fj.^pa, dies solis). The Jews, who avoided all use
oi heathen terms for either days or months, called
it the first day of the week (/xia Zap^dnov), and the
earliest Christians followed their example. But a
mere number was felt to lack distinction, and very
soon an appropriate name was found, which con-
trasted alike with Sabbath and Sundaj'. The first
day of the month, at least in Asia Minor, was
usually called the 'Emperor's Day' (Se/Sao-TTj).'"
Now the early Christians, partly by way of chal-
lenge, applied to their Lord many of tlie official
terms which were consecrated to the emperor, the
lord of the earth. So it was probably not witliout
reference to the term Se/Sacrr?} that they entitled
the first day of the week KvpiaKr/, ' the Lord's Day.'
So apt a name was rapidly established. The author
of the Apocalypse, writing about A.D. 90, uses it
without explanation. To Ignatius'' (c. A.D. 110) it

1 Hist. Rom. XXX vii. 18. 2 Apol. i. 67.

3 C. Apion. ii. 40. * i. iii. 18.

^ Ars Amat. i. 415. 6 iv. iv. 7.

7 Sat. II. iii. 290. 8 lb. i. ix. 69.

9 Ro 145, Gal 410, Col 216.

10 A. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, Eng. tr.,
London, 1910, pp. 361-366.

11 Ad Magn. 9.

was a matter of course and a basis for argument.
When the empire became Christian, the name
entirely displaced 'the day of the sun' for all who
spoke Greek or Latin. KvpiaK-q remains to this
daj' in Greek ; and in the Romance languages we
find derivatives of dies Dominica — Dimanche,
Domenica, and so on. But the Northern peoples,
who in accepting the week from the heathen
Romans had named the days after the correspond-
ing Northern divinities, were more conservative.
In England Sunday (A.S. Sunnan Daeg), in
Germany Sonntag, in Sweden Sondag, have resisted
all attempts to substitute either Lord's Day or
Sabbath.

3. Observance in the Church before A.D. 321. —
The records tell us very little about the manner in
which Sunday was observed during the first three
centuries, except that it was the day on which
Christians assembled for worship. After St. Paul,
who is quoted above, our first witness is the
younger Pliny. His famous letter, written to the
emperor Trajan in A.D. 104, tells how the Christians
in his province of Bithynia held a service early in
the morning ' on a fixed day ' (stato die) and a
common meal late in the evening.^ Ignatius (A.D.
110) insists upon the contrast between the Lord's
Day and the Sabbath.^ A little later the Teaching
of the Ajwstles ordains :

Kara Kvpiaiaiv Se Kvpiov (rvvaxSevrei KXacrare aprov <cai
evxapifjTynraTe Trpo^^ofj.oXoyrjo'diJiCvoi. ra TrapaTTTw^ara vjiicoi/, onois
KaOapd i) dvaia vpiwy ff.'^

A simple service, before or after the day's work,
was the only observance possible for a community
most of whose members occupied very humble
stations, while many were slaves. As the Christ-
ians advanced in numbers and in social position,
they were able to command the time for a long
service. Justin Martyr, writing about A.D. 170,
describes one which must have occupied at least
two hours ; for it includes readings from the Bible,
sermon, prayers, and Eucharist.* And, since
Melito, bishop of Sardis, just about the same time
published a treatise O71 the Lord's Day, we may
conclude that the services were being systematized.^
How important they were considered is partly
shown by TertuUian's attack upon cowardly
bishops, who excused themselves for fleeing from
persecution on the ground that in such times they
could not assemble a congregation or celebrate the
Sunday rites : ' Sed quomodo colligemus, inquis,
quomodo Dominica sollemnia celebrabimus ? ' ''
From that time onward the position of Sunday as
a holy day was unquestioned ; and we need trace
its history no further.

Just at that point we find the first suggestion of a Sunday
holiday. Two sentences of Tertullian are worth quoting, both
written while he was still a Catholic. In Sunday worship, he
says. Christians avoid every trace of gloom, and even put aside
business which might interfere with prayer (' differentes etiam
negotia, ne quem diabolo locum demus').-' And, when he tells
the Christians that they have more festivals in the year than
the heathen, he implies that Sunday, like a Roman festival, is
more or less a holiday : ' Si quid et cami indulgendum est,
babes, non dicam tuos dies tantum, sed et plures. Nam ethnicis
semel annuusdies quisque/estws est, tibi octavus qtiisque dies.'^

It is to be observed that he compares Sunday with heathen
festivals rather than with the Sabbath. So long as Jewish
Christianity remained a power, or the hostility of Jews a thing
to be feared, Gentile Christians were anxious to repudiate any
connexion between the Sabbath and Sunday. The feeling was
obviouslj' strong when Ignatius wrote ixriKiri. o-ajS^axiCoi'Te?
dAXi Kara. KvpiaKTjv ^wi/t€;,« and when the author of the Epistle
of /Jamaias described Sunday as aXKov koo-mou apx^i'.'" Justin
Martyr shows its influence when he derives the sanctity of
Sunday from the creation and the Resurrection. Although
Jewish Christianity disappeared from the West before the end
of the 2nd cent., there is plenty of evidence that some of its
traditions persisted in the Eastern Church for two hundred

1 Epp. ad Traj. 96. 2 Ad Magn. 9.

s Didache, xiv. * Apol. i. 67.

6 Eusebius, HE iv. 26.

6 Tert. de Fuga in PersecutioTie, 14.

7 De Oral. 18(23). « he Idol. 14.

9 Ad Magn. 9. i" Ep. Dam. 15.

SUNDAY

105

years more. The Apostolic Constitutions,'^ e.g., recognized a
parallel observance of the Sabbath and Sunday. And the
Council of Laodicea (363), while condemning a Judaizing obser-
vance of the Sabbath, marked it as a festival and a day of
worship. Different as was the East from the West, they were
in constant communication ; and the maintenance of the Sabbath
in the East was a reason for keeping Sunday clear of Sabbat-
arianism in the West. Egypt, intermediate between East and
West, was Western in its observance of Sunday. Accordingly
Clement of Alexandria (c. 200) says that the Lord's Day is cele-
brated by putting away e\il thoughts and acc|uiring true know-
ledge ; 2 and Origen (c. 240) apologizes for the common obser-
vance of Sunday as a concession to the feelings of the weaker
brethren. They, ' being either unable or unwilling to keep
every day in this manner, require some sensible memorials to
prevent spiritual things from passing altogether away from
their minds. '3

A hundred years later Athanasius wrote to much the same
effect : ' We keep no Sabbath day (but) we keep the Lord's Day
as a memorial of the beginning of the second new creation. ' •*

St. Jerome follows in the same line. He tells how his party
of recluses at Bethlehem attended Church services on Sunday,
but otherwise pursued their usual occupations.^ St. Augustine,
while insisting upon the festal character of Sunda}- — ' Dies
tamen Dominicus non Judaeis sed Christianis resurrectione
Domini declaratus est, et ex illo habere coepit festivitatem
Buam ' 6 — pronounces that the Fourth Commandment is in no
literal sense binding upon Christians. His words seem framed
to exclude the idea of any transference of obligation from the
Sabbath to Sunday.

4. Movement in favour of a day of rest. — While
the leaders of the Church gave no sanction to the
idea that Sunday was the heir of the Sabbath,
that idea was all the time gaining power among
the mass of the Cliristian people in the West.
Several causes combined to favour its growth. As
the passage quoted above from TertuUian indicates,
the numerous heathen festivals constantly sug-
gested that a holy day should be a day of rest.
Familiarity with the OT, whose authority was un-
challenged, insensibly turned men's thoughts in
the direction of Sabbatarianism. Increasing leisure
and power enabled many Christians to command
a day of rest. Greater stress was laid, as time
went on, upon the duty of attendance at the
Church services, which in many cases involved the
abandonment of regular work. How steadily
popular opinion was moving in the direction of a
Sunday holiday may be inferred from a resolution
passed in 305 by the Council of Illiberis in Spain,
making the observance of the Lord's Day com-
pulsory and ordaining that failure to attend the
services shall be punished with excommunication.
The Sabbatarian movement, therefore, like that
for the worship of the saints, came from below.
Theologians long resisted it, but at last yielded,
and sought for reasons to justify a practice which
the people had adopted. Among these we do not
usually find either the duty of observing the
Fourth Commandment in the spirit or the social
need (recognized in Deuteronomy) of a day for
rest and recreation. The reasons alleged are of a
mystical and symbolical character, such as would
naturally suggest themselves to theologians in
difficulties. And yet the very contrasts which
they draw between the Sabbath and the Lord's
Day show the influence of the popular pressure,
and prepare the way for the identification of the
two which was to come in the 9th century.

St. Ambrose, e.g., describes how the first day has succeeded
to the dignity which formerly belonged to the seventh : ' Ubi
enini Dominica dies coepit praecellere, qua Dominus resurrexit ;
Sabbatum, quod primum erat, secundum haberi coepit a
primo. Prima enim reqxdes c%mo,\'\i, sccxmda snccessxt.' ^ St.
Chrysostom (c. 390) goes further. Commenting on 1 Co 161, he
says that the first day of the week was well chosen for acts of
charity, on koX aveaiv t;(£i »cal Tr6v(av ariKeiav. He thus actu-
ally carries back the Sunday rest into the year 57. And, when
he writes about Ro 14^, he asserts that ' esteemeth every day
alike ' has reference only to fasting. The reason of so strange a
misconception is doubtless that he regards the observance of
Sunday as a matter of course. Although, therefore, he gener-
ally contrasts Sunday and Sabbath in the manner of his time, it
is not surprising to find him once coming very near to the

1 vil 23, 36.

8 C. Celsum, viii. 22 1.

6 Ep. cviii. 20.

7 In Ps. 47.

2 Strom, vii. 12.

4 De Sabbat, et Circumcis. i.

6 Jip. ad Jan. 22 f.

later Sabbatarian view. In the 10th Uoinily on Gn 1 he writes :
' God from the first teaches us symbolically to set apart one
whole day in the week and devote it to spiritual activities.'

Examples might be given from other writers.
But tliese are enough to indicate the double pro-
cess which was going on. While the official position
of the Church was hostile to Sabbatarianism, the
writers could not altogether resist the influence of
popular opinion which was steadily moving towards
it.

5. Constantine's decree of A.D. 321. — Parallel to
the Christian movement in favour of a Sunday
rest there seems to have been another, which was
quite independent. The matter is obscure, and
we must rely in part upon conjecture. As tlie
social and industrial organization of the empire
advanced under the Pax Romana, the sporadic
festivals of the ancient calendar became more and
more inconvenient. The efficiency of labour de-
pends largely upon recreation ; but holidays at
irregular intervals are not effectual for recreation,
and interfere sadly with organization. We can
imagine that the heathen often reflected upon the
contrast, to which TertuUian points, between the
regular weekly festival of the Christians and
their own uncertain celebrations ; and that they
wished that they could exchange their inconveni-
ent holidays for a regular rest on ' the day of
the sun.' Some such process of thought in the
popular mind is required to explain the readi-
ness with which the whole world, heathen as well
as Christian, accejjted Constantine's famous decree.
Though he was doubtless influenced mainly by
the wishes of his Christian supporters, it was not
as ' the Lord's Day ' but as ' the venei-able day of
the sun ' that he described the new public holiday :

' Omnes judices urbanaeque plebes et cunctarum artium
officia venerabili die Solis quiescant. Ruri tamen positi agrorum
culturae libere licenterque inserviant, quoniam frequenter
evenit ut non aptius alio die f rumenta sulcis aut vineae scrobibus
mandentur, ne occasione momenti pereat commoditas coelesti
provisione concessa.' 1

There has been much speculation about Constan-
tine's motives. Eusebius would persuade us that
they were wholly religious,^ others that social and
political considerations determined his action ; but
we have not sufficient evidence to decide the
question. One thing is certain. The edict of A.D.
321 marks an epoch in the history of Sunday. It
was the parent of a double series of legal enact-
ments and conciliar decrees which exercised a
great influence — both for good and for evil — upon
the life of all Europe during many centuries.

6. Later imperial decrees. — With regard to the
imperial decrees, it is important to rememVjer that
they afi'ected an ever-decreasing area. The laws
of Theodosius the Great, which forbade all litiga-
tion and the .spectacles of the theatre and the
circus on the 'dies Solis queni Dominicum rite
dixere majores' (386), afi'ected mankind from Spain
to Mesopotamia. But its reiteiation by Leo and
Anthemius (469) was addressed only to Turkey,
Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. The chief
importance of those later decrees is that, enshrined
in Justinian's Code, they set up a standard for the
new nations which gradually rose out of the flood
of barbarian invasion.

7. Decrees of Church Councils (300-600). — On
the other hand, the decrees of Church Councils
had an immediate influence not only in the areas
which they represented but also to some extent
throughout the former Roman Empire, for the
Church maintained a large degree of unity. It is
therefore wortli while to record not only how the
Council of Laodicea (363), ordering men to work
on the Sabbath, bade them ttiv KvpiaKriv TrpoTi/jiQyTes,
el ye duvaii'To, cxoXttfetf ws xP«^''''tti'oi, but also how
the Coun(-il of Orleans (538), while protesting

1 Cod. Jint. bk. in. tit. xii. 3. - Vita Const, iv. 18-21.

lijii

SUNDAY

against an excessive Sabbatarianism, forbade all
field work under pain of censure ; and the Council
of Macon (5S5) laid down that the Lord's Day ' is
the day of perpetual rest, which is suggested to us
by the type of the seventh day in the law and the

Erophets,' and ordered a complete cessation of all
inds of business. How far the movement had
gone by the end of the 6th cent, is shown by a
letter of Gregory the Great ^ (pope 590-604) pro-
testing against the prohibition of l^atlis on Sunday.
8. Sabbatarian movement (600-800).— It was a
riglit instinct which led the people to demand, and
emperors and councils to grant, that Sunday should
be a day of rest as well as of worship. Up to the
end of the 6tli cent, the resultant changes in law
and custom, in spite of some extravagances, were
on the whole beneficial. But in the darkness of
tlie next two centuries other influences came into
play. The ceaseless wars and disorders which
lowered the standard of civilization both in the
Eastern Empire and in Western Europe threw all
initiative into the hands of military or ecclesiasti-
cal rulers. Changes were no longer made in
response to the people's demand, but were im-
posed upon them by rulers who were guided not
by a sense of practical need but by monkish
theory. Thus an edict- of Clotaire III. (c. 660)
forbids servile labour on Sunday,

'Quia hoc lex prohibet et sacra scripUira in omnibus contra-
dicit.'

Among the laAvs of Ine, king of Wessex (c. 690),
we find the following :

'If a " theowman " work on Sunday by his lord's command,
let him be free; and let the lord pay xxx shillin},'a as "wite."
But if the " theow" work without his knowledjje, let him sufTer
ill his hide, or in " hide-<fild." But if a freeman work ou that
day without his lord's command, let him forfeit his freedom, or
sixty shillings : and be a priest doubly liable.' 3

9. The Christian Sabbath from 800 to 1500.—

{(i) Decrees of rulers and councils. — Though the
decrees of the 7tli and 8th centuries were obviously
part of a Sabbatarian movement, the term
' Sabbath ' was not applied to Sunday until Alcuin
had written :

'Cujus observationem moa Ohristianus ad diem dominicum
competentius transtulit.''*

Under his inspiration tlie new feeling, long fluid
in society, was crystallized in Charlemagne's
decree of A.D. 789, which forbade all ordinary
labour on Sunday as a breach of the Fourth Com-
mandment. In particular it forbade agricultural
labour, wliich Constantine had expressly permitted,
and the holding of markets, which Constantine
had appointed in order to encourage country people
to attend the church services : ' Provi*ione pietatis
suae nundinas die solis perpeti anno constituit.' ^
From that time onward the identification of
Sunday with the Sabbath was taken for granted,
and from that principle deductions of increasing
severity were drawn by princes and ecclesiastics.

Amonff the decrees which were issued by princes for their
own dominions we may mention that of the emperor Leo(c. 900)
which forbade agricultural work in the Eastern Empire, and
that of Eds,'ar the Peaceable (a.d. 958) which extended the
Lord's Day from 3 p.m. on Saturday to Monday's dawn. More
interesting^, because of wider influence, are the pronouncements
of leading churchmen. In the 12th cent., eji., Bernard of
Clairvaux maintained that the Fourth Commandment rerjuired
the Sabbatical observance not only of Sundays but also of holy
days. In the 13th cent. Thomas Aquinas "lent his Immense
authority to the same principle: 'Sabbatum . . . mutatur in diem
dominicam . . . Similiter aliis solennitatibus veteris legis novae
solennitates succedunt.'B In the 13th cent. Tostatus, bishop of
Avila, a learned canonist, laid down the law of the Christian
Sabbath with a fullness of detail which rivals that of the

1 Ep. xiii. 1.

2 Heylin, Hist, nfthe Sabbath, ii. 137.

'•> A. W. Hadrian and W. Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical
Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Oxford,
18(i9-78, iii. 215. The resolution of the Council of Cloveshoo
(747), which is sometimes quoted, applies only to monasteries.

■* Horn. 18, post Pcntec.

5 .1. Gruter, Inscriptionos antiquoe, Amsterdam, 1707, clxiv. 2.

8 Summa, II. i. qu. ciii. art. 3.

I'harisees. And the precepts of the learned were enforced and
illustrated for the multitude by stories of miraculous jui!;;--
ments — ranging from toothache to sudden death — which had
fallen upon those who profaned Sunday or Saint's Day by
labour. 1

For five hundred years after Cliarlemagne
Church Councils were much occupied with ques-
tions of Sunday observance. The following
ex.'imples may perhaps be sulficient for the purpose
of illustration :

A.D. 829 — The Council of Paris re-enacts the prohibition of
ploughing, marketing, and law business on Sunday. 2

853 — A Synod at Rome forbids markets and field labour.*

1000 — A Council at Hexham (?Ein^thamense) forbids markets,
fairs, hunting, and ordinary labour.*

1U31 — The Council of Bourges forbids travelling, except in
cases of necessity or charity.-*

10.50 — The Council of Ooyac (in Spain) forbids all ' servile
work ' and all travelling.'*

1212 — The Council of Pamiers commands all parishioners to
hear the ivliolc of the mass and preaching.-*

1214 — The S>nod of Lj'ons found it necessary to limit the
number of holy days, whose increase was causing various
abuses. 6

1322— The Synod of Valladolid ordained 'quod nuUus in
diebus Dominicis et Festivis agros colere audeat, aut manualia
artificia exercere praesumat, nisi urgente necessitate, vel evi-
dentis pietatis causa.' ■*

(6) Hoiv Sunday was observed. — What was the
efi'ect of all these exhortations? The constant
reiteration of the same orders is general evidence
that they had not been obeyed. But particular
evidence is not lacking. In 1226, e.g., the prior
of Walsinghara, who held a market on Saturday
and Sunday, granted half the profits to Sir William
de Clare in exchange for other rights.'^ And the
records tell not only of journeys wliich emperors
and kings made on Sunday, but also of three
emperors who were crowned in St. Peter's at Rome
on that day, causing thereby an immense amount
of labour,^ Sunday, therefore, was not generally
observed with anything like the strictness which
Church authorities enjoined. Yet it was to a
large extent observed as a holiday and a day of
worship. How were the hours of leisure spent?
In all the decrees of Councils and pronouncements
of individuals, down to the 15tli cent., tiiere is no
prohibition of any recreation except dancing, the
singing of ribald songs, theatrical performances,
and races in the circus.^ The last two prohil)i-
tions of the emperor Leo soon became needless, lor
theatre and circus ceased to exist. So from 900
till the lleformation there was practically no limit
set to tlie amusements of the people on Suntlay.
What use was made of that liberty we may infer
partly from the decrees of Councils in the lOth
cent, and partly from the Puritan reaction which
soon began in Protestant countries.

ID. The Roman Catholic Sunday in the i6th
century, — The Council of Cologne" (1536) decrees :

' Cupimus his diebus prohiberi nundinas, claudi cauponas,
vitari comissationes, ebrielates, sumptus, lites, lusus improt)os,
choreas plenas insaniis, colloquia prava, cantilenas turpes,
breviter oumem luxum.'

The Council of Milan (1573) complains tliat
Sunday is commonly profaned by markets, open
shops, hawking, dicing, sports, conjuring, and
theatrical performances. The Council of Itheims
(1583) decrees :

'Nemo lusibus et choreis det operam. Venditiones quarum-
cunque rerum, his exoeptis quae ad divinum cultum et viclum
necessarium pertinent, nundinaepublicae, mercaLusetauctiones,
ne fiant diel)us festis. Ludos etiam theatrales, etiam praetextu
consuetudiiiis, prohibemus.'

The Council of Narbonne (1609) protests against
the profanation of Sunday by dancing, singing,

1 Concil. Parisiense, c. 50 ; II. Spelman, Concilia, Loudon,
1739-G4 ; i. 128 ; Miracles de St. Birnidt, vi. 10, viii. 32.

- Heylin, ii. 5, § 7. 3 Jb. ii. 5, § 7.

•* Spelman, op. cit.

5 iJe Consecratione distinct, iii. cap. 1.

C F. BlomeHeld, Topographical Hist, of Norfolk liOndon,
1805-10, ix. 270.

7 Heylin, ii. 5, § 0. S n,, \\_ u, § 10.

^ See P. Labbo and (1. Cossartius, Soc.rusancta ConciUa,
Paris, 1670-72.

SUNDAY

107

hunting, hawking, markets, public feasts, and
revelling, and allows none but travellers to be
served in the inns.

These quotations prove that the Counter-Refor-
mation led the authorities of the countries which
remained Konian Catholic to recognize a duty
with regard not only to Sunday labour but also
to Sunday recreations. They seriously endeavoured
to check the licence which had been allowed for
many ages and had doubtless increased with the
advance of material prosperity in the 14th and
15th centuries. It is difficult to estimate how far
they succeeded in reforming the manners of the
people. Peter Heylin, sub-dean of Westminster,
whose History of the Sabbath is the most valuable
book on the suliject, is an important witness, for
he travelled on the Continent very soon after the
close of the 16th century. He sums up his
impressions in these words :

' Nor is their discipline so severe as their Canons neither.
So that the Lord's Day there, for ought I could observe, vrhen
I was among-st them, is solemnised after the same manner
as with us in England : repairing to the Church, both at
Masse and Vespers, riding abroad or walking forth to take the
ayre, or otherwise to refresli themselves, and following their
honest pleasures, at such leisure times as are not destinate
to the publick meetings : the people not being barred from
travelling about their lawful business, as occasion is, so the}'
reserve sometime for their devotions in the publike.' i
But Heylin, as an advocate, looks only on the
fair side ; and undoubtedly (as the decrees of the
Councils imply) there were many regions in which
Sunday was spoiled both by needless labours and
by the coarsest amusements.

II. The Protestant Sunday in the i6th century.
— The Reformers of the 16th cent, were in a
ditticult position, for, although they regarded
both Gn 2 and Ex 20 as historical, they could
not rest the institution of Sunday on either of the
traditional grounds. They could not identify it
with the Jewish Sabbath ; nor could they admit
that an ecclesiastical rule of observance, however
venerable, was of unchangeable validity. Yet
both feeling and reason urged them to maintain
its obligation. Luther, Calvin, and the various
catechisms and confessions put forward much the
same view — to tliis effect :

The Fourth Commandment was abrogated by the New
Testament : and ideally there should be no distinction between
days. But human nature requires a day of rest from labour :
the soul demands leisure for joint worship : therefore a day
must be fixed for all. We cannot do better than follow the
tradition which sets apart the first day of the week.2
Sound as that argument was, it had an unfortunate
effect upon the minds of a generation who had
been trained to rest upon absolute law and were
not ready to accept reason in its place. To a vast
number of Protestants Sunday appeared to have
lost its authority ; and there was a decided slacken-
ing of its observance. Heylin thus describes the
state of things in the latter part of the century :

'There was no restraint on Sundays in the afternoone, from
any kind of servile work, or dayly labours ; but that men
might and did apply themselves to their severall businesses,
as on other days. As for the greater townes, there is scarce
any of them, wherein there are not Faires and Markets (Kirk
Masses, as they used to call them) upon the Sunday : and those
as much frequented in the afternoone as were the Churches in
the forenoone. ... So that in generall the Ijord's day is no
otherwise observed with them . . . than an half holiday is
with us. . . . For recreations, last of all, there is no question
to be made, but that where working is permitted, and most
kiude of businesse, a man may lawfully enjoy himselfe and his
honest pleasures ; and without danger of offence pursue those
pastimes by which the mind may bo refreshed and the spirits
quickened.' 3

This is true, he says, of Holland, Belgium,
Switzerland, France, and Germany, and part of
Poland.
In England, where religious changes were far

1 Vol. ii. p. 191.

- See Luther's Larger Catechism, the Augsbunj Confession,
the (Calvinist) Heidelberg Catechism, the Ueloetic Coii/ession,
Calvin's Institutes.

3 ii. 6, § 9.

less violent, the observance of Sunday in the reigns
of Henry VIIL and Elizabeth was considerably
stricter.

Both The Institution of a Christian Man (1537) and the
queen's Injunctimis (155S) lay down excellent principles. And
yet one of the Uomilies, published in 150:i, sorrowfully con-
fesses: 'The Lord was more dishonoured and the Devill better
served on Sunday than upon all the dayes in the weeke
besides.' King James's proclamation of 7th May 1003 ia a
significant confirmation of this complaint : Having been in-
formed ' that there had been in former times a great neglect in
keeping the Sabbath day,' he ordains 'that no Bearebaiting,
Bull-baiting, Enterhides,' common Playes, or other like dis-
ordered or unlawful Exercises or Pastimes be frequented, kept,
or used at any time hereafter upon any Sabbath day.' And
this was not because James was accustomed to great strictness
in Scotland, where up to 1600 observance was on the whole
less precise than in England. The earlj' Calvinists were not
Sabbatarians, and John Knox himself played bowls on Sunday.

12. The 17th and i8th centuries. — (a) England. —
Till the reign of James I., as we have seen,
England and Scotland kept pace with tlie move-
ments on the Continent. But throughout the
17th cent, our island was the scene of a dramatic
struggle which had no parallel elsewhere. The
extreme Protestant type of mind has a natural
affinity to the OT, and the Calvinists and otliur
Puritan sects early felt the attraction. By a
process somewhat like that which took place in
the 5th and 6th centuries, they turned towards
the Jewish Sabbath, and their steps were hastened
by repulsion from the scandals of the 16th cent.
Sunday. The movement, of which the early
stages are obscure, came to a head in the publica-
tion of a remarkable book.

Nicholas Bownd, a Suffolk clergyman, in his Sahbathum
Veteris et Novi Testamenti, or the True Doctrine of the Sabbath
(1596), boldly and crudely claimed for Sunday the authority
and th3 observances of the Jewish Sabbath and maintained
that they should be enforced by the State. The book had an
immense vogue. It was translated and circulated on the
Continent, where it exercised much influence. In England,
accepted as an inspiration by some and as a challenge by
others, it gave rise to a literary controversy which lasted
for a hundred years. The first reply to it was James l.'s Book
of Sports 1- (1618), which proclaimed hberty for the people
to enjoy their traditional pastimes on Sunday except bull- and
bear-baiting. This was followed by the Sunday Oliservance Act
(1625), which forbade men to go outside their own parishes in
search of amusement on Sunday. The Book of Sports was
republished bj' Charles i. in 1633, with a special admonition to
justices of the peace : ' Look to it, both that all disorders there
majf be prevented and punished, and that all neighbourhood
and freedom, with manlike and lawful exercises, be used.'

In 1635 Francis White, bishop of Ely, published
an official defence of this view ; and in 1638
Heylin supported it with The History of thA
Sabbath, a book which shows much ability and
learning. The controversy was continued, and
120 books on the subject were published in the
next hundred years. Other weapons were used
besides the pen. In 1643 Parliament ordered the
Book of Sports to be burned by the hangman and
imposed the Puritan Sabbath upon the ever-
increasing area which their troops commanded.
In 1648 they formally adopted the Westminster
Confession and the Longer and the Shorter
Catechisms. One quotation from the last-named
must suffice.

' Q. 60. How is the Sabbath to be sanctified ?— A. The
Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even
from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful
on other days; and spending the whole time in the public
and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is
to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.'
Bysuccessive enactments (1644,1650,1656) the same
Parliament proscribed every kind of Sunday re-
creation, even ' vainly and profanely ' walking
for pleasure. At the Restoration the pendulum
swung the other way. The court, the cavaliers,
and the High Church clergy led the way in a
violent reaction ; and the return of the Prayer-
book service on Sunday morning was accompanied
by trading, open theatres, and ostentatious frivolity

1 The full title of this work is The Kings Majesties Declara-
tion to his Subjects concerning Lawfuil Spurts to be Used,
Loudon, 1618.

108

SUNDAY

in the afternoon and evening. To what lengths
the court went may be learned from Macaulay's
description of Charles II. 's last Sunday night.
There were many protests ; and the battle of the
books continued, Bishop Pearson, John Owen, and
Richard Baxter being among the combatants. In
1677 a compromise was effected. The Sunday
Observance Act regulated trade, labour, and
travelling in a reasonable way, making ample
allowance for ' works of necessity.' At the same
time the Sunday Observance Act of 1625 was
revived and came to be recognized as the standard
by which amusements were to be regulated. Both
acts were observed with varying degrees of strict-
ness at different times and in different places.
But it is no little tribute to their reasonableness
that both remained in force until the year 1871,
though they were modified in some details; e.g.,
in 1699 forty watermen were allowed to ply on the
Thames, in 1710 coaches and chairs received per-
mission to stand for hire, and in 1794 bakers to
sell bread at certain hours. From the Revolution
to the death of Queen Anne a higher standard
prevailed, both of attendance at church and of
obedience to the law. Under the Georges, though
no change was made in the law, and though the
same literary controversy continued, there was a
steady decline in both respects. About 1780 the
Evangelical Revival, following the movement led
by tlie Wesleys, produced a considerable change
in opinion and observance. How much need there
was for improvement may be inferred from three
actions of Bishop Porteous, who was a leader of
the new school. He supported the institution of
Sunday Schools, which began in 1780 and soon
spread over the country. He persuaded the Prince
of Wales to transfer the meetings of his rowdy
' Sunday Club ' to a week da}'. And he drew up
the Sunday Observance Act of 1781, which enacts
that any place of public entertainment or debate
where a charge is made for admission may be
deemed a disorderly house. Passed in order to
check bear-baiting and infidel propaganda, this
act has been used of late to impede Sunday concerts
and lectures to working-men. * For many years
it was undoubtedly of great value, helping to
restore the credit of Sunday in the public eye.
But, when the rapid growth of large to\\Tis, due
to the industrial revolution, presented new prob-
lems, this law combined with the restrictions of
travelling to cause mischief. The mass of the
industrial population, cooped up in towns which
were almost destitute of churches, had no meeting-
place but the street or the public-house. This evil
became serious in the latter part of the 18th cent.,
but its full development was not seen till the
19th,

{b) Scotland. — Scotland very early in the 17th
cent, adopted the theory of the ' Christian Sabbath '
and applied it to social life with the ruthless logic
which is characteristic of Calvinism. The West-
minster Confession was adopted by the General
Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland in 1647, before
Parliament had paased it ; and it has remained
the formal standard of faith to the present day.
So long as it was enforced by public opinion — i.e.
till about 1870 — the Scottish Sunday was observed
with amazing rigour. Not only Avere ordinary
recreations disallowed ; a ban was put even upon
books and music, except such as were recognized
as religious in the narrow sense. No recreation
remained but whisky-drinking, and a great part
of the drunkenness which is still common in
Scotland may be traced to an unwise Sabbatarian-
ism. In parts of the Highlands and the Islands
the old rigour remains ; but in the greater part of

1 The present writer was threatened with prosecution in 1S97
for lecturing to a Sunday Society in Bristol,

the country, as will be explained below, the last
fifty years have witnessed a great change.

(c) America. — The American colonies differed in
their practice. The more southerly States, such
as Pennsylvania and Virginia, were inclined to
English views of Sunday. The New England
States, founded by Puritans, kept very close to
the Scottish standard ; but their coast towns were
influenced by English practice, and their Western
border by the practical necessities imposed by
danger from their Indian neighbours.

(rf) Protestant Europe. — Nicholas Bo\vnd's book
was translated into several Continental languages
and exercised a considerable influence. In Holland
and Switzerland a strong Sabbatarian party grew
up ; and in Protestant Germany his doctrine found
rigorous advocates. But on the whole the Sabba-
tarians failed ; and the observance of Sunday,
especially in Germany, fell much below the
standard in England. Sunday labour was very
common, and Sunday amusements were very
coarse.

(e) Eoman Catholic Europe. — In Roman Catholic
countries, during the same centuries, Sunday was
so much eclipsed by the Saints' Daj's that it ceased
to be observed Avith any kind of strictness. While
the Saints' Days were real holidays, labour on
Sunday was the rule rather than the exception.
Till near the end of the 18th cent, the priesthood
were powerful enough to secure a general attend-
ance at mass ; but the rest of the day was usually
given to ordinary occupations. If in Spain Sunday
was more a day of rest than in France or Italy,
this was because it was the day set apart for
bull-fights.

13, From the French Revolution to 1848. — The
French Revolution marks an epoch in the history
of Sunday observance. Its new calendar, with a
week of ten days, though ephemeral and rather
absurd, was a practical challenge to tradition,
whose effects were permanent. The questions
which it raised frightened some men into reaction,
but excited others to free speculation. And it
gave prominence to one fact, which no Government
could afford to ignore for long. In every country
there was an increasing number of citizens who
did not acknowledge the Christian sanctions for
Sunday, for whom, therefore, any rules for Sunday
observance must rest on social rather than re-
ligious grounds. The recognition of this fact
gradually aflected the administration of the exist-
ing laws ; and perhaps it may account for the
complete absence of legislation between 1780 and
1850. In England the repulsion caused by the
Revolution combined with the Evangelical Revival
to render Sunday observance much stricter. The
laws of 1677 and 1781 were rather rigidly enforced,
and public opinion (among the minority who had
votes for Parliament) was on the whole Sabbatar-
ian. For the middle class and for all the people in
country districts the movement was largely bene-
ficial. The churches were filled ; the sense of duty
was strengthened ; and habits of reflexion were
induced. On the other hand, for the growing
multitudes in the great towns the restrictions
imposed by law became ever more cruel. Neglected
by the Cliurch, they had few places of worship and
little will to enter them. They wanted means of
getting into the country and opportunities of
reasonable recreation in the town ; but these were
denied them, and nothing was left but the public-
house. It was not till about 1850 that their needs
were recognized. The active controversy which
was carried on about Sunday concerned only the
reasons for observing it. Several distinguished
writers took part in the discussion, but they did
little more than reproduce the well-AVOi'n arguments
of the 17th cent, on either side.

SUNDAY

109

In France, though Napoleon re-established the Church, the
hold of Sunday upon the public mind could not be restored. It
remained to a large extent a day of trade and of labour, as well
as of social amusement. In Spain and Italy there was no
striking change. In Germany, which had been penetrated with
French ideas, there was a marked decline. If we may judge by
the books which were published there between 17S0 and 1848,
public opinion was averse to strictness based on religious
gi-ounds and not yet alive to the social reasons in favour of a
day of rest. Sunday observance therefore, resting mainly upon
tradition, naturally failed to maintain its hold.

The United States continued the division of opinion which
had existed among the colonies of N. America. New England
and the Western States, which were gradually peopled by
emigrants from New England, remained Sabbatarian, while the
Southern States, led by the Quakers of Pennsylvania, generally
adopted the more liberal view. Between 1820 and 1850 many
books were published on both sides, but no legislation resultecL
14. From 1848 to 1914. — From 1848, the ' year of
revolution,' we may date a new phase of the
Sunday controversy. Suddenly the masses of the
people, especially in manufacturing towns, ac-
quired a new consciousness and began to be re-
garded with a new interest. The consequences
were not long in making themselves felt. Hitherto
it may be said that the churches and the legisla-
tures had, on the whole, worked in harmony.
Since 1848 there has been a gradual divergence.
For, while the churches were slow to admit the
possibility of change, the legislatures, more and
more influenced by popular opinion, tended to
favour relaxations which were supposed to be re-
quired by new social conditions. At the same
time an agitation began in some countries in favour
of limiting the Sunday labour which vast numbers
felt to be oppressive. These two elements were
mixed in very different proportions in different
countries.

(a) England. — In England, where Sunday labour
was already severely limited, the main question was
that of relaxation. In 1851 a lively controversy
arose about two points. Should railway travelling
be allowed on Sunday ? And should the new
Crystal Palace be open to the public on Sunday
afternoon ? The instances could not have been
better chosen, for their discussion involved all the
main principles which were at stake. Twenty
years passed before any legislative result came of
the debate. In 1871 an Act was passed requiring
the consent in writing of the chief officer of a police
district, or of two magistrates, before a prosecution
for Sunday trading could be instituted under the
Act of 1677. Since then the Sunday Observance
Act has been a dead letter. And an Act of 1875
has very much limited the application of the Act
of 1781. That did not end the debate. In 1875
the Sunday League was formed to advocate the
opening of museums and picture galleries and
other means of rational recreation on Sundays.
In spite of several societies started in opposition,
the Sunday League has gradually effected a great
and beneficial change.

But the real crux of the situation is connected
with travelling. Nothing has done so much to
alter the habits of the people as the rapid increase
in means of communication. The railway, the
steamer, the tramcar, and the motor-car have
successively helped to empty the towns on Sunday.
They have answered a real need ; for the strain of
modern life has created a new craving for fresh air
and change of scene, which finds satisfaction in the
week-end habit of the richer folk and in the ex-
cursion train for the poorer. The desire for such
recreation is natural and wholesome. At the same
time it is responsible for two serious evils. (1)
Those who spend Sunday away from home rarely
devote any part of it to worship, and those who
remain at home feel themselves thereby excused
from attendance at church. Consequently the
number of those who enter any place of worship on
Sunday forms an increasingly small percentage of
the population. (2) Every added facility for travel

on Sunday involves additional labour on the part
of a large class of workers. The railways, the
tramways, the restaurants, the bauds, and the
news agencies are so heavily tasked on Sunday
that few of their employees enjoy anything like a
day of rest.

Intent upon claiming what they considered their
right to recreation and convenience, the mass of
the people did not see what was involved in its
satisfaction. Shops were increasingly opened,
trains ran in ever-increasing numbers, and a large
number of subsidiary industries were obliged to
join the movement. Then contractors who were
in a hurry took to Sunday work ; and there was a
real danger that the industrial population might
lose their day of rest. About the beginning of the
20th cent, the trade unions and other bodies began
to realize the danger ; shop-assistants began to
protest ; and so a check was imposed upon the
movement. In the first year (1914-15) of the
Great War it seemed as if the national necessity
might obliterate Sunday rest. Munition factories
and many others were opened on Sunday, and
double pay was offered for work on that day. But
the result was uniformly a diminished output.
Many of those who worked on Sunday for double
pay spent tiie extra money in drink on Monday
and Tuesday ; and such as conscientiously toiled
all seven days did so with rapidly failing energy.
After two years Sunday work was generally
abandoned ; and it may be hoped that the nation
has taken the lesson to heart.

(b) The Continent. — On the Continent during the
latter half of the 19th cent, the same causes pro-
duced even more marked effects. In the eighties
and nineties a stranger could hardly tell from the
aspect of the towns wliether the day was Sunday
or not. But at last even the ' anti-clerical '
Governments, which had looked on complacently
at a change which diminished religious observance,
became aware that it was causing immense social
mischief ; while on behalf of the overstrained
workers urgent claims were made for a legal day
of rest. Between the years 1895 and 1910 laws
were passed, in almost every country of Europe,
which were intended to secure a weekly holiday
for every working-man.^ Even in France, where
the secularist influences were strongest, it was
judged necessary to insist upon Sunday as the
normal day of rest, all substitutes in special cases
being regarded as exceptional. The general effect
of this movement was a marked change in the
aspect of the towns. In the year 1913 no factories
were working on Sundays, and few shops were
opened. Thus in a large measure Sunday observ-
ance has been restored, but with a difference. It
is now popularly regarded, not primarily as a
response to the religious need of worship, still less
as obedience to a divine command, but as the
condition of wholesome life for the labouring man.

15. The present state of the question. — The
foregoing narrative should help us to discern the
principles upon which Sunday observance ought to
be based, and perhaps to determine the proper
mode of observance, and the means by which it
may rightly be enforced or encouraged.

Why is Sunday to be observed ? It is easier for
us to answer this question than it was for the
theologians of the 17th and 18tli centuries, and
that for two reasons. Recent investigations into
early Church history, of which the results are
summarized above, have removed some prejudices
which hampered our ancestors. We now know
how gradually the observance of Sunday developed
and how late was the theory which connected it
with the Sabbath. And the modern study of the

1 See the return made to the House of Lords on the subject
in 1911.

110

SUNDAY

OT has removed a difficulty which they couhl
never fully meet. So lony as the story of the
creation in Gn 1 and 2 and the account of the
givin<4- of tlie Law on Mt. Sinai were regarded as
historical, tlie question had to be faced : How can a
divine command, directly given to men, be abro-
gated ? The answer for us is plain : No sucli
commands were ever given, and the stories wliich
record them are legends. The Sabbath was made
for man ; and, under the guidance of Providence,
it was made by man. Sunday, in its turn, was
made by man and for man. Man, therefore, is
lord both of the Sabbath and of Sunday. It is
from the experience of men, both as individuals
and in societies, that the reasons must be drawn
wliich determine the manner in which Sunday is
to be observed.

(a.) The new reasojis for observing Sunday. —
These reasons are evidently of two kinds, answer-
ing to the conditions required for bodily vigour and
spiritual health. While the former may be re-
garded as especially the concern of the State and
the latter of the Church, tlie mutual influences of
body and mind are so considerable and so intricate
that in practice it is hard to draw a line between
the sphere of politics and that of religion. It is all
the harder because to ancient thought the dis-
tinction was unknown, and even in modern times
is largely artificial. For the Church cannot ignore
the body, nor can the State disregard the interests
of the spirit. But happily no sharp division is
necessary. The reasons given by the Kefonners ^
are of general application and may satisfy both
the Churchman and the statesman. Since three
hundred years of controversy have added nothing
substantial to them, we may be content with re-
stating them in a more detailed form.

The need of bodily rest at short intervals is a
fact of human nature which all civilized nations
have recognized by instituting public holidays.
The more comjilex the social and industrial
organization, the more important it becomes that
such holidays should recur at regular intervals.
The sporadic festivals of the ancient Roman
(calendar and the Saints' Day system of modern
Italy could not be tolerated in an industrial
country ; for production depends upon regularity
of labour and the efficiency of labour upon regu-
larity of recreation. Constan tine's decree of a.d.
321, therefore, not only conferred a benefit upon
the individual and satisfied a requirement of the
Church, but also solved economic and social
problems which were growing very difiicult. Its
wisdom is proved by the fact that, in spite of
occasional protests and experiments, the Sunday
lioliday has remained the rule of civilized countries
«ver since.

The well-being of the people, which is the proper
object of government, demands more than mere
cessation of work at sufficient intervals. The life
of the citizen is incomplete, and his value to the
fitate is small, unless he cultivates his mind,
develops family affection, and enjoys social inter-
course. All these functions require leisure — not
merely the tired hours after a day's work, but
wliole days when the time can be disposed of at
will. It is in days of leisure, also, that person-
.'ility has the best chance of development. The
State, therefore, has a responsibility, not only for
appointing holidays, but also for preventing such
misuse of tliem as may diminish their value to
the citizen and to the community. On the other
hand, experience proves such responsibility to be
of a negative rather than a positive character.
The State can remove obstacles to a right course of
action, but cannot compel the individual to walk
therein. If finy positive commands are laid down
1 See above, § ii.

for the weekly holiday, tliej;- must issue from a
religious authority, which appeals only to spiritual
sanctions, and afibcts only those who acknowledge
its right. The Christian Church is such an
authority, and has strong reasons, besides those
just mentioned, for requiring its members to
observe Sunday. Putting aside the mistaken
claims for Sunclay, which originated in the dark
ages and were so hotly urged in the 17th cent.,
there remain some which are undeniable. The
spiritual life of the individual requires a recurrent
leisure time, in which he may read or meditate,
may do acts of charity, and commune with his
friends, with nature, or art. It requires, also,
regular oiiportunities of joining in common wor-
ship, without which his membership of a Church
becomes unreal. The former demand might be
satisfied by times of leisure peculiar to himself.
But the latter involves regular holidays which are
common to all. Nor can it be a matter of indiller-
ence whether these holidays fall on Sundays. The
power of association and tradition is enormous : no
man can escape from it, and no Church can ignore
it. To substitute another day would be to waste the
accumulated associations and traditions of nearly
2000 years which are concentrated on Sunday.
For on the Lord's Day Jesus rose from the dead ;
on that day, ever since. His disciples have met for
worship and mutual comfort ; on that day they
have joined in the feast of His love. Luther did
not state the whole case when he wrote : ' Because
Sunday has been appointed from the earliest
times, we ought to keep to this arrangement, that
all things may be done in harmony and order,
and no confusion be caused by unnecessary novel-
ties ' ; ^ for he ignored one of the strongest im-
pulses in human nature.

(b) The mode of observance. — Assuming the
above reasons for the observance of Sunday, we
have to consider, from the point of view of Church
and State, what ought to be the manner of its
observance. The action of the State in such
matters, as Ave have indicated already, is mainly
negative. It has to protect the worker against
the oppression of unbroken labour, to secure for
him a regular period of recreation, and to prevent
other persons from interfering, whether by force
or by bribery, with his reasonable use of his leisure
time. That task is not so simple as might appear.
Every right, when exercised, imposes a duty upon
some one else. The right to food involves the
Sunday labour of the milkman ; the right of the
pu])lic to enjoy works of art encroaches upon the
leisure of the custodians; the right to fresh air
and green fields compels the toil of the railway-
man. These classes also have their rights, which
must somehow be safeguarded. To adjust conflict-
ing claims in the interest of the people as a whole
is a work of much insight and patience ; nor can
it be accomplished once for all, since every enlarge-
ment in the tastes and interests of the many
involves a fresh tax upon the ministrations of a
few. In Britain, happily, men seem to be approach-
ing a general agreement about the main principles
of such accommodations. No man sliould be
required or encouraged to work on Sunday except
for the benefit of a large number. Tlie railway-
man, the custodian of a picture gallery, or the
musician who plays in a band, is engaged in a
work of charity, if he is not adding a seventh
working day to his week for the sake of profit.
No such plea can be made on behalf of a manager
who makes profit by the performances of others, or
of a tradesman who opens his shops on Sunday.
A jiartial exception is rightly made in the case of
those who supply the public with needed refresh-
ments. But even that requires careful watching ;
1 Larger Catechism.

SUNDAY SCHOOLS

111

mul the (joveniinent has long recojiiiized the duty
of liniitint^- the sale of intoxicants to certain hours
of the day.

The action of the Church, on the other hand, is
positive. It aspires to guide men in their use of
the leisure whicli is secured to theiu by the State.
The primary duty -whicli it inculcates u]ion all is
that of attendance at public worship, for which the
Sunday rest was originally instituted. But it also
indicates proper uses for the hours wliich are not
spent in such attendance. In the past such guid-
ance took the form mainly of prohibitions. We
have seen that, when the proliibitions were few,
the result was licence ; and, when they were
multiplied, Sunday became a day of gloom and
boredom. Not to speak of the Scottish ' Sabbath,'
which has become proverbial, the restraints Avere
miscliievons enough in England till past the
middle of the 19tli century. The children of pious
parents might not play on Sunday except with
a Noah's ark. Boys and girls might not take
exercise, but sat wearily still. Their elders,
limited to ' religious ' books or ' sacred ' music,
took refuge in sleep. Much harm was done to the
cause of religion by such observances, and still
more by the opjjosition whicli Churchmen raised in
rarliament to every proposal for allowing rational
entertainments for the artisans of the great towns.

A better spirit now prevails. But, while there
is little of coercion by Church authority, there is
very little of jiositive suggestion. The time has
come when the Christian Cliurch as a whole must
formulate something like a programme, instead of
leaving Sunday progress to individual experiment.
Some such statement of princi])les as the follow-
ing, if issued by authority, would relieve many
troubled consciences and prevent much revolt.

(1) Sunday is the day for Christians to join in worship. No
man spends it well who does not habitually unite with his
neighbours in praise and prayer.

(2) Sunday is a day of recreation. Recreation means different
thint;s for diilerent people, since an essentia] feature of it is
chaiijre. The manual labourer will rest his body ; the brain
worker will seek exercise ; both alike will be the better for a
visit to a picture-gallery, or a concert, or a talk with friends.

(3) Sunday is the festival of family life. It is the only day on
which most fathers can see much of their children. Unless
some hours of the day are employed in cultivating family affec-
tion, its ties will be dangerously relaxed.

(4) Sunday is the day for meditation. The average man, if he
does not devote some part of Sunday to reading or thought
about matters outside his daily occupations, becomes a slave to
routine and no longer possesses his own soul.

(c) JHowfcr observance can be enforced. — By what
means can the due observance of Sunday be pro-
moted ? The primitive Church punished some
oHenders with exconiinnnication ; the mediaeval
Church employed the method of penance on a
large scale. Both these weapons are now out of
<late ; and they were never of much use for pro-
moting what is best. In jiroportion as her rules
advance from 'thou shalt not' to 'thou slialt,' the
Church is less and less able to use any kind of
compulsion. She cannot, in fact, compel her
members to-day ; she can only persuade them
through the teacliing of ministers and the opinion
of neighbours.

The State, on the other Iiand, just because its
commands are nearly all prohibitions, whose object
is to protect the rights and interests of the com-
munity, can and must use compulsion. Every
breach of jiositive law can be measured and
punished by hue or imprisonment. Yet the main
influence is really that of public opinion ; for the
magistrates and police, who administer the law,
will always be strict or lax according to the
general feeling of the society in which they live.
'I'he best means therefore of securing a proper
observance of Sunday is to educate imblic opini.)n.

liiTKRA'riJiiE. — Many hundreds of volumes liave been written
on this subject. A very good account of some 3(10 will bo found

in Robert Cox, The Literature of the Sabbath Question, 2 vols.,
Kilinliui'gh, 1S65. A few of thorn are historical, but the mass
are arguments for and against the obligation of the Sabbath, in
which the same ideas (very few) recur over and over again. The
following short list gives specimens of the writings of different
countries and denominations. The English predominate, for
England has produced far more books than all the other
countries put together.

(i.) lath century. —ThomsiS Aquinas, Exposition of the Com-
maruimunts.

(ii.) liith century .—Ma.rtin Luther, Larger Catechism and
other books ; John Calvin, Institutes, bk. ii. ch. viii. ; Philip
Melanchthon, The Augsburg Confession ; Thomas Cranmer,
A Confutation of Unun-iticn Veriti.es ; Richard Hooker,
Ecclesiastical Polity, v. C9-71.

(iii.) 17th century/.— Nicholas Bownde, Sabhathum Vcteris et
Novi Testamenti or The True Doctrine of the Sabbath, London,
1595, 41606 ; King James L, The Booh of Sports, do. 1618 ;
Francis White, A Treatise of the Sabbath Bay, do. 1635 ;

„ , , Co7ifession of

Faith and Catechisms, London, 1647, 1648; John Cocceius,
Indagatio Nalurce Sabbati, Leyden, 1658 ; Edward Stilling-
fleet, Irenicum, London. 1659 ; Richard Baxter, The Divine
Appointment of the Lord's Day proved, do. 1671.

(iv.) ISth century. — Thomas Morer, KupiaK>) *H/oie'pa,
London, 1701; Jonathan Edwards, 'On the Perpet\iity and
Change of the Sabbath," Sermons xiii., xiv., xv., in Twenty
Sermons on Various Subjects, Edinburgh, 1804 ; Isaac Watts,
The Holiness of Times, Places and People, London, 1733, Dis-
course i., ' On the Perpetuity of a Sabbath ' ; An Act for prevent-
ing certain Abuses and Profanations on the Lord's Day, 1781 ;
Decree of the National Convention of France appointing a new
Calendar, 1793 ; Beilby Porteous, A Letter to the Clergy of the
Diocese of London, London, 1789.

(v.) 19th century. — Report of the Lord's Bay Observance
Society, 1832; ' Edinensis,' 5M?irfa2/ Railway Travelling, Edin-
burgh, 1847 ; J. A. Hessey, Sunday : its Origin, Ui^st. and
present Obligations {BL), London, 1860, S1889 ; Report of a
Committee of Congress (U.S.A. 1833) ; Report of the Committee
of the Legislature_pf New York, on the Judiciary , 1838 ; E. VIT.
Heng-stenberg-, Uber den Tag des Herm, Berlin, 1852, Eng. tr.
London, 1853 ; Francois Perenn^s, De I' Institution du
dimanche, Paris, 1844 ;' P. J. Proudhon, Be la Ceiibration
du dimanche, do. 1848 ; W. F. Crafts, The Sabbath for Man,
New York, 1885; J. Lefort, Du Repos hebdomadaire, etc.,
Paris, 1873 ; C. Biittner, Bie Sonntagsruhe im Gewerbebetrieh
und im Ilandelsgewerbe, Leipzig, 1896.

Heylin and Hessey treat the question historically and with
much ability. Parts of the history are well treated in articles
and special chapters : Smith's BCA, s.v. ' Lord's Daj'' ; EBr^^,
s.v. 'Sunday' (deals chiefly with legislation); PRE'', s.v.
'Sonntagsfeier' ; HBB, s.vv. 'Lord's Day' and 'Sabbath.'
There is also a good chapter (ch. vii.) in W. E. H. Lecky,
Bemocracy and Liberty, 2 vols., London, 1896.

M. G. Glazebrook.

SUNDAY SCHOOLS.— I. Origin.— The his-
tory of the Sunday school is not the history of
religious education. The latter has always existed ;
the former is a modern institution. The Sunday
school is a voluntary lay organization conducting
religious instruction in classes on Sunday, gener-
ally but not always in church buildings, generally
but not always as part of a church organization.
The informal instruction that was probably given
by teachers in the early Christian communities was
somewhat akin to the activity of the Sunday school
teacher. But the catechetical schools^ which
flourished in the post-apostolic Church were en-
tirely different. Moreover, the regular catechizing
of children, which was always the duty of the
minister, albeit a duty very much neglected for
many centuries, was not a precursor of the Sunday
school. Indeed, if it had been thoroughly etiec-
tive and well developed, there might never have
been a Sunday school. The failure of the clergy
thoroughly to systematize and to develoji the
religious education of the children made the Sun-
day school necessary. Thus the Scottish clergy,
who were more successful in the training of children,
regarded the new institution at first as altogether
superfluous. The origin of the Sunday school is to
be sought in the sporadic efforts of earnest men and
women to supply some elementary instruction to
children who Avere neglected by the Ciiurch. The
most notable instance of such elibrt was that of
Kolii'vt Ilaikes at Gloucester; the name 'Sunday
school ' seems first to liave been attaclicd to his
1 See .art. Catkciiumkn, Oatbchumbnatk.

112

SUNDAY SCHOOLS

institution ; and there was genetic connexion
between Raikes's enterprise and the whole Sunday
school movement that succeeded.

2. The period of beginnings. — («) Robert Eaikes
and the first Sunday schools. — Tlie national duty
of universal education was not fully recognized in
England until fifty years ago. In the 18th cent,
education was the privilege of the well-to-do. Even
the many benefactions which had been provided
from time to time for the education of the poor
had become almost universally devoted to the
children of the middle classes. Moreover, with the
development of the factory system, the children
had been forced into labour at a very early age,
with the result that they grew up in hopeless illit-
eracy. Among a number of efforts to remedy this
intolerable condition the most significant was that
of Robert Raikes, editor of the Gloucester Journal.
He was a man of generous sympathies, interested in
various efforts to ameliorate the lot of the unfort-
unate. His attention was attracted to the vicious
conduct of the ' young pagans ' who were employed
in the factories during the week, but who were at
large on Sunday, and who naturally employed
their single holiday in the only rough recreation
which they understood. Believing that their
ignorance was responsible for their depravity, he
gathered a number of them into a school and
secured four women at one shilling per day to in-
struct them ' in reading and the Church Catechism.'
The date of tliis simple enterprise, which was soon
copied in numerous towns, is usually set at 1780.
Sunday schools became so popular that attention
was given to them in the Gentleman^ s Magazine,
and the various letters in that once influential
periodical still remain our most important source
of information regarding the beginning of the
movement. Wesley, in his itineracy, soon came
upon Sunday schools in various places, and with
line insight immediately saw their possibilities.

(6) The Sunday school in America. — The Ameri-
can churches were accustomed to hold services in
the morning and afternoon. There was an ' inter-
mission ' of an hour or more, during which a simple
hinch was eaten. Naturally this period was often
used for the catechetical instruction of the
children, for whom the somewhat solemn services
provided little that was appropriate. There is no
evidence that any such practice was at all common
previous to the Revolution. The catechizing of
children took place in the schools, in the family,
and in connexion with the pastoral visits of the
minister. A large proportion of the children were
of course altogetlier neglected. The period of the
Revolutionary War was not favourable to religious
education, and the strong influence of France
tended decidedly aAvay from religion. In the
general desire of the churches to meet this condi-
tion, they turned with interest to the new institu-
tion of the Sunday school, which had been intro-
duced into tlie United States from England. It
was not in America primarily (though it was to
some extent) a school held on Sunday for illiterate
children who could not be instructed on week-
days, but rather a school conducted by the Church
for religious instruction on the day set apart for
that purpose. Thus from the beginning the Sun-
day school in America was more closely related to
the Church than it was for a long time in England.
This is not to say that there was not considerable
opposition in the one country as in the other from
clergymen who felt the danger of the intrusion of
inexpert laymen.

(c) Sunday school organizations. — Within a few

years of the establishment of the Raikes schools

organizations for propagating the institution came

into existence.

William Fox, a London merchant, had had in contemplation

a large plan for the gratuitous instruction of the poor. When
he learned of the Raikes scheme, it seemed to him more practi-
cal than his own more ambitious project ; and he took the lead
in forming, in 1785, the Society for the Establishment and
Support of Sunday Schools. In 1796 was organized the Edin-
burgh Gratis Sabbath School Society. Others were formed in
other Scottish cities. In 1810 the Hibernian Sunday School
Society was organized in Dublin. These societies collected
funds for the establishment of new schools, for the payment of
teachers, for the purchase of Bibles, spelling-books, etc. The
practice of paying teachers, although continued in a few places
for many years, very soon gave way to the volunteer system,
with the spread of the new institution. A number of young
men who were giving their services in the Sunday schools of
London felt the necessity of mutual help and conference, and
organized in 1803 the Sunday School Society for this purpose.
This organization became the most sio^nificant means of develop-
ing the Sunday school in Great Britain.

Organization began in America with the First- Day or Sunday
School Society at Philadelphia, in 1791. It was undenomina-
tional in character and philanthropic in purpose. The visit of
Albert May of London in 1811 greatly stimulated interest in
Sunday school organizations. Many of them were formed in
American cities. After a number of federations of these had
been made, the desire for a national undenominational union
resulted in the organization in 1824 of the American Sunday
School Union, which has continued to do effective work to the
present time.

(d) Lessons and methods of teaching. — The earli-
est Sunday school teaching was of the most primi-
tive sort. Many schools on both sides of the
Atlantic were obliged to give much of their time to
the simplest lessons in reading and spelling. Re-
ligious instruction consisted of the memorizing of
Scripture, hymns, and catechism, the teacher
simply listening to the recitation. Soon some
simple plans of lessons were prepared, Avith some
practical appreciation of child religion. Helps to
the teacher were the Sunday School Repository, or
Teachers' Magazine, which began in London in
1813, and the American Sunday School Magazine,
started in 1824.

3. Development of the Sunday school in
America. — {a) Denominational organizations. —
The definite adoption of the Sunday school by the
Church in America is seen in the steps taken by
almost all the denominations subsequent to the
organization of the American Sunday School
Union to supervise and extend the work within
their own churches. For example, in 1827 the
Sunday School Union of the Methodist Episcopal
Church was organized in New York City ; Baptist
and Congregational organizations starting in 1825
developed into the American Baptist Publication
Society in 1840, and into the Congregational
Sabbath School and Publishing Society in 1868.
The superior church bodies of other denominations
undertook similar responsibilities.

(b) The Sunday School as a pioneer religions
agency. — It is easy in the light of our modern
educational science to criticize the poor endeavours
of early religious education, but no history of the
wonderful development of the Mississippi valley
would be adequate which failed to recognize the
social significance of the little Sunday schools that
went far ahead of the organized Church into the
pioneer communities.

In 1829 the American Sunday School Union established its
first western headquarters at Cincinnati, and in the following
j'ear resolved at its annual convention to undertake the organiza-
tion of a Sunday school in every destitute place in the Missis-
sippi valley. Funds were raised, lay and clerical missionaries
were ajjpointed, and a notable advance was made. A single
missionary in the course of a life of arduous journeying organ-
ized over 1300 new schools. As it was said of old that where
ten Hebrews lived there should be a synagogue, so it came to be
the expectation in America that, wherever three or four Chris-
tian families were neighbours, a Sunday school should be started,
at first in the farm-house, later in the school-house or in the
court-house. Very many churches of the West had their origin
in the activities of a few of the laity who had begun religious
work by the organization of a little Sunday school.

(c) The International Sunday School Associa-
tion.— The convention system has been charac-
teristic of the American movement. Neighbour-
hood conventions were held before 1820. Spring-
ing from the annual meeting of the American

SUNDAY SCHOOLS

113

Sunday School Union, a nation.al convention of
Sunday school workers was called in 1832. After
a very successful session this body adjourned to
meet the following year. Numerous state and
county conventions met in the succeeding years,
until in 1859 a third annual convention was called.
The fourth did not meet until after the Civil War,
in 1869, and by that time the noted Illinois leaders,
B. F. Jacobs, Edward Eggleston, J. H. Vincent,
and D. L. Moody were prominent. While this
convention was not called international, there were
delegates from Canada and from tiie British Isles.
The same was true of the lifth convention of 1872,
at which the uniform lessons were adopted. The
movement then became definitely organized as
international, with delegates from all the states
and provinces of North America. An official body
was gradually developed, wliicli supervised the ex-
tension of the system to state, county, and township
conventions, meeting annually and leading up to
the great triennial gathering. At the eleventh
convention in 1905 it was resolved to incorporate
under the name ' International Sunday School
Association.' This was done in 1907, headquarters
being established at Chicago. A completely
articulated organization exists under an executive
committee, with a general secretary and a corps of
superintendents over the various divisions and
departments.

{(l) The development of the lesson system. — As an
improvement on mere memorizing, the ' limited
lesson' system came into vogue about 1825. Two
years later Albert Judson published a question-
book, which supplied some notes and explanations
of the selected lessons. In the same year the
American Sunday School Union issued the Union
Question-Book, which was followed annually by
others covering a considerable portion of the Bible.
Various schemes followed, the result partly of
private enterprise, partly of denominational zeal.
There was no adequate direction, and Sunday
school leaders felt the need of some unity of effort.
After much discussion the convention of 1872
voted to issue a uniform system of lessons for all
Sunday school pupils. A lesson committee was
appointed, and great enthusiasm was developed in
the scheme. The co-operation of the British
Sunday School Union was secured, and the lessons
became practically universal. Noted writers pre-
pared lesson-helps and commentaries ; great
teachers' meetings were held for the exposition of
the lesson of the forthcoming Sunday, and the
public press frequently devoted a column on Satur-
day to this purpose.

After twenty years of great external success the
educational value of the uniform lesson was
seriously called in question. The subject was
warmly debated in conventions. At last, in 1908,
the convention decided, while continuing the uni-
form lesson, to authorize its lesson committee to
prepare a thoroughly graded course, to be used by
such schools as desired it. This has since been
done, and a series of text-books has been prepared
by the various denominations upon the lessons
thus outlined.

(c) Teacher training. — It has been recognized
that most Sunday school teaching has been very
unsatisfactory. Efforts have been made almost
from the beginning to effect improvement. The
institutes held since 1837 for public school teachers
were a challenge to the Sunday school, which was
answered by the development of conferences and
institutes. The normal class of J. H. Vincent in
Illinois in 1857 was a model which many followed.
Courses for normal training of increasing scope
have been issued, until to-day those published by
the vai'ious denominational societies and prepared
by educational experts are of very high grade. A

VOL. XII. — 8

summer school has been established at Lake
Geneva, Wisconsin, where instruction for pro-
fessional and lay workers is carried on during tiie
vacation season.

(/) The Sunday School Council of Evangelical
Denominations. — The activity of the various
denominations in Sunday school work has very
markedly developed during the last thirty years,
until thei'e has grown np a professional body of
editors and secretaries representing the more
definitely Church point of view. These leaders,
feeling the need of a common expression of the
denominational responsibility for religious educa-
tion, organized in 1910 the Sunday School Council
of Evangelical Denominations. Annual meetings
are held, at which important problems of educa-
tional policy and administration are discussed.
The existence of such a representative body natur-
ally raised the question of future responsibility
for the making of the lessons for the Sunday school
world. The lesson committee has therefore been
reconstituted, and now consists of eight members
selected from the international association, eight
members selected by the council, and one member
selected by each denomination having a lesson
committee.

(g) The emphasis on religious education. — The
last quarter of a century has been marked by a
growing emphasis upon the more serious educa-
tional responsibility of the Church. This was seen
in the demand for the graded curriculum. In
addition to the international lessons, several very
significant courses of study have been produced,
notably the Constructive Studies of the University
of Chicago Press, the Completely Graded Series of
Scribner, and several series of various denomina-
tions. In 1903 was organized the Religious Educa-
tion Association to promote the educational ideal
in religion and the religious ideal in education.
The Association holds annual conventions or con-
ferences, conducts studies and surveys, publishes a
magazine, gathers in its offices in Chicago all signi-
ficant material on religious education, and con-
ducts an extensive correspondence of advice and
stimulus on problems in this field. Several
denominations have established Boards of Relig-
ious Education, which are undertaking the super-
vision of the entire educational work of the Church.
Leaders of great ability are being selected as
secretaries. In some cases these boards are pre-
paring new and specially graded curricula.

The numerous agencies of religious education
are being co-ordinated in the more progressive
churches under a professional director of religious
education. He is becoming the educational
minister of the Church, Some colleges and uni-
versities and most theological seminaries have
established chairs of religious education, by means
of which a trained professional force is being
developed and scientific work in religious education
is being undertaken. An extensive literature has
already been produced, both technical and popular.

4. British developments.— (a) The Sunday School
Union.— T\\Q parent society in London developed
into a nation-wide enterprise. In 1821 there were
four metropolitan auxiliaries and sixty provincial
unions, besides the Sunday School Society of Ireland
and the Sabbath School Union of Scotland. The
reports of that year show 4000 schools with 36,000
teachers, and 500,000 scholars. In 1823 infant schools
were added for children below the ordinary Sunday
school age, as in 1811 Thomas Charles of Bala, the
Welsh Methodist leader, had already established
adult schools. The latter subsequently became
known as senior classes, and in time both infant
and senior branches became part of a completely
organized school. The Union celebrated its jubilee
in 1853 by inaugtirating a fund for the erection of

114

SUNNITE3

a permanent building. In 18G2, at the time of the
Interjiational Exliibition in London, a general
Sunday school convention was held, attended by
delegates from all over the British Isles, as well
as from the Continent, the United States, and the
Colonies. British Sunday schools were accustomed
to meet in the morning and in tlie afternoon, and
the Union had prejiared annually a double series
of lessons. Beginning with 1874, the British
Lessons Committee co-operated with the American
Committee in the production of the international
series of lessons.

In 1880 was celebrated the centenary of Sunday
schools throughout the United Kingdom, and a
great convention was held in London to which
delegates came from all over the Avorld. As a
result of this enlarged interest, the Union modified
its constitution so as to become thoi'oughly national
in ch.aracter, representation to the counties being
extended in 1890.

During the last thirty years the Union has
developed a very significant philanthropic work,
including country homes for poor scholars, a home
of rest for lady teachers, a children's convalescent
home, etc.

(b) Educational progress. — In the second quarter
of the 19th cent, a forward movement in the science
and art of pedagogy began in Scotland. David
Stow organized the Glasgow Normal School for the
training of teachers. Believing that the same

[)rinciples could be applied to religious education,
le published in 1826 a training system. The
Union puljlished in 1837 Popular Education, or a
Normal School Manual. In 1856 a training class
was organized at Pimlico. An attempt was made
in 1861 to establish a college for Sunday school
teachers, but it was found more feasible to develop
a sj'stem of standardizing examinations. The
college was finally established in 1899, and the
examination system adapted to this organization.
In addition to the publication of lessons and the
encouragement of teacher training, the Union has
developed a considerable literature for teachers
and scholars, a separate building being required
for this phase of its work.

5. World Sunday school work. — The Siinday
school spread naturally through the English-speak-
ing world. Various efforts were made, beginning
as early as 1815, to establish it on the Continent,
but with slight success. The convention in London
in 1862, at the earnest solicitation of Albert Wood-
ruff, undertook a continental propaganda. Sunday
schools were established in all European countries.
This movement was promoted by the world's con-
ventions which met in London in 1889, in St. Louis
in 1893, in London in 1898, in Jerusalem in 1904,
in Rome in 1907, in Washington in 1910, in Zlirich
in 1913. At Rome the World Sunday School
Association was organized, with American and
British sections. Missionary' work in China, India,
S. Africa, and Europe was assigned to the British
section ; in Japan, Korea, tlie Philippines, S.
America, and in the ISIuslim fields to the American
section. The Association reported at Ziirich the
world Sunday school membershij) as 30,015,037,
with 310,057 schools, and 2,669,630 oflicers and
teachers.

6. Non-Protestant Sunday schools. — The Roman
Catholic Church has adapted the Sunday school to
its system, though without relinquishing the con-
trol to lay leadership. In the Hebrew Reformed
Synagogue the Sunday school, generally under
paid teachers, has become very effective. Among
the Latter-Day Saints an excellent system of
religions education has been developed, including
the Sunday school. Tlie Ciiristian Science chnrches
have established Sunday schools especially for
children.

LiTERATDRE. — L. G. Pray, Hist, of Sunday Schools, Boston,
1847 ; ' The Sunday Sohool and the American Sunday School
Union,' AJRPE xv. [I8(i5] 705 ff. ; R. G. Pardee, The Sabbath
School Index, Philadelphia, 1S68 ; W. H. Watson, First Fifty
Years of tlie Sunday School, London, 1872 ; Centenary Memorial
of the Establishment of Sunday Schools, do. 1881 ; H. C.
Trumbull, Yale Lectures on the Sunday School, Philadelphia,
ISSS; J. H. Harris, Bobert Raikes : the Man and IJis Wo7'k,
London and New York, 1899 ; J. H. Vincent, The Modern
Sxmday School, do. 1900 ; M. C. Brown, Sunday School Move-
mfiits in America, do. 1901 ; W. H. Groser, A Hundred Vears'
Work for the Children, London, 1903 ; E. De Witt Burton and
S. Mathews, Principles and Ideals for the Sunday School,
Cliicago, 1903 ; Marion Lawrance, How to Conduct a Sunday
School, New York, 1905 ; A. S. Peake, Reform in Sunday
School Teaching, London, 1900 ; F. Johnson, The New Century
Sunday School, do. 1907 ; G. H. Archibald, The Sunday School
of To-morrow, do. 1909; A. H. Angus, Ideals in Stmday
School Teaching, do. 1910; H. H. Meyer, The Graded Sunday
School in Principle and Practice, New York, 1910 ; H. F. Cope,
The Ei'ohition of the Sunday School, Boston, 1911 ; W. S.
Athearn, The Church School, do. 1914; H. F. Cope, The
Sunday School and its Present-Day Task, New York, 1916 ;
E. W. Rice, The Sii7iday School Movement and the A merican
Sunday School Union, Philadelphia, 1917 ; Reports of the Inter-
national Sunday School Association (triennial), esp. that of

1905. Theodore Gerald So ares.

SUNNITES.— I. Distribution. — Islam is at

present divided into two great unevenly divided
sections. The Shi'ahs (q.v.) are found in Persia
and among the masses in India ; the Sunnites in
the Turkish empire as it was prior to the Great
War, in N. Africa, Egypt, other parts of Africa,
Central Asia, Afghanistan, India, China, and the
East Indies. In India the ruling class is of
Sunnite faith ; in the Turkish empire there are
numbers of Shi'ahs of the better class who make a
point of concealing their religious convictions.
The Muhammadan population of the world is
estimated to be about 221,000,000, and of this
total it is reckoned that about 15,000,000 are
Shi'ahs ; the rest are Sunnis. The Ibadis {q.v.) of
E. Arabia and N. and E. Africa are not relatively
numerous and are neither Slii'ah nor Sunnite
inasmuch as they claim descent from the Kharijite '
schism of the early Umayyad period. The Zaidites
(q.v.) of Yemen, though of Shi ah origin, are on
terms of fellowship with the Sunnites of Arabia.

2. The term * Sunnite ' and the early attitude
tovvards the sunnah.— The Sunnite is the follower
of the sunnah (' form,' ' outline,' ' mode,' ' usage '),
or the view and usage of the Prophet. The issue
implied in the use of the term is as to how new
demands of thought are to be satisfied and new
situations are to be met. The party of the sunnah
contended that, where the Qur'an did not fully
and clearly provide direction, the inquirer should
seek trustworthy information as to what Muham-
mad had said on the subject, what his action had
been with relation to it, or what he had approved
in others. The sunnah of the Prophet would be
found embodied in a tradition (hadith), and it was
of the highest importance that the trustworthiness
of traditions should be certified. They were
tested, not by their intrinsic probability or by
their consistency with other reports, but solely by
the reputed reliability of the succession of person.s
through whom they had been handed down. If
the 'isndd, or chain of guarantors, had no un-
reliable members, the contents of a tradition were
considered to furnish unimpeachable support for
the opinion or course of action on behalf of which
they had been cited. This mode of arriving at the
sunnah of the Prophet opened the way to the
wholesale fabrication and perversion of traditions
to suit the needs of persons hard pressed for argu-
ments on behalf of causes honest or dishonest.
Abu l;TanIfah (t 150 A.H.) seems to have felt that
tradition as a basis of support was not sufficient.
Possibly, as a Persian he lacked the Arab's resi)ect
for this mode of proof and sought a more rational
method, but what determined his attitude to an
1 See art. KhawSri.t.

SUNNITES

115

even greater degree was proba1>ly the notoriously
untrustworthy miinner in which traditions Avere
produced. He preferred to resort directly to the
Qur'an and, where it was not explicit, to decide
according to his own view of what might fairly be
inferred from its teaching as bearing on the
question in hand. Tliis method of obtaining direc-
tion involved two principles which the party of the
sumiah for a long time vieAved with distrust, viz.
ra'y, or independent personal judgment, and qiycis,
argument from the analogy of known cases to
secure direction for new cases. Both of these were
thought to imply disrespect towards inspired
authority. Abu ^ianifah went farther than this in
the readiness which he showed to depart from the
written authority of the Qur'an and the direction
given by the sunnah. Even wlien these gave a
clear decision, or where the principle of qiyds gave
a definite instruction, the situation might_ suggest
a better view or a wiser course of action. To
follow such a suggestion was a duty. The prin-
ciple here implied is termed istihsan, preference,
or asking for the better thing. It involves personal
independent judgment {ra'y) to a greater degree
than the employment of qiyds does and is still
more inconsistent with the early view of the party
of the sunnah ('Ahlu-'s-Sunnah). Malik ibn 'Anas
(t 179 A.Tl.) lived in the atmosphere of tradition at
Medina, and tradition had more weight with him
than with Abu ^anifah. Still, where traditions
were being forged at the rate he knew and for the
purposes of which he was aware, there was room
for a principle of decision in legal and doctrinal
questions which would protect Islam against in-
jury through capricious or irrational judgments.
Ma'lik, therefore, admitted the rule of istislah, the
seeking of the public welfare, which might over-
ride the dictation of the Sacred Book and the
sunnah. The strict party of the sunnah opposed
this rule, as it had the liberal practice of Abu
Panifah ; both allowed too much room to ra'y.
To men accustomed to earlier conditions, when the
absence of a sunnah which might cover all cases
left room for decision on other grounds, the rnere
multiplying of traditions did not afford a sufficient
reason for surrendering methods of obtaining
guidance which had been followed when traditions
were not available. Meanwhile the uninformed
masses of Islam were strongly inclined to the
simpler method of appeal to external authority.
Qiyds, istihsan, istislah, and ra'y were too human,
and hence too feeble and erring. The future of
Islam largely depended on whether free scholarship
[ra'y) or authority [sunnah) became the ruling
factor in the community, whether the need of the
Muslims was to be conceived according to the view
of intelligent leaders or to that of the great body
of the people with its clinging to old-established
ways.

3. The Mu'tazilite reaction. — The traditional
and rationalistic tendencies both went on develop-
ing, and the mutual antagonism between them
was intensified. The rationalistic party became
recognized as a party which favoured ray, lent
its approval to Greek philosophy and Christian
culture, and regularly employed the Aristotelian
method of arriving at truth. The earlier khallfahs
of the Abbasid dynasty had been interested in
these things, but they became established and
officially approved under the khallfah al-Ma'mun
(t 218 A.H.). In the last year of his reign he
instituted an inquisition against the traditionalists.
This inquisition [al-Mihna) went on for sixteen
years (218-234 A.H.), and, while it lasted, the
orthodox suffered severely and their leaders were
often under peril of death. This period of persecu-
tion, with the strenuous controversies which it
witnessed, settled the characteristic marks of the

later Sunni belief and also brought out and
sharpened the weapons by which rationalism
souglit to destroy the positions of the 'Ahlu-'s-
Sunnah. The latter applied to their opponents
the name Mu'tazilah, 'dissenters' or 'seceders.'
It was a name which had been used in a favour-
able sense of pious ascetics or hermits, but in the
late 2nd cent. A.H. it was given an iinfavourable
significance and came to mean heretics. On the
one side were the 'Ahlu-'s-Sunnah, and opposed to
them were the 'Ahlu-'r-Ra'y, the Mu'tazilah. The
fundamental question for both parties Avas the true
conception of God. Was the vieAv held by the one
party or the other a view Avhich did justice to the
unity of the Supreme Being ? Was it one Avhich
adequately set forth and protected His character
as a perfect Being ? The Mu'tazilali, as their ortho-
dox antagonists called them, Avere proud to describe
themselves as the ' party of the (divine) unity and
justice' ('Ahlu-'t-Tawhid Ava'l-'adl). They charged
the party of the sunnah with a contradiction of
both these divine virtues.

Connected with these fundamental issuea were others of
sufficiently vital importance but subordinate to them. The
question as to the source of authority for belief and conduct
required to be solved. The party of the Qur'iln and sunnah
insisted upon a literal conformity to these two sources, while
the Mu'tazilah demanded that belief and conduct should be
consistent with reason, and the method by which tlie rational
view was to be tested was that of the Aristotelian logic. This
science was known by the term kaldrn (g.».), and those who
relied upon it were designated Mutakallimun — descriptions
without intrinsic stigma, but acquiring in the hands of the
orthodox Sunnites the unpleasant implication of heresy and
heretics respectively. The Mu'tazilah nevertheless were proud
to call themselves 'Ahlu-'l-'AqI, ' the party of reason,' and felt
that only by reason could one reach a worthy view of God and
of man's duty to Him. The Qur'an was saved from absurd
interpretations and became a real guide for reasonable beings
only as it was subjected to a rational process of study. Literal
acceptance of the text had led the orthodox to proclaim the
dogma of the uncreated and eternal nature of the Qur'an, and
as a party in this early time they applied the dogma even to the
letters and words of the book as written and to the sounds of
the uttered recitation or reading. It was in the controversy
regarding the uncreated nature of the Qur'an that Ahmad ibn
Hanbal (q.v.) appeared as the outstanding champion of the
traditional view. When pressed by the Mu'tazilite argument to
the effect that the human media and the inanimate records
were obviously not unlimited in either nature or duration, his
answer was that the book declared itself to be (or, rather, God
in the book declared it to be) kaldm Allah, i.e. the word or
speech of God, which was inseparably and uninterruptedly an
attribute (?i/a) of God. It could not be dissociated from the
thought of God and the divine reason and was therefore eternal.
This polemic instantly raised the question of the divine attri-
butes (ft/ai). Was the kaldm Allah to be conceived as an
entity independent as to essence from the being or essence of
God ? Were all the attributes entities in this sense ? On the
basis of the statements of the Qur'an the party of the sunnah
persistently argued for the affirmative. The Mu'tazilah charged
them with giving God a partner (shirk). It was polytheism
to assert that there were other eternal entities beside God.
The Qur'an text should not be interpreted in such a sense as to
violate the unity of God and ' associate ' other beings with Ilim.
It should be explained in an allegorical sense (ta'wil) where the
literal sense would involve irreverence or what was irrational.
The orthodox rejoinder relentlessly attacked the presumptuous
setting up of ra'y over the kaldm Alldh. It surely was the
greater sin that the creature should venture to set aside the
plain words which God had spoken because to him they seemed
absurd. The ambiguity of the terms used in the controversy
made agreement between the two parties impossible. ' Word
of God' meant one thing for Ahmad ibn Hanbal and a very
different thing for his persecuting inquisitors. For him to
claim that his Qur'an was uncreated, and for them to reply that
their Qur'an was created, must necessarily have left each where
he was before the argument. The sunnah party suffered much
ridicule at the hands of their opponents because of their readi-
ness to accept all the anthropomorphisms of the Qur'an as
precise descriptions of fact. They boldly taught that God sat
on a throne, possessed sight, smell, hearing, etc., though they
grew more cautious as the controversy wore on and pressed for
verbal acceptance of the Qur'an teachings, with a consent to
leave questions as to how such things could be with God Him-
self to make plain later or not to make plain as He chose. It
was to be an acceptance 'without seeing how' (bild kaifa, or,
contracted, balkaifa). Connected with this subject of tho
anthropomorphic attributes and acts of God in the Qur'an is that
of the possihility of actually seeing God, as the Qur'an declares.
If the saints see God, it is implied that the nnthropornorphic
view is literally true ; if it is not true, they do not see Him.

One more element in the Mu'tazilite controversy

116

SUNNITBS

remains to be noticed. The party of the simnah
held the characteristic Arab view that the will of
Allali was the all-determinin<; source of change
and activity in the world. The ' party of 'aql '
allowed to man the capacity to initiate action and
placed upon him the responsibility for his choice.
Because of their attitude on this special point, the
Mutazilah are classed as Qadarites (believers in
free will). Their argument attacked the orthodox,
particularly on the ground that they held man
responsible for his acts and nevertheless denied
that he was free. Freedom he might seem to
liave, but it was only illusory ; in reality his acts
were created by God, without whom nothing
happened. This orthodox contention the Mu tazilah
repudiated as involving injustice to man and also
as implying an insulting impeachment of God's
justice.

4. Re-establishment of orthodoxy. — The Mu-
tazilite controversy was summarily terminated by
the khnlifah al-Mutawakkil in 234 A.H. He
reversed the liberal policy of his predecessors,
declared the doctrines that they had championed
to be offences against the State, and proclaimed
the orthodox views to represent the official opinions
which alone woiild be tolerated in Islam. This
official endorsement of the 'Ahlu-'s-Sunnah has
been maintained in Islam down to the present.
The dogmatic beliefs of the persecuted orthodox
are held by both Sunnites and Slu'alis, and the
Sunni khallfate has regularly stood sponsor for
them. There is no doubt that the Mu'tazilite
khal'ifahs of the Mihna period represented a
relatively small minority in the Muslim world of
tiieir time and that al-Mutawakkil was wise not
to continue his support of their views in the face
of an adverse popular sentiment. Tradition and
Qur'an retained their hold upon the masses, to
whom their directness and their clear maudatory
accent appealed as mere reflective opinion could
hardly hope to do. The great body of Islam
ranged itself behind the orthodox khalifahs, and
the Mutazilah tend to disappear little by little.
The free-thinking teachers notwithstanding give
the traditional theologians a great deal of trouble,
in spite of the smallness of their numbers. It was
easy to make a system based on literal interpreta-
tions appear ridiculous when attacked by means of
keen dialectic, and the orthodox tenacity and
insistence did not prevent their partisans from
feeling an awkward discomfort when they were
forced to evade rather than answer the attacks
made upon them. It will be readily understood
that the man who enabled them to inflict genuine
defeat upon their opponents, Abul-IJasan al-
Ash'arl [q.v.), would seem to the orthodox to be
almost a prophet when he arrived.

5. Abu'l-Hasan al-Ash'ari. — Al-Ash'ari had been
long trained in the views and arguments of the
Mutakallims, and there is some plausibility in
the legend which represents him as using their
method against his own teacher al-Jubba'i to the
discomfiture of the latter. He had apparently
come to see that tiie Aristotelian logic was valu-
able, not for the discovery of truth, but for making
explicit the signiflcance of propositions which were
taken for granted and for the confutation of false
arguments. It became clear to him that religion
could not be built securely upon kaldm, a formal
science. The foundation must be in revelation
through inspired men and media, through prophets
and sacred writings. Feeling that, in spite of their
poor logic, the party of the sunnah had founded
Islam upon the true basis, that tradition was a
genuinely trustworthy means of communicating
revealed guidance from age to age, and that the
consensus of the Muslim community (ijma) ex-
pressed through its leaders was more reliable than

the judgment of the individual Mutakallim, al-
Ash'ari returned to the orthodox faith which he
seems to have inherited from his forbears in the first
instance. He came back converted through his
own employment of kaldm against itself, and
naturally he made use of the weapon from that
time (300 A.H.) forward to disprove the views of
the Mutazilah and to develop into a system the
orthodox doctrine.

6. The principle of consensus. — The principle of
consensus operated more largely from the days of
al-Ashari onward. It was Ash-Shafi'i (f 204 A.H.)
who first made extensive use of it in his teaching
and was prepared to accept it as a guide where the
Qur'an and sunnah failed to afford direction. His
preference for ijmd' was approved only with re-
serve by the rigid ^lanbalite orthodoxy of the 3rd
century. Al-Bukhari's strictness in the criticism
of hadiths and his refusal to give an opinion on
the human utterance of the Qur'an are possibly
alike based upon an employment of the ijmd'.
The imnciple has a bearing upon the division of
Islam into Sunnites and Shi'ahs. In the days of
the early Ash'arite school this division, which is
based, not upon dogmatic differences of a genuine
religious character, but upon a divergent view of
the khallfate, had not yet taken place, and the
ijmd' embraced the whole Muslim community.
When the division came, it was recognized that
the 'Ahlu-'s-Sunnah lay beyond the boundaries of
the Persian empire as organized under the Safawids
(A.D. 1502), and that ijma had a sense and a bind-
ing force in Sunnite Islam which it did not have
in Persia. The Persian Muslims readily accord
the name Sunnis to their rivals and accept Shi' ah
as a proper term by which to describe themselves.
Ijmd is es2>ecially a Sunnite principle and has
guided the leading movements and changes of
Sunnite Islam during many centuries. There is
no need of its use among the Shi'ahs, where appeal
is made to the inspired authority of the imams as
it is voiced through their mujtahids.

In spite of the fact that the Hanbalite school, so powerful in
the 3rd cent, of Islam, is now almost a negligible quantity, al-
Ash'ari, the founder of the Sunnite theological system, was an
ardent Hanbalite after his conversion and died in that faith
(320 A.H.). It is necessary to say, however, that the views
which are now held by all the Sunnite schools are the founder's
views as somewhat liberalized by the Ash'arite school after his
death. There is evidence to siiow that the cast-iron system
into which the great teacher came back at the time of his
conversion from Mu'tazilism was modified through the very
kaldm influence which he brought with him. It was probably
al-Ash'ari's thought to employ kaldm for purely apologetic
purposes, but his followers gave much more scope to the
principle of the censensus than he seems to have thought of.
The ' Six Correct Books ' of traditions (Kitdbu Sittah), of which
the two great Salilhs of al-Bukhari and Mushm are the most
essential authorities, contain the only generally accepted evi-
dence as to the sunnah, but in the application of the sunnah
the principle of the ijma', used in accordance with the scholastic
method introduced by al-Ash'ari, has made it possible to leave
far behind the strict views of law held by the triumphant
hanbalite school of the 3rd MusUm century. That kind of
unchanging- orthodoxy would not have pi-eserved the unity of
Islam as it has been preserved among the Sunnites. Modern
Hanbalites are the consistetit successors of the early Hanbalite
school before al-Ash'ari, but they exert little influence. Sunnite
Islam is an Islam to which the liberal views of the Hanifites and
the moderate views of the Malikites and Shafi'ites have had less
and less difficulty in adjusting themselves as time has passed,
so that in opinion and practice unity and even a large measure
of uniformity have come to prevail. The Hanbalite domination
of the Sunn! sect became at once impossible with the admission
of the kaldm method and the broader understanding of the
ijma'. The schools differ, as they have always differed, in the
extent to which they recognize certain liberal principles and
attitudes of mind. Analogy (qii/ds) and judgment according to
personal opinion {ra'y, and, in special relations, istihsan, or
preference for a Ijetter view) play a large part in the administra-
tion of Hanifite law, a less important part among the N. African
Malikites, and a small part in the Shafi'ite communities of
Islam. But the difference is within the region of fiqh and not
within that of dogmatic opinion.

7. Triumph of Ash'arite theology. — The proc^ess
of liberalizing the orthodox system of al-Ash'ari
must have been somewhat rapid in the century

SUNNITBS

117

following his deatli. Towards the end of the 4th
cent. A.H. there seems to have been a disposition
to allow Jcaldm to run riot in Baghdad, where we
read of theologians who were willing to argue
questions without reference to the traditional
authorities of Islam. Even in the West the great
thinkers, excluding Ibn yazui {q.v.) as almost a
sole exception, gave themselves more and more to
a philosophical account of religion and at the same
time realized painfully that they had parted
company with accepted orthodox views. Men
like Ibn Tufail and Averroes (qq.v.) in the late
6th cent. A.H. have one system for the masses
and another teaching for the instructed few.
Nevertheless one may say that, in spite of ex-
cesses, the Ash'arite school had definitely imposed
its views and method upon the Muslim world
before the end of the 11th cent, of our Christian
era. The liberty of thoiight which al-Ash'ari had
secured for Islam had developed by that time a
controversial intellectualism which left no place
for intuition or mysticism in religion, and ortho-
doxy was in serious danger of losing the sympathy
of the masses. A new emphasis was called for in
order to supply a corrective to the general ration-
alism which prevailed.

8. Al-Ghazall.i— Al-Ghazali (f 505 A.H.) was by
nature an intensely religious man to whom the
truth was the greatest of all possessions. It was
for liirn life's supreme concern to solve the problem
of Ultimate Reality in such a way as to be satisfied
that he enjoyed contact, response, and fellowship
with it. He was convinced that what he sought
could not be given by an acceptance of truth on
mere external authority, a point to which, in spite
of his dependence upon kaldm, al-Ash'arl still
held. He saw that the Mutakallims could
proceed to their conclusions only as they took for
granted certain propositions which they did not
prove, and that, when they had said all, the seeker
had in possession only a system of logical inferences
and not at all an experience of the ultimately real.
Not because it wa,s a last resort or because he was
in despair of findinjj anything better, al-Ghazali
turned to Sufism. He made a full and sympathetic
trial of the Sufi discipline, after having tried other
ways, and was convinced that the Siifis (q.v.) had
solved the problem of the soul's quest. Man
craved a satisfying revelation and a satisfying
communion witli God ; he received both through
faithful confoi-mity to the Sufi ideal and per-
sistent openness to receive higher communications.
Al-Ghazali was a moderate Sufi who was ready to
give due weight to reason Avithin its own limits,
and who recognized the ethical and religious duties
of the common life. His pre-eminent gifts and
virtues — for he was one of the finest characters as
well as one of the greatest minds which Islam has
produced— have made his solution of the religious
problem exceedingly influential down to our own
day. Sufism became a power far beyond the
borders of the dervish organizations ; the extreme
dependence upon rationalism was checked ; the
emotional factors in human nature were provided
for with due regard to ethical and religious con-
duct. Probably no teacher since the days of the
Prophet has ailbrded to Muslims a better illus-
tration of tlie possibilities of their own faith.
Sunnites generally admit a great intiehtodness to
him, Jind his works are standard texts in the
training of orthodox theologians {'iilrnnn).

g. Sunnites and Shi'ahs. — The distinction be-
tween Shi'ahs and Sunnis has its roots in the
dispute between the 'Alids and Ihnayyads in the
years which followed the IcJiuliJuh 'Utliman's
assassination (35 A.H.). In its origin it has noth-
ing to do with the religion founded by Muhammad,
> Cf. art. Ethics axd Morality (Muslim), § 7.

but rather is occupied with the political question
of the succession to the leadership of the Muslim
community. At first the 'Alids on their side
claimed that they were the legitimate khnlifahs
because they were descended from the Prophet's
daughter Fatimah and his cousin and intimate
companion, "Ali. The Umayyads on their part
claimed a nomination by the choice of the Muslims
themselves and as a further title claimed kinship
with the Prophet as being of the Hashimite family.
Later the 'Alids stood for the claims of descent
against all claims of right to office because of the
popular choice. This difference still marks off the
Shi'ah political theory from that held among the
Sunnites.

(a) Theory of the, khallfate. — There is, moreover,
an old standing difference between the Sunnites
and Shi'ahs as to the functions of the khdUfnh.
Among the Sunnites the khalifah is a political
ruler essentially, while from the first the 'Alid
party regarded the Prophet's successor as a religi-
ous guide .and therefore preferred to designate him
as the imam of the Muslim community. It was
assumed that his physical descent from the Prophet
secured to him not merely divine rights, but also
a divine endowment of grace and wisdom. No
such assumption was held by the Sunnites with
relation to their khal'ifahs. They were chosen
from among the believers and could claim no
supernatural qualifications. Their authority was
conferred by the Muslim community and carried
with it no implication of pre-eminent saintliness
or infallibility. The Sunnite attitude towards the
khal'ifahs difiers gi-eatly from that of the Shi'ahs
towards the imams, 'rhe personal qualities and
public influence of the khalifahs have been largely
determinative of the respect shown to them.
Among the Shi'ahs the office hallows the occupant,
and the imdm.s are regarded with the deepest
religious veneration. The Sunnite khalifahs by
law are required to be of the Projihet's tribe, the
Quraish ; the imams were chosen from the still
more narrow circle of the Prophet's immediate
family.

Since the twelfth imdm, Muhammad ibn al-yasan, dis-
appeared in the middle of the 3rd cent. a. 11., the line of visible
imams has been su.spundod, but there has never been a legal
reason why tiie Sunni khalifate should be interrupted, as it has
alwaj's been possible for the Muslim community to find an
eligible candidate and to nominate him, provided circumstances
did not interpose a physical hindrance. The »ultdns of Turkey
have assumed to be the khalifahs of the Prophet and have taken
to themselves the exclusive title pertaining: to that oHice, Emir
al-Mu'minina, ' Commander of the Faithful,' since the time of
the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in a.d. 1512. As they are not
of Arab race, let alone of Quraishite lineage, there is no basis in
law for the Ottoman claim. The first sultan (Selim i.) to assume
the title justified his act on the ground of a surrender of his
rights on the part of the last 'Abbasid khalifah, al-Mutawakkil
II., who at the time of the conquest of Egypt was attached to
the court of the Mamluk stiltdns and was recognized by them
as the spiritual head of Islam. The Ottoman stiltdns have
retained in their own persons the dual authority temporal and
spiritual which the Mamluks had divided, and the principle of
the consensus seems to have permitted the \ilamd to legalize
the departure from the law of the khalifate as settled by the
suiinah. They have accepted the transfer of the 'Abbasid rights
to Sultan Selim ;vs giving a title, and have regarded it as forti-
fied by other considerations, viz. the Ottoman conquest of
Muslim doiiinin, the control of the sacred cities, and the pos-
session of relics of the Prophet. The sulfdn has made a con-
cession to traditional sentiment in constituting the chief vmfti
in Constantinoi>le as shaikh ul-Isldm, or highest spiritual
authority over all believers. This functionary, nevertheless,
derivis bis power from the siiltdn who appoints him, though it
is to be admilted that the choice of the 'vlatnd iiractically
settles the appointment. All questions affecting Islam are con-
sidered by the shaikh ul-Isld)ii, and are subject to his decision
as pronuilgati (1 by ixfatird issuing from him. The other condi-
tions recogniziil by Sunnite autliorities as binding in the elec-
tion of a khalifah are that he shall be of adult years, of .sane
mind, of free condition, a man versed in Ihe learning of Islam,
and a capable administrator who will rule justly. In contrast
to the Shi'ahs, the Sunni doctors have always rerogniztd Abu
I'akr, Tmar, and 't'thman, the first successors of tlie Prophet,
as genuine khalifahs (al-Khiilafd ar-rdshidun) together with
the fourth khalifah 'Ali, who of course is allowed to be a legiti-

118

SUNNITES

mate successor by the Shl'ah sect also. For 'All and his suc-
cessors in the iniamate the Suiinis have much respect on account
of their reputation for eithei- piety or learning, though they do
not admit the Shiah claim of supernatural gifts or divine rights
as belonging to them.

(6) Enmity between Sunnites and ShVahs. — The
intense hatred between Sunnis and Shi'ahs as dis-
tinct sects dates from the time when the Shi'ahs
■were constituted a separate political organization
Ly the foundation of the Safawid empire of Persia
in A.D. 1502. The fault in this mutual bitter feel-
ing is greater on the Shi' ah side than on that of the
Sunnites, but the treatment of Persian pilgrims to
Mecca has been an enduring irritation, and in
earlier times the military aggression of the Turkish
sultans gave occasion for resentment in Persia.
As has been pointed out above, there are many
individual Muslims of Shi'ah connexion in the
Turkish empire, and, either because of an acquired
indillerence or oftener because of their practice of
taqiyah (concealment of faith), they suffer no
personal inconvenience at the hands of their Sunnite
neighbours. The proposal of Nadir Shah in the
18th cent., that a reunion of Islam be brougiit
about by admitting the Shi'ahs to fellowship with
tlie Sunnis as a hfth orthodox school, was prompted
by the world-ambition of that ruler and was met
by vigorous and successful opposition on the part
of the Persian mujtahids and mullahs.

(c) Position as to the sunnah. — The difference
between the Sunnites and the Shi'ahs does not
consist in the acknowledgment of the sunnah of
the Prophet bj'' the former and its denial by the
latter. The title of the Sunnis to have the oldest
and the most thoroughly tested body of traditions
is not questioned, but the Shi'ahs also have their
sunnah, whose authorities are the acknowledged
hadith collections of the sect. Kesting upon these
recognized standards, the Shi'ah teachers claim
that they alone have the genuine sunnah, while
the Sunnite version, they allege, has been perverted
so !is to furnish arguments against the claims of
'Ali and his sons to the succession of the Prophet.
The corruption of the sunnah for any such purpose
by the Sunnites is exceedingly unlikely, while the
evidence of the manipulation of traditions by the
Shi'alis to support their own side is considered to
be fairly clear. In the interpretation and adapta-
tion of the siumah to new relations the Sunnites
are guided by the consensus (ijind') and analogy
(qiycis), while the Shi'ahs claim to be alone rightly
guided in their following of the sunnah, inasmuch
as tliey have enjoyed the infallible instruction of
the imams either in person or since tlie line has
been suspended by the inerrant coiiimunication
of their word and will through the mujtahids.
According to the sunnah view, tliere can be no
mnjtahids in Islam since the death of the last great
orthodox founder in the 3rd cent. A,n. The term
as em])loyod in Suniii circles is limited to the great
itndins of the earlier centuries who founded the
four orthodox schools and laid on indisputable
foundations the theology and law of Islam. Since
tiieir day no teacher's opinions liave justilied them-
selves as a [)ermanent liasis for faith and life.

10. Changes in Sunnite Islam. — In theory
Sunnite Ishim is tied up to tlie Ash'arite s^'stem,
and be(;ausc of tliat iL is thoiight to be fated to
intellectual stagnalion. The facts show that from
the time of al-Ash'ari linnself theifi was souk;
modilication of tlu; founder's positions, and with
the <!(mtributiou made by al-liliazaii one may say
that the modification aniounls to a materially
altered view-point and the introduction of a new
and revolutionary empliasis which laid stress upon
intuitive and emotional factors in religious experi-
ence. The necessities of the historical situation
have repeatedly rendered nugatory the tiicoretical
requirements of Sunnite orthodoxy. Where

Muslims live under Christian governments, as in
India, the law of the khalifate has to yield place
to the obligations of political loyalty, the duty
imposed by the jihad is in most cases unfullilled,
and the zakdt must be modified, especially as to
the authority to whom it is to be turned over and
the mode and purpose of its distribution. With
the universal recognition of saint-worship and the
cult of relics, the dogma of the unity of God and
the law against idolatry (shirk) are violated, and
the sufficiency of the canonical authorities, the
Qur'an and sunnah, is called in question. It may
be recalled that one fruit of the modern liberal
movement in India is the rise of the Ahmadlyah
sect, whose founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (t 1908),
recognized the logic of facts in the position of the
Indian Muslims and declared that the duty of tlie
jihad was not binding any longer. The practical
effect of the Sufi teaching when fully developed is
a pantheism which is in contradiction with the
hard, clear-cut monotheism of the Ash'arite theo-
logy. It is a pantheism leading to a loosening of
the positive bonds of conduct which the orthodox
teaching imposes. The righteousness of the Sufi
may become extravagantly mechanical and vio-
lently anti-social, so much so that public regulation
may be called for, as is the case in Egypt. Enough
has been said to show that Sunnite Islam, however
immobile it may be in theory, has admitted into
its system under the compulsion of facts vastly
important modilications, some of which have
seemed to contain unrevealed potentialities of
disintegration.

II. Detailed differences between Sunnites and
Shi'ahs. — A few points in which Sunnites and
Shi'ahs differ require to be mentioned.

(a) The Sunnites do not accord to 'Ali and his sons the degree
of veneration which the feast of Muharram implies. This holds
true even if the Sunnite Muslims of India do not scruple to
participate in the ceremonies of the feast along with their Shi'ah
neighbours, (h) There is some confusion of the orthodox feast
of the 'Ashura, which falls on the tenth day of Muharram, with
the Shi'ah feast, which extends from the first to the tenth day
of that month. The motive of the respective feasts is, however,
entirely different. The 'Ashiira commemorates the completion
of creation by the creating of Adam and Eve on the tenth day
of Muharram, while the tenth day of tlie Shi'ah ceremonies is
simply the crowning day of the whole Muharram feast, pointing
in particular to the Kerbel.a massacre which is supposed to have
taken place on that day. (c) Generally speaking, the ritual of
ordinary worship differs only in the non-essential points. The
mode of purification before the ^aldt with the Sunnites includes
the washing of the arm upwards to the elbow, while with the
Shi'ahs the process is reversed. In the washing of the feet the
Sunnite ritual literally washes ; the Shi'ah merely rubs or wijies
the feet, (d) To perform the lidij by proxy is not permitted liy
the Sunnis, while it is not uncommon among their rivals. This
permission, If granted, would violate the cardinal Sunni rer]uire-
ment that a Muslim must perform the lifij} at least once during
his lifetuue. (e) More far-reaching in its social effects is the
permission given by the Shi'ah law to contract rmt'iffl marria'.TS.
These temporary unions, for a price agreed upon and uiukr
conditions of legal contract, are forbidden by the Sunnite codes.
(/) The Sunnite recognition of the principle of taijiyah is limiled
to cases of extreme personal danger when it is at most permitted
to dissemble one's religious convictions in order to preserve
one's life. The Shi'alis do not view taijiyah as limited to situa-
tions of personal risk, and, where it applies, they do not merely
permit a resort to taqiyah, but strongly recommend the em-
ployment of it. Especiallj' where the interests of religion may
be sujiposed to be in jeopardy, the Muslim of Shi'ah faith will
feel the use of taqiyah to be a moral obligation.

In all that has been said in the foregoing
des(;ri))t.ion of the Sunnite position and [>ractice
rogani li;i,s been had to oidy those matters whicli
fall witliin Ww canon law {sh/iri'ah). It must be
kej)t in mind that in all Muslim countries, Avhether
Sunnite or Siii'ite, there is another authority whicli
has its constituted rights and its organized ad-
ministration, viz. the customary law ('iirfov'adah).
This differs according to the established conventions
of different places. It is not a distinctive feature
of the Sunnites and need not be more fully treated
in tins article.

The power of the 'uhuiid among the Sunnis ia

SUPERNATURALISM

ll'J

very <,'re.at, tlioiij^'h as a class they are not viewed
with the superstitions veneration or even fear
which the Persian Shi'ah sliows to many of tlie
mullahs, to all the 7nujtahids, and to the large class
of sayyids who are to be found in Shi'ite regions.
The influence of the 'ulanid has been conserved by
their learning, which, though narrowly restricted
to Muslim theology and law, is often comprehensive
within those limits. This learning is constantly
on call in the service of the Muslim community.
Their influence, moreover, has been much greater
than it might have been owing to a certain measure
of accommodation which has made large room for
such a ijhenomenon as the Sufi movement— a
movement whose elements of wonder arid emotion-
alism have proved to the satisfaction of the
masses that Islam was still a medium of super-
natural power and divine life. Along with this
they have admitted to the curriculum of theological
studies in all the leading schools the works of the
great mystics, particularly those of the master,
al-GhazalL The tacit or explicit approval of the
cult of saints, endowed as it is by public funds,
may be an anomaly, but for the orthodox leaders
it also is an instrument of power. More potent
than any other factor is the fact that the consensus
(ijmd') is realized only through the 'ulamd and
that no cause has been so effective in bringing
about change of policy and the initiation of new
lines of action as the voice of the 'ulamd declaring
the mind of the universal Muslim community.
The ijmd^ is being prepared by the training which
the candidates for the learned calling receive,
whether it be in the Azhar University at Cairo, in
the schools of Constantinople and India, or in the
ancient seats of learning like Eokliara. It is a
long mechanical process aiming at fixing rigidly
the positions of traditional orthodoxy in the
thoughts and sympathies of the student and culti-
vating in him a fanatical devotion to the authority
of the past, especially of the primitive age of the
faith. It is natural that, when his opportunity to
lead conies, he should adjust himself aa an obedient
part of the whole traditional system.

Literature. — R. Dozy, Uct Islamisme, Leyden, 1863, French
tr., do. lS7i); C- Eliot (' Odysseus'), Turkey in Surojjei,
London, 1908; EBr^^, s.w. 'Mahonmiedan Religion,' ' Mahom-
medan Institutions,' ' Mahommedan Law,' 'Suniiites'; I. Gold-
ziher, Mohamined and Islam, New Haven, U.S.A., 1917; C.
Hamilton, The Hedaya'^, Lorxlon, 1870 ; T. P. Hughes, DI,
London, 1S95 ; F. A. Klein, The Religion of Islam, do. 1906;
E. W. Lane, An Account of the Manners and Ciistoms of the
Modem Egyjdians, 2 vols., do. 1836, and many subsequent
cdd. ; D. B. Macdonald, Development of Muslim Theology,
Jurisprudence, and Constitutional T'heory, New York and
Loudon, 1903, The Religious Life and Altitude in Islam,
(ihioago, 1909; D. S. Margoliouth, The Karly Development of
Mohaininedanism, London, 1914 ; A. Miiller, Der Islam im
Morgenland und Abendland, 2 vols., Berlin, 1885-87; T.
Noldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, Eng. tr., Edinburgh,
1892; W. M. Patton, Alimed ibn IJanhai and the Mihna,
Leyden, 1897; RGG, 5 vols., Tiibingen, 1908-13, s.w. 'Islam,'
' Sunniten," 'Tradition ' ; E. Sell, The Faith of Islam'^, London,
189G; C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, 2 vols.. The Hague, 18SS-
89, Mohainmedanistn, New York and London, 1016.

W. M. Patton.
SUPERNATURALISM.— Supernaturalismis
the mental attitude that has the supernatural for
its object. The term is used l)y anthropologists^
to express the fact that ]>riniitive magic and primi-
tive religion alike rest on a bciiiif in sujiernatnral
powers. In sucli a confext it is convenient to
iiave a word sucli as ' sunormitiual ' that may be
equated now with 'magical 'and now with 'divine. '-
For the savage resjiects the huinan magician 'on
.account of his continual intert^onrse with tlie super-
natural world,'" and, on the other hand, must be
allowed ' to possess a rudimentary notion of certain

1 E.g., J. G. Frazer, GB, London, 1890, i. 37, 21900, i. 137,
31911, pt. i., The Manic Art, i. 3b(i ; U. II. Marett, The Thres-
hold of li.'ligion, do. 11)09, p. 11.

-(;«;■., pt.'i.. The Mtt'iic Art, i. 366; i-f ii. 371.

a lb. ].. :>,;,-.

supernatural beings mIio may be fittingly called
gods, though not in the full sense in which we use
the word.'^ Prazer, indeed, assumes a general
tendencj-- among savages to claim ' powers which
we should now call supernatural,'^ on the ground
that ' a savage hardly conceives the distinction
commonly drawn by more advanced peoples between
the natural and the supernatural.'^ F. B. Jevons,
on the other hand, warns us against ' the error of
imagining that there was a time when man did
not distinguish between the natural and the super-
natural. This error may take the form of saying
either that to primitive man nothing was super-
natural or that everything was supernatural.' He
goes on to nay :

' Primitive man took to himself the credit of his successful
attempts to work the mechanism of nature for his own advant-
age, but when the machinery did not work he ascribed the fault
to some overruling swpyrnatural power.' 4

The objection of E. Durkheim, that to recognize
breaches in a habitual order does not amount to
the recognition of breaches in an order conceived
as necessary after the manner of modern science,^
is surely somewhat hypercritical in such a context.
An objection of another kind, since it does not dis-
pute the facts, but merely regards convenience of
terminology, is that of J. H. Leuba,^ who in
naming the belief in supernatural power would
call attention to the power rather than to the
supernatural quality attaching to it, and hence
would substitute for ' supernaturalism ' the term
'dynamism,' originally used by A. van Gennep'
to describe the ' impersonalist' theory of mana as
contrasted with the 'personalist' theory of animism.
Now there is much to be said for the view that
the positive content of supernaturalism receives its
fullest conceptual expression in terms of the mana
type.^ But the mental attitude in question has its
negative side as well as the positive side connoted
by mana, since it is called forth by the frustration
of reasonable expectation ; so that, as Jevons says,
'where the natural ended, the supernatural began.'*
Again, this mental attitude is not so predominantly
intellectual that it can be suitably designated by
means of any mere concept that it generates. For
the rest, anthropological terminology is, happily,
in a somewhat iluid condition, and may be varied
without impropriety in response to the needs of
diflerent theoretical purposes. It will suffice here
to give a brief account of the chief aspects of the
mental attitude under consideration.

I. Emotional aspect. — The emotional constitu-
ents of the magico-religious sentiment have been
subjected to psychological analysis with results
that show it to be, even in its simplest forms,
exceedingly complex. ' Awe ' is perhaps the word
in our language that expresses its many-sided
nature most fully, and awe is defined by W.
INIcDougall as 'a tertiary compound of fear, wonder,
and negative self-feeling.'^** Round the objecb
provided by tlie supernatural, fear, admiration,
and subnu.'t.dvenc.ss in varying degrees are organized
into a mooil, whether, in addition, that object l^e
on the whole hated or loved, and con.sequeutly
take rank as a manifestation of evil or of good
sujicrnal nral po\\er. Thus the sentiment is excited
e([na]ly liy magic and religion, the sorcerer, like
till- god, being 'surroundeil by a halo of iiiystcny
iind an almosplicie of awe.'" To appreciate the

1 (llr\ pt. i., The Slaijiti Art, i. 376.

■.://<. 1 p. 386. ay^<. p. 51.

4 /lUriid. to the Hist, nf lieligion, fiOndon, 1896, p. 181.

•'' hex Formes iUinenlaires de la vie relitjieti^e, I'aris, 191 ,',
p. 36.

i> A Psychological Study of Religion, New York, 1912, p. 81.

7 Les Rites de passage, Paris, 1909, p. 17.

8 See art. Mana.

!> latrod. to Hixt. of Rel., p. 19.

II' .1/1 Introd. to Svrial l'sycholo(;y'i, London, 1013, p. 30.'j ; cl
p. I.;i.

'1 Uli'^, pt. !., The Mugic Art, i. 306.

120

SUPERSTITION

eiHotional attitude of primitive man towards a uni-
verse wliicli, beyond tlie narrow circle of tlie daily
routine, is almost wholly unknown, yet felt to be
pregnant with immeasurable possibilities of weal
or woe, one should take stock one by one of the
more baffling and startling elements in his experi-
ence, as is done, e.g., by W. D. Wallis in his paper
' The Element of Fear [better 'Awe'] in lleligion.'^
Confined by his ignorance to the immediate here
and now, the savage attributes mystic powers alike
to the stranger at a distance and to those of his
own race that are dead and gone. Nor does the
familiar present remain unvisited by portents. The
sky above him is disturbed by thuncierstorm, eclipse,
shooting stars, the aurora ; earth and sea about
him have their haunted pools, their fantastic rocks.
Then living nature teems with wonders — trees and
herbs, reptiles and fishes, birds and quadrupeds,
that look strange or behave unaccountably. More-
over, man is mysterious to himself, with his visions,
his seizures, the power of his eye and gesture, his
sheer inipressiveness, ranging from the majesty of
kings to the gruesomeness of witches. For the
rest, life is full of accidents and coincidences.
Altogether, the savage world provides plenty of
scope for that interplay of primary emotions of
which awe is the outcome. Be it noted, however,
that the essence of supernatural ism does not con-
sist in bare feeling, but attains to expression
through every aspect of the mental life at once.^

2. Intellectual aspect. — Since supernaturalism
has a negative as well as a positive side, embodying
a cautious doubt of the unknown combined with
an ettbrt to read a meaning into it, primitive
thougiit needs a twofold set of concepts. Nega-
tively the supernatural is tubii, positively it is
mana.^ Among savages, of course, such notions
have not been built up into any systematic
theory ; nor is it possible to say at what stage of
mental evolution they first came into use, though
perhaps it would be hard to point to any primitive
people that lacks them entirely. Moreover, since
the supernatural implies evil power as well as
good, ministering to the purposes of the sorcerer
no less than to those of the priest, it is to be
expected that mana will sometimes split up into
two notions that stand antithetically for the good
and bad kinds of supernatural power.'* Finally,
it cannot be said that rudimentary thought is
altogether without an idea corrcs[tonding to that
of the natural or normal. It seems highly doubt-
ful wliether we can credit the savage with a belief
in what we call the uniformity of nature, as some
have sought to do ; '^ indeed, historically, the modern
concept of ' nature ' would seem to have descended
from mana, its wonder-working quality having
been shed by the way." But in the Polynesian
noa, the non-sacred, common, or permitted,' we
have the counterpart, as in the Latin profamis, of
' nature ' so far as it stands not for mechanism but
for routine. We must not, however, look for
deliniteness in primitive categories, since they are
never snl)jected abstractly and as ideas to reflec-
tive examination, but merely embody such more
or les? arbitrary associations as custom suggests
and sanctions.

3. Practical aspect. —Seeing, then, that the. savage
may be said to live ont his ideas rather than to

1 Journ. Re!. Psiichol., .Inly, 1012, jip. 257-304.

2 Cf. F. H. IJradlej', Appearance and Realitii, London, 1893,
p. 453.

;' Cf. R. R. Marett, 'The tahv.-mana Foi inula as a Minimum
Dcliiiition of Religion,' in A RW xii. fli)09] lS(i-194.
■i For ex.aniples see Marett, The Threshold of Relkjinn", p. 85 f.

6 Cf. GIi\ pt. i., The Ma<jic Art, i. 51, 112, 220; A. O. Love-
joy, Monist, xvi. [190G] 3S1.

6Cf. H. Hubert and M. Mauss, in ASoc\\\. [1904] 72; Durk-
heim, p. 35.

7 See E. Tregear, Manrl-Pdlyuesian Comparalii:e Dictionari/,
Wellington, N.Z., 1891, s.v.

think them out, it is in the sphere of his actual
practice as regulated by social use and wont that
we are likely to meet with the clearest indications
of his mental tendencies. Primitive supernatural-
ism will declare itself jirimarily in a group of tradi-
tional activities through which the ajipropriate
feelings and thoughts find their satisfaction. The
question, then, is how far there is a distinctive
province of behaviour corresponding to the interest
in the supernatural. Now, there can be no doubt
that among some peoples of low culture the cleav-
age between the secular and the magico-religious
sides of the social life is made 'as with a hatchet.'
Thus we are told of the Central Australian :

' From the moment of his initiation ... his life is sharply
marked out into two parts. He has first of all what we may
speak of as the ordinary life, common to all the men and women,
and associated with the procuring of food and the performance
of corrobborees, the peaceful monotony of this part of his life
being broken every now and again by the excitement of a fight.
On the other hand, he has what gradually becomes of greater
and greater importance to him, and that is the portion of his life
devoted to matters of a sacred or secret nature. As he grows
older he takes an increasing share in these, until finally this side
of his life occupies by far the greater part of his thoughts.' 1

B, Malinowski, however, referring to this passage,
raises a doubt whether such a bipartition of activi-
ties is a universal feature of primitive society. He
instances Veddas and Melanesians, among whom
religious and secular interests and pursuits seem
to shade into each other without perceptible break.-
But, when Durkheim states^ that ' the division of
tilings into sacred and profane lies at the base of
all religious organization,' he can hardly be intend-
ing to affirm that a religious organization worthy
of the name is to be found among all mankind.
It is surely enough if the generalization hold good
in the typical case. Moreover, this theory of the
' two worlds ' of the sacred and the profane, though
convenient in certain contexts — as, e.g., to explain
those ' rites of passage ' whereby a man during
initiation, or a woman at child-birth, enters a con-
dition of tabu and passes out again into ordinary
life'*— need not be pressed too hard, seeing that
.sacredness is to some extent rehative, so that, e.g.,
a man maj' be tabu to strangers without being so
to his friends.5 All that need be a.ssumed here is
that certain activities tend to be organized about
the interest in the supernatural as embodied in a
specific tissue of feelings and beliefs. The magico-
religious life is unlimited in its claim on human
endeavour, and in its ulterior eflects on human
welfare may be well-nigh all-]>ervasive. But the
mental attitude that it demands cannot be con-
tinuously maintained. Whenever the tension is
relaxed, ' nature,' in the shajjc of the effortless
rule of habit, is busy making good the strain.
Literature.— See the works cited in the footnotes.

R. R. Marett,
SUPERSTITION.— I. Signification and use
of the term. — The word ' superstition ' is used both
in a concrete and in an abstract sense. We group
together as superstitions a number of beliefs,
habits, and fancies, tribal and individual, which
we regard as not being founded on reasonable
conceptions of the world and of human life,
necessities, and obligations. The general or ab-
stract term ' superstition ' signifies the disposition
to attribute occurrences to prajternatural or occult
inlluenccs, and to direct conduct with a vicAV to
avoiding mischief or olitaining advantages which
such inlliiences are supjiosed to jnoduce. The
precise connexion between the etymology of the
word and its ordinary signification is not easy to
trace. The i)refix super seems to imply some
excess, and this excess may generally be conceived
as an exaggei-ation of a reasonable belief in some
su])ernatural agents or agencies, with a readine.«s
1 Spencer-Gillenb, p. 33. " Rep. Brit. Asuoc. 1914, p. 534.

3 A^Suc ii. [1S99] 19. 4 Cf. A. van Gennep, op. cit.

6 lb. p. 16.

SUPERSTITION

121

to accept unverified statements as to spiritual or
magical interference in the material -world. The
orij,'in of the most potent and widely spread super-
stitions has already been discussed under various
headings. ^ It seems therefore more suitable here
to consider superstition as an abstract quality,
and to regard it in its psychological and historical
aspects.

Two points may be noted for the purpose of clearing the
jfround:(l) the intensely subjective way in which the word
is commonly used. No man is ready to acknowledge himself
as superstitious, but almost every one is ready to recognize
superstition in another. We find that men of a particular race,
culture, and tone of mind brand as superstitious the religious
or ceremonial observances of an alien people, while charging
such people with incredulity if they are unready to receive new
doctrines equally superstitious from their own standpoint.
' What is religion to you is superstition to me,' and vice versa,
is a tacit assumption against which we must be on our guard.
(2) Superstition need not be in any way connected with
mysticism (7.1;.). True, the mystic who regards all things and
persons as owing what reality they have to a divine and super-
natural life or element is likely to have a strong desire to find
traces of the spiritual and eternal manifested in or through the
form of the material and temporal. But the reasonable mystic,
by very reason of his belief in the spiritual nature of ultimate
reality, is the less liable to give credence to fanciful and
grotesque intimations from a spirit world. Plato, the greatest
of mystics, was eminently sane and reasonable. If the same
cannot be said of all the Neo-Platonists, the reason must be
that some of them were less mystical because more material
than he.^ Some confusion, however, may arise from the cir-
cumstance that many minds (especially of a saintly or of a
poetic order) attach a symbolic meaning to certain material
phenomena or ceremonial acts without any excessive regard for
their intrinsic value. Hence we have the interesting fact that,
in the higher religions of an advanced race, we may have what
seems to be identity in attachment to doctrine and ritual with
far-reaching differences in fundamental religious conceptions.
Hence the warnings of religious teachers, on the one hand
against the sudden demolition of 'superstitions' which have,
for the uneducated, been valuable from their association with
religious thought and feeling, and on the other against the
confusion of symbol and reality, which tends to materialize
and crystallize popular religion.

The superstitious mind, then, is one that is not
educated to discern the character of evidence, or
that has not patience to suspend judgment in the
pi-esence of unfamiliar phenomena. If it is ob-
jected that some very powerful and (in some
directions) well traineci intellects have coincided
with a superstitious bias, these exceptions would
seem due to a want of mental balance.

2. Historical aspects. — Turning from the in-
dividual to society and to historical progress, we
may say that, roughly speaking, superstition
declines as the view of the universe becomes more
scientilic. True, the birth of many— perhaps of
all— sciences is attended by crude hypotheses
which lend themselves to strange vagaries of
thought. This is specially evident in the pseudo-
science of alcliemy, whence emerged the science of
chemistry.^ Even tiie earliest efforts of Ionic
thou'dit were not witliout such vagaries, yet the
Greek philosophers had in tliem the root of the
matter — a whole-hearted desire after truth.
Therefore tliey progressed, and their progress
belonged to the Western world.

When, in May, 585 B.C., in the midst of a battle between
Lydians and Medes, there occurred ' the first eclipse of which
European science foretold when it should betide,' the date was
to have 'a deeper interest for Europe than the warfare. . . .
Thalesof Miletus, the father of Greek, and thereby of European,
philosophy and science, had studied astronomy in Egypt ; and
he was able to warn the loiiians that before such a year had
passed— his lore could not tell the day or the hour— the sun
would be darkened.'-*

This does not, of course, imply that the Greeks had
already become, or were ever to become, what we
should call a scientilic iieople. IJut to bring so
uncanny an occurrence as a darkening of the sun
within the range of calculable events was to cut
the ground beneath many snjx'rstitions. Yet

1 See esp. artt. Magic, Charms and A.mii.kts, Dreams and
Slkkp, Evil, Eyk, Mythology, Prouigiks and Portknts.

2 See art. Nko-Platonis5(.

3 See M. M. Pattison Muir, The Story of Alchemy and the
Bcqi linings of Chemistry, London, 1S)0'J, also artt. Alchemy.

■» J. B. Bury, A Uist. of Greece, London, 1900, ch. vi., sect. 1.

Greek religion and Greek life abounded with
superstitions. The religion of the Olympians was
bound up with beliefs about the gods which I'lato
would have excluded from his ideal city, and the
old-world ritual which survived in popular cere-
monies was yet more favourable to unreasonable
fancies and actions. The Athenians were doubt-
less the most intellectual of the Greeks, yet their pro-
secutions for impiety sho-\v both a low standard of
religious liberty and a high standard (if the expres-
sion may be used) of respect for ancestral religion.
Anaxagoras, Pericles, Euripides, above all Socrates,
suffered at the hands of their countrymen. True,
their cause prevailed in so far that in the next
century speculation was more free and scepticism
had scope ; and, after all, the moderation centred
in the maxim /xtjS^j/ fiYai' seems to have checked
any tendency to persecution like that of the Middle
Ages and later. Nicias was, in spite of his popu-
larity, blamed by posterity for delaying the retreat
of the Athenians before Syracuse on account of
an eclipse of the moon. But the point against
him, most probably, was not that he was too ill-
educated to know the cause of lunar eclipses (since
most Athenians would then have been in his com-
pany), but tliat he preferred the almost certain
event of annihilation for his army to the exceed-
ingly doubtful risk of supernatural punishment if
he neglected the state of the heavens.

Yet, by a kind of paradox, scepticism seems to
have overshot the mark, and, by denying the
possibility of all certainty, to have opened the
way, for people who must believe something, to
all manner of superstitious habits and practices.'
The interchange of religious ideas, the foundation
and migration of religious societies, and the general
disintegration -which followed the conquests of
Alexander and the advance of Rome meant, to
many individuals in many places, a remarkable
development and enlightenment of the religious
consciousness ; but it also meant a recrudescence
of Oriental and barbarous superstition. This is
found even among the late philosophical sects,
notably the Neo-Pythagorean.-

As might naturally be expected, in societies comprising men
of culture consideralily above the rank and file of their contem-
poraries, we have, from the ancient pagan world, emphatic
protests against the mischief wrought by superstition. Chief
among these is the great poem of Lucretius (q.v.), who sees in
superstition, or in popular religion, the most potent source of
human ill. The same missionary spirit pervades the treatise of
Plutarch Trept Aeio-iSai/aovtas, in which he holds up to contempt
the figure of the man who lives in perpetual fear of having, by
some'trivial action, offended supernatural powers. There is,
however, this great difference between the two : that, whereas
Lucretius would dispense with the gods altogether, i'luUvrch
(q.v.) holds to a faith in the divine beneficence and to the
propriety of observing ancestral rites. The most eloquent part
of his essay is that in which he shows the absurdity of stigmatiz-
ing as blasphemous those who deny the existence of the gods,
while tolerating those who spread evil notions as to their
malignity and vindictiveness. The same contrast may be
noticed 'in assailants of superstition at various periods : the
uncompromising enthusiast would sweep away all religious
beliefs and institutions, though he may, like Lucretius, en-
tertain conceptions of the universe which may fairly be re-
garded as religious. The conservative reformer, however
anxious to remove causes of distress and aberration due to
mistaken theology, may cling to old habits of piety, and rein-
terpret ancient traditions in accordance with liberty of thought.

3. Superstition and Aberglaube. — It may be
noted that the kinds of suj>erstition opjiosed by
moral reformers are generally those which ari.se
from baseless terrors. There are, of course, other
manifc^stalicms of the superstitious sjiirit of a com-
i)arativoly innocuous kind, such as belief in fairies,
superstitions concerning the weather, lucky and
unlucky days, and the like. And there is a mass
of what may be regarded as superstition about the
accretions to almost every system of positive re-
li"-ion, which on the one hand changes it very

1 This ' overshooting of the mark ' by the sceptics is suggested
by E. Bevan, Stoics aiul Scrjitics, London, 1913.
, " ■- See art. Nko-Pythaoorbanism.

122

SUPERSTITION

couspicuoiisly from its original form, and on the
other Land liiay bring it within the reach of minds
iinaccustonied to deal with abstract ideas. These
accretions are sometimes, in order to avoid the
unpleasant connotation of 'superstition,' called
by the German name of Aberglaube. They con-
sist both of ritual and of dogma, and are hardly
ever entirely to be distinguished from the necessary
appurtenances of the religion with which they are
associated.

Tlie Middle Ages are generally regarded as pre-
eminently a time of superstition. The judgment
is probably justifiable, though there were as many
hard-headed and constructive thinkers at most
epochs of tlie Middle Ages as there have been
earlier or later. But apart from the mixture of
races and consequent multiplication of super-
stitions in the declining Empire, with the delici-
ency of mental culture in tlie leaders of tlie
barbarian races, there was a great force arising
to control speculation — -that of ecclesiastical
authority. This, however, must be considered on
two sides. The worst kinds of superstitions, or
at least the most conspicuous kinds, especially in
Eastern Europe, were distinctly discouraged by
the Church — soothsaying, necromancy, charms,
and the like. And there can be little doubt that
many of the heresies crushed out by the mediaeval
Cimrch were accompanied by superstitious vagaries.
Still, tiie fact is patent that the suppression of free
thought, especially as directed to Ciiurch doctrine
and ritual, must have tended to the growth of
d€i.ffi5ai)j.ovia in Plutarch's sense. Of course, when
we speak of the suppression of free thought, we do
not necessarily mean that a very large number of
persons sufiered from not being allowed to think
freely. Probably the number who thus suffered
was comparatively very small. But many more
must have lived in perpetual fear of the unseen.
The terrors of the Judgment Day and of the world
to come are very familiar objects of mediaeval art,
and it is difficult for us to see how far they were
practically mitigated by the harmonious setting
forth of the more comforting and spiritual elements
in Christianity, with which they were, perhaps
not quite consistently, associated.

The Kenaissance and the ileformation are com-
monly regarded as having given the death-blow to
superstition — so far, at least, as their influence
extended. It is certain, however, that the indis-
criminate cult of antiquit}', which in some sections
of society accompanied the Renaissance, contained
or encouraged superstitious fancies and observances
of a novel kind. And as to the Reformation even
in i'rotestant countries, practically a good deal of
Aberglaube. formed part of the newly established
doctrines and usages, and the sway of spiritual
authority was by no means removed. The great
movement towards mental and spiritual emancipa-
tion is generally taken as beginning in the 18th
century.* It is to be noted that the battle waged
on behalf of human reason was not confined to
the world of thought and opinion. Political in-
stitutions, social divisions, industrial methods, and
moral conventions were to be submitted to the test
of right reason, and, if tliey failed, to be extirpated
forthwith. Tiie ))itterness with whicli the contest
was carried on, and which reached its culminating
point in the excesses of tiie French Revolution,
was partly due to the ))elief that suiierstitious
practices liad been maintained chictly by those
who profited by them — from the medicine-men of
a savage tribe to the officers of an established
church or a hereditary monarchy. Although there
is, of course, some ground for such a supposition,
as a partial explanation of the evil in question, its
wholesale acceptance shows a very delicient com-
1 See artt. Enliuhtenment, ENcyci/or.EuisTa.

prehension of iiunian nature. Without intelligible
reasons, m.aii is always desirous of knowing more
than he can know about the spiritual world, and
he will more readily submit to autliority which
has a traditional, if not actually a divine, sanction.
And the exact nature of the government and in-
stitutions whicli riglit reason would coinmend has,
of course, been very diilerently conceived by social-
ists or revolutionists of various types. Still, the
general recognition that all beliefs and practices
ought to have some rational justification was a
great point gradually gained. It does not, of
course, imply that nothing should be believed
without strict logical proof, or that no institution
should be maintained that does not evidently serve
some useful object. But it does embody the Stoic
principle that life should be according to nature
and according to reason, and thus it tends to
eliminate most of what is injurious either in
superstitions with regard to religion or in tame
acquiescence in existing governments.^

4. Influence of education.— ^The great agency
making for the reduction of superstition during
this century and the last is popular education.
True, our elementary education can hardly as yet
be called scientific, and what passes for scientific
education may, after all, be superficial and narrow.
But all sound teaching, at the present day, may be
said to produce something like a scientihc view of
man and his environment — a view perfectly com-
patible with belief in the spiritual significance of
life and even in a possible communion with non-
material beings, but inconsistent with fanciful
and trivial interpretations of natural phenomena
as determined by prseternatural agency.

If tliere should ever be a recrudescence of super-
stition in this generation or the next, it would
probably be due, not to a defect in the scientific
faculty, but to the expectations lately raised
within the bounds of scientific investigation.
Experts in psychology, especially those who have
devoted themselves to what is technically called
psychical research (q.v.), have, to many sane and
scientific minds, proved the possibility of telepathy,
thought-transference, and other processes which,
fifty years ago, would certainly have been set
down as superstitious. More than this, some
persons of scientific mind and education believe
that they have actually established and conducted
a means of communication between living and
dead.^ When the persons engaged in these in-
vestigations are careful and scientific, we are
inclined to accept their evidence, as we should on
any other point of expert investigation. But in
this field the 'media' used are of such uncertain
character, the (conditions and possibilities of com-
munication so deeply veiled in obscurity, the
desire to attain to fellowship with the departed so
intense, that it is as well to approach all such
problems with the most suspicious caution. There
may be, as has often been said, a ' superstitious
fear of superstition.' But, while suspending judg-
ment on the result of the incjuiries of experts, the
non-expert may be in danger of falling into a
superstitious lialiit of mind such as tends to upset
entirely the mental balance.

LlTKHAT(ii!R. — For ivriiuiUvu siii>orst/it,iniis see tlie works
nientioned in the artt. here cited, esi>. J. G. Frazer, lili-'',
horidon, P.! vol:^., 11)1 I- i;. ; E. B. Tylor, PC-l, 2 vols., do.
I!)II3. For the )>liiloso)iliy and history of the question see tlie
\arious histories of iihiloso|ihy and W. E. H. Leclcy, llixl. of
Jiatiunii/ixin, new ed., 2 vols., l.,ondoii, 18S7 ; A. W. Benn,
Hint, (if Kiitjlitih Rationalism in the Nineteenth Centuri/, 2 vols.,
do. 19o'(i ; J. Masson, Lucretius, Jipicurean and Poet, do. 1907 ;
Plutarch, Mnralia, including de Super stitione, tr. into very
vigorous English by Philemon Holland, do. 1603; Mattfiew
Arnold, Literature and Dogma, do. 1873, chs. on ' Aberglaube
invading ' and • Aberglaube re-invading.'

Alice Gardnek.

^ tjee art. Batiomalibm.

'^ See art. Sfuutism.

SUPRALAPSARIANISM— SVETAMBARAS

123

SUPRALAPSARIANISM.— The term siipia-
lapsarianism is used in Calviiiistic tlieology, in
eontrast Avitli sub- or infra-lapsarianism, to denote
a view of the divine decrees in which, for the
manifestation of His glory, God is held to destine
a certain portion of mankind to eternal life, and
another portion to destruction, regarding both
simply as creatures, and antecedently to any con-
sideration of the Fall and sin. It is not meant
that this purpose is actually carried out without
regard to character or condition ; but, in the order
of decrees, it is first determined who are to be em-
braced in the one class, and who in the other ; then
the means are appointed — including creation, the
Fall, sin, redemption — by which the end in each
case is to be attained. So harsh a view of the
divine procedure has always been in the highest
degree repellent to Christian minds ; accordingly,
the great majority of Calvinists have shrunk from
it, and contented themselves with the milder sub-
lapsarian view, Avhich affirms an election of God
from the mass of mankind, regarded as already
fallen.

On its historical side, the question is raised whether Calvin
himself is to be classed as a supralapsarian or a sublapsarian.
Some incline to the former view, but the truth seems to be
that, when Calvin wrote, the question had not distinctly
emerged, and the emphasis which he continually lays on elec-
tion as a choice of some fmm a sinful mass, and on reprobation
as grounded on the sinner's own evil, fairly warrants the more
usual opinion that his doctrine inclined more to sublapsarian-
ism.i On the other hand, Beza, Calvin's successor, Gomar, the
colleague and opponent of Arminius in Holland, Twisse, the
prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, and a few others,^
were conspicuous for their advocacy of supralapsarianism ; and
the Remonstrants, in the Arminian controversy, naturally
sought to fasten this view on all Calvinists. It is really, how-
ever, an extreme opinion, and the bulk of Calvinists, as alreadj'
said, have wisely kept themselves aloof from it. Turretin, e.g.,
ably states and defends the sublapsarian position in his Insti-
tutio.3 The Synod of Dort, in its decision, framed its canons
on sublapsarian lines.^ The Westminster Confession leans, in
certain of its clauses, to the stronger view of Archbishop
Ussher (author of the Irish Articles), and of a few members of
the Assembly, but the tone of the debates in that body suffi-
ciently shows that theprevailinu: opinion was sublapsarian, and
the Confessional statement, taken as a whole, is of this char-
acter. The stronger view has, indeed, no symbolical sanction.

Cunningham, in his discussion of the subject,^
claims that the controversy is one ' of no great
intrinsic importance,' but this can hardly be
allowed.

' A doctrine of this kind, which bids us think of beings not
yet conceived of as even created (therefore only as possibles) —
not to say as sinful— set apart fur eternal blessedness or misery,
and of the fall and rfcdeiiiptiou as siniijly means for effecting
that purpose, is one which no plea of logical consistency will
ever get the human mind to accept, and which is bound to pro-
voke revolt against the whole system with which it is associ-
ated.'<>

it cannot even be conceded, though it has often
been contended, that this i.y the most logical form
of the predestinarian doctrine. Tlie end, it is
argued, comes necessarily first in order of thougl;t ;
then the means are devised which are to accom-
plish it. In the case of moral destiny, we are dis-
posed to say, this is the precise inversion of the
fact. There can be no legitimate consigning of a
moral being to wrath, save as he is in some way
viewed as deserving of that wrath ; even in order
of thought, therefore, tlie consideration of moral
state must precede the sentence of rejection. If
tlie reply is made that the sin ilself is viewed in
Calvini.sm as fon'ordaiiicd, Miis is doubtless true,
liut Lilly in the .seii.si! in \\liicli CMM'y event in lii'e
is foieordaiued, viz. by Cdd's decreeing to adruit il,
into llis providential plan and to overrule it for
the ends of His wi.s<iom. It is a totally dillerent

1 See art. Calvinism.

'- See Cunningham, The Reformers and the Theology of the
Reformation, p. 366 f.

3 Loc. iv. qu. ix.

4 Cf. SchafT, nist. of the Creeds, 1. 455.

6 Hist. Thcolorjn, Edinlmrgh, 1S62, ii. 4;J5, Rcfouners and
'Iheol. of Refarmaliun, i). ;>5S.
ti (Wr, The h'lvijre.'is <</ Doijina, Luiiduii, I'J U, \>. Z'M.

thing to aflirm tluxt sin is ordained as a mca'ns to the
destruction of a being already foreordained to wrath
prior to consideration of his sin.

It need only be added that the whole subject
assumes a dilierent aspect when f\iller justice is
done to the Scriptural idea of election as aiming,
not at exclusion, but at subsequent wider inclu-
sion. ^

Literature.— p. Schafif, A Hist, of the Creeds of Christen-
dom, London, 1877, pp. 453-455 ; W. Cunning-ham, The
Reformers and the Theology of the Refurmutvra, Edinburgh,
1862; C. Hodg-e, Systematic Theology,hoi\dcma,w\ Edinburgh,
1872-73, ii. 316-320. JaMES OltK.

SURINAM.— See Guiana.

SU RVI VALS.— See Eeligion, vol. x. p. 664, § 4.

SVETAMBARAS.— I. Origin and history.—
' We,' said a Svetambara once to the present
writer, ' are the Catholics amongst the Jains ; the
Digambaras represent the Puritans'; and tliat
does roughly sum up the difference between the
two great sects of the Jains.'^

Even during the lifetime of Maliavira^ two
parties probably existed, for the great Jain hero
seems to have formed his community by uniting
two different orders of mendicants, the Sthavira
kalpa and the Jina kalpa. The Sthavira kalpa
wore clothes, but one section of the Jina kalpa did
not, going about like Mahavira himself, clad only
in the four quarters of the sky. This outward and
visible dill'erence was symbolic of the diliering
types of men in the community, and only a strong
statesman could have held the two parties to-
gether ; under any great strain the cleavage was
bound to become permanent.

According to the SthanakavasI Svetambara
tradition, the first crisis arose through a great
famine that occurred in the reign of Chandragupta
(? 310 B.C.), when 12,000 Jain monks went to
S. India under Bhadrabahu in search of food.
These, being the young and vigorous members of
the order, were able to carry out their rule in its
entirety and so went unclad, whilst the other
members of the community, who remained at home
under Sthulabhadra, amounting also, the legend
says, to 12,000, were allowed (owing perhaps to
age and infirmity) to wear clothes, no matter to
which of the two parties they had originally
belonged. When Bhadrabahu returned home after
the famine, although he became once more head of
an undivided community, he Avas never able to
insist on nakedness as a rule of even a section of
the community. The second cause of schism also
arose during this famine— at least according to the
Sthanakaviisi Svetambara tradition ; for it was
then, during his leader Bliadrab;lhu's absence, that
the second in command, Slhfdabhatlra, called a
council at Pataliputra to collect the sacred bocdcs.
The council wei'e able to jiroduce only eleven ^1 it(i<i,
but Sthulabhadra himself supplied tiie missing
twelfth Aiiga. lihadrabahu on his return was
annoyed to find that this council had been held in
liisalisence, and not unnaturally, though irritably,
declared that the twelftli Aiitja, was hopelessly lost.
It only njmaineil now for a leadiu' to be found fui-
the malcontents to hive oil', and (if tiu; legentl be
true) irritability had mu<;li to do with that leader's
decisive action. About forty years allcr (lie great
famine (acconling to Tap;igachchlia S\ eiamliiirn.
tradition, about A.D. 142; according to Sthanaka-
vasi, A.D. 83 ; and according to Hoernle, A.U. 79 or
80) the reins of government fell into the weaker
hands of a man called Vajrasena, and the com-
munity finally divided. The Svetambara quote
I .See artt. Calvini.sm, Elkction, I'kkukstikation.

'■'.Six' artUDlOAMIiARAIi, .LVINlSAr.

'■> ytv art. A.iiviKAS, § z f.

124

SVETAMBARAS

the following legend to account for the actual
cleavage :

A monk named Sivabhuti had been given a most beautiful
blanket by the king in whose service he had been at the time of
his initiation. His spiritual preceptor warned him that it was
becoming a snare to him and advised him to give it away ; this
he refused to do, so his preceptor took the extreme step of
tearing up the blanket in its owner's absence. Sivabhuti, when
he discovered what had happened, was so angry that he
declared that, if he could not have the one possession which he
valued, he would keep nothing at all, but would wander in
entire nakedness like the Lord "Mahavira himself ; and he then
and there started a new sect, that of the naked Digambara.
This very human legend which the Svetambara
(the ' White-clothed') tell of their unclothed rivals
not only accounts for their nakedness, but also goes
on to explain another diiference between the two
sects ; foi", when Sivabhuti's sister wanted to join
his order, seeing that it was impracticable for a
woman to go about nude, he roundly told her that
it was impossible for a woman to become a nun, or
to obtain moksa {q.v.) without rebirth as a man,
and thus laid down for all time a distinctive tenet
of the Digambara. Important as these legends
are, it must be remembered that they are quoted
only as illustrative of the Jain point of view, for
their confirmation is sadly to seek, and the legend.s
connecting Chandragupta with the faith are
essentially open to susi)icion.

2. Distinctive tenets and practices. — We are on
firmer gi-ound when we notice the main differences
between the two sects at the present day. We are
already prepai'ed for the fact that the Svetambara
list of sacred books is not accepted by the Digam-
bara, and that, since they hold that no woman can
attain mok-sn, the Digambara will not admit the
f^vetambara tradition that Mallinatha (the nine-
teenth tirthahkara) was a woman. But the two
.sects differ very considerably about the life-story
of Mahiivira.

The Svetambara say that their great saint married and
enjoyed life to the full before entering an order, and that, even
when he at last decided to do so, he waited till his parents'
death, and until he had gained his brother's consent, lest ho
sho\ild grieve any one before receiving initiation, which ho
obtained in his thirtieth year. The more austere Digambara
tradition, however, is that their founder never married ; and,
having no hesitation .about hurting any one's feelings, re-
nounced the world at the mature age of eight. Even the
prenatal stories differ, for the .Svetambara believe that Mah.a-
vira's mother had fourteen wonderful dreams ; the Digaml)ara
say that she had sixteen ; while the legend of the renioval of the
embryo of Mahavira from Devanand.a to Tri^ala is a .Svetambara
one.

The lists of the heads of the community since
Sivabhuti of course differ also. The bvetambara
generally arrange their philosophy in nine cate-
gories ; the Digambara arr.ange very much the
same philosophy under seven heads. One point of
divergence on which they lay great stress is that,
according to the Svetambara, a tirthahkara needs
food to support him until he dies ; while the
Digambara believe that, once a tirthahkara has
attained omniscience, he has no further need of
meals.

, Tliere are also differences in actual practice. A
Svetambara .ascetic may keep a loin-cloth, a
shoulder-cloth, and a blanket to wear. Indeed,
including these and his brush, mouth-cloth, and
wooden vessels, he is allowed to retain fourteen
possessions in this world, whereas a Digambara is
absolutely nude and, though provided with a
brush and peacock's feathers, has to live entirely
in the jungle. The Svetambara laymen complain
that their ascetics interfere too much in their
conferences ; this complaint is, of course, never
brought against a Digambara ascetic, whose lack
of clothing interns him for life in the wilder-
ness.

There are also different rules about begging for
the ascetics of the two orders, and the Digambara
ascetics have no updsard. Again, the Svetaiultara
idols have glass eyes inserted in the marble, wear

a loin-cloth, and are bedecked with jewels, whereas
the austere Digambara idols are nude and are
represented as being dead to the world, with eyes
cast down. There is naturally therefore a differ-
ence in the installation ceremonies of their idols.
The ordinary A\orship differs also. The Svetam-
bara, when performing the eightfold worship, offer
flowers and fresh fruit to their idols, and so on
great festivals do the Visapanthi Digambara ;
but the Terapanthi Digambara never olfer flowers
or fresh fruit ; in their stead they use cloves, dry
coco-nut, sugar, and rice.^

There is another very interesting difference. A
Digambara Jain has no private idol in his own
house, but, if a Svetambara is a wealthy man and
lives far from a tem^jle, he may have his own private
chapel. This chapel is separate from the house
and can be entered only by persons in a state of
ceremonial purity. In the chapel, if he can afford
it, he may have a pratimd (an image of any one of
the twenty-four tirthahkara that an astrologer
selects for him), or he may have a siddha chakra
(a tray on wliicli are depicted the leading points of
the Jain faith ).i The householder offers the eight-
fold worship to thepratimcl, but only washes and
wipes the siddha chakra and marks it with sandal-
wood paste. An instructed Svetambara would
never ask a boon even of the idol in his own house :
he would only stir himself up to future efforts by
meditating on it. But if, as often happens, an
uninstructed Svetambara does ask a gift, his prayer
would be answered not by the tirthahkara (who as
a matter of fact does not even hear it) but by the
yaJcsa in attendance on the tirthahkara.

3. Svetambara sects. — The main division of
Svetambara Jains is into Stiianakavasi and DaiA,-
vasi. The Stiianakavasi are a non-idol-worsliip-
ping sect, which arose about A.D. 1474.^ Excepting
on the crucial point of idol-worship, they do not
differ much from other Svetambara Jains.

At the present time the chief sects among idol-
worshipping (Deravasi) Svetambara are the Tapa-
gachchha (whose ascetics use red alms-bowls, and
whose laymen in their devotions first confess their
sins of walking and later their sins of trading), the
Kharataragaciichha (whose ascetics use black alms-
bowls, and whose laity fir.st confess their sins of
trading and later their sins of walking), and the
Anchalagachcliha and the Payachandagaclichha,
whose divergences are very slight.

It must be remembered that these are only
spiritual distinctions and do not interfere with the
freedom of marriage between diilerent sects. The
chief castes among t,he Jains are Osavala, Pora-
vada, Srimali and Sri Srimala, which are each
divided into two sections, Dasa and Visa. It is
impossible for members of these different castes to
intermarry : thus an Osavala Kliaratara could
marry an Osavala Sthanakavasi, for, thougli the
sect differs, the caste is the same, but a Dasa
Osavala could never marry a Vi^a Osavala, and
still less could any Poraviida marry any Osavala.
It is interesting to notice, however,,that any Jain
could dine with any otlier Jain, Svetambara or
Digambara, Avhether Osa\'ala or Srlmfxli ; but they
would not interdine with any Brahman convert to
Jainism.

LiTKRATURK.— Through the kindness of .Tain friends the
writer was given an opportunity of translating this art. to tlie
leading TapSgaohebha Svetambara Sadhu in Itajkot in his
ajidaaiv, wlien the principal .Sthanakavasi .Jain paij4Us were
also present ; the .art. has thus had the advantage of criticisms
and suargeslions from both parties at Urst hand. See also
A. F. R. Hoernle, Anmml Adilrcua to the Axiatu- Society of
licngal, in JASB, Calcutta, 1S9S ; Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson,
Not'en on Modern Jainism, Oxford, 10 Ul, and The J I cart of
Jainism, do. 1915. MARGAKET STEVKN.SON.

1 Cf. art. WoRSfnr (.Iain).

2 Stevenson, Tlie Heart of Jainism, p. 87.

SWAN-MAIDENS

U'ft

SWAHILIS.— See Zanzibar.

SWAN-MAIDENS.— The beautiful and poetic
myth of swan-maidens is of early origin and, in
varying forms, of very wide diffusion. The central
idea of the myth is that certain beings, half-
mortal, half-supernatural, have the power of meta-
morphosis into bird-form ; connected with this are
two secondary ideas: (1) that this power is de-
pendent on the possession of a magic attribute,
which was generally a bodily covering, such as a
feather coat, robe, or veil, but sometimes merely a
ring or chain ; (2) tliat eitlier this being, when in
human form, or her captor is subject to a tabu
of some kind. There are so many variations on
these themes that it is impossible to do more
than refer briefly to some of the most significant
versions.

I. In Oriental folk-lore. — Oriental folk-lore
furnishes many instances of bird-maiden stories.
In Indian tradition we find the very early myth of
Urvasi embedded like a jewel in the dull ritual of
the Satapatha-Brdhmana.

The apsara, or nymph, Urv.isi loves one of the lunar race of
kingfs, Pururavas ; in wedding him she stiimlates that she must
never look upon him naked. By a trick played by the gaiuih-
arvas, supernatural beings who desire the return of their
former playmate, the promise is broken, and Urva?i vanishes.
Fururavas, seeking her, finds her and her companions swimming
on a lotus-lake in the shape of water-birds. They ' appear to
him,' i.e. assume human form, but in response to his pleading
Urvasi replies : ' I have passed away like the first of dawns.
... I am like the wind, difficult to catch.' 1 Finally, however,
she relents, and the couple are re-united.
In the Vikrainurvasl of the poet Kalidasa, a drama
based upon this story, the bird-myth has almost
disappeared, except for Urvasi's power of flying and
for the constant references to swans throughout
act iv. Her change into human form depends
merely upon the laying aside of a veil, in itself
probably a stage convention for invisibility ; the
marital tabu, which Lang - characterizes as a relic
of ' a traditional Aryan law of nuptial etiquette,'
assumes a quite different form.^

The myth re-appears in one of the finest tales of the Thousand
and One Nights, that of Hasan of Bassorah.

Hasan is enjoying the hospitality of a family of princesses ;
when obliged to leave him, they enjoin him not to open a
certain door. He disobeys, and finds a fair pavilion and a
bathing-pool, to which come flying from the desert ten birds,
one among which was pre-eminent for beauty. Each bird, as it
alighted, ' rent open its neck-skin with its claws, and issued out
of it, and lo, it was but a garment of feathers.' After their
departure Hasan, who has become deeply enamoured of the
fairest bird-maiden, confesses his disobedience to his hostess,
and is told that this damsel is ' the daughter of the sovran of
the Jans. He hath an army of women, smiters with swords,
and lungers with lances, . . . and the plumed skins wherewith
they fly are the handiwork of enchanters.' Hasan is advised to
steal the feather dress and never again to let it come into the
owner's hands ; he does so, but after three years the wife by a
ruse secures the dress, buttons it on, and flies away. Hasan
tracks his wife to the islands of Wak-Wak, inhabited by the
warrior women, and recovers her.''

The storj- of Janshah 5 is a slighter tale that be;(ins similarly ;
but the bird-maidens are only three in number, and are 'as
doves, eagle-sized.' The husband's device to secure the feather
coat is to place it in a chest, leaden-hound, which is built into
the foundations of the palace ; but in vain, for the lady traces
it by scent and digs it out.6

The Wak-Wak islands of the former tale have been identified
with various Melanesian islands ; 7 it is not surprising, there-
fore, to find the tale of Hasan re-appearing in the Celeltes in a
modern form, whichTylor quotes in connexion with the heaven-

1 This formula, * difficult to catch,' recurs in the Welsh tale
of the Van Pool, quoted by Hartland, Science of Fairy Tales,
p. 275 £f.

2 Custom and Myth, p. 76.

3 Cf. ^alapatha-Iirdhmaij.a, xi. v. 1, tr. J. Eggeling, SBE
xliv. [1900] 68-74; Vikramnrvofi, tr. E. B. Cowell, Hertford,
1851.

■* R. F. Burton, A Plain and Literal Translation of the
Arabian Nights, Benares, 1885, viii. 7-143.

5 lb. v. 329-381.

6 Contrast with this Hartland's idea (p. 308) that the swan-
maiden must alwaj's employ an intermediary to obtain her
robe.

7 E. W. Lane, The Thousand and One Nii/hts, London, 1838-
41, iii. 623, note 32.

plant myth.i Tatar versions of the mj'th are signalized as being
the only ones to represent the bird-maiden as a malignant
being, half-vampire, half-fury ;2 in the Tatar poem quoted by
J. U. FrazerS to illustrate the external soul belief, the hero
wrestles with the evil swan-woman for ' moons and years.'

2. In classical tradition. — Classical tradition
does not seem to have preserved any swan-maiden
tale in a complete form, but that the main idea
was a familiar one is evident from the Cycnus
myths, the bird-transformation of the comrades of
Diomedes, the story of Leda, and the symbolic
connexion of swans with Ai)()llo, with tlie Mu.ses,
and with Aphrodite.* Modern Greek folk-lore
represents the Nereids as flying maidens, similar
in many points to swan-maidens.*

3. Slavic— Slavic folk-lore bears frequent testi-
mony to the myth. The South Slavs were natur-
ally more influenced by late Greek and by Oriental
tradition, and the Bulgarian samodivns, and the
Serbian vilas, like the Greek Nereids, resemble
the swan-maidens; e.g., the vilas are associated
with water and have the power of flying.^

The Polish fairy-tale of the prince and the twelve geese-
princesses shows that the myth in its simplest form was known
to the Western Slavs.7 The most important Russian example
is the tale of ' Sweet Mikailo Ivanovitch the Rover ' and Marya
the white swan ; this begins in fairly conventional style,
although without the feather dress, but later it diverges con-
siderably, for Marya dies, is magically revived, and finally
forsakes her husband for another love. 8

4. Celtic— Old Celtic tradition has two beautiful
and elaborate swan-maiden tales, as well as an
episode in the story of Etain, wife of Eocliaid, who
is carried off by the hero-god Mider in the form of
a swan.^

The story of the ' Children of L8r,' one of ' the three most
sorrowful tales of Erinn,' is an example, with Christian 'over-
lay,' of that variant of the myth iu which the swan shape is
enforced by malignant magic. The four royal children, meta-
morphosed for 900 years, retain their powers of human reason-
ing and speech, and have the gift of singing ' plaintive music at
which the men of the world would sleep, and there shall be no
music of the world its equal. ' i"

This power of song is turned to account in the
Christian episode which concludes the tale.'' ' Tlie
Dream of Oengus ' conforms more closely to tiie
regular swan-maiden type, so much so that J. A.
MacCulloch '"^ dismisses it as of no mythological or
religious value ; its artistic value, however, is very
great.

The god Oengus is smitten with love for a dream-maiden, the
original of whom proves to be Caer, a princess who spends every
alternate year in the form of a swan. Oengus, having once seen
her in mortal form, succeeds in discerning her in swan-guise
from among her 150 companions ' with their silvery chains and
golden caps around their heads.' He woos and wins her, and
flies off with her, himself also metamorphosed, and their
singing is of such beauty as to lull to sleep all its hearers for
three days and three nights.i^

5. Teutonic— The Teutonic races bear the dis-
tinction of having developed the swan-maiden
myth most elaborately, and of having enriclied it
by connecting it with other supernatural ideas.
Traces of the symbolic importance of swans are
found in the primitive myths of the life and death

1 Researches into the Early History of Mankind^, London,
1878, p. 355 f.

2 A. Schiefner, Heldensagen der tninussinischen Tataren,
St. Petersburg, 1859, p. 201.'

3 GJS'^, pt. vii.. Balder the Beautiful, London, 1913, ii. 144.

* W. Smith, Classical Dictionary, s.vv. ' Cycnus,' ' Diomedes ' ;
Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Aijes'^, pp. 5(i9-572.

5 B. Schmidt, Griechisciie Mdrchen, Leipzig, 1877, p. 133.

6 F. S. Krauss, Tausend Sajen und Mdrchen der SUdslaven,
i., Leipzig, 1914. passim.

7 A. H. Wratislaw, Sixty Folk-tales from exclusively Slavonic
Sources, London. 1S89, p. Ulf.

8 Isabel F. Hapgood, The Epic Songs of Russia, New York
and liondon, 1880, pp. 214-231.

9 H. d'Arbois de Jubainville, Irish Mythological Cycle, Dublin,
1903, p. 182.

10 With this sleep-bringing power may be compared the trolls'
swans that sing the enchanted prince a-sleep in the Icelandic
fairy tale (J. C. Poestion, Isldndi^che Mdrchen, Vienna, 1884,
no. vii. pp. 49-.54).

11 Atlantis, iv. [18C3] 113 ff., tr. E. O'Curry.

12 The Religion of the Ancient Celts, Edinburgh, 1911, p. 82
1- RCel iii. [1870^78] 347 ff., tr. Edward Miiller.

126

SWAT OR UDYANA

both of the world and of individuals ; thus the two
swans, the progenitors of all the swan-kind, that
float on the Urtharbrunnr of the old Norse cosnio-
gonj',' may be contrasted with the swan that livod,
according to Finnish myth, on the river of Tuoni
or Death. ^ In later folk-tale we find a swan living
on a hidden lake, which maintains the world in
equipoise by carrying a ring in its beak ; when it
drops it, the end of the world will come.* Popular
^ saying still remembers the bird as one of omen
and augury;* in Riigen, swans, not storks, are
the bringers of new-born children,^ while, on the
other hand, the sight of a swan in flight may
betoken death, ^ and swans are often leaders of the
spirit-host.^ The ideas of animal shape-changing
and of the external soul favoured the development
of tlie swan-maiden myth in folk-lore. The
Scandinavian North, as one of the chief haunts in
Europe of the wild swan, showed itself especially
alive to the beauty and significance inherent in the
myth ; Grimm,^ influenced perhaps by the legends
of the 'goose-footed woman,' 'la reine pedauque,'
and 'Herthe aux grands pieds,' thinks that the
goose supplanted the swan in legend, but this
seems hardly proved. The power of flying and the
possession of a feather coat were attributes of
many gods in the Norse pantheon. TJie swan-
maiden of tlie Scandinavians appears to have been
merged into the Norns on the one hand and the
Valkyries on the other, who themselves of ten have
traits in common. The connexion of swans with
augury and with the Urtharbrunnr, the home of
the Norns, prepares us for tlie former aspect; the
power of ' riding through the air ' possessed by the
Valkyries prepares us for the latter ; and we have
alieady seen the bird-maidens as warrior-maidens
in the story of Hasan of Bassorah.

The swan-maidens of the Nibelnngenlied are Noma also ; as
swan-maidens they appear to Hagene ' like birds,' and they fall
into his power when he takes their garments, but they are also
' wise women,' and one gives him prophetic warning.9 The
maidens of the Vdhmdarkntha'^'^ are conventional swan-
maidens with their 'swan-coats,' but they are also Valkyries,
for they appear helmeted. Again, the hero Helgi is helped in
battle by Kara, a rebirth of the Valkyrie Svava, who liovers
Singing above him.n Fridlevus n., king of Denmark, is given
helpful warning before a battle by the song of three swans.i^
After this it is nnt surprising to find also traces of a connexion
between swan-maidens and the fylgja, or female guardian-
spirit ; thus the fylgja of a beautiful woman appears as a
swan. 13

6. The swan-knight. — The swan-knight seems
to have been monopolized and localized by Teutonic
mythology, although there are traces of the idea in
classical "legend, as in the Cycnus myth already
mentioned," and although the Teutonic myth
appears to have fused with Celtic Arthurian
legend. The popularity of the charming tale of
Helyas, knight of the swan, and supposed ancestor
of Godfrey of Bouillon, is attested by the numer-
ous versions of it in various languages.

In the popular German fairy-tale the enchanted brothers owe
their restoration to human form, not to the prowess of their
brother, as in Helyas, but to the devotion of a sister. Of the
other swan-knights of Brabant, the link with the Graal legends
li.as brought Lohengrin, son of Parsival, most into prominence

1 Snorri, Edda, ed. E. Wllken, Paderborn, 1877, p. 24.

2 Kalcoala, rune 14.

3 F. Gottschalck, Sagen und Volksmdrchen der Deutschen,
IJalle, 1814, p. 227.

4 Of. Grimm, i. 437, note 1.

5 E. M. Arndt, Schriften fiir und an seine IMen Deutschen,
Leipzig, 1845, iii. 547 ; cf. in Chinese legend the fostering- of the
hero Hou Chi by a wild swan (C. F. R. Allen, The Book of
Chinese Ballada, London, 1891, p. 385 f.).

6 F. F. A. Kuhn, Mdrkische Sagen und Mdrchen, Berlin,
1843, no. fi8.

7 W. Miiller, ' Die Sage vom Schwanritter,' in Germania, ed.
F. Pfeiffer, i. 421.

8 P. 1098. 9 Nihelungenlied, Aventiure .\-xv.
'" Stanzas 1-3. " Fornaldar Siigur, ii. 375 f.
'2,Saxo Gianmiatious, Hist. Danica, vi. 178.

'•■ M. Bartcls, ' Islandispher Branch und Volksglaube in Bozng
anf die Nachkoramenschaft,' ZE xxxii. [1900] 70.
'•> Of. Mneid, x. 185-197.

and iiopularity. The fact that the swan-hero arrives from an
unknown land in a skiff, and departs in the same way, has led
Grinnui to trace the beginning of tlie Teutonic swan-knight
myth to Scyld and Sceaf, semi-divine founders of the Danish
race, of whom a similar tale is told, although the connexion
with the bird-myth is very obscure.

7. Interpretations.— The interpretations of the
swan-myths have been various ; the earlier school
of mythologists saw in them nature-myths, the
swan-maiden being the white cloud, her captor the
storm-spirit.^ Others have explained the swan-
maiden, who is subject to mysterious prohibitions
and who in the end is almost always lost to her
captor, and the swan-knight, who mu.st not reveal
his name or place of origin, as denizens of the
world of the dead or of the islands of the blessed.*
A more prosaic view takes into account merely
the totenustic aspect which the myth shows in
common with all animal shape-changing tales,
points to the swan-maidens and swan-knights as
founders of clans, and compares them with such
figures as Melusine of Lusignan.'' The most
modern theory brings the tabu into proniinence,
to the overshadowing of other aspects, and adduces
the wide evidence now forthcoming of marital
tabus among primitive peoples ; ^ thus a curious
piece of corroborative evidence on the symbolic
connexion between swans and women has been
found in the rites enforced on secluded girls among
American Indian tribes." Fortunately for the
appeal of the myth, none of these theories has
power to detract from, but all serve only to
enhance, its elusive and poetic beauty.

Literature. — J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, tr. J. S.
Stallybrass, London, 1882-88, i. 420-430 ; W. Mannhardt,
Germaniscke Mythen, Berlin, 1858, p. 340 ff. ; E. H. Meyer,
Germanische Mythologie, do. 1891, chs. vi. and vii. ; J. Fiske,
art. in Atlaiitia Monthly, xxviii. [1871] 129-144; S. Baring-
Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Agcs^, London, 1869, chs.
xxi. and xxii. ; F. Liebrecht, Zxir Volkskunde, Heilbronn,
1879, pp. 54-65, 239-250 ; A. Lang, Custom and Myth, London,
1884, ch. iv. ; E. S. Hartland, The Science of Fairy Tales, do.
1891, chs. x.-xii. ; P. D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, Religion
of the Teutons, tr. B. J. Vos, Boston, U.S.A., 1902, ch. xv. ;
W. Miiller, ' Die Sage vom Schwanritter,' in Germania, ed.
F. Pfeiffer, i. [1856] 418-440. M, E. SeATON.

SWAT or UDYANA. — This is a famous

Erincipality in Independent Eastern Afghanistan,
etween the latter country and Kashmir, to the
south of Chitral and the Pamirs. It receives the
name of Swat from the river of that name (the
Svastu, in Sanskrit), which joins the Kabul branch
of the Indus above PeshaMar. Its literary name
of Udyana (in Prakrit, Ujjana) is ascribed to its
' garden or park-like ' appearance ; for it is an
exceptionally richly cultivated and well-watered
beautiful Alpine valley. Through this Indo-
Scythian country Alexander descended for his
invasion of India, crossing, it is generally supposed,
the Malakand Pass, which is on the main route to
the Indian plains ; but Swat is best known for its
fame as an ancient centre of Buddhism. It is still
thickly covered with the ruins of Buddhist monu-
ments and temples, richly decorated with some of
the finest sculptures of the Grreco-Buddhist or
so-called Gandhara {q.v.) type of art. These
sculptured friezes and terra-cottas date chiefly
between the 2nd and 5th centuries A.D. ; and a
collection of several hundreds was made by the
present writer during the Chitral expedition of
1895 and is now preserved in the Calcutta and
Peshawar museums.' The Chinese Buddhist
pilgrim Fa Hian, who visited the country c. A.D.

1 3C8-370.

- E. H. Meyer, Germ. Mythologie, pp. 90, 125.

3 W. Miiller, op. cit. ; Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, pp. 54-65.

4 Cf. art. Animals, § 26. 5 Harlland, pp. 304-322.
<5 GB'i, pt. vii.. Balder the Beautiful, i. 47-50, 90-92.

■? L. A. Waddell, Report on Archmologieal Tour in Swat,
Calcutta, 1895, reprint in Asiat. Quarterly Rev., Oct. 1895, and
' Newly Excavated Greco-Buddhist Sculptures from Swal
Valley,' Trans, of the Oriental Congress, 1897, sect. i. 245-247.

SWEAT, SWEAT-HOUSE

127

400, says: 'The reliyion of lluddlia is v(;ry
Hourisliiny ... in all there are 5U0 monasteries,
they belong to the Little Vehicle (liina-ydna)
without exception.'^ But, wlien Hiuen Tsiang
visited the land c. A.D. 630, he found that neaily
all the convents, some 1400 in number with
formerly 18,000 priests, were ' waste and desolate. '-
It is a striking commentary on Fa Hian's reference
to the exclusive prevalence of the ' Little Vehicle '
form of Budtihism that as a fact all the
sculptural remains are of the ' Great Vehicle '
(Maha-ydna).

It was regarded by Fa Hian as the most
nortlierly proviiice of India, and the food and
clothing of the people were the same as in India,
and this is still the case — the people dress in white.
The dimensions of tlie Swat country, as desci-ilied
by Hiuen Tsiang at r)0!IO li (about 833 miles) in
circuit, sliow that it in tliose daj'^s evidently in-
cluded, in addition to the valley of Swat, also the
(^hitr.'il and Dard adjoining countries and the
mountains on the right bank of the Indus, even
beyond the great bend of the river to the south.

It was the native country of Padma-sariibhava
iq.v.), the founder of Lamaism in Tibet; and the
notorious ])revalenee of Saivite magical rites in tlie
manuals ascribed to that saint in the Tibetan is
somewhat in keeping with the old reputation of
this country for sorcery. Hiuen Tsiang, in liis
visit to this land about a century before Padnia-
sariibhava's period, writes : ' The science of magical
formulas is become a regular professional business
with them (the men of Swat or Udyana).'*

The belief in serpent-dragons of rivers and
springs was especially jirevalent here. It was at
the source of the Swat river that was located the
legendary water-dragon or serpent Apalilla, whose
conversion by Buddha is a favourite motive in
Buddhist art, both north and south. Hiuen
Tsiang refers especially to the 'Avhite water'
issuing from this spring, as also does al-Biruni
about the 11th cent. A.D.,'* whicli would doubtless
be snow-water rather than glacial, yet it suggests
that the river-name Svastu may have originally
been derived from sveta, or swata, ' white,' which
approximates the modern name of that river,
'Swat.' Confirmation of this ancient water-
serpent worship was found by the present writer
in a Kharosthi inscription upon a great boulder
at a spring of M'hich the record reads from a
rubbing taken l)y the present writer : ' Bj' the son
of Dati, the Thera (Buddhist monk) Nora, a tank
was caused to be made for the worship of All
Ser])ents (in) the year 113.'^ This date, from the
pahcographic detpals, is placed about 65 B.C.
Lttkrature.^ — References are cited in the article.

L. A. Waddell.

SWAZIS.— See Bantu and S. Africa.

SWEARING.— See Oath, Profanity.

SV^EAT, SWEAT-HOUSE.— Sweat, acolour-

less fluid containing about 2 per cent of solid
malUsr, is a secretion of tlie sebaceous glands. Its
cliief function is to regulate the heat discharge
of tlie human body. It is connected with some
curious and interesting religious and magical
customs ill various parts of the worhl,

I. Sweat in magic. — Primitive man regards
sweat, like blood, saliva, liair, and nail-parings,
as a medium botii for setting sorcerj' in motion
against an enemy and for working the more harm-

1 Ch. viii.

^Si-yu-ki, ir. S. Real, London, 1SS4, i. 120.

3 S. .lulien's tr. of Hioiicn Thsnnci, Paris, 18.')3, confirmed by
T. Watters, On Yuan Cfnvang's Travels in India, London,
U)04-05, i. 2-JG.

4 Albcriim'x India, ed. E. C. Sanlian, London, 1910, ii. 1S2.
sOf. .1. <i. BiiliU-r, Vienna Oriental .lovrn. x. (1800) u:>i.

less forms of magic. Codriiigton says tiiat among
tlie Melanesians the belief prevails that a leaf
with which a man has wiped the perspiration from
his face may be employed to work mischief against
him.i A like belief is found among the Negroes
of N. America.'' Some of the natives of N.E. New
Guinea take elaborate precautions to prevent a
drop of their sweat from being made use of by a
sorcerer ; on leaving a camping-place, they stab
the ground all over with their spears.' Some of
tlie most curious uses to which this exudation of
the human body has been put are illustrated by
a group of customs connected with love magic.

'.a cake, an apple, or a sweetmeat impregnated with the
sweat of the giver is a powerful phlttre throuj,'liout the greater
part of northern and central Europe, from Cairn Gorni to tlie
Carpathians.' 4 A Hun^jarian girl steals meal and honey at
Christmas-time, bakes a cake, takes it to bed with her for one
night, and then bestows it on a youth whom she wishes to fall
in, love with her.5 \V. R. Paton says that in three tioixoKavove^
(confessors' manuals) of tlie Ortliodox Church, which are, he
i)elieves, less than three centuries old, 'women are accused
of rubbing dough on their bodies, and giving it to eat to men
in whom they wish to arouse satanic love.'K

The victim of such love magic can, however, have recourse
to a counter-charm of the same character. ' It was narrated
that if a man who, under the influence of a philtre, was forced
to love against his will, would put on a new pair of shoes, and
wear them out by wallcing in tliem, and then drink wine out
of the right shoe, where it could miu'ijle with the persjiiration
already there, he would promptly be cured of his love, and
hate take its place.' T

A similar idea underlies the superstition pre-
valent among the Negroes and Indians of N.
America, and also in Belgium, that, if tlie owner
of a dog wishes to make the animal faithful to
him, he should give it some bread which has been
soaked in his sweat.^ In the island of Tutu, in
the Torres Straits, men drink the sweat of renowned
warriors to acquire courage.^

The mythology of ancient Egypt seems to have
ascribed a sacramental virtue to the sweat of
Osiris. In the pyramid libation-formulfe the
libations appear to be his sweat; and in tlie
ritual of Anion the incense appears to be crystal-
lized drops of it.'" A song quoted by A. Erman
speaks of the Nile as the sweat of Osiris' hands."
The Negroes of Jamaica identified a man's luck
with the perspii'ation of his hands, and believed
that, if the latter were wiped away, the former
would disappear. '-

2. The sweat-house. — The ceremonial use of
vapour baths is a custom of great antiquity and
wide geographical distribution, being found both
in N. America and in N. Europe. In the former
continent it was probably known to every tribe
north of Mexico, though along the north-west
coast it has been superseded by sea-bathing.

' The type of the ordinary sweat-house seems to have been
everywhere the same. Willow rods or other plant stems were
stuck into the ground and bent or fastened with withes into
a hemispherical or oblong frame-work, which generally was
large enough to accommodate several persons. A hole was
dug conveniently near the door into which stones, usually
heated outside, were drojiped bj- means of forked sticks. These
were sprinkled with water to generate steam. A temporary
cover of blankets or skins made the enclosure tight. '13

In each tribe there were certain prescribed rules
for the construction of the sweat-house. In some
cases, however, the communal ceremonial chamber
was used for this purpose. Sometimes it was used
as a kind of men's club like the Pueblo kiva^

1 R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, Oxford, 1891, p. 203.

2 E. S. Ilartland, LP ii. 74.

3 J. G. Frazer, GBs, pt. i., The Magic Art, London, 1911, i.
213.

*IjP ii. 123. B lb. 6 PL v. [1891] 277.

"i J. G. Bourke, Scatalogic Rites of all Nations, Washington,
1S91, p. 349, quoting S. A. Flemming, De liemedii^, p. 19.

8 LP ii. 124.

9 A. C Ila<ldon, in Reports of the Canibrixh/e Anthropological
Expedition to Torres Straits, Cambridge, 1901-12, v. 301.

10 A. M. Blackman, XA 1. (191 •;] Cliff.

11 A Handbook of Egnptian Rvli<iion, Eng. tr., London, 1907,
p. 81.

l-'y-'/vXV. [1904] 209.

13 Bnll. SO HE [19101, pt. 2, i>. CCd.

128

SWEAT, SWEAT-HOUSE

women lieing permitted to enter it for certain
ceremonial purposes, but not for sweating. Among
certain tribes on the Pacific coast women were not
even permitted to gather wood for tlie holy fire
to be kindled in the sweat- house. In California,
where sweating always had a religious significance,
some of the tribes used the sweat-house as a
sleeping-place for adult males. Half-an-hour was
usually spent in the sweat-house, and then the
bather plunged into a stream, if there was one at
hand.

'Amonp; the Eskimo, hot air was used in place of steam
and in Zuni, and probably in the Pueblos generally, hot stones
near the body furnished the heat.' i

Some tribes lit the fire in the sweat-house in
autumn and kept it alive till spring. Bancroft
says of the Northern Californians :

' A fire is built in the centre [of the sweat-house] in early
fall and kept alive till the following spring, as much attention
being given to it as ever was paid to the sacred fires of Hestia.' 2

Sweating in N. America was practised for three
piirposes : (1) religious — such as purification and
the propitiation of spirits, preparation for war,
and on arrival at puberty, when it was usually
attended by scarification and mutilation ; (2)
therapezitic — prescribed by a shaman, who stood
outside and invoked the spirits believed to cause
the disease (among the Plains Indians shamans
who officiated at these ceremonies had usually
to pass through the sweat-house themselves for
purposes of purification) ; (3) social and hygienic —
a number of persons would enter a sweat-house
for the purpose of enjojnng the luxury of a bath
(among certain tribes this became an almost
daily practice, and was perhaps a degeneration).

The sweat-bath is also used by the Eskimos
of Bering Strait, among whom the men and boys
indulge in it about once a week, or once in every
ten days during winter, but with this people it
does not appear to possess a religious significance.*

Among many tribes the sweat-hou.se had its
own guardian spirit or manitu {q.v.).

Among the Lillooets of British Columbia ' men who had the
spirit of the sweat-house for their guardian spirit made a
sweat-house of elk-skin supported on wands, and inside it
they placed four large stones, which were heated to make the
steam for the bath.'^

It was believed among the Algonquins that a
man when in the sweat-house might acquire
manitu. A Fox Indian, relating his experiences
during a sweat-bath, once said :

' Often one will cut one's self only through the skin. It is
done to open up many passaijes for the manitou to pass into
the body. The manitou comes from the place of its abode in
the stone. It conies roused by the heat of the fire, and pro-
ceeds out of the stone when the water is sprinkled on it. It
comes out in the steam, and in the steam it enters the body
wherever it finds entrance. It moves up and down, and all
over and inside the body, driving out everything that inflicts
pain. Before the manitou returns to the stone, it imparts
some of its nature to the body. That is why one feels so well
after having been in the sweat-lodge.' ^

Among the Thompson Indians of British
Columbia, when a boy reached the age of puberty,
he went through certain ceremonies to obtain a
guardian spirit.

In the sweat-bath ' he prayed to the spirit of sweat-bathing
under the title of "Sweat-bathing Grandfather Chief," begging
that he might be strong, brave and agile, lucky, rich, a good
hunter, a skilful fisherman, and so forth.' 6

The Ojibwa (q.v.), an Algonquin tribe, had a
secret society called the 'Midewiwin,' or society
of the shamans. For four days before initiation
into it a candidate would purify himself in the
sweat- bath.

' In all ceremonies, prophetical or medico-magical, great
reliance is placed on the vapor-bath. ... It is entered with

1 Bvdl. 30 BE 11910], pt. 2, p. 661. 2 NR i. 356.

3 E. \V. Nelson, in IS RBEW [1809], pt. i. p. 287.

* J. G. Frazer, Totcmism and Exocjamy, London, 1910, ill.
■I'-'O ; cf. p. 414.

5 W. Jones, 'The Algonquin Manitou,' in JAFL xviii. [1905]
184.

Frazer, Totemis^n ami Exogamy, iii. 414.

sacred feelings, and is deemed a great means of purification.
Secret arts are here often disclosed between Medais [shamans]
of high power, which could not be imparted in other placos,
or positions, believed to be less subject to the influence of
sanctifying power.' i

When we turn to the Old World, we find a
striking resemblance to the American customs in
Herodotus's description ^ of the use of the sweat-
bath among the Scythians as a means of purifica-
tion, after mourning. The construction of the
sweat-house was, however, simpler than in America.
Three sticks were stuck in the ground, leaning
towards each other, and around them pieces of
felt were tightly stretched. A dish containing
red-hot stones was placed inside. Hemp seed was
then thrown on to the stones. A close parallel
to this custom was found among the Delaware
Indians, and is described by Tylor :

' At their festival in honour of the Fire-god with his twelve
attendant manitus, inside of the house a small oven-hut was
set up, consisting of twelve poles tied together at the top and
covered with blankets, high enough for a man to stand nearly
upright within it. After the feast this oven was heated with
twelve red-hot stones, and twelve men crept inside. An
old man threw twelve pipefuls of tobacco on these stones,
and when the patients had borne to the utmost the heat and
suffocating smoke, they were taken out, generally falling in a
swoon.' 3

The sweat-bath, as used among the peasantry
of Great Kussia, po.ssesses the nature of a cere-
monial purification even at the present day. It
is taken weekly on Saturday afternoons, and all
kinds of pollution must be avoided till after the
service on Sunday morning.^ Among the northern
Finns, for the savna, or sweat-bath, a log-hut is
used. The bath is frequently taken en famille.^
With this people, however, and also with the
Lapps, who make use of the sweat-bath on
Saturdays before putting on their clean clothes,
it appears to be an entirely secular institution."
Vapour baths were in use among the Celtic tribes,
and the sweat-house was in general use in Ireland
down to the 18th,'' and even survived into the 19th
century. It was of beehive shape and was covered
with clay. It was especially resorted to as a cure
for rheumatism.'

Vapour baths were used by the Greeks and
Romans ; details for their construction are given
by Vitruvius.^ The sweat-bath, which in England
has been miscalled the ' Turkish bath,' being in
reality of Russian origin, was introduced into
this country by David Urquhart, M.P. (1805-77).

3. Origin and distribution. — The presence of the
sweat-bath both in N. Europe and in N. America
at once raises the question whether it has origin-
ated independently in each of these continents, or
whether it has reached them from a common centre
of distribution. It is essentially a northern in-
stitution, and one belonging to the Mongoloid
branch of the human family. M. A. Czaplicka
suggests that the Slavs of Great Russia probably
borrowed it from the Finns of the Middle Volga.
There are many unsolved problems connected with
the ethnology of the Scythians, but there appears
to have existed among them a Finno-ugrian
element from which most likely the sweat-hut
was derived. We should naturally expect to find
the sweat-hut in N. Asia, whose inhabitants form
an ethnological bridge uniting the Mongoloid
peoples of Europe and N. America. We are,

1 H. R. Schoolcraft, l7idian Tribes of the United States,
Philadelphia, 1853-56, v. 423 f., quoted by Frazer, Totemiginand
Exogamy, iii. 486.

-iv. 73-75. 3 PCS ii. 417 f.

4 D. Mackenzie Wallace, Russia, rev. ed., London, 1905, i. 41.

5 S. Tromholt, Under the Rays of the Aurora Borealis, ed.
C. Siewers, London, 18S5, ii. 1U2.

6 P. B. du Chaillu, Land of the Midnight Sun, London, 1881,
ii. 206.

7 David Urquhart, Manual of the Turkish Bath, London,
1865, p. 62.

8 .See art. Diskasb and Mkdicin'k (Celtic), vol. iv. p. 740*.

9 De Architectura, v. 10, 11.

SWBDENBORG

129

liowever, disappointed in this expectation, since
among the aborigines of N. Siberia it is not in-
digenous, but is in use only among those tribes
whicli, like the Yakuts, have derived many
elements in their culture from the Russians.
We seem, then, to be led to the conclusion that
the sweat-bath originated independently in both
Europe and America, or else that it originated
in a more southerly latitude than N. Siberia.
The vapour-bath appears to be one of those in-
stitutions which were originally indulged in for
hygienic purposes, but afterwards, owing to their
benehcial results, came to be connected in the
mind of primitive man with mysterious unseen
powers, and hence were used in connexion with
religious rites. Now, however, the sweat-bath
seems to be regaining its former secular character.
LiTKRATDRE. — This is given in the footnotes.

H. J. T. Johnson.
SWEATING.— See Economics.

SWEDENBORG. — i. Life and works. —

Emanuel Swedenborg was born in Stockliolm on
29th Jan. 16S8. He was the second son of Jesper
Swedberg, bishop of Skara and previously professor
in the University of Upsala. The family Avas en-
nobled by Queen Ulrica Eleonora in 1719, when
the patronymic of Swedberg was changed into the
name of Swedenborg.

Little is known of Swedenboi^s childhood. After completing
his studies at Upsala in 1709, he started on an extended foreign
tour, and he was in England in 1711, ' studying Newton daily
and very anxious to see and hear him." i We gather from one
of his letters to his brother-in-law, Dr. Ericus Benzelius, that
mathematics and astronomy absorbed at that time most of his
interest. He wrote of his conversations with Flamsteed, Halley,
and other well-known men of science, but his copious references
to the works of Dryden, Spenser, Milton, Shakespeare, and
others show that his scientific studies did not prevent him
from becoming acquainted with the best English literature.
Swedenborg spent nearly two years in London and Oxford. He
afterwards visited Holland, France, and Germany, working all
the time at a number of inventions. One of themWas ' the plan
of a certain ship which with its men was to go under the surface
of the sea and do great damage to the fleet of the enemy.' 2
Another of his inventions was a magazine air-gun to discharge
60 or 70 shots In succession without relo.nding. He also devised
a flying machine, but the great Swedish engineer, Christopher
Polhem, expressed the opinion that, with respect to flj'ing by
artificial means, it was about the same thing as trying to make
a perpetuum mobile or to make gold !

In 1716 Swedenborg was appointed by King Charles xii. extra-
ordinarj' assessor at the Rojal Board of Mines, an appointment
which caused him to decline the offer of a professorship of
astronomy in the University of Upsala. As the eldest son of his
family, Swedenborg had a seat in the House of Nobles of the
Swedish Parliament, but his interest in science, alwa.vs greater
than in politics, led him in 1721 to go abroad to study the mines
and manufactures of other lands. It was during this journey
that he published a treatise on physics and chemistry, at
Amsterdam, a second edition of his New Method of finding
the Lonijitiide, at Leipzig, and Miscellaneoxis Observations on
Geology and Mineralogy. But the work which won for
Swedenborg a European reputation was his Opera Philosophica
et Mineralia in 3 vols., with numerous copperplates, published
at Dresden and Leipzig in 1734 at the expense of his patron, the
Duke of Brunswick. In the first volume of that work, the
Principia, Swedenborg gives an elaborate theory of the origin
of the visible universe and propounds his nebular hypothesis.
This theory has been often attributed to Kant and Laplace as
the original authors, but Swedenljorg's theory appeared in the
Principia In 1734, while Kant's Satural History of the Heavens
was published in 1755, and Laplace's Systiine du Monde in 1796,
as has been shown by Arrhenius in his introduction to the Latin
reprint of Swedenborg's Cogmologia. Soon after appeared the
Economy of the AnimaX Kingdom (1740-41) and The Animal
Kingdom (,l7ii-i5), in which are given the results of Sweden-
lx)rg's extensive labours in anatomy and physiology. In 1745'
his Worshii) and Love of God was published. This work marks
the surprising transition of its author's miiui from plain scientific
and philosophical reasoning to what is generally considered a
form of religious mysticism, but what the author himself would
have described as spiritual perception. A great change had
come over him. His mind, as he himself says, had been opened
to enable him to hear and see things of the other life.

Swedenborg gives the year 1743 as the date of the opening of
his spiritiial sight, but it w.as in April 17J.0, according to his

1 R. L. Tafel, Documents concerning the Life and Character
of Swedenborg, 3 vols., London, 1875-77, i. 200-344 (Swedenborg's
first letter from England to Benzelius, Oct. 1710).

- lb. i. (Correspondence with Benzelius).
VOL. XII.— 9

own statement, that he was fully admitted to intercourse with
angels and spirits, not by any process analogous to what is
usually termed spiritism (q.v.), but by speaking with them
directly, while remaining normally conscious of everything
about him on earth. He was quite aware of the scepticism with
wliich such a mental state would be received, when made known
to the world, and he anticipated it in his first theological work
in these words : ' I am well aware that many persons will insist
that it is impossible for any one to converse with spirits and
angels during his life-time iii the body ; many will say that such
intercourse must be mere fancy ; some, that I have invented
such relations in order to gain credit ; whilst others will make
other objections. For all these, however, I care not, since I
have seen, heard and felt.'i

In 1747 Swedenborg resigned his position on the Royal Board
of Mines and devote<^l himself to the new work to which he
believed himself to have been divinely called. His vast work,
the Arcana Ca-lestia, was completed in 8 vols, in 1756. Then
followed, among others. The Earths in the Universe (1758),
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine (1758), Heaven
and Hell (1758), perhaps the best known of all his books. On
the Intercourse between the Soul and the Body (1769), Divine
Love and Wisdom (1763), Divine Providence (1764), The Apoca-
lypse Revealed (1766), Conjugal Love (1768), the first theological
work to which Swedenborg's name is attached, and lastly The
True Christian Religion (1771).

It is interesting, and in a sense very significant, to find that,
while Swedenborg was fully occupied with the publication of so
many theological works, he yet found time and freedom of
mind to attend to mundane affairs. In 1763 he wrote several
papers on scientific subjects in the Transactions of the Royal
Academy of Sciences of Stockholm, and in 1766 he republished
at Amsterdam his New Method of finding the Longitude of
Places on Land and Sea. Count Hopken has stated that ' the
most solid and best written memoirs at the Diet of 1761 on
matters of finance were presented by Swedenborg.' 2

The last political document bearing his signature is an
address to the Diet entitled 'Frank Views concerning the
Maintenance of the Country and the Preservation of its Free-
dom,' in which he utters a warning against the revival of an
absolute monarchy.

On Christmas Eve, 1771, while in London, he had a stroke of
apoplexy and was visited by the minister of the Swedish Church,
E. Ferelius. He never completely recovered, and he died on
29th March 1772 in the eighty-fifth year of his age at his resid-
ence in Great Bath Street, Coldhath Fields, London. He was
buried in the Swedish Church. In 190S the Swedish Govern-
ment, having made arrangements for the transfer of Sweden-
borg's remains to his native country, sent the frigate Fulgia
to England to bring them home, and in due time they were
deposited in the Cathedral of Upsala, close to the resting-place
of Linnaaus.

2, Doctrines. — The philosophical and theological
doctrines professed by Sweclenborg may be con-
veniently considered under three heads — God, the
world, and man.

(a) God. — He has nowhere given any formal
arguments to prove the existence of God. He
starts at once from the conviction that ' all the
principles of human reason unite and, as it were,
concentre in this, that there is one God, the Creator
of the Universe.' Two principles constitute the
essence of God — love and wisdom. His infinity
comprehends both immensity and eternity. His
immensity having relation to space and His eternity
to time. But God with respect to the created
world is ' in space without space, and in time
without time.' God is life, and all life is from
Him. Life itself is uncreatable, but it can be
communicated, lent, as it were, to finite beings.
God is one absolutely in essence and in person.
The Lord Jesus Christ is God, indeed, but He is
not another divine person. He is Jahweh mani-
fested in the finite garment of humanity. Yet in
Him is a divine Trinity of love, wisdom, and power
— the three es.sentials of His divine nature. Thus
the Lord alone ought to be loved supremely and
worshipped as our Heavenly Father. To see Him
is to see the Father (Jn 12'*'' 149).

In a .sense Swedenborg admits that God, in His
essence, is unknowable, but he believes that there
is a furin of anthropomorphism which is not only
permissililo in speaking of God, but necessary,
liecause it conveys a profound truth about Him.
Ho asserts that our thinking in human symbols
would bo baseless and misleading if God Himself
were not divinely human. Hence his startling
postulate, 'God is a man.' Of course, he does not
1 A rcana Cn'le^lia, § 68. 2 Tafel, ii. 408.

130

SWEDEN BORG

mean that God is a man in a physical sense. His
real meaning is simply that, if we tliink at all
about God, we must do so by means of symbols
derived from our highest human experience. But,
if tiiese symbols do not correspond, in an inlinite
lleality, to Avhat they represent, as finite symbols,
to us, then all these conceptions are not merely
imperfect and inadequate, but actually false. We
are then obliged to conclude that there is a funda-
mental antinomy in the constitution of the human
mind, so that the Power from whom it proceeds
has so constructed it that it must think about
that Power, and think about it falsely. Surely,
Swedenborg considers, what the human mind viiist
think should be, at least, an approximate symbol
or representation of a fact. If we doubt this, the
grounds upon whicli we believe any philosophical,
ethical, or spiritual truth are undermined.

Thus, to think of God as a divine man would
simply mean, for Swedenborg, to think of Him as
being infinite love and wisdom, as He is appre-
hended by us by means of symbols derived from
the liighest of human faculties, the intellect and
the will — those faculties by which Ave are made
'in the image of God.' But Swedenborg seems
also to have discerned some profound connexion
between this conception of God as a divine man in
His essential nature and the rational interpretation
of a possible incarnation in time. In reading
Swedenborg it must always be remembered that
there is an idealism, quite his own, at the basis of
his philosophical views and consequently of his
theology. This enables one to understand nmch
that lies hidden behind his realistic language
when lie deals with spiritual matters for which our
human vocabularies have only weak and in-
adequ.ate expressions.

(h) The world. — This should be particularly re-
membered in his treatment of the creation of the
world. Swedenborg has attempted to correlate
two apparently irreconcilable ideas — the idea of a
personal God distinct from the universe, and the
idea of an immanent Creator. He has done it by
means of his doctrine of 'discrete degrees.' He
holds that there are substances of many orders
composing the universe. The primary, self-existent
substance is the infinite God from whom all finite
substances originate. But those substances are
related to each other in an order constituted hy
degrees named ' discrete degrees ' in distinction
from ' continuous degrees,' because they are plans
of existence entirely separate from each other and
incapable of being resolved one into another. A
continuous degree is merely a variation of being or
quality on its own jilane, as from heavier to lighter,
or from denser to rarer. It is only a question of
more or less. Discrete degrees, on the other hand,
are never of the same forms or qualities of being,
and, moreover, they involve the relation of cause
and eilect. Hence Swedenborg says : ' Nothing,
so far as I am aware, has hitherto been known of
discrete degrees but only of continuous degrees ; yet
without a knowledge of both kinds of degrees
nothing of cause can be truly known,' for 'seeing
from eilects alone is seeing from fallacies. '^ He
means that fallacies arise, not from .a failure to
distinguish between cause and ehect, as, e.g.,
between matter and s|(iril-, but from tJic fact of
regarding them a.s dillering l)y (•onl.iniioiis (higiees
only and not by discrete degrees. For thus cjuise
is never lifted above the iilane of cUcct, nor spirit
above the plane of matl.ei".

It is maintained therefore that in everything of
which anything can be i)redicated there are what
are called end, cause, and eflect, and these three
are to each other according to discrete degrees.
In creation the natural or material world is the
J Divine Liwc and Wisdutn, no. lt.>7 f.

eflect, of which the sjnritual world is the cause,
and God is the end. The first act of creation, not
in time but in order, is the putting forth by the
Divine of a finite emanation of love and wisdom
from Himself. This is conceived as a spiritual
sun of incomi)arable splendour, a manifestation so
intense that the finite mind could not bear its
ardour, were it not temperetl by intermediate
stages. Thus, successive discrete degrees, separated
not in space but in the quality of their spiritual
constitution, produce the higher and the lower
heavens ; other discrete degrees subsist in the
angelic forms according to their receptibility of
love and wisdom.

Similarly, the aflections and thoughts which
constitute the life of men are not, as it seems to
us, self-generated, but pass into their minds out of
the spiritual world, in a clearer or more obscure
manner, always according to discrete degrees and
in the order of cause and effect. In the world of
matter a different law operates. Matter is derived
not directly from spirit, but from the natural sun,
which, according to Swedenborg, is not only the
centre and support of our solar system, but also
the [iroximate cause of its existence. From the
activity of this primal sun are ultimately produced,
by discrete degrees, the atmospheres and matter
itself out of wliich the physical world is formed.
Tiie material substances, conceived as inert in
themselves, are nevertheless capable of being acted
upon by spiritual forces. But there is nothing of
God in them as the ultimate of creation, since their
life has ended in no-life, and love and wisdom have
ended in forms of motion. Of course, this does
not mean that God is not present in this ultimate
of creation.

This doctrine is intended to exclude the incom-
prehensible idea of a creation ex nihilo, whilst it is
meant also to provide against a pantheistic inter-
pretation of the \iniverse. It inevitably presents
the difficulties which are inseparable fi'om any
theory of emanation.

(c) Man. — The theology of Swedenborg, as it
deals with man, his nature, and his destiny, can-
not be understood apart from his view (or, as he
would insist, apart from the doctrine that he was
divinely commissioned to make known to the
modern world) of the real meaning of God's Word
as we have it in the letter of Holy Scripture. More
than 150 years ago Swedenborg had foreseen the
difficulties and objections which criticism might
bring forward as an argument against a belief in
a divine revelation. ' It is in the mouth of all,'
he says, 'that the Word is from God, is divinely
inspired and therefore holy. But yet it has been
unknown hitherto where Avithin it its Divinity
resides. The man who worships Nature instead
of God may easily fall into error concerning the
Word, and say within himself Avhen he is reading
it: "What is this? Is this divine? Can God
Avho has infinite Avisdom speak thus?"'* Yet
Swedenborg never lost his faith in a divine revela-
tion, and one of the principal objects of his theo-
logy is to show that the difficulties Avliich create so
serious a stumbling-block in many minds are due
to the fact that they are looking in the Bible for
Avliat i(.s letter tlocs not and cannot explicitly
ni,inif(!st. He .allirms that the Word contains
tlnoughont .a spiritual meaning which alune gives
the true and full sen.se of (iod's revelation to man.

I'hilo, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and
of rlnus have attempted to discover a spiritual sense
in the Bible, but Swedcnborg's conception proceeds
on entirely different lines. For him the Word is
the divine truth itself as it exists in God. It is
the very form of God, and the medium of com-
muni(atiou and conjunction Avith Him for the
1 True Cliiifiian Religion, no. ISO.

SWEDEN BORU

131

.-ingels in the heavens and for men upon earth.
But truth in this divine form is utterly incompre-
hensible to any finite mind. To render it at lea.st
partly intelligible, it must descend through the
discrete degrees already described, and assume
successively lower and lower forms of expression
adapted to the comprehension of the various
grades of finite intelligence. On earth it presents
itself to us as the letter of our Bible, or rather as
the original texts from which that letter has come
to us.

How then are those texts written? They are
written in pure 'correspondences,' i.e. in symbols
derived from nature. Everv natural object is con-
ceived to be the ellect, and therefore the expres-
sion, of spiritual causes. Those effects ' correspond '
to those causes ; hence their capacity, when
properly understood, to reveal the spiritual mean-
ing contained in them.

The first result of this principle is that man is
thus enabled to know the true canon of the sacred
Scriptures. Those books which are so written as
to present a correspondential spiritual meaning
are really ' the Word.' The other books possess
devotional and even doctrinal value, but they are
not ' the Word.' Guided by this fact, Swedenborg
declares that the only books of the Word in the
Bible are, in the OT, the Pentateuch, Joshua,
Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, the
Psalms, and the Prophets from Isaiah to Malachi ;
in the NT, the four Gospels and Revelation. The
Epistles form therefore no part of what Sweden-
borg strictly calls ' the Word.' But he valued
them highly, and he frequently quotes them.

In the letter, as we have it, Swedenborg recog-
nizes a human element manifested in the language
and feelings of the writers of the various books of
the Bible; it is only the spiritual sense that is
entirely and solely divine. Hence many of the
difficulties raised by the higher criticism would be
no difficulties for him; e.rj., instead of a creation
in six days in the book of Genesis, he reads there
the earliest condition of man and the gradual
development of his psychological constitution ; his
growth in a knowledge of good and truth, of love
and faith, and of divine things ; and finally his
introduction to a celestial perception of divine
truth itself. It is a conception of the regeneration
of man, called to reach his spiritual destiny
through knowledge, trial, faith, and love, and
Swedenborg sees that such a con('ei)tiou has a
sublime meaning for us which it could not have
had for the men who lived when the letter was
written. It would have been an unintelligible
revelation for most of them. Therefore the full
meaning of the letter Jis contained in the spiritual
sense was not given to them. There is, accord-
ing to Swedenborg, a grave sjiiritual danger in
the premature disclosure to any mind of divine
Trutli.i

But what is man ? He is, says Swedenborg,
made to be at the same time in tiie s^iiritual world
and in the natural world. He is not life, but a
recipient of life from God. And God grants man
a sense that the life which he feels within himself
is his own, in order that he may live as of himself.
In every man's soul there is an inmost or supreme
degree into whicli the divini! of the I.ord proxi-
mately Hows ; hence it is that man can I'eceive int<d-
ligence and wisdom and spi^ak from reason, and
from this also comes the fact tliat his .soul is
eiidowed with immortality.

The will rather than the understanding consti-
tutes the man. Swedenborg rejects the idea of
angels having been created as such to people the
heavens. All spirits, he believes, whether in
heaven or in hell, are from the human race. Ho
' Sue Arc. C'acloit. no. oJ'Ji.

also holds that there is no personal Devil or Satan,
but that that name signifies the whole society of
evil spirits.

The life of man cannot be changed after death,
for the spirit of man is such as his love is, and
infernal love cannot be changed into heavenly
love, ' because they are opposite.'

The problem of evil, as presented by Sweden-
borg, is explained by the freedom with which God
has endowed man, and it is because God 'who
changeth not' will not withdraw that gift that
man's love remains what it was even after death.
If he has deliberately made evil his good and good
his evil, then lie is his own hell, and does not
desire heaven. He could find no ease there, and
would long for his congenial surroundings and
associates. He is not sent to hell ; he goes there
of himself, and would be happy there, if an evil
soul could find permanent happiness anywhere.
But he inevitably meets with sutt'erings and
punishments, indicted not by God or His agents,
but chiefly by the evil spirits his associates. What
happens under our eyes here upon earth continues
in hell. For evil breeds evil always and every-
where. This conception is sad, but certainly
drawn from life.

Are then those sufferings eternal ? It is difiicult
to interpret definitely the teaching of Swedenborg
on that point. How far ' those sufferings may be
mitigated,' says Howard Spalding, ' we are not
told, but a careful study of all that Swedenborg
has said on the subject suggests that they may be
so greatly modified as to cease to be acutely felt.'^
It is remarkable that, according to Swedenborg,
there is no absolute destruction of evil even in
heaven, for nothing which has formed part of the
spiritual nature of man can ever be annihilated.
Spirits therefore — yea, angelic spirits — carry with
them into heaven the perverted organic forms in
which their evils resided. They are even per-
mitted to experience from time to time a sense of
their evils, but not uselessly, for by those alterna-
tions of state spirits are kept in continual spiritual
progress. Thus the regeneration of man, begun
on earth, continues to eternity.

Of heaven we are told that God Himself is
heaven, and that His presence to eacli human
spirit brings heaven into him, but always in a
degree which depends on a certain faculty of recep-
tion acquired on earth by man's conscientious
endeavour to make what he truly believes the rule
of his life.^

There has been a tendency, more or less defined,
to class Swedenborg among the mystics, but this
seems to be due to an imperfect understanding of
his system. His conception of life in heaven
should suffice to show how little he has in common
with mysticism past or present.
• The fulfilment of God's purpose in creating the
world is a fundamental doctrine in Swedenborg's
theology. Tliat purpose, we are told, was, by
making man in His own image and endowing iiim
with the faculties of freedom anil rationality, to
prepare iiim for that conjunction with God which
constitutes the angelic heaven. In this sense, the
creation means infinite love seeking by love to
<!MUse love to arise freely between the Creator and
His rational creature. But the misuse of ration-
ality ;ind frcinlom h;i,s led to evil being dioson and
loved instead of good ; hence sin, m liose ellwt is
the weakening of true freedom, and the obscuring
of that interior light within us which is rational-
ity. Then it is that the love which had created
man has also come to save him. By His incarna-
tion the Lord did not come to reconcile His Father

1 The Kinijdum. of Tleavcn a.i seen hy Stoedcnhnrg,\>. 4 1.

■-' Kor full (lutaila see esjiecially SwedL'iilior;;'s llcavcn ami

il:U

i32

SWINE

to man, for God in Christ, as Swedenborg says, is
the one only God who is love itself and does not
need to be reconciled to His creature. It is man
who needs to be reconciled to God. The Lord
came and, as to His human nature, was born,
lived, suffered, and died 'for us,' not 'instead of
us.' He came to enable man to do that which,
through sin, he had almost lost all power of doing,
namely, to shun evil and to do the Lord's will in a
life of righteousness and true holiness. Moreover,
God ' became flesh,' not only to effect this work of
redemption, but also that He might visibly mani-
fest His infinite love for man, and thereby give to
him for ever a definite object of intelligent faith,
worship, and love. Man is said to be saved by
the blood of Christ, in this sense, that His blood is
the symbol of divine truth, and the shedding of
His blood is the symbol of the imparting of His
spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit. Tlie Atonement,
for Swedenborg, is thus reallj' an at-one-ment, the
reconciliation of man to God by the love and
power of God. It was accomplished by the Lord
taking upon Himself man's nature, enslaved by
sin, from the Blessed Virgin Mary, sustaining in
His own person the assaults and temptations of
the powers of darkness, and gradually subduing
them. For this work the Lord laid down His life,
i.e. the life in Him of all that was not in perfect
agreement with the infinite perfections of His in-
dwelling divinity. When this was done, ' consum-
mated,' the Lord Jesus Christ was no longer, even
as to His human nature, the Son of Mary. He
was the ' only begotten Son of God,' the perfect
manifestation of the infinite, invisible Father.
This process, called glorification, was completed
after His resurrection, when the Lord 'put off'
from the infirm human nature all its hereditary
tendencies to evil and sin, and ' put on ' from the
Father the divine humanity subsisting in the
essential divinity within Him. This is the
supreme type of man's own regeneration by which,
having put off hereditary tendencies to evil and
his actual sins, he puts on from the Lord, In the
degree that he has thus put off evil, a new
regenerated and spiritual humanity, a spiritual
mind. No real regeneration can be attained
except in accordance with the principle that a
'saving faith' is 'a faith which worketh by love.'
Salvation by 'faith alone' is rejected and con-
demned by Swedenborg in innumerable passages
in his works.

It is important in connexion with this subject to
understand his idea of ' the Church.' The essential
Church for him is constituted by a genuine love of
goodness and truth and by the spiritual relation
established with the Lord in the minds of men.
The true Church is therefore invisible, but, so far
as it is a true Church, it can never pass away.
This, however, does not exclude the possibility of
the disclosure by the Lord of further truths called
for by new conditions in the world of human
thought and experience, and needed to establish a
higher level of spiritual life. Nor does it exclude
the possibility of the loss or the corruption of truths
previously held, rendering necessary tlie institu-
tion of a specific ' New Church ' in order to restore
what has been lost, and to incorporate new truths
which the Church in the past was not ready to
receive. The assertion, therefore, made by the
disciples of Swedenborg that a ' New Church ' has
been instituted, involves, as they would insist, no
disparagement of the former Christian Church ' so
far as it is really the liord's.' The members of
the 'New Church' at the present time consiiler it
an entire misconception to imagine tiiat Sweden-
borg is the founder of a ' New Church.' He him-
self always repudiated any such pretension. He
considereil himself a mere in:<truinent tlirough

whom new truths needed in the Church were com-
municated to the world. His chief point always
is, however, that ' the Church is one thing and
religion is another.' The Church is called a
Church from doctrine ; religion is called religion
from a life according to doctrine. Hence his well-
knoAvn sajdng : ' All religion is related to life, and
the life of religion is to do Good.'

Literature. — Benjamin Worcester, The Life and Mission
of Emanuel Swedenborg*^, Boston, 1907 ; Georg-e Trobridge,
A Life of Emantwl Swedenborg : ■with a pnp^iilar Exposition of
his PhUosophtcal and Theological Teachings, London, 1912 ;
John Howard Spalding, The Kingdom, of Heaven as seen by
Swedenborg, do. 191(3 ; Samuel M. Warren, A Compendium
of the Theological Writitigs of Emanuel Swedenborg, do. 1896
(very useful to obtain a first general idea of Swedenborg's
voluminous works); A Dictionary of Correspondences, etc.,
extracted from the Writings of Emanuei Swedenborg, Boston,
1910 ; Frank Sewall, The New Metaphysics, London, 1888,
Swedenborg and Mo J em Ideaiism : a Retrospect of Philosophy
from Kant to the Present Tiine, do. 1002 ; Theophilus Parsons,
Deus-Homo, do. :1S71 ; Edward Madeley, The Science of
Corre^spondences eliicidated, new and enlarged ed., do. 1902;
Transactions of the International Swedenborg Congress, do.

1910. L. B. De Beaumont.

SWINE. — The swine plays a prominent part in
many ancient and modern religions. The word
' pig ' is unlucky to the Scottish fisherman, and on
hearing it he will feel for the nails in his boots
and mutter ' Cauld iron.'^ The inhabitants of
certain villages on the north-east coast of Scotland
consider the words 'sow,' 'pig,' and 'swine' very
unlucky ; should any one be so unwise as to utter
these words while the line is being baited, the line
will surely be lost. The Galelareese, having
noticed that, whilst men suffer from itch, caused
by treading on the fallen fruit of the aren palm-
tree, the wild boar, which is fond of the fruit and
runs freely among it, is not liable to such a disease,
argue tliat the fruit treats the pig as a real friend,
and, if one by grunting can impress the fruit that
lie is a pig, it will treat him in the same way.^
The pig was offered by the Romans and Greeks as
an expiatory sacrifice. Cato advises that, before
thinning a grove, tlie Roman farmer should offer a
pig to the god or ^oddees of the place. ^ The grain
distributed am pnzee in the Eleusinian games in
Greece was grown on the Rarian plain near Eleusis ;
this plain was so sacred that no dead body was
allowed to touch it, and, whenever a defilement
occurred, a pig was offered as a sacrifice. The
Caribs abstained from pig's flesh because, like most
primitive races, they believed that the physical
and mental qualities of the human being depend
largely upon the food which he eats ; therefore, if
they were to eat the flesh of pigs, they would have
small eyes like those of a pig. Similarly Zulu
girls abstain from eating pig s flesh because they
fear that by eating it they might gradually come
to resemble the ugly pig in appearance. But there
are other reasons why primitive man abstained
from pork. The Kai of N.E. New Guinea find
that pigs are the worst enemies of the crops ;
therefore, if a field-labourer were to eat pork,
the dead pig in his stomach would attract the
living pig into the field. ^ Smne's flesh was for-
bidden to all the Semites except the Babylonians,
but it is an open question whether this was because
the animal was holy or because it was unclean.'
As early as the time of IJammurabi pork was a
highly valued food among the Babylonians and
frequently formed part of the temple offering. By

1 J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth, London, 1893, p. 91.

- M. .r. van Baarda, ' Fabelan, Verhalan, en Overleveringen
der Gak'lareezen,' Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volken-
kiaide van Kcderlandsch-Indie, xlv. [1895] i'jll.

s H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latince Selectee, Berlin, 1892-1914,
no. 4911.

■» C. Keysser, ' Aus deni Leben der Kaileute,' in R. Neuhaus,
heulsch Neu-Guinea, Berlin, 1911, iii. 12.').

•'> Lucian, de Dea Syr. bi ; cf. Antiphanes, ap. Athena^is, iii.
9.5 (A. Mcinekc, Fragmenta Comicorum Grcecorum, Berlin,
lS39-.=^7, iii. (IS).

SWINE

133

the inspection of pigs various omens were derived,
and in tlie official lists special provision is even
made for the temple pigs. The heathen Harranians
sacrificed swine's flesh once a year and ate the
flesh. 1 By the Syrians the swine was regarded as
sacrosanct, and it was specially sacred to Aphro-
dite.2 To the Greeks the attitude of the Jews
towards swine was difficult to understand.* In Is
65* 66^- " we are told that some of the Jews used
to meet secretly to eat swine's flesh ; it has been
suggested therefore that ' the swine was revered
rather than abhorred by the Israelites,''* and that
it was not eaten because it was divine. To the
Egyptians the pig was very loathsome.' Swine-
herds were forbidden to enter a temple and even
hiid to marry among themselves. If a man even
touched a pig, he immediately stepped into a river
to wash off the taint. Pig's milk caused leprosy.
These prohibitions prove that the Egyptians origin-
ally regarded the pig as sacred, for the belief that
the eating of a sacred animal produces leprosy and
that the effect caused by touching a sacred object
is removed by washing was current among many
ancient tribes and religions.^ Later, however, the
pig began to be looked upon with horror and was
regarded as the Egyptian devil and the embodi-
ment of Set or Typhon and enemy of Osiris.
Typhon, in the form of a pig, injured the eye of
Horus, who burned him and ordained that a pig
was to be sacrificed, seeing that Ra, the sun-god,
had declared the pig to be an abominable beast.
We find in various religions that the animal sacri-
ficed to a god because he is the god's enemy was
originally the god himself. Now, we read that
Typhon was hunting a boar when he discovered
and mangled the body of Osiris, and that for this
reason pigs were sacrificed once a year. It has
therefore been suggested that originally the pig
was a god, and that he was no other than Osiris.'
We have already seen that the Kai of New Guinea
abstain from pork because they regard the pig as
the enemy of the crops, so that we can understand
why the Egyptians ghould have identified their
corn-god Osiris or his enemy Typhon with a wild
boar. It might also be noted that pigs were sacri-
ficed to Osiris on the very day on Avhich he is re-
corded by tradition to have been killed. Further,
the pig was sacred to the corn-goddess Demeter
and was often associated with her. In art she is
represented as accompanied by a pig.* At the
Thesmophoria it was customary to throw pigs into
some sacred vaults, which are described as the
'caves of Demeter and Persephone.'* It seems
that the pigs were intended to represent Persephone
and her descent into the lower world. An ancient
legend tells that, when Pluto carried off Persephone,
Eubuleus, a swineherd, was herding his swine near
the spot, and his herd were engulfed in the cave
into which Pluto and Persephone had vanished.
The Thesmophoria has analogies in the folk-
customs of N. Europe. In certain districts of
Courland the pig is the corn-spirit, whose power of

1 En-Nedim in D. Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier U7id der Ssabismus,
St. Petersburg, 1856, ii. 42.

2 Swine were also sacrificed to Aphrodite at Arj^os (Athen. iii.
49) and in Pamphylia (Strabo, ix. 5. 17).

s Plutarch, Symposiacon, iv. 5.

4 But see K. H. Kennett, The Composition of the Book of
Isaiah in the Light of History and Archceolugy, London, 1910,
p. 61. .

B Plut. de Is. et Osir., 8 ; Herodotus, ii. 47, etc.

8 Cf. the practice of the Jews of washing their hands after
reading the Scriptures, also Lv IC'-^f- ; Central I'mvxnccs Ethno-
graphic Survey, Allahabad, 1907-11, ii., ' Draft Articles on Uriya
Castes,' p. 16.

7 E. Lef6bure, Le Mythe osiricn, Paris, 1874-75, pt. i., 'Les
Yeux d'Horus,' p. 44 ; E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the
Egyptians, London, 1904, i. 496 f., also Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, London and New York, 1911.

** J. Overbeck, Griechische Kunstmylhologie, Leipzig, 1873-78,
pt. ii.

9 F. C. Movers, Die Phmizier, Berlin, 1841-56, i. 220.

fertility lies in his tail ; therefore, when barley is
sown for the first time in the year, the sower sticks
a pig's tail into the field, believing that the ears of
corn will grow as long as the tail.^ The idea that
the pig is an embodiment of the corn-spirit can
further be seen from the Scandinavian custom of
' Yule boar.' This is a loaf prepared from the last
sheaf in the form of a pig. It is usually prepared
at Christmas and kept till sowing-time, when it is
given to the plough-horses in the hope that it will
be the means of securing a good harvest.'' In this
connexion it is of interest to note that Ball finds
a philological connexion between Tammuz, the
Assyrian god of the under world and of vegetation,
and the Chinese and Turkish words for pig. He
also cites the evidence of classical writers' that
' the Jews did not use swine's flesh because it was
sacred inasmuch as by turning up the earth with
its snout it taught men the art of ploughing.' * In
some parts of White Russia it is believed that the
bones of a pig preserve the corn from hail, whilst
in other places the ribs are thrown into the
seed-bag among the flax-seed because they cause
the flax to grow well and tall. The Alfoors of
Minahassa in N. Celebes believe that a pig's blood
causes inspii-ation, and at one of their festivals the
priest drinks a pig's blood and thereupon is able
to prophesy as to how the rice-crop will turn out.*
The inhabitants of Car Nicobar rub themselves
over with pig's blood in order to cleanse themselves
of any devils of which they may be possessed. "^ In
the same way the Greeks cleansed a homicide by
sprinkling him with pig's blood and beating him
with a laurel bough. The Karens of Burma believe
that a bad harvest is caused by adultery, and, in
oi'der to atone for this, those detected in adultery
must buy a pig, scrape out furrows in the ground
with each foot, and then fill them with the pig's
blood.'' Some Yabim believe that after death their
souls will be turned into swine, and they therefore
abstain from swine-flesh lest they should thus be
eating the souls of their relatives. The people of
Tamara (off the coast of New Guinea) also abstain
from pork because the souls of the dead trans-
migrate into the bodies of pigs. The worshippers
of Adonis did not eat pork because their god had
been killed by a boar. It has been suggested that
the cry 'Eyes Attis!\ raised by the worshippers
of Attis, meant ' Pig Attis ! ' * In Fiji a huge pig
is presented to those who are initiated into man-
hood. At Maewo, in Aurora, one of the New
Hebrides, fifty days after the death of a wealthy
man pigs are killed, and the point of the liver of
each pig is cut off. The brother of the deceased
goes to the forest and calls out the dead man's
name, saying * This is for thee to eat,' the idea
being that, if pigs are not killed for the benefit of
the dead man, his ghost has not proper existence."
It should be noted also that the pig is very often
represented by a cowry-shell. Malinowski, in an

1 W. Mannhardt, ilythologische Forschungen, Strassburg,
1874, p. 186 f.; also A. Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten, und Gebrduche
aus Thiiringen, Vienna, 1878, pp. 189, 218.

- For further details concerning this and similar customs
throughout various parts of Europe see F. Panzer, Beitrag zur
deulschen Myihologie, Munich, 1848-55, ii. 491 ; J. Jamieson,
Etymological Dictioimry of the Scottish Language, new ed.,
Paisley, 1879-82, iii. 206 f. ; Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und
Feldkutte, Berlin, 1877, p. 197 f.

3 Callistratus, ap. Plut. Symp. iv. 5.

4C. J. Ball, 'Tammuz, the Swine God,' PSBA xvi. [1894]
195 ff.

5 J. G. F. Riedel, ' De Minahasa in 1825," Tijdschrift voor
Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xviii. [1S7-] 517 f.

6 V. Solomon, ' Extracts from Diaries kept in Car Nicobar,'
J.4/xxxii. [1902] 227.

7 F. Mason, 'On Dwellings, Works of Art, Laws, etc., of the
Karins,' JASBe xxxvii. [1868] pt. ii. p. 147 f.

8 J. G. Frazer, GBS, pt. v., Spirits of the Com and of the
Wild, London, 1912, ii. 22.

'■> R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, Oxford, 1891, p.
282.

134

SYMBOLISM (Christian)

account of the natives of Malu Island, oli" the coast
of New Guinea,! says that at one of tlieir feasts
the natives erect a gallows and ornament it with
a white shell called moto (the so-called white
cowry, Ovulum ovum). This shows that they are
about to olt'er pigs for sacrifice, and the number of
pigs to be sacrificed is always the same as the
number of shells. The associatioti of this shell

with pigs is important when it is remembered that
cowries are Avidely known as pig-sliells. This fact,
and also the passionate tendencies of swine, would
be the most plausible explanation of the abhorrence
with which they have always been, and still are,
regarded in the East.
Literature.— The literature is contained in the article.

Maurice H, Farbridge.

SYMBOLISM.

Christian (J. Gamble), p. 134.

Greek and Roman (P. Gardner), p. 139.

Hindu (A. S. Geden), p. 141.

SYMBOLISM (Christian).— It is proposed in
this article to indicate the more important of the
emlileiiis and personifications in which Cliristian
))elief has found spontaneous expression. The
literary images Avliich deserve to be called sym-
bolical, but wliicii have not embodied tlieraselves
in pictoriiil or material shapes, are excluded from
view. An attempt will be made, however, to con-
nect the emblems v/hich call for notice with the
language of the New Testament.

When the subject is thus defined, the field to be
surveyed is at once seen to admit of a clear
division. The first four or five Christian centuries
separate themselves for our purpose markedly from
the centuries which follow. For the symljolism of
the earlier period we have the definite and varied
testimony offered by the sepulchral paintings and
inscriptions of the Roman catacombs. With the
light tlius obtainable we are able to see the iio])es
with whicli the Cliristians of Rome during this
formative period followed their dead into the
unseen world and connected the life that now is
with that to which they believed it to be the
])ortal.

Burial in the catacombs and the symbolism to
wliich it gave rise practically ceased ])efore the
middle of the 5th century. From that time on-
wards new images and ideas crowd in uj^on us,
created by the popiilar imagination in response to
the Church's teaching and worship, to legends of
the saints, animal fables, and spiritual plays and
moralities. Many of these images do not succeed
in finding an emblematic expression, but those
which do create a .symbolism far exceeding that of
the previous period in amplitude. We shall give
our chief attention to the earlier period, and briefly
indicate the later emblems which, either from their
permanence or from their inherent significance,
seem especially to claim notice.

A review of the entire field brings one decisive
feature of the symbolism into prominence. The
emblems will all be found to point onwards to a
life beyond the tomb. The symbolism is created
by a hope or, it may be, a fear whose fulfilment is
not expected within the limits of our present exist-
ence. The justification of this ' other-worldliness '
may readily be found in our records of the life of
Chri.st. His ministry began with the announce-
ment, ' Tiie kingdom of God is at hand/ and was
throughout a prophecy of good things to come
(Mk P^). Some of His disciples may at first have
believed that they would see these good things
before they ' tasted' death (9^). The mere lapse of
time was enough to stamp such expectation with
the mark of illusion. Every year it became more
clear that the realization of the promised kingdom
must needs be a slow and gradual process. In
another respect also the desired con.summation
underwent a change. The earth ceased to be
regarded, as perliaps it had at first been, as the

'^ Trans, and Prnc. Rovnl Soc. S. Av.Hralin, xxxix. fl915)
404 f.

Jewish (I. Abrahams), p. 143.
Muslim (D. S. Margoliouth), p. 145.
Semitic (M. H. Farbridge), p. 146.

scene of fruition. The liveliest hope cannot resist
the accumulating contradictions of continuous
experience. Year by year it became less likely
that the kingdom could ever be localized or assume
any material shape. The Crucifixion and its
sequel liad lifted the thouglits of the disciples from
the earth and carried them into that heaven which
had now become the Master's home. To this
heaven tliey transferred their ' treasure ' (Mt 6'^),
less perhaps from deliberate apostasy than from
the reluctant acceptance of undeniable experience,
and to it their hearts ascended. Death thus re-
assumed its normal character, and what lay beyond
it became an object of anxious thought or fervent
longing. These thoughts and longings form the
central motives of Christian symbolism. The
blessedness hoped for after death, the means by
which it may be reached, and the character of Him
who procured and guarantees it — these will l>e
found to be the subjects round wliich the Christian
emblems of all periods gather. From the begin-
ning hope has been the dominant Christian charac-
teristic. The scene of fulfilment and the mode of
realization may have shifted. Hope itself has
remained.

The symbolism of the catacombs embodies the
hopes of future blessedness entertained ])y those
who used these burying- places up to the time when
such subterranean burial ceased. Thus the roses,
or flowery meadows and shrubs, Avhich appear on
so many tombs represent paradise. Its entrance is
sometimes indicated by a curtain which is in pro-
cess of being drawn aside. The Good Shepherd
who appears on tomb after tomb may Avith greatest
probability be here regarded as the Lord and Pro-
tector of the dead. It is they whom He gathers
round Him in the heavenly fields. One of their
number is the sheep He carries on His shoulders.
The fish, one of the two articles of food with which
the thousands were fed (Jn 6''^'*), represents the
mystical union with Christ, and its fruit incorrup-
tibility {ifpOaptrla). The vine points to the heavenly
feast, or to its earthly pledge — the Eucharist.
The dove, sipping water from the basin or jar, is
the soul refreshing itself from the water of life
(Rev 22^). The palms symbolize either tlie palms
borne by the blessed (7") or the wreaths or crowns
of those who have been victorious in the race of
life (1 Co 925, 2 Ti 4^). The anchor indicates the
hope of He 6'^* which enters in ' within the veil.'
The ship .and lighthouse typify the dangerous
voyage across the ocean of life to the haven of
safety. The stag is that of Ps 42^, and represents
the soul's thirst for God.

The paintings of the catacombs have been fully described by
two recent writers. Wilpert, in his Male.reien der Katakomben
Boms, has classified the paintinsjs, reproducing all that are
important and giving: his interpretations of their sj'ml)olism.
Von Sybel, in his Chri.stliche Antike, has reviewed the subject
on the ground provided l>y liis predecessor's labours. lie also
reproduces many of the paintings and states his own conclu-
sions in a lucid style and with much wealth of learning.

The symbolism of the later centuries has the

SYMBOLISM (Christian)

135

same general character. As sin and misery increase
on the earth, fear plays a larger part in the
Church'si symbolism. The torments of the lost
become more conspicuous than the joys of the
blessed. A final judgment of all mankind dis-
places the earlier individual judgment and assumes
truly terrifying aspects. The figure of Christ
becomes more stern and awful, and, as it does so,
the person of the Virgin Mother takes His place as
Protector and Advocate.^ She is invested with
steadily-growing dignity and is separated more and
more from human infirmity. The Church becomes
a figure of regal authority. In what has been said -
to be ' perhaps the finest medireval personification '
— the sculpture on Sti'assburg Cathedral — she
appears as a royal lady, with the crown upon her
head and the banner of victory and the chalice in
her hand. Elsewhere Clirist is seen crowning her
from the Cross, or she receives His blood in her
chalice. Thus, whether in earlier or in later art,
the symbolism alike points beyond the tomb.

We may now proceed to deal in greater detail
with the separate symbols. They will be found to
gather, for the most part, round two central sub-
jects : (1) Christ, regarded as the author of eternal
life, and (2) the heavenly state.

I. The author of eternal life.— Christ is repre-
sented in all our Gospels as the giver of eternal
life to those who accept and follow Him. The
synoptists amply confirm His declaration in the
Fourth Gospel : ' He that heareth my word, and
believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and
Cometh not into judgement, but liath passed out of
death into life ' (Jn 5--» ; cf. Mt lO^-*- ^^ lO'-"-", Lk 9=^-
^, etc.). There can be no doubt that, whatever
the Kingdom of God may have meant to tlie first
Jewish disciples, it represented an inseparable
association with Christ, here and hereafter, as
Master and Saviour. To the Gentile world Christ,
we may safely say, appeared as, above all else, a
deliverer from the power of death. He had taken
flesh tliat ' tlirough death he might . . . deliver all
them who through fear of death were all their life-
time subject to bondage' (He 2'^). He had
'abolished death, and brought life and incorrap-
tion to light through the gospel ' (2 Ti V°). These
and similar passages were probably understood by
the earliest believers much as they are by ordinarj^
Christians to-day. Tliey were taken to mean that
the faithful disciple would find Christ waiting for
him, when death was past, and that Christ would
tlien lead him into a better and happier existence
than he liad hitherto known, better and happier
because it was nearer to God. Christians gener-
ally would not perplex themselves then, any more
tlian tliey do now, witii questions regarding the
precise nature or locality of this future existence.
The ' eternal life ' wiiicii in the Fourth Gospel is
the equivalent of Messianic blessedness was pro-
Ijably understood by the great majority of readers
as a life in which the disciple would ' see ' God,
and which would not come to an end as earthly
life does. Far as this is from exhausting the
meaning of the word 'eternal,' it is difficult to
suppose tliat the word can ever have conveyed, or
does even now convey, to the ordinary Christian
more than this simple interpretation. Of this
better life, to be known hereafter, Christ had given
a foretaste or prophecy during His earthly ministry.
The blind then received their sight, the lame
walked, the lepers were cleansed, tl)e deaf heard,
the dead were raised, and the poor had good tidings
preached to them (Mt II'^')- it is this power of God
to save from death and harm that finds expression
in the paintings of the catacombs. Clnist appears
as the son of God foretold by proplietic voices.

1 See art. ' Mary,' in TIDn.
Schulze art. ' SinnhiUler," in PRE^ xviii. 302.

His ministry has been heralded by many previous
displays of God's saving power. He has actually
shown Himself to be the raiser of the dead, the
restorer of tlie blind, and the healer of the sick.
He waits for His disciples beyond death to lead
them into the heavenly pastures. Such are the
subjects and implications of the symbolism.

(a) OT types. — Scenes from the OT which were
especially held to typify this deliverance recur with
great frequency on the tombs. These are the sal-
vation of Isaac, when he was about to be slain
in sacrifice by Abraham, the salvation of Noah in
the Ark, the restoration of Job to his former
prosperity (Job 42'"- ^^), the rescue of Jonah from
the jaws of the sea-monster, and the preservation
of the three Hebrew youths in the llaming furnace.
Some features in the symbolism of these paintings
deserve particularly to be noted. In the represen-
tations of Abraham's contemplated sacrifice it is
the rescue of Isaac from death that the painter
desires to symbolize. This is plain from the atti-
tude in which Isaac is represented wlien the design
of the picture permits. He appears with extended
arms — a posture of prayer or adoration of which
more is said below. This is also the attitude of
Noah as he stands in the Ark, and of the three
children in the furnace. There is no suggestion in
the paintings of the theological meanings after-
wards found in Abraham's projected sacrifice. It
may also be observed that the Deity is represented
here, as generally or often in the earliest Christian
art, by an outstretched liand. No attempt is made
to delineate His features. There are no represen-
tations of the Trinity such as we find afterwards.
Of all Biblical types Jonah has been tiie most fi'e-
quently chosen by these painters. He forms the
subject of 129 separate pictures which have come
to light. It is to be observed that he does not here
appear as a type of the resurrection of Christ, as he
does in Mt 12^'. Nor is it the repentance of the
Ninevites at his preaching (Mt 12-'i) that the
[)ainters wish to symbolize. He is represented as
an example of God's saving power. Sometimes
he forms the subject of three or four connected
pictures. We first see him standing on the deck
of the vessel and about to be cast into the sea.
We then see the monster vomiting him out towards
the laud. He next appears resting under the
gourd, which takes the form of an arbour like those
in paradise. There may be a fourth picture where
he reclines in an attitude of dejection, liis head
resting on his hand.'

(b) The sacred infancy. — The divine cliildhood is
depicted on a number of tombs. One of tlie most
beautiful paintings in the catacombs^ is the picture
in the I'riscilla cemetery of the Christ-cliild on His
motiier's breast. Tiie mother bends slightly for-
ward as if to suckle the child. The child's hand is
spread out over the mother's breast, but the face,
with wonderful eyes, is half turned towards tiie spec-
tator. Above the heads of mother and child two
stars are indicated in an oblique direction. To the
left stands a man in mantle and sandals wiio has in
his left hand a written roll and with liis riglit jioints
to the star above. This figure probably repre-
sents, not Joseph (who, as far as is known, does
not appear in early Christian art), but a prophet,
either Isaiah, who pointed to the light of the Mes-
sianic age (60'-"), or Balaam (Nu 24'', Kev 22'«), who
told of the star to arise out of Jacob. If this iden-
tification be correct, it is, as von Sybel saj's,' 'one
more evidence that at least the earlier Catacomb
painting was in no sense historical, but entirely
symbolical art.' The picture belongs to the begin-
ning of the 2nd century.

Another incident of the .'^acred infancy frequently

1 Von Svbel, p. 21C ff. 2 Ih. p. 247.

^ lb. p. 24!).

136

SYMBOLISM (Christian)

depicted is tlie visit of the Magi. They are gener-
ally represented as three in number, although the
painter may be led by the exigencies of space to
increase them to four or reduce them to two.

' The definite determination of their nuiiibor as three, their
desijj'nation as king;s, the ascription to them of proper names
(Kaspar, Melchior, Balthasar), the differentiation of their ages

to this legendary web antiquity only contributed the Erst

threads. Its elaboration was the work of the Middle Ages.'i

The Annunciation (Lk l-"^-) forms the subject of
two paintings, one belonging to the end of the 2nd
and the other to the 3rd century.- Mary is seated.
The angel, in the form of a man, makes the
announcement standing, as a visitor who has just
entered the house. The relative postures of the
two figures can be explained without the supposi-
tion of an intention to claim for Mary a higher
dignity than for the angel. The two paintings
may presuppose, but cannot be held to go beyond,
the Gospel narratives.

On the other hand, Mary's perpetual virginity
finds constant expression in mediawal art. The
OT provides many images of inviolability which
are applied to Mary. She is the ' fons signatus,'
the 'hortus conclusus,' and the 'turris' of the
Song of Solomon (4.'^ 4^^ 4^). The christianized
Physiologus — a mediteval bestiary or book of
animals, real and fabulous, with allegorical ex-

f Sanations* — supplied the legend of the unicorn, a
abulous animal which could be tamed only by
bein" caught in the lap of a pure virgin. Ezk 44^
provided the symbol of the barred door, Jg 6^' that
of Gideon's fleece watered by the dew from heaven.
The number and variety of these symbols show the
value assigned to the doctrine of Mary's perpetual
virginity by the mediaeval Church.*

(c) The Divine Healer. — The Gospel miracles, of
which there are numerous representations in the
catacombs, are evidences of God's desire to release
humanity from its plagues. In the heavenly city
of the Apocalypse there was to be neither sorrow nor
death (Rev 21*). To this divine purpose the heal-
ings of Christ bore emphatic witness. His ministry
was a short-lived anticipation of the Messianic
Age (Mt ll**-). The beneficent power, then dis-
played in a few instances, Avould hereafter be seen
in the fullness of its strength. It is an evidence
of the authority rapidly acquired by the Fourth
Gospel that the miracle most frequently represented
in the catacombs is the raising of Lazarus (50
examples have been discovered). We remember
how both the sisters greet the Saviour with the
words, ' If thou hadst been here, my brother had
not died ' (Jn ll-^-^^). We are intended to regard
the presence of Christ as incompatible with death,
or at least with its bereaving power. Other heal-
ings which may with certainty be identified are
that of the paralytic (Mk 2^"^- and 1|), where the man
appears walking with his bed on his shoulder, and
that of the blind man, where we see Christ touch-
ing Avith His finger the man's closed ej^es. Another
unmistakable scene is the cure of the issue of blood
(Mk 5-^ and ||). The woman comes behind the
Saviour as He walks with two disciples, and kneels
that she may touch the hem of His robe. Other
paintings have no distinctive features which would
justify certain identification.

(d) The Cross. — The absence from the earlier
catacombs of what has now become the distinctive
Christian emblem is full of significance. The use
of the cross as a separate symbol appears to date
from the campaign of Constantine against Maxen-
tius (A.D. 312), when Constantine put the cross
upon the shields of his soldiers. Previous to this
date we find the cross mentioned in one inscription

1 Von Sybel, p. 250.

2 WMlpert, p. 202 ; von Sybel, p. 252.

3 See Cahier and Martin, Milanges d'archiologie, Paris,
1847-56, ' Curiosites mysterieuses,' ch. vii. pp. 107-117.

* Schulze, PR& xviii. 392.

in the catacombs, and appearing doubtfully in two
ceiling-paintings. Both inscription and paintings
belong to tlie 2nd century. The monogram of

Christ

[e.g., iv

oovKos

) appears

in inscrii)tions of which some may possibly be
anterior to Constantine, but its general use dates
from the reign of this emperor. It has accordingly
become customary to regard both the cross and the
monogram as indicating a date not earlier than the
4th century. It should also be observed that the
only known reference to the Passion in the cata-
combs previous to the 4th cent, is what is believed
to be a representation of the crowning with thorns
in the Pretextatus cemetery.^ The absence of any
symbol of the Passion from the earlier tombs may
readily be accounted for by the fact that their paint-
ings were intended to display, not death, but the
victory over death. Even when the cross does begin
to appear, it seems to be introduced, not for its own
sake, but as a support for the rose-leaves which
gather round it. It thus becomes a beautified or
transfigured cross. We are reminded of the symbol-
ism of the Passion-narrative in the Fourth Gospel,
where we see Christ reigning with sovereign
authority from the Cross, and the majesty of the
Divine Sutt'erer shining through the indignities
which strive in vain to obscure it. The foliage-
crosses of the catacombs— concealed or ' dissimu-
lated' crosses— have indeed been traced to the
supposed desire of the Christians to avoid observa-
tion. Apart, however, from the fact that such
crosses do not begin to appear until the 4th cent.,
it is diflScult to believe that the other emblems
which do appear would not have clearly indicated
these vaults as Christian burying-places. It seems
more natural to suppose that the transfiguration
of the Cross efiected by St. Paul's theology re-
quired much reflexion before it could find emblem-
atic expression. The Cross was at first a stumbluig-
block (Gal 5*^) and only slowly became a symbol of
glory (6i*).2

It will thus have been observed that the earliest
representations of the Passion were avowed sym-
bols, suggesting, but not depicting, the sacrifice of
the God-man. Realism becomes more pronounced
as we travel down the centuries. The crucifix— an
inevitable development of the cross — does not
appear in churches till after the 7th century.^ The
implements of the Passion (hammer, claws, etc.)
become independent emblems towards the end of
the Middle Ages, when indulgences began to be
attached to their veneration. The lamb with blood
streaming from its breast, and carrying the cross
or a banner upon which the cross was depicted,
became a favourite symbol on the portals of liatin
churches. The pelican (taken from the Physio-
logus), who tears open its breast to feed its young,
was used to represent the sacrificial death of
Christ.*

(e) The Good Shepherd.— The favourite symbol of
Christ among those who constructed and used the
catacombs was that of the Good Shepherd. This
image takes here the place of the crucifix in later
art. It appears in two difl'erent forms in the
Gospels. In Lk IS^'"' the shepherd is seen bringing
home on his shoulders, 'rejoicing,' a sheep that
has been lost. In Jn IQi-^' the shepherd leads his
sheep to and from the pastures and protects them

1 Wilpert, p. 226 ; von Sybel, p. 292.

- For the three forms of the cross in later symbolism—

decussata, or St. Andrew's cross, \\^ ; commissa, Tau or

yptian cross, Hr ; and immissa, jP

3 See DCA, s.v. 'Crucifix,

see art. Cross.
4 Schulze, PRE3 xviii. 392.

SYMBOLISM (Christian)

137

from the wolf, even at the price of his own life.
It is added by Christ in a subsequent verse (v.*^^-) :
'My sheep hear my voice, and I know tliem, and
they follow me : and I give unto them eternal life ;
and they shall never perish, and no one shall
snatch them out of my hand.' Both representa-
tions are of frequent occurrence on the tombs.
We see the shepherd pasturing his tiock, and
carrying upon his shoulders a sheep, whose legs he
clasps sometimes with one and sometimes with
both hands. There seems to be little doubt that
this favourite symbol, like the others in the cata-
combs, is intended to transi)ort the mind beyond
death. The painters wished to indicate the power
of Christ over death. Those who died, no less than
those who lived, were under His protection, 'the
sheep of his pasture.' Thus, where a landscape is
indicated in the paintings it is invariably that of
the garden or park which typifies paradise. The
image, so understood, would appear to have passed
into the early burial prayers of both the Greek and
the Latin liturgies.^ Thus, when A. P. Stanley^
points to the frequent image of the Good Shepherd
as an eWdence of the joyousness of early Christian
feeling, we must remember that the sheep in these
pictures are in all probability those who have
passed from the vicissitudes of the world into the
safe haven of eternal rest.

A brief reference may here be made to the emblems which
early Christian art adopted from Greek and Roman mythology.
We cannot measure the precise significance which these
emblems possessed for the Christians who used or looked at
them. They may have been little more than the current
decorations of the period ; or they may have had a distinct
didactic purpose, and been intended to suggest that Christ was
the reality to which the heathen mythology pointed in un-
conscious and hesitating prophecy. So Eros and Ps3'che appear
in many of the catacomb paintings, and in five different pictures
where we sliould have expected the Good Shepherd we find
Orpheus with his lyre.

(/) The Judge of the dead. — In some paintings
Christ is seen seated upon a raised platform,
plainly in the character of Judge. In one of these '
we see a male figure in the posture of an orans
between two taller forms, who point to him as if
they were his introducers or sponsors. In the
background upon a raised pedestal is Christ, who
stretches His open right hand over the head of the
middle figure, while in His left He holds a roll. In
Wilpert's opinion, the middle figure represents one
of the dead who has already stood before the
judgment-seat of Christ, while the two other
figures represent his advocates.

These representations of judgment convey some
important suggestions. The face of Christ in the
picture described above is grave without being
stern. It must be remembered that no authentic
likeness of Christ appears to have been preserved
by His disciples. The varieties given to His face
and figure from the earliest times put this beyond
reasonable doubt. Irenaeus'* shows that no trust-
worthy portrait existed in his day. To the same
effect are the words of Augustine.^ The disciples
were thus left to their own insight and skill to
depict His likeness. The painters of the catacombs
seem to have given Him the typical male head of
their time. This type was during the first two
centuries a beardless face with the hair closely cut.
It was followed in the 3rd cent, by a face, still
beardless, but surrounded by long hair falling
upon the forehead and down the back. A still
later type was a bearded face framed in flowing or

1 Von Sybel, p. 242; ap. Muratori, Lilurgia Roniana Vetus,
Naples, 1760, i. 751 : 'We pray God faithfully that He may
grant [to the departed] that, redeemed from death, released
from his sins, reconciled to the Father, brought home on the
shoulders of tlie good Shepherd, he may enjoy the society of the
blessed.'

- Christian Institutions, London, ISSl, ch. xiii., 'The Roman
Catacombs.'

3 VVilpert, p. 394 ; vou Svbel, p. 271.

* Contra H(er. i. 25. 6. s Dc Trin. vii. 4 f.

curling locks. If the painters were guided by the
prevalent fashions of wearing the hair and beard,
it is obvious that we cannot infer much from the
apparently increasing seriousness of the counte-
nance.^ The growth of asceticism in subsequent
ages had a marked influence. The early effort
after beauty was abandoned. Manly beauty was
associated in the mind of the monastic Church
only with barbarian soldiers. The words of Is 53-,
' There is no beauty that we should desire him,'
siiaped the artist's conceptions. The figure of
Christ in the Church of Galla Placidia in Ravenna
(c. A.D. 450), when compared with the portrait to
be seen in the Church of Apollinaris in the same
city, painted about a century later, shows the
transition from the earlier iaeal, shaped by the
love of beauty, to the ascetic or melancholy con-
ceptions of later art.-

These representations seem also to make it
plain that the judgment symbolized M'as individual
and thought oi as taking place immediately after
death. The departed appears at once before the
judgment-seat of Christ (2 CoS^"). The approving
sentence of the Judge is the signal for his immedi-
ate entrance into paradise. Thus in one painting *
we see two figures, one on either side, drawing
back a curtain to admit into paradise one of the
departed, who stands in the centre in the posture
of an orans. In another painting two of the
blessed move eagerly forward to welcome a new
arrival, who advances in the same attitude of
devotion. We find no representation in the cata-
combs of a general judgment of mankind. Nor do
the paintings, as archjeologists of all schools agree,
give any indication of belief in an ' intermediate
state' or a period between death and judgment.
All those who die in Christ are conceived as pass-
ing at once from their death-beds into heaven.*

When we pass into the subsequent centuries,
death and judgment assume terrifying shapes.
The destructive power of death is symbolized by a
man who weeds the garden of life or fells its trees,
or (after Rev 6^) as a rider with drawn bow, above
all as an emaciated old man who finally reaches
the form of a skeleton with scythe and hour-glass.
' The dance of death ' appears to have originated
in the plague known as 'the Black Death.' It
quickly gained a wide popularity, which it retained
far beyond the Middle Ages. The soul, leaving
the body, was regularly represented as a little
human figure, naked and sexless, emerging from
the mouth. In pictures of the Last Judgment
popular imaginations of hell took the place of the
earlier representations of paradise. Hell was
syuibolized by the open throat of a monster (after
the leviathan of Job 41), into which men and
women, masters and servants, priests and people,
were thrust. Devils in every shape did their work
of derisic n and torture under the supervision of the
prince of hell. To him the popular imagination
transferred everything it knew of monsters, and
thus there arose the being of many shapes and
names with goat's horns, cloven hoof, bat's wings,
and a tail. He even took the form of a blackbird,
and, as such, flew into the mouth of Judas at the
Last Supi)er, and whispered into the ear of Pilate
as he sat in judgment. Popular humour may well
have had its share in shaping these fancies.^

2. The heavenly state. — St. Paul represents
Christ as the second Adam, who undid the con-
sequences of the first Adam's transgression (Ro 5).
By the early Christians heaven was pictured as
a restored Eden. The word ' paradise appears to

1 Von Sybel, p. 281 ; Wilpert, p. 106 ; E. von Dobschiitz,
' Christusbilder,' in TIX, new ser., lii. [1S99].

- See art. ' Jesus Christ, Representations of,' in DCA.

3 Wilpert, p. 467 ; von Sybel, p. 267.

4 Wilpert, p. 430 ; von Svbel, p. 273.
s Schulze, PRE'^ xviii. 393.

138

SYMBOLISM (Christian)

have been originally Persian and to have been in-
troduced into Greek literature hy Xenophon.i The
Greeks seem to have passed it on to the Hebrews.
It appears in the OT only in writing's subsequent
to the Greek period (Ec 2\ Ca 4}\ Neh 2«), and
bore the meaning of a park with trees, shrubs,
and grass, and tenanted by wild animals, such as
surrounded the residences of eastern potentates.
Such parks were commonly enclosed by a wall or
trellis-shaped fence. Trees, shrubs, flowers, and
the trellised fencing in the catacomb paintings are
invariably symbols of paradise.*

On the threshold we meet with the figures known as orantes.
These are forms, male or female— the latter are much more
numerous than the former— standing with arms either fully
extended or bent at the elbows, and with opened hands. The
orantes nive rise to questions which are still in debate. Whom,
in the first place, are these figures intended to represent?
Against the su))position that they are either likenesses of the
departed or intended to represent their souls •* we have to place
the fact that a female orans often appears painted on the tomb
of a man, and also to remember that the paintings appear to
have been sometimes executed before the tombs were filled. It
seems therefore most natural to regard the orantes as ideal
figures, poetic representations of the blessed dead. Again,
what is the meaning of the outstretched arms and open
hands? Are we to understand the attitude as one of prayer or
one of adoration? And, if it be prayer that is symbolized, for
what do the suppliants pray ? The answers to these questions
are not unafTected by dogmatic interests. According to the
opinion of Wilpert, the orantes are praying for the salvation of
their friends who still remain upon the earth. In some of the
inscriptions we find the survivors asking for the prayers of the
departed."* On the other hand, we meet with the attitude in
some cases where it unquestionably symbolizes adoration, or
at least the prayer in which entreaty loses itself in submission.
Thus in the OT scenes of deliverance from death the rescued
appear often in the attitude of orantes. So Noah stands in the
Ark, and Daniel among the lions, and so the three children
appear in the furnace. Yet in each of these cases the deliver-
ance has already been granted. If anything is asked for, it can
only be the continuance of something begun. So the new
inmates of paradise seem to stand in an attitude of wondering
recognition. In the highest Christian prayer entreaty ceases
because the human wiU is one with the divine. The lifting up
of the hands was a Jewish as well as a Christian practice (Is lis,
1 Ti 28).

3. The heavenly feast. — The Christians who
buried their dead in the catacombs had two sacra-
ments, both of which are frequently symbolized
in the paintings. In baptism the believer was
admitted among the number of the elect. He
became a * saint ' in the original sense of that word.
On the tombs we And representations both of the
baptism of Christ by His forerunner and of the
Church's baptism. There are also three pictures
of a fisherman, seated on the bank and drawing a
fish out of the water with his hook. The figure
may point to baptism and to the words of Jesus
addressed to the disciples : ' Come ye after me, and I
will make you Ushers of men ' (Mt 4i» and ||). If this
be so, it would supply an additional reason for the
adopticm of the hsh as a Christian symbol.

In the Eucharist the believer partook of the bread which came
down from heaven, and of which he who ate would not die
(JnC50). In it he had the prophecy of the heavenly feast. When
Jesus took leave of His disciples, He told them of the new wine
which He would drink with them in the Kingdom of God
(Lk 22i«). The Crucifixion shattered for a brief interval the
hope raised bv the prophetic words. Despondency gave way to
renewed confidence when it became clear that God had not
' allowed His Holy One to see corruption.' So ' day by day,
continuing stedfastly wth one accord in the temple, and
breaking bread at home, they [the disciples] did take their food
with gladness and singleness of heart ' (Ac 2Je). It is no longer
possible to mark the steps by which this early ' breaking of
bread ' passed into the Church's Eucharist. It is enough to
recognize that what afterwards became the ecclesiastical rite
originally formed part of the corporate feast of the Christian
society. If the presence of the heavenly Christ was, as we can
well believe, more vividly realized during these feasts than at
any other time, the disciples would naturally associate them
with the peace or joy which awaited them hereafter. The
fellowship of the earthly feast would provide the mould for
their anticipations of future happiness. They might recall the

1 See a learned note in von Sybel, p. 161.

2 Von Sybel, p. 167. . „ „ ^i ■ ,

3 De Rossi, Roma sotterranea cristiana, n. 324, I>nU. Cnrist.,
1S67, 18sr>, quoted by von Sybel. _ m • * .

* ' In oratioiiibus tuis roges pro nobis quia scnnus to in Christo
(Wilpert, p. 211 ; von Sybel, p. 2i'.t)-

Biblical assurances : ' Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the
kingdom of God ' (Lk 1415), ' Blessed are they which are bidden
to the marriage supper of the Lamb ' (Rev 199), ' To him that
overcoinetb, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is
in the Paradise of God' (27). It is profitless to dwell upon the
inconsistency of picturing spiritual happiness by an image which
appeals only to man's bodily appetites. For in the ' new world '
which, whether it be peopled by corporeal or incorporeal beings,
is in any case to bo the scene of fruition every earthly image,
the most attenuated equally with the most material, becomea
obsolete. An instrument intended for a region surrounded by
an atmosphere is useless when the atmosphere is transcended.
Thus the most spiritually-minded Christians, restricted by
limitations from which they cannot escape, may well continue,
as they do, to associate heaven with the ' shout of them that
triumph, the song of them that feast.' In the catacomb paint-
ings heavenly happiness is frequently represented by the image
of festal joy. The scene of the feast is marked, by the customary
indications, as paradise. The guests are to be seen, generally
if not always, behind the roll which is the recognized symbol
for the cushions used at feasts. Often attendants appear carry-
ing a dish or holding a flagon or wine-cup. In one series of four
pictures these attendants take the form of two female figures
who are designated by inscriptions as 'Irene' and 'Agape.'
They are appealed to by the guests to supply warm water or to
mix" the wine (' Irene, da calda' ; 'Agape, misce nobis'). One
of the figures seems thus to symbolize the peace of heaven, and
the other the love from which the Christian love-feast derived
its name, and which was one of St. I'aul's three abiding things.^
The food indicated in these pictures consists invariably of bread
and fish. Sometimes a number of baskets, filled with small
round loaves, appear either in front of the cushion-roll or on
either side of it. The miraculous feeding of the thousands was
plainly themodel in thepainter's mind. This miracle, connected
by St. John (G^s) with the 'bread of life," was an anticipation
of the heavenly feast. Similarly prophetic was the Church's
Eucharist, which in some of the paintings seems to be expressly
depicted and made a symbol of its heavenly antitype. It need
only be added that the fish, from its presence in the miracle, as
well perhaps as for the reason given above, appears to have estab-
lished itself as a symbol for a Christian disciple, long before the
acrostic was discovered : ix£'u's = 'Ir)o-ous xP"'"''""^ 6eo0 iiios <Ti»Trjp.
It will appear from the foregoing summary that,
while Christian symbolism points persistently on-
wards towards an ideal world, conceived as lying
beyond death, the hope thus expressed is sustained
by experiences which are prized for their own sake,
and also as earnests of things yet to come. Eternal
life, the ultimate blessing of the Fourth Gospel, is
there represented as botlx present and future. So
the Messianic kingdom of the earlier evangelists
was yet to come, while it was also 'within' or
'among' the disciples who walked with Jesus and
saw God in Him. The Church which continued
His ministry in the ages that followed was like-
wise a prophet of what was yet to be, and also a
teacher of men amidst the dangers and obligations
of actual life. Thus in the Middle Ages, while the
three theological virtues (faith, hope, charity)
appear repeatedly on church porches, pulpits, and
monuments, the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice,
fortitude, temperance) also assume their symbolic
shapes. The Church is a teacher of common-place
morality, while at the same time she must bear
witness to truths whose validity cannot be demon-
strated by everyday experience. The Christians
who built the catacombs tell us in many inscrip-
tions of the central hope with which they consigned
their dead to the tomb. Their desire was that the
departed might 'see God' (' Vivat in Deo,' ' Vives
in ajternum,' 'Deum videre cupiens vidit'). Such
is the hope, vague and yet real, changing but
steadfast, which has created the Christian symbols
of the past, and may be trusted to fashion new
ones as the human heart becomes more proficient
in the interpretation of its own language.

LiTERATUEB.— -J. Wilpert, Die Makreien der Katakomben
Rome, 2 vols., Freiburg i. Br., 1903; L. von Sybel, ChristUche
A7itike, Marburg, 1906-09, i. ; G. B. de Rossi, La Roma sotter-
ranea cristiana, 3 vols., Rome, 1S64-77 ; V. Schulze, Archaolog.
Studien ilber altchriMliche Monumente, Vienna, 1880, art.
'Sinnbilder,' in PRES ; C. Cahier and A. Martin [Jesuit
Fathers] Melannes d'archMogie, d'hisfoire et de litth-alure . . .
du moyeii dge,' i vols., Paris, 1S48-56, Nouveaux melanges
d'archiolonie, d'Mst. et da litt. snr U moyen dge, do. 1873-75 ;
F. Cabroi, DACL, s.v. ; R. St. J. Tyrwhitt, DCA, s.v.

John Gamble.

1 Wilpert, p. 470 ; von Syhcl, p. '207 ; da Rossi, Bull. Christ.,

1SS2.

SYMBOLISM (Greek and Roman)

139

SYMBOLISM (Greek and Roman).— A symbol
is a visible or audible sign or emblem of some
thought, emotion, or experience, interpreting Avhat
can be really grasped only by the mind and im-
agination by something which enters into the field
of observation.

So far as Greek and Roman religion are con-
cerned, we need speak only of two kinds of
.symbols — symbolic representation by means of
actions or words and symbolic representation in
art.

Religion, taking its rise in experience and belief,
tends, as it becomes less literal and less insistent,
to give rise to symbolism ; and this is true also of
that lower kind of religion which is called magic.
When primitive men thouglit that by certain
actions and words tiiey could compel spiritual
powers to do their bidding, or when tliey thought
that the painting of animal forms on the walls of
their caves gave them power over the animals
deiiicted, they had not yet reached the stage of
symbolism, but had taken tiie first steps towards
it ; when they poured water on the ground to
produce rain, tliey thought tliat there was an
actual causal connexion between the ritual act
and the fall of rain. But just as, when religious
belief decays, tlie feelings which gave rise to it
often find scope in the field of poetry, so, when
actual belief in the power of sympathetic magic
grows less, tlie actions and ceremonies to which
it led are often continued in symbolism.

I. Greek.— 1. In local cults.— The local cults
of Greece, which went on at a lower level, and in
a more conservative key, than the religion of
))oetry aTid of philosophy, preserved a great deal
of symbolism. Even in Athens the great festivals
embodied such traces of primitive religion. At
the IJrauronian festival young girls, impersonating
bears, danced a bear-dance in honour of Artemis.
At tiin Diasia the priest who struck down the
sacriiicial ox was accused of murder and in turn
accused !us instrument, the axe, which was con-
demned and solemnly cast into the sea. In the
worsliip of the dead flowers and fruits gradually
took the place of the more serious oil'erings of an
earlier time. With tlie dead were buried, not, as
in primitive times, real armour and ornaments,
but only symbolical otterings, money of gold-leaf,
animals of terra-cotta, and the like. Sometimes
these objects were only depicted in relief on the
tombstone. The terrible human sacrifices once
brought to the sterner deities were commuted into
sacrifices of animals, sometimes clad in human
fashion, or mere images of human beings. Natur-
ally it was in the mysteries, where the survivals
of primitive religion were most rife, that symbolism
was most prominent. Mere ceremonial ablutions
took tiie place of actual immersions as a ceremony
of purification. The sacred meal whicli the deity
shared with his votaries became a mere cere-
monial tasting of some special food. At Eleusis,
in the great mysteries, tlie votaries emptied two
vessels filled with water, turning to east and west
and repeating the sacred formula ve, Kbe (' Sky pour
rain; earth bear grain'), which was directed to
earth and sky, and was evidently a survival of
an ancient magical formula for the production of
rain.

The suppliant who visited the cave and oracle of
Trophonius at Lebadeia, liefore he went into the
presence of the hero, drank from two springs, that
of oblivion and that of memory, to signify tiiat he
was to forget the past and to remember the revela-
tion which was to come to liim. Originally, in all
probability, the water of these springs was sup-
posed to have some actual eiJ'ect on tiie votary, as
iiad tlie spring in the cave of tiie Clarian Apollo
nt Colophon on the priest who drank of it before

soothsaying. But in the time of Fausanias ' the
action had become merely ritual and symbolical.

The sacred marriage was common to several
cults in Greece. When the notion of tlie deity
was somewhat crude, women were shut into the
temple, to stand in the same sexual relation to
him in which, according to tradition, Cassandra
stood to Apollo. But, as time went on, such de-
dication became only symbolical, the place of the
victim being sometimes taken by the wife of the
priest.

As the mystery religions spread and their out-
lines hardeueil, a new element came in, whi(;h was
destined to take fui'ther <levelopment in Christi-
anity— the element of authority. Symbolic rites
were practised, not on the ground of mere tradi-
tion, but by ordination of the recognized hiero-
phants of each cultus, who claimed a divin(?
communication. Tliis element, however, scarcely
belonged to the earlier religious view of idtlicr
Greeks or Romans, among whom authority in
religion was scarcely recognized apart from tradi-
tion. Cults had an open lield and freely comi)eted
one with another, except those with which the
safety of the State was supposed to be connected.

It seems that almost all ritual which does not
appeal to the intelligence is in character symbolic.
And the notable feature in symbolic ritual is that,
since it appeals mainly to the emotions, it may be
interpreted or understood in a great variety of
ways. At the mysteries of Eleusis, e.g., some of
the votaries might regard the whole proceedings
as a sort of spell to cause fertility ; some might
be genuine worshippers of the great godtlesses
Denieter and Persephone ; some migiit, like Cicero,
find in the ritual a promise and pledge of a life
beyond the grave. Everything depemied on the
religious outlook, the exalted or materialist beliefs
of the votary himself.

' Aristotle,' says Synesius,2 ig of opinion ' that the initiated
learned nothin}^ precisely ; but that they received impressions,
were put into a suitable frame of mind.'

Thus symbolic ritual has a great attraction for
persons of emotional temperament, while it is
distasteful to those of strongly developed intelli-
gence, who like definite views. Compared with
clear doctrine, it is like music compared with
painting. It was by no means well suited to the
minds of the more cultivated Greeks.

2. In art. — In early Greek art symbolism appears
in two forms : in representing by some simple
figure an idea such as a quality or attribute of
one of the deities and in representing the wh<ile
of anything by depicting some characteristic part
of it.

A few symbols of the deities seem to have been
taken over by the Greeks from the pre-historic
peoples wliom they displaced in Crete and Hellas.
Such is the double-edged axe, which is found
in the palace of Cnossus in Crete in the third
millennium B.C. in scenes of cultus, and which
belongs to a male or female deity of the people.
This axe became among the Greeks a symbol of
Diony.sus. The snake also appears as an attribute
of a goddess of Crete frequently represented, and
later was inherited by the Greek Erinyes. But
most of the symbols of the gods of the Greek
pantheon seem to be more immediately derived
from the art of the nations of Syria and Meso-
potamia. Most of these symbols were displaced
by growing anthropomorphism. This statement
re(|uires some explanation. On early bronzes and
terra-cottas found on Greek sites, dating from the
7th or 6th cent., the goddess Artemis is figured
as winged and holding in her two hands lions,
panth(Ms, or swans. On tlie chest of Cypselus, a

1 IX. xxxix.

2 Arislotle, Fracj.. od. R. Ilcitz, I-eipzif?, ISCO, p. 4(i.

140

SYMBOLISM (Greek and Roman)

7th cent, work preserved at Olyinpia, Pausanias^
saw such a figure, which surprised him by its
strangeness. It was strictly symbolical ; the
wings were not for flight, but only to typify swift-
ness, the lions were added to show the power of
the goddess over animals, whose mistress (irSTvia)
she was. We can trace this representation step
by step through Greek art and see how in maturer
times the swiftness of the deity was indicated by
her stature and slimness of build, her power over
animals by the stag or dog who accompanied her.
A similar transformation takes place in the case
of Zeus. On early coins of Elis an eagle appears
as a substitute for the god ; later he bears the
eagle in his hand. Later still, as in the great
statue of Pheidias, a golden eagle was an adorn-
ment of the sceptre of Zeus. Thus, as time went
on, merely outward symbols tended to disappear
or at all events to become unimportant ; and the
meaning which they had conveyed was expressed
in the type of the deity. Certain symbols, how-
ever, held their ground. The tliunderbolt of Zeus,
indicating him as the lord of storms (ZeOj Wrtos),
is usual in the 5th century. To express this
feature in the type of the deity would not be easy.
The bow, as symbol of the rays of the sun-god,'' is
usual in the liand of Apollo in archaic representa-
tions ; later the lyre is far more usual. Even
wings do not altogether disappear, but they mostly
lose their merely symbolic character and are used
for flight, as in the case of Victory and Eros, an
innovation ascribed to the sculptor Archermus of
Chios (c. 570 n.c). The god Hermes, even in late
art, carries wings on his cap or his heels — a sur-
vival of archaic symbolism.

Coins furnish us with many examples of symbols
belonging to the deities. In the 7th and 6th
centuries the obverse of electrum and silver coins
usually presents some very simple symbolical
device— a griffin at Teos and Abdera, a thunder-
bolt at Olympia, a wolf at Argos, an owl at
Athens; and then, after the archaic period, this
type is usually banished to the reverse of the
coin, and in its place we have the head of the
deity to whom the type belongs. It must, how-
ever, be observed that, when numismatists speak
of a symbol on a coin, they use the word in a
technical sense, to indicate not a symbolical type,
but one of those small and subsidiary devices often
placed in the field of a coin by magistrates who
were responsible for its issue — a device probably
often taken from the private signet of such
magistrates.

Another phase of symbolism is found when in
artistic representation a part is taken to stand for
the whole. This often appears on Greek vases
and reliefs. Pausanias* observes that, in the
painting representing Hades by Polygnotus at
Delphi, the grove of Persephone is represented by
one tree. So on vases a temple or a house is often
represented by a single column, a river by a
swimming fish, a sea-shore by a shell, and so forth.
It is probable that this was how the scenes in
tragedies were represented on the background of
the stage. It is really a sort of shorthand, and
altogether parallel to the process by which in
Egypt and elsewhere picture-writing came into
being.

Symbolical or allegorical impersonations are to
be found in Greek art at all periods, though more
often in archaic art and that of Hellenistic times
than in the greatest period. On the chest of
Cypselus, in the 7th cent., we are told by Pausanias"*
that Night was figured, carrying two boys, one
white and one black, who represented Sleep and
Death respectively. Justice as a beautiful figure

1 V. xix. 9.

3 X. XXX. 6.

" Homer, II. i. 45.
■• V. xviii.

scourged Injustice, who had the form of an ugly
woman. Fate, with teeth and claws like a wild
beast, claimed Polynices as a victim. Even in the
great age we have such figures as Virtue, Nemesis,
Opportunity (Kaipds). But it is in the Hellenistic
age, in the great cities of the East, that symbolic
personalities most abound. In the celebrated pro-
cession of Ptolemy II. of Egypt ^ we have figures of
the Year and the Seasons ; in that of Antiochus IV.
of Syria ^ we find statues of Night, Day, Earth,
Heaven, Morning, and Noon. On the coins of
Alexandria under the Romans we find a remark-
able set of fanciful figures — Euthenia (Prosperity),
Kratesis (Dominion), and the like.

The great Ionian cities of Asia Minor appear on
monuments of the Roman age in the persons of the
legendary Amazons whom they claimed as their
foundresses.^ Smyrna on coins carries a double-
axe and has a prow of a ship at her feet; Cyme
holds a dolphin and a trident ; Teos, a city
renowned for vines, carries the thyrsus of Diony-
sus ; Ephesus carries poppies and ears of corn, and
so forth. In each case the attributes embody the
situation or the produce of the city. In a noted
Pompeian painting* we have well-characterized
impersonations of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Tlie
list might be almost indefinitely lengthened.

Symbolism in Greece, in the great period, often
takes fine poetic forms, as when the snn-god in his
chariot on the pediment of the Parthenon represents
the East in the morning, or boys plunging into the
sea represent the setting stars on a fine vase in the
British Museum.^ In the same age rivers are re-
presented by man-headed bulls, as on the coins of
Gela and Catana in Sicily ; nymphs have cows'
horns ; Alexander the Great appears on the money
of his general Lysimachus with the ram's horn of
Amnion.

But, in spite of such examples as these, there is
a broad line of distinction between the use of
symbolism in Oriental art — the art of Babylon,
Assyria, Egypt, and India— and the use in Greek
art. Oriental art is content with adding symbols
to the human forms of deities, without caring for
their beauty or appropriateness. In Egypt and
Babylon we find human bodies joined to the heads
of all kinds of animals — lion, bull, jackal, hawk,
and so on. And Indian figures of deities represent
them with several heads, many arms (each holding
some attribute), necklaces of skulls, and the like.
Oriental art tries to represent in this way qualities
and attributes which sculpture or painting could
not otherwise portray — elements of mysticism,
mythological tales, or sometimes the ideas of pan-
theistic religion. Greek art avoids monstrous
forms as a rule, though it inherits a few specially
suitable for artistic development, such as the
Centaur. And it does not attempt to portray, in
sculpture or in painting, anything which lies out-
side the scope of those arts. Exquisite in form
and clear in meaning, its creations do not carry us
beyond sense and intellect, do not appeal to the
mystical tendencies of men. Thus Greek symbol-
ism has no wide limits.

II. Roman. — i. In cult and law. — In Roman
religious ceremonies the symbol held a large place.
This was natural, as in quite tlie early times of
the republic there was an invasion of Greek religion
and Greek deities, which caused the old rustic
religion of the Roman people to survive only in
the form of ritual, the meaning of which was in a
great degree obscured. Hence the State cultus of
Rome was divorced alike from belief and from
morality, and, so long as the magistrates performed

1 Athenceus, v. 196. 2 /ft. p. 194.

3 JUS ix. [18SS] 56.

4 W. Helbif, Wandc/emaldc Campaniens, Leipzig, 1S68, no.
1113.

5 Catalogue, E 466.

SYMBOLISM (Hindu)

141

exactly the ceremonies handed down by their
ancestors, it mattered little what meaning they
attached to those ceremonies or what beliefs they
held in religion. The emperor, whetiier he were a
Trajan or a Nero, was always jwntifcx maximus
and represented to the gods the State in its relig-
ious capacity. Hence the Romans were extremely
careful as to the way in which they wore the toga
or the cap called apex, as to their exact position in
relation to the points of the compass, and as to the
attitude in which they stood when they were sacri-
ficing. All these details had no doubt some mean-
ing in their origin ; but not only are we unable
usually to discover what it was, but even the
Romans did not know : they blindly followed the
tradition, with an uneasy feeling that, unless they
did so, some great calamity would overtake the
State. Most of these ritual customs Avere probably
derived from the Etruscans, a people at a low level
of culture, but exact in all matters of a religion
which seems scarcely to have risen above the level
of magic.

When an official conducted a sacrifice, he
sprinkled the victim with wine and threw over it
salt meal ; then he made a ritual motion symbolical
of slaying it, but the actual butchering was done
by attendants. 1 Like the Greeks, the Romans
contrived to put in the place of human sacrifices
the mere offering of substitutes and symbols.^

When the Greek deities migrated to Rome, they
took with them their recognized symbols ; and the
native gods, who were largely identified with the
immigrants, also adopted these outward signs of
inward powers. Thus in art Greek customs went
on, as in fact the artists were usually Greek. So
we have on Roman monuments the symbolism of
Ephesus and Alexandria. Allegorical and sym
bolical figures, such as Pudicitia, Ubertas, Annona,
appear abundantly on the Roman coins ; but they
can have had but little serious worship. In short,
while symbolism is of importance in relation to
Roman cultus, it is unimportant in earlier Roman
art, requiring a concrete poetical imagination of
which the Romans were destitute.

Tliere was a good deal of symbolism or symbolic
ritual in the customs of Roman law ; e.g., if a man
purchasetl a slave, he laid hands on him (tnanci-
jmtio) in the presence of witnesses and weighed
out at the same time to the seller a piece of money
which was accepted as a symbol of the price, quasi
pretii loco, as Gaius says.' We need not be sur-
prised that much symbolism made its way into
Christianity in Rome, since it had become a recog-
nized part of the routine of daily life.

2. In art.^ — In the time of the Roman dominion,
as the religion of Mithras and other mystery cults
spread from east to west through Europe, the range
and power of symbolism increased. We may
especially trace on tombstones of the period of the
empire, alike in Italy, Gaul, and other regions, a
growth of religious symbols mainly having refer-
ence to the life beyond the tomb, which was taking
an ever larger place in men's thoughts and hopes.
Some of the mythological scenes which the Greeks
had depicted on tombs, from mere artistic and
decorative motives, seem to have been re-inter-
preted in a more mystic fashion. Such were the
rapes of women and the combats of men ; and more
especially scenes from the lives of Heracles and
Orpheus and other heroic persons who had won
immortality by great deeds, or had descended into
Hades and returned. Some ordinary figures of
earlier art — the griffin, the lion, the bull, the cock
— became coimected with the hope of immortality.
The Mithraic shrines of northern Enroi)e contain

1 G. Wissowa, Rcliijion und Kulttis der ROmrr, Munich, 1902,

- lb. p. 355. 3 i. 119.

reliefs in which symbolism seems to run wild,
though we know so little about Mithraism that
our interpretation of such reliefs is usually con-
jectural. On this subject the works of Franz
Cumont are authoritative. It is impossible here
to discuss the question of the symbolism on later
pagan tombs. A good account of it will be found
in Mrs. Arthur Strong's Apotheosis and After Life
(1915). This writer, however, goes too far in inter-
preting almost all the scenes and figures on such
tombs in reference to the future life. It is obvious
that, unle.ss we keep in restraint the tendency to
read mj^stic meanings into painted and sculptured
scenes, we may drift back into the fancy world of
Creuzer, who traced the influence of the mysteries
everywhere on Greek vases and Roman reliefs.
We are on safer ground in speaking of contem-
porary Christian art, because here we have a
literature for comparison.

In the early Christian art ^ of the catacombs and
of sarcophagi there is even an increase of symbol-
ism, as compared with contemporary pagan works.
This is natural, because the Christians commonly
adopted pagan types, only giving tliera a fresh
meaning ; e.g., the peacock, which in Greek art
belonged to Hera, became to Christians a symbol
of the resurrection, probably because the flesh of
the peacock was supposed not to decay. Orpheus
became an emblem or symbol of Christ. The fish,
the sheep, the vine, all acquired a new Christian
signification. Probably in many cases the mean-
ing would not be realized by the pagan artist who
was called in ; and it was safer that the knowledge
should be confined to the society. This symbolism
is apt to degenerate into something like shorthand :
a man carrying a couch refers to the miracle of the
healing of the paralytic man ; a cock beside Peter
to his denial of hie Master, and so forth.

The use of symbols in the later Neo-Platonic
philosophy is so closely connected with their use in
Christianity that it need not be here treated. See
art. Nbo-Platonism.

LiTsaATORB. — There te no recent work which deals methodi-
caMy with Greek symbolistn. Roman symbolism is treated in
Mrs. Arthur Strong, Apotheosis and After Life, London, 1915.

P. Gardner.
SYMBOLISM (Hindu).— Of all religions of the
East, the home of type and imagery, Hinduism
makes the most use of symbols. It has formally
declared the ultimate truth to be unknowable
and indefinable. In all its scheme of practice and
teaching it seeks to make definite approach to the
reality by suggestive type or symbol — an approach
that can never find its goal, but can only draw-
nearer and nearer, as it points successively, like
the ancient Greek pliilosophers, to the symbol or
likeness which most fully and faithfully reflects
the true, and emlwdies the largest part of a reality
which in its entirety is inconceivable by the human
mind and inexpressible in the language of men.
The symbol is the necessary and helpful inter-
mediary between the inadequate capacity of the
mind of the would-be worshipper and the incom-
municable nature and fullness of the Unknown
whom he adores. A complete and adequate
description tlverefore of the Hindu use of type and
symbol would require an almost complete exposi-
tion of Hindu belief in its many varieties and
ramifications. Whether in creed or in practice,
the symbolic in Hinduism is not far from being
co-extensive with the religion itself. Of this the
literature of Hinduism and its systems of doctrine
are sufiicicnt illustration. All, however, that is
practicable within the limits of an article is to
indicate the motive or motives that more or less
consciously and avowedly have ])roinpted the use
of the symbol, to set forth in the briefest possible
1 Cf. art. Symbolism (Gh; istian).

142

SYMBOLISM (Hindu)

manner its liistorical relations in the religious
scheme and cult, to define its necessary limits, and
to select for illustration and comment a few of the
more important types which have occupied a con-
siderable place in the belief and profession of tlie
adherents of the faith. A mere enumeration of
the symbols employed would be a large and
probably impossible task.

1. Use and purpose of symbols. — The use and
purpose of the symbol is twofold : (1) to set forth
in visible or audible likeness what cannot be really
or fullj' expressed to the physical eye or ear, or
even clearly conceived by the limited faculties of
the human mind. All language is in the last
resort symbolic, and religious language in an
especial degree, for it endeavours to present a
mystery, a reality too deep for words. The Hindu
faith had at its service a language of the utmost
delicacy and flexibility, with a vigorous and fertile
gi-owth and an almost unlimited vocabulary, and
found itself in a world of tropical luxuriance,
with a ti'opical wealth of beauty and suggestive-
ness. It was not to be wondered at that it became
profuse in tyjje and symbol and laid under con-
tribution all the facts and phenomena of nature
to serve its religious and priestly ends. All the
great gods had their resemblances, animal or
material forms, in which they pi'esented themselves
embodied to human sight, which served to recall
to the worshipper the deity, whose mind and
character thej'^ more or less inadequately reflected.
Other more rare and refined symbols were pre-
sentative of qualities or attributes, as the lotus,
the emblem of spotless purity preserved under the
most imfriendly conditions. All idols, totems,
fetishes are symbols. The wise man does not
worship the symbol, the shape in clay or wood or
stone, but is thereby reminded of the invisible
substance or reality which they each represent.

(2) The image or symbol serves the purpose also
of providing in material and suitable form a
convenient object of reverence, to meet the
religious need of those whose minds, through
darkness and ignorance, are unable to grasp the
conception of an unseen formless deity. Such men,
if left without a visible object to which their
reverence and fear may attach themselves, will
wander in a maze of doubt, disquiet, and unbelief.
It is better that they should worship erroneously,
worship a thing, than that they should not worship
at all. There is much that miglit be urged in
favour of the Hindu view that regards the worship
of the external symbol as a stepping-stone to
higher, clearer forms of belief ; it is a view un-
acknowledged perhaps but not unknown to other
faiths. And in Hinduism, whatever maj^ be said
of or claimed by the wise and instructed thinker,
the pilja of the multitude to the image of the god
is reverent and sincere. In some respects also and
within definite limits the Indian contention has
justified itself that the symbol has proved a sign-
post and a guide to better, higher thoughts and to
a truer worship of Him whom no form can express
or language describe.

2. The most important types. — (n) The most
important symbols are those of the Bnikman, the
undefiiiable and unknowable origin and source of
all. Of the BrnJiinan only .signs and types can be
employed, for the jjrimcval source and sust.xiner of
tlie universe is beyond ami alxne thought or word.
His names or titles are symbolic : hiranyagarbha,
the golden germ, that was in the beginning ;
svayambhfi, the self-existent one ; viivakar/nan,
the artificer of all things ; and many others. The
authors of the Upayiisads especially attempt to set
forth in symbolic terms the being and nature of
that which in the last resort they are obliged to
confess is beyond knowledge. Prdna, the breath,

or vdyu, the wind, is a frequently recurring type ;
and it seems to have been felt that by its
mysterious and elusive character the prdna, was
peculiarly fitted to represent tliat which in its
essence eludes comprehension. The breath, prdna,
is Brahman.^ A similar type is the dkdin, the
all-pervading and all-surrounding ether, ' onmi-
present and unchanging in the heart.' ^ Manas
also, the mind or will, is with the dkd.ia. a symbolic
form or type under which the Brahman is to
be meditated on or worshipped. ^ The mystical
syllable Om, the most widely venerated syllable
in the M'orld, is the highest Brahman, and its
utterance with under.standing of its significance
secures the accomplishment of every wish.'* Om is
also a symbol of the Hindu triad, Erahma, Visnu,
and Siva, and each of the three sounds of which
the word is composed represents one of these
deities. To the Buddhists also the word is a
symbol of much significance, forming part of the
sacred six-syllabled formula which every BuddhLst
cherishes in his memory and makes a constant
part of his invocation and prayer.

A more comprehensive and suggestive symbol of
the Brahman is given in the compound sachchid-
dnanda, a kind of triple representation in three
sevex'al modes or aspects, as sat, ' being,' chit,
'thought,' and dnanda, 'bliss.'' This more re-
fined and abstract symbolizing represents a later
phase of speculative thought and marks a forward
step in the progress of philosophic insight. As a
type or symbol it is less inadequate than the sun in
the heavens fac^zYyrt))^ the material aM^a, the golden
purusa in the eye,^ or even than manas, or the
significant name dtnum itself. In its further
course, moreover, speculative thought denied that
even in sachchiddnanda any positive imjdication
concerning the Brahman did or could reside. The
Brahman transcended all symbols and assertions,
comprehended both being and not-being (sat, asat),
thought and not-thought [chit, achit), bliss and its
contrary {dnanda, andnanda), or rather he was
above and beyond all, the unsearchable and
unknown.

(6) Each of the great gods has an animal or
material form or object which represents him to
the eyes of men, by which he is symbolically
known. The more po])ular gods have many
symbols. The ' vehicles ' of the gods are practically
symbols of their presence and power — the goose of
Brahma ; Garuda, tlie monstrous eagle of Visnu ;
the bull (Nandi) of Siva ; the fabulous sea-monster
(makara) of Varuua, who is then depicted as a
white man and is described as makardiva, ' he
whose steed is the makara,' riding, with the head
and fore-legs of an antelope and the body .and tail
of a fish ; the peacock of Karttikeya, the god of
war ; the monkey of Hanuman ; the deer of Vayu ;
the elephant Airavata of Indra, produced with
other sacred and mai'vellous objects at the churning
of the ocean ; the buffalo and dogs of Yama ; and
many others. Of the well-known Hindu triad
Brahma hardly possesses any emblem or ty])e
except his sacred goose — an indication of how little
the first member of the triad attracted to himself
the thought and worship of the Hindu. Of the
lio[)ular Visnu there were many symbols, some of
which .-uc always represented on the images or
pi(-tures of the god. The most frequent and
• Iiaracteristic is perJiaps the cluihru,, or di.scus ;

1 KoMi. ii. 1 f.

"Chkmid. III. xii. 7-9 (SBE i. 4C) ; nrhad. in. vii. 12, 16,
iv. 1. 3.

a Chhiind. III. xviii. 1 {SBE i. S3) ; r.rhad. iv. i. G.

■* Brhad. V. i. 1 ; Katha, i. ii. 16 ; cf. Manu, ii. 83.

6 Chhdnd. VI. ii. 1, viii. xii. 4 ; Taitt. ii. 1, iii. 4-C ; Brhad. ii.
i. 20, iii. 6. The formula itself as a whole is found onlj' in late
Upanisads ; cf. Deussen, (Tp. p. 126 ff.

fi rh'hfmd. Til. xix. 1 (.S'R/i'i. .54).

' Taitt. II. \ iii. fi ; Ch/iand. i. vi. 8.

SYMBOLISM (Jewish)

143

the club and conch-shell also which he carries
are indicative of his authority and power. The
ausi)icious mark (irivatsa) usually represented on
the breast of the god, in form like a curl of hair,
and the three-pronged or trident-like mark made
with white or coloured earths on the foreheads of
his worshippers are symbolic, the latter of devotion
to the service of the deity. The sacred tulasl plant
in the courtyard of the dwelling is the mark of the
deity's presence and protection, and in it centres the
worship especially of the women of the household.
The idlagrdnia also, the sacred ammonite-stone,
is another mystical and well-known symbol.

The symbolic types or presentations of the rival
deity, Siva, who in almost equal degi'ee with Visnu
holds the atiection and regard of the Indian
peoples, were equally numerous. The most im-
portant are the bull Nandi, on which he rides, and
the lihga, or phallus. Every Saivite temple has its
sacred bull, who roams the courtyards and streets
unmolested and receives practically divine honours.
The lihga is the commonest emblem of the god,
and the stones, great or small, which represent
him have this form or are roughly shaped to it.
Two of these stones are said to bear a pre-eminently
holy character : that at Benares, where Siva is
worshipped as Visvesvara, iravTOKparup, the lord of
all ; and the idol in the temple at Somnath,
destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni in his icono-
clastic raid into India. The trident also is borne
by Siva, a type of government and authoritj"^ ; and
the crescent moon depicted on his forehead has a
special significance, recalling the sovereignty which
was assigned to him when the moon was recovered
from the depths of the ocean.

Similarly the wives of the great gods have each
their symbols — the trident and skull of Kali, the
lotus of SarasvatI, wife of Brahma, and also of
LaksmT, wife of Visnu.

In a late writing the Gayatri is said to represent
the triad of gods, Brahma, Visnu, and Siva, and
also the three Vedas.

(c) Under sacred trees in the vicinity of Indian
villages will often be found the images or symbols
of the grdmadevatd, the village divinities w^io
watch over its interests and care for the in-
habitants ; and in the village fields the clay or
pottery steeds of Aiyanar (q.v.), the tutelary deity
of the lields, on which he rides by night to pursue
and rout the demoniac powers.

{d} There are symbols also of a more general
import, which are not always easy to classify.
The pinda, or ball of cooked rice, used at the
commemorative services for deceased relatives and
offered to the pitrs, represents symbolically the
share which the departed still have in the family
life. The most important and widely recognized
symbol of this character is probably the sacred
footprint, which typifies both the presence find the
authority of the god. In the courtyard or vicinity
of many, perhaps most, Hindu temples there is the
print of a foot on the ground, often of large size,
with sacred symbols engraved on the sole, which
differ according to the deity commemorated. To
these there is sometimes a legend attached, which
gives its supposed history and describes the
occasion on which it was im])ressed. The well-
known footprint on Adams I'eak in Ceylon is
believed by S:iivites to in; (hat of Siva, liy
Buddhists also tlie nuntrmus ioot[>rints of (he
Buddha are regarded with reverence.

(c) In many parts of India the .symbols of the
sun and moon and the ])lant;ts may lie seen. The
two first are representeil Ijy a disk or crescent
respectively, made of metal. The signs of the
planets in their order are as follows : of Budha, or
Mercury, a bow ; of fulcra, or Veinis, a scjuarc ;
of Mahgala, or Mars, a triangle ; of Vrhaspati, or

Jupiter, a lotus ; of Sani, or Saturn, an iron
scimitar or sword ; of Kaliu, a vialcara ; and ot
Ketu, a snake. The last two symbols are usually
of iron ; the square of Sukra is silver or silverea,
and the bow of Budha is gilt.

(/) Hindu coins and seals also bore symbols,
which were very numerous and diversified. Besides
figures of gods and goddesses, the commonest
emblems were the trident, denoting empire ; the
elephant or bull, power ; the umbrella, royal
dignity and right ; the crescent, a lunar dynasty ;
a thunderbolt, spear, or other Aveapon, armed
might. Others also with these were indicative of
the authority or claims of the sovereign by whom
they were designed.

Literature. — W. J. Wilkins, Hindu Mythology, Vedic and
Purani(fi, Calcutta and London, 190U ; M. Monier- Williams,
Brdhmanism and Hinduitnn^, London, 1S91 ; W. Crooke,
PB, 2 vols., do. 1896; V. A. Smith, A Hisl. of Fine Art in
India and Ceylon, Oxford, 1911, ch. x., ' Symbols on Coins and
Seals, etc.'; E. J. Rapson, 'Indian Coins,' in GIAP ji. 3B,
Strassburg, 189S ; J. A. Dubois, Hindu Manncru, Customs,
and Ceremonies, Eug. tr.3, Oxford, 1906.

A. S. Geden.

SYMBOLISM (Jewish).— Symbolic actions as
well as symbolic ideas occur in the Hebrew Bible
frequently. The prophets often made use of
symbolic ideas — e.g., the basket of fruit in Am 8',
the vinej^ard in Is 5^"'^, the almond-trees in Jer 1",
the dry bones in Ezk 37^'^'', and the various figures
in Zechariah. Equally frequent are symbolic
actions — e.g., the rending of mantles (1 S \5^,
1 K 11^), the discharge of arrows from a bow
(2 K ISi^-i"), the casting of shoes (Ps 60^ Jos 5^^,
Ilu 4''). The former type easily merges into the
parable, the latter into charms ; possibly we should
say that they emerge from these literary and
magical arts. Symbols, in any case, have frequent
historical connexion with primitive culture, though
they tend to transcend their origin under the
transforming influence of higher conceptions.
Most important, therefore, for the present article
is the association of symbolic ideas with religious
ceremonial. Prominently the Sabbath is described
as a symbol, Cth ; ^ similarly with the rite of
circumcision (Gn 17"), the phylacteries (Dt 6*),
the Passover (Ex 13^), natural phenomena such a.s
the rainbow (Gn 9^^ ; cf. Gn 1^^ in the Rabbinical
conmientaries).

It was accordingly easy for later Judaism to
apply symbolic meanings to many of the Biblical
institutions. Philo, throughout his works, elabor-
ates such interpretations, but the method is much
older. Thus in the Letter of Aristcas (an hich can
scarcely be later than the 2nd cent. B.C. and may
well belong to a century earlier) the enactments
as to the animals lawful for food are explained
symbolically.^ But by Philo's age symbolical
interpretation had so fully developed that the
Alexandrian allegorist felt impelled to rebuke
those of his brethren who neglected the ceremonial
acts because they regarded them merely as sj-mbols
of ideal things.^ Though this is a real danger to a
ceremonial religion, on the otlier side it can gain
appreciably by idealizing institutions the original
significance of wliich is outworn or unknown.
Ancient rites njay have been derived fi"om primi-
tive tabus, ;ind yet they have retained j)ornianent
acceptance by tlie juocess of symbol ization. In a
HMnarlcalile letter Maimonidos (q.v.) dealt with
certain a<;ts of worship, such ns prostration (;us
practised by Mnhammad.tns in the 12tii century).
Probably such acts were derived from olden
customs of exposing parts of the body, but, con-
tends Maimonides,'* they no longer mean anything

1 See art. SAisuATn (Jewish). 2 |§ 139-1C6.

s De Migr. Abrahami, 16 {Opera, cd. T. Mangey, London,
1742, i. 4.'in).

•* 'j^shiihi'itk Shc'elolh tcc-IggardthC Lttlt-rs'), Constant inoplc,
1520, fol. r,0.

144

SYMBOLISM (Jewish)

of the kind and have become symbols of humility.
Present values do not entirely depend on past
origins. A similar principle might undoubtedly be
very widely applied to the history of religious
ceremonial, which often becomes ennobled by the
newer ideas read into it by progressive ages. And,
conversely, when an institution is lost (as with the
Biblical sacrifices), the whole system may be retro-
spectively idealized by symbolical adaptation.
When, aitter the destruction of the Temple, prayer
and charity and fasting perforce displaced sacrifice,
the latter shared in the moralizing process. But
the relation went deeper. Fasting was sacrifice :
the loss of bodily tissue corresponded (in the
Rabbinic conception) to the ottering of a sacrificial
animal on the altar. ^ The table at which the
ordinary meals were eaten became a veritable
altar, ^ and the partaking of food was in the Jewish
home associated with a variety of customs, derived
in large part from the same range of symbolism.
It has often been claimed, moreover, that the
dietary laws, besides being included in the law of
holiness, or rather because of that inclusion, were
a training in control of the appetites and restraint
of desires.^ Maimonides also oiFers a utilitarian
view, that the forbidden food was unwholesome;''
thus showing that, though the utilitarian and the
symbolical interpretations are in a sense rival
theories, they may be syncretized by a skilful
moralist.^

Another aspect of the same phenomenon is pre-
sented by symbolic survivals. Acts which were
once literal are retained as rites. Many current
Jewish marriage customs are of this nature. Tlie
bridal canopy, so picturesque a feature of a Jewish
wedding, was originally the marriage chamber.
Then the Scriptural application of the marital
state to the relation of God to Israel led to sym-
bolic results, among them the appointment of a
bridegroom of the Law on the feast of Rejoicing at
the end of Tabernacles.^ It is not quite clear why
a glass is broken at Jewish weddings ; it is prob-
ably a memento mori.'' Funeral customs are also
marked by symbolic survivals. Some of these are
Kabbalistic in origin, and it is not always easy to
discriminate the symbolical from the superstitious.^
So, too, with such ceremonies as tashlikh.^ Many
symbolical customs arose in memory of the destruc-
tion of the TeTnple. Historical associations are
also responsible for many a symbolic rite. Drap-
ing the synagogues in black on the fast of the
9th of Ab is an instance in point. The shofar,
or ram's horn, was thus connected with events
and anticipations, with Sinai in the past and the
Messianic age in the future. According to
Se'adiah, the shofar symbolized ten ideas: (1)
creation, (2) repentance, (3) revelation, (4) prophecy,
(5) destruction of the Temple, (6) the binding of
Isaac, (7) imminence of danger, (8) day of judg-
ment, (9) restoration of Israel, and (10) resurrec-
tion. In this manner many rites were saved from
becoming obsolete. The phylacteries worn on the
head typify service of the mind ; on the hand,
service of the body. The former represents the

1 Num. Rcrhhith, 18. 2 T.B. Ber. 55a.

3 Maimonides, Th^j Guide of the Perplexed, tr. M. Friedlander,
London, lS.sf>, iii. 25.

4 lb. iii. 48.

5 Of. on this point M. Friedlander, The Jewish Religion, p.
456 ; M. Joseph, Judaiftm as Creed and Life, p. 194. In inoilern
times there has been a strong tendency (often unhistorical) to
explain symbols on utilitarian p^rounds.

6 On greeting the Sabbath bride see Annotated Ed. of Auih.
Daily Prayer Book, pp. cxxiv. 111 (this work may be consulted
throughout for liturgical symbolism).

1 CI. I. Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, London,
1896, ch. X.

8 The best collection of the customs connected with illness
and death may be found in Aaron b. Moses, Ma'abar I'abbok,
Mantua, 1020 (often reprinlcd).

9 JJi!, s.v.

recognition of the Godhead, the latter restraint of
lust.i

Jewish symbolism is also illustrated in ecclesi-
astical art, and in colours. Thus the blue thread
on the fringes (Nu 15^*) is the colour of the sea, the
sky, the divine throne of glory.^ The symbolism
of art was more thoroughgoing. The Crown of
the Law is a frequent ornament on mantles of the
scrolls, and so is the Shield of David.* On ancient
Jewish coins, too, symbols were employed ; so
also with tombs.

The prevalent custom now is to avoid sepulchral
emblems. This accords with the oldest rule, for
the siyyun of the Talmud was only a mark warn-
ing wayfarers against incurring ritual impurity by
contact with the tomb. Yet the action of Simon,
who carved panoplies and (possibly) ships on the
pyramidal tombs at Modin (1 Mac 13^^), can
scarcely have been isolated. Outside Palestine
the Jews of the first centuries of the Christian era
certainly adopted the Greek habit of inscriptions
and introduced symbols, such as an oil vessel, the
seven-branched candlestick (symbolical of the soul
[Pr 20^']), the ram's horn (Messianic), and an ear of
corn (type of the resurrection). These emblems
are parallel to those on the Maccabsean coins and
to those favoured by Jews in the late mediaeval
period. At that late date symbols appear descrip-
tive of the dead, as out-stretched palms as in
act of benediction (for priest), ewer as in act of
bathing (Levite), a harp for a musician, a crown
for a goldsmith, and so forth. In the 18th cent.
Jews, like their Christian neighbours, used sym-
bolical signs for houses and businesses. Thus the
Rothschild family still exemplifies the custom in
its name ('Red Shield'). (Ornamental coats-of-
arms are found on tombs in the oldest Jewish
burial-ground of the Sephardic Jews in London.
Such customs are no longer in vogue. There has
been a growth, however, of symbolism in syna-
gogue decoration in the form of glass windows
mostly without human or animal figure.s.

In the Talmud a good deal of legal symbolism
was taken over from ancient Biblical as well ae
from Roman law.* Some of this is still retained.

Returning to the more religious aspect of the
subject, we may say in general that in the Midrash
symbolism is the soul of Jewish ceremonial. Many
particulars of the sacrificial system, the ritual of
the Temple, synagogue, and home, are treated in
this manner. Take, e.g., the rites of Tabernacles
— the bearing of palm-branch, citron, myrtle, and
willows of the brook (Lv 23''"). The palm is the
spine, the citron the heart, the myrtle the eye, the
Millow the mouth, so tiiat, in the synagogue
liturgy, the citron atones for heart sins, the palm
for stiff-necked pride, the willow for foul speech,
the myrtle for lusts of the eye. In another version
the old homilists^ explain the 'four kinds' ae
symbolizing four types of character. The citron
has both scent and taste, so there are men who
study and perform ; the palm -date has taste but
no scent, so there are men who study but do not
perform ; the myrtle has scent but no taste, so
there are men who perform but not on the basis
of study ; the willow has neither scent nor taste,
so there are men who neither study the law nor
perform good deeds. The Holy One did not
destroy tliese, but bade all be united into one
bundle, the better elements atoning for the less

1 Cf. Shalhan 'JriXkh, i. ch. 25.

2 Cf. Si/re on the text.

s On this see JE viii. 251 f. and Jewish Opinion, London, Jan.
1019. The Tree of Life (on the basis of Pr 318) was also a
symbol of the life-giving power of the Law, and the Tree
accordingly appears in synagogue decorations.

■• Cf. S. krauss, Talmud. ArchtUiloijie, Leipzig, 1910-12, iii. 8.
On the symbolism of the shoe see JQR, new ser., vi. [1915-16]
1-22.

5 P<'siqta R., 28, ed. M. Friodmann, Vienna, 1830, p. ITS.

SYMBOLISM (Muslim)

146

good. In this manner symbolism is turned to the
cause of humanism.

LiTERATi'RB. — The authorities are cited in the course of the
article. See particularly M. Friedlander, The Jewish
Religion, London, 1891, pp. 328 f., 335, 344, 350, 487; M.
Joseph, Judaism as Creed and Life, do. 1903, Introd., eh. i.
(end) and passim ; JE, s.v. ' Symbol ' ; Annotated Edition of
the Authorised Daily Prayer Book, ed. I. Abrahams, London,

1914. I. Abrahams.

SYMBOLISM (Muslim). — The Islamic lan-
guages appear to have no exact equivalent for
' symbol.' When it signifies a badge indicative of
office, party, or community, the nearest would be
shidr, or in certain cases ghiydr ; where what is
meant by it is a veiled expression for an idea, the
Arabic rendering would be kiiidyah.

Islam as a religious system has nothing corre-
sponding to the Christian cross. Muhammad seems
to have adopted the Roman eagle as the standard
for his armies, J but the flag of the later ('Abbasid)
khalifahs was ' like any other, only black in colour
with the legend in white, " Muhammad is the
Apostle of God." ' ^ Those borne by various
factions and regiments differed in colour and at
times in the wording of the legend ; thus the
'Abbasid colour was black, the 'Alawid green, the
Umayyad white ; the flag of the Zanji pretender of
the year 255 A.H. was a strip of silk with a Quranic
legend in red and green ; ^ in the processions of the
.sultans of Tunis white, red, yellow, and green
Hags were carried ; those of the different tribes
differed in legend ; ■* the flags of the different divi-
sions of the Ottoman army were red, yellow, green,
white, red and white, green and white.^ The
Muhammadan colour in India is green,^ which by
an ordinance of the Mamluk Sultan Sha'ban of
773 A.H. on the turban indicates descent from the
Prophet.''

There is no more common error than the sup-
position that the crescent (or ratlier crescent and
star) is an Islamic symbol, and even approved
writers on Oriental subjects are apt to fall into it.^
It was certainly in pre-Turkish times sometimes
used as an ornament on the minarets of mosques ;^
and on flags — e.g., that of the Fatimids of Egypt,
accompanied by a lion of red and yellow satin, '" and
that of the Almohads (A.D. 1159)" — and on the
sedan-chair of a Zanjid princess.^^ As such the
crescent had been employed on the Roman sena-
torial shoe — a practice for which Plutarch ^ ' offers a
variety of reasons. The cuiTent view of its adop-
tion by the Turks is well presented by F. T.
Elworthy :

' Hera, under her old moon-name, 16, had a celebrated temple
on the site of Byzantium, said to have been founded by her
daughter Keroessa, "the horned." The crescent, which was in
all antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages the symbol of
Byzantium, and wliich is now the symbol of the Turkish
Empire, is a direct inheritance from Byzantium's mythical

1 A. von Kremer, Culturgesch. des Orients, Vienna, 1875-77, i.
81.

a Miskawaihi, tr. D. S. Jtargoliouth, i. 198.

3 Tabari, Chronicle, ed. M. J. de Goeje, Leyden, 1879-1901,
iii. 1748.

■• Qalqashandi, Subh al-A'sha, Cairo, 1915, v. 143.

5 J. \V. Zinkeisen, Gesch. desosinanischen Reiches in Enropa,
Gotha, 1840-63, iii. 271.

n J. W. Kaye and G. B. Malleson, Hist, of the Mutiny,
London, 1888-S9, v. 82.

7 Ibn lyas, History of Egypt, Cairo, 1311, i. 227.

8 Kaye and Malleson, iii. 00 : 'From the time when Mahmnd
of Ghazni had introduced the crescent as a sign of rule and
domination in the country of the Hindus.' Al-Biruni, Chron-
ology of Ancient Nations, tr. E. S.achau, London, 1879, p. 293,
compares with the Christian sjniibolism of the cross the com-
parison of the name Muhammad with the human figure.

9 See a case about a.d.' 1270 in the mosque of San'a in Yemen
(Khazraji, The Pearl-Strings, tr. J. W. lledhouse, Leyden,
1906-08, i. 189).

10 Qalqashandi, iii. 474.

n E. Mercier, Hist, de I'Afrique septcntrionale (Berbirie),
Paris, 1888-90, 11. 100.

12 Ibn Jubair, Viaggio, tr. 0. Schiaparelli, Home, I'JOO, p. 220.

13 QiuBst. Rom. p. 281.

VOL. xn. — lo

foundress Keroessa, the daughter of the moon goddess 16-
Hera.'i

Keroessa, supposed to have been not the foundress,
but the mother of the founder, of Byzantium,
seems to have been an inference from the Golden
Horn and so to have no place in this inquiry.
Further, it seems correct to say that the crescent
and star figure, though rarely, on coins of Byzan-
tium, but as one of numerous ornaments,^ and that
no ancient author mentions any connexion between
this emblem and the city. The signa Constan-
tinopoleos, according to A. Geofrseus,' who asserts
that the Turks ' neque insigniis utuntur neque
coronis,' were quite difierent. The earliest men-
tion of it in English literature is said to be in the
Arte of English Pocsie by G. Puttenham (1589),*
who ascribes its introduction to the sultan Selim I.
(1512-20), with the notion of increase and bright-
ness, though it has been observed^ that the
crescent is not that of the new but that of the
waning moon, while rising in its wake is the
morning star of hope ; from Puttenham's time the
antithesis between it and the cross has been com-
mon in English and French literature. F. San-
sovino,' however, .supposes it to have been the
ancient emblem of Bosnia, adopted by Muhammad
II. when that country was conquered in 1463.
This is declared to be an error by Zinkeisen,^ who
speaks of a golden crescent inherited from the
Seljuks, and displayed on all the flags and stand-
ards of viziers, beglerbegs, etc., appearing on the
earliest flags of the Janissaries. With von Ham-
mer Purgstall^ it is a silver crescent which, with
the two-pointed sword of 'Umar, gleamed on the
blood-red flag of the earliest Janissaries ; in the
authority to which he refers^ the Janissaries'
flag displaj'S the sword without the crescent ; what
appears on the flag of the cavalry is evidently a
horseshoe rather than a crescent, with no star.
It is worth noticing that the Seljuk chronicler Ibn
Bibi^* compares the shoe of the sultan 'Ala-addin's
horse to a crescent and its nails to stars ; whence
the symbol may originally belong to cavalry
regiments. Its occurrence, however, on certain
Byzantine coins is remarkable, and seems to have
some connexion with its later employment by the
Turks, who have not often introduced it on coins.
The symbols of royalty in use at the Islamic
courts were similar to those found elsewhere. In
Umayyad times the khalifah on accession received
a rod, a signet, and a scroll." The rod was doubt-
less the Prophet's; in 'Abbasid times a new
khalifah received not only the Prophet's .signet,
which was a silver ring with a bezel of Chinese
iron with the legend ' Muhammad is the Prophet
of God,' but that of his predecessor, with a ruby
inscribed with the khalifah's name.'^ The 'Abbasid
khalifah also wore a crown,'-* against Aral) usage ;"
and indeed the etiquette of their court was closely
modelled on that of the Sasanians, as appears from
the recently published handbook of it by Jahi? of
Basrah.''* A crown was worn by the Fatimids of

I The Evil Eye, London, 1895, p. 183.

- Provisionally collected by J. II. yon Eckhel, Doctrina A'um-
morum Veteruin, Vienna, 1792-98, ii. 28.

3 Aulm Turcicce Descriplio, Basel, 1577, p. 3.

4 In English Reprints, ed. E. Arber, London, 1SC8, p. 117.

s l!v G. II. Lancaster, Prophecy, the War, and the Near East,
London, 1916, p. 151
8 Hist, universale dei Turchi, Venice, 1568, f. 67.

7 iii. 273.

8 di'sch. dcs osmanischon Reiches, Pest, 1827-35, i. 93.

9 I'lat'' XVII. in Comte de Marsigli's Etat niilitaire de I'empire
oltoinan, The Hague, 1732, ii. 53.

10 Ell. M. T. Houtsma, Leyden, 1902, p. 204.

II Aghani, Cairo, 1323, vi. 100.

iii Miskawaihi, i. 329. He also inherited the Prophet's cloak
(hvrdah), turban, and. throne or pulpit.

13 Diwan of Buhturi, Constantinople, 1300, i. 70, ii. 153, et«.

14 Mutanahbii Carmina cum Comm. Wdhidii, ed. F. Dieterici,
Berlin, 1861, p. 380.

15 Livre de la Coxironnc, ed. Ahmed Zeki, Cairo, 1914.

146

SYMBOLISM (Semitic)

Egypt also.^ In their processions there were borne
a rod, a special sword (said to have been made of
meteorite), an inkpot, a lance, a target (said to have
belonged to the Prophet's uncle Pamzah), a horse-
shoe-sliaped ruby,^ and a canopy or umbrella.
The last of these was a common emblem of royalty,
and figures, e.g., at Indian courts,* where the sove-
reign in the 16th cent, was attired ' in a white qaba,
made like a shirt tied with strings on the one side,
and a little cloth on his head coloured oftentimes
with red or yellow.'^ The qaba awears in the
attire of the Buwaihid Mu'izz al-Daulah (10th
cent.),^ and, with a black robe, a belt, and a sword,
it formed the distinguishing dress of a vizier.^
Apparently the belt symbolized some sort of sub-
ordination, as an Indian prince to whom Yamin al-
Daulah gave a robe of honour had to be compelled
to put on this portion of it.''

Homage to a newly-appointed sovereign was (at
any rate in early times) indicated by a shake of
the hand, the meaning of which is shown by the
term employed to be agreement over a bargain.
In later times homage was indicated by kissing
the ground before the ruler ; this practice, origin-
ally alien to Islamic ideas, had become familiar
before the end of the 4th Islamic century.^ To a
newly-appointed ^zier (or emir) food was sent in
the 4th cent, from the khalifah's table,* probably
signifying that he had become a member of the
royal household. The practice of offering such a
person fragrant herbs ^^ is said to have been a purely
Persian or Dailemite rite, the sense of which is not
clear.

Owing to Islamic objection to the limner's art,
symbolism is very scanty in its architecture, and
where found appears to be borrowed. The great
mosque of Cordova exhibited in the carvings of its
lattices the peculiar form of the Indian cross, the
meaning of which is unknown, whereas ' the crest-
ing of the walls, originally painted scarlet, is
typical of flame, and, brought from Persia, sym-
bolized the faith of the Ghebers, worshippers of
fire.' " Probably in such cases tlie Muslim worship-
pers and spectators were quite ignorant of the sig-
nification. The same is likely to be true of the
ornaments to be found on other works of art,
such as pottery and textiles. Certain creatures
are indeed habitually associated with particular
ideas, chiefly on etymological grounds— c.g^., the
raven Avith ])arting — but there is little scope for
their employment in art. The symbolism of
magical or quasi-magical rites in use in some com-
munities (e.g., the figures representing either a
double liand' or the spathe of the male ]>alm, indic-
ative of fertility, painted in Tunis on the walls of
the house Avhere there is to be a wedding) ^^ is prob-
ably not Islamic.

The practices of Islamic ritual are tralatitious,
though taken from many ditt'erent communities;
their symbolic interpretation is therefore conjec-
tural, and is the subject of considerable speculation.
Several pages are devoted by the mystic Ibn 'Arabi
to the meaning of the postures of prayer (salat) :

' The raising of the hands implies that whatever was therein
lias fallen away ; it is as though the Almighty, when He com-
manded this, said, " When thou standest before Me, stand as a

1 Qalqashandi, iii. 472.

2 Rubies of this shape adorned the case of the supposed Qur'an
of 'Uthman, carried before the Almohad Yiisuf (S. P. Scott,
Uist. of the Moorish Empire in Ewxqie, Philadelphia, 1904, ii. 804).

S V. A. Smith, Akbar, the Great Mogul, Oxford, 1917, p. 37.
4 Description bv Ralph Fitch, 15S5, ib. p. 108.
B Miskawaihi, if. lOu. « /ft. i. 166, etc.

~ Ibnal-Athir, Chronicle, A.n. 396.

8 See Hilal, ed. H. F. Aniedroz, Beyrut, 1904, p. 450, etc.
Earlier examples are Aghani, vi. 20 (time of Aniin) ; Taban, iii.
1825 (time of Muhtadi).

9 Miskawaihi, i. 186, 223, 351, ii. 15, S2.

10 Ib. ii. 82. " Scott, i. 056.

" A. J. N. Tremearne, The Ban of the Dori, London, 1014, p.
114.

poor mendicant, who owns nothing ; fling away everj-thing that
thou possessc-t, and stand enipty-lianded, settiDg it behind
thee ; for I am in front of thee." Moreover since the iiands are
the seat of power, by raising his hands he confesses that the
power is God's, not his own ; he who raises them to the chest is
thinking that God is in front of him ; he who raises them to his
ears is thinking that God is above him. Sitting in prayer is
the attitude of the slave before his master, an attitude which
he may not adopt without the master's leave,' etc.i
Similar speculations on the meaning of the cere-
monies of the pilgrimage are to be foimd in the
work of Ghazali i^ the special garments \>orn by the
pilgrim, e.g., are to remind hiin of the grave-clothes
wherein he will meet his Maker.

Besides explaining much of the Qur'an as
elaborate symbolism the Sufis {q.v.) developed a
system of their own, or rather a number of system.s ;
and there are numerous collections of odes in
Arabic and Persian which, ostensibly dealing with
love and wine, are traditionally interpreted as
dealing with the doctrines of pantheism. Illustra-
tions of the style will be found in the commentary
of H. Wilberforce Clarke on his translation of the
Divan oi Hafiz,^ where we are told that 'breeze'
signifies the means whereby union with the Desired
One is attained, ' bell ' signifies the angel of death,
'dark night' the world, 'wave' the excess of
divine knowledge, etc., whereas in some cases the
same term is variously explained ; thus ' narcissus '
may signify the growth of the world, the pure
existence of God, the vision of God, or inward
results of joy in respect of deeds. These interpre-
tations are not ahvays very convincing ; but in
some works of the kind the symbolism is either
interpreted by the author himself or is sufficiently
clear or conventional to leave no doubt of the
meaning ; an example is to be found in the Mas-
navi of Jalal al-Din Rumi.'*

The employment of .symbolic acts, either to em-
phasize language or in lieu of it, is common with
Oriental peoples, but not specially Islamic. The
same parable has a tendency to do duty through
many centuries. Ibn al-Athir records (A.n. 442)
liow, when an Arab tribe proposed to take Kaira-
wan, they selected as their commander a man who
offered to pursue the following plan: taking a
carpet, he unfolded it, and then said to the others,
' Which of you can get to the middle of this carpet
without treading upon it ? ' They declared it to be
impossible. He showed them that the carpet had
to be rolled up from the edge, meaning that the
country had gradually to be conquered and secured.
According to W. G. Palgrave, Ibrahim Pasha
obtained the comsnand of an expedition against
Nejd eight centuries after by solving the itroblem
of the carpet.*

LiTERATUiiK.— See the works quoted in the footnotes.

D. S. Maugoliouth.

SYMBOLISM (Semitic).— Tiie extent to whicli
symbolism exists in OT literature is very doubt-
ful. In the case of the Babylonians and Assyrians,
however, our knowledge is much more definite and
is obtained chiefly from a study of cylinder-seals,
the Babylonian boundary-stones, and the mono-
liths of Assyrian kings. On the Babylonian
hudurrus, or boundary-stones, the emblems of the
gods are grouped together, and in one case the
name of the gud with whom the emblem is associ-
ated is inscribed by the side, thus giving us de-
finite data on which to base our investigations.

The Hebrew word for symbol, 6th, is most probably connected
with the root aim, ' to describe «ith a mark,' and with Assyr.
ittu. Some scholars have suggested a connexion between Assyr.
tifuandHeb. ni'n,*

1 FtUuhdt Makkiyyah, Cairo, 1293, 1. 551 f.

2 Ihya ''Ulum al-Din, Cairo, 1306, i. 208 f.

3 Calcutta, 1891, i. 2 f.

4 See the tr. by E. H. Whinfield, London, 189S.

B Personal h^arrative of a Year's Journey through Central
and Eastern Arabia, London, 1865, ii. 48.
u BOR i. [1900] 130.

SYMBOLISM (Semitic)

147

I. The symbolism of religious life. — The Temple
as the centre of the religious life of ancient Israel
should be treated first. Solomon's temple was
specifically built in order that it might contain the
ark, the symbol of the presence of the deity. In
the second Temple, the adytum being empty, the
presence of the deity was symbolized by the con-
tinuance of the altar service, the Day of Atone-
ment ritual, and the shewbread. Among the
Semites the god was symbolically represented as
a nobleman dwelling in his palace, and W. M.
Flinders Petrie ^ has shown that the features and
routine of Egyptian temples were similar to those
of large households. First came the small chamber
symbolizing the mysterious dwelling of the deity
himself. The larger hall in front of this could be
compared to the audience-chamber where human
kings receive their subjects, whilst the larger space
in front of the building was primarily a meeting-
place for the people. The division of the Temple
into a Holy Place and Holy of Holies was also
symbolical and corresponded to the heavens and
the highest heaven {□:»?' and D]Qt^ v4 [1 K 8"]),
whilst the entrance may have symbolized the
earth, Jahweh's footstool (Is 66*). Why was the
Temple built on a mountain ? This really brings
us to another question. Was there any connexion
between the idea which represented Jahweh's home
on a mountain and the ' high places ' referred to in
the OT ? From the standpoint of the Deuterono-
mic historian, the high places were legitimate
places of worship until the building of the Temple
at Jerusalem. It is to be noted also that the high
places are said to have been built on hills, and it
has therefore been suggested^ that they were
artificial mounds taking the place of natural high
places such as the summits of hills and mountains.
The explanation of this symbolism can be learned
from Babylonia. One of the most noticeable
characteristics of the Babylonian temples was
their enormous size. In Gn IF'- we read that the
people meet together in the land of Shinar and
decide to build a city and a tower that shall reach
up to heaven. To the Babylonians a temple was
above all a 'high place,' and there is a symbolic
reason to account for this conception. Jensen^
has shown that the Babylonians regarded the earth
as a huge mountain. In fact the earth was actu-
ally called E-Kur, 'mountain house.' Later they
began to identify one particular part of the earth
— a mountain peak preferably — as the dwelling of
the god, so that the temples which were built later
were known as ' mountain houses.' The height of
the temple thus symbolized the mountain which
had formed the original home of the deity.* The
same idea can be seen by sketching the history of
Mt. Zion. The sanctuary on the mountain existed
before the settlement of the Hebrews. Just as
His people dispossess the early .settlers of Canaan,
so Jahweh dispossesses the god of Zion. Mt. Zion
is now regarded as His home and He therefore
reveals Himself to His people from the mountain
(Ex 19"). We can thus see the symbolic idea
which suggested the ziqq^irats in Babylonia, the
high places in Canaan, and the sacred temple
mount in Israel.

The very names ' ark of Jahweh,' 'ark of God,'
suggest that the ark contained an object which in
some manner symbolized the God of Israel. In
the Assyrian temples a statue of the god took
the place of the ark in the Holy of Holies, and

1 Presidential address before the Egyptian Section of the
Third International Congress for the History of Religions
(Transactions, Oxford, 1908, i. ISCf.)-

2 W. Gesenius, preface to O. P. W. Graniborg, Religionsideen
lies AT, Berlin, 1829, i. xix-xxi.

* Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, pp. 185-195.
■• Cf. the minarets attached to the lluhaniuiadan luosiiues,
and sue K. Herzfeld's monograph, Sainarra, Lerlin, 1907.

it has therefore been suggested that the ark
with the cherubim over it was a symbol of Jahweh.
The custom of carrying about an ark as a
symbol of the deity has its parallel in other
Semitic religions. In Babylonia the gods were
canned about in ships in solemn procession, and in
Egypt the arks with their images were placed in
boats. Renan^ actually derives the Hebiew ark
from the Egyptian ark-boat, but there is not
sufficient evidence to warrant such a suggestion.

Cheyne^ thinks that the .symbolic meaning of
the brazen serpent can be learned fi-om Babylonia.
He thinks that the brazen oxen in 1 K 7"^ were
copies of the oxen which stood in Babylonian
temples as symbols of Marduk. I. Benzinger^ has
suggested that there was a serpent-clan among the
Israelite tribes and that Nehushtan may have
been its sacred symbol (Gn 49"). The two pillars
Jachin and Boaz wluch stood in front of the porch
of the Temple were probably symbolical. The
temple of Melkarth at Tyre and also the temple at
Hierapolis had two similar pillars in front of them,
and, as these were symbols of the deity and
Solomon's temple was constructed on the same
principle, it has been suggested that Jachin and
Boaz were symbols of Jahweh. It is possible that
the brazen lavers and the sea of the Temple
symbolized the clouds. As to the sea and oxen,
W. H. Kosters* finds here a symbolic trace of
the Babylonian myth of the struggle of Marduk
and Tiamat — the sea representing Tiamat and the
oxen Marduk. Seeing that the Babylonian crea-
tion-myth determined the form of the Israelitish
cosmogony, this view has received general support,
although there is no direct reference to it in the
OT. H. P. Smith ° suggests that the twelve oxen
were symbols of the twelve constellations and that
the sea was a symbol of the great celestial reservoir
from which the earth is watered. The ornamental
figures on the smaller lavers he also regards as
symbolical. The bull was sacred to Jahweh, the
lion was sacred to Astarte, whilst the palm-tree is
represented with a symbolic meaning in Phoenician
art. The ornamentation therefore suggested a
syncretistic purpose in building the Temple.

Although there is not the slightest reference in
the OT to any symbolic meaning of the tabernacle,
scholars, 1)oth ancient and modern, have suggested
that both in its structure and in its appurtenances
it symbolized various religious truths. The Heb.
[SB-p, 'dwelling,' expressed the idea that God dwelt
among His people ; iHio hn^, ' tent of meeting,' re-
presented the idea that God met His people there ;
whilst the name nnj?n '?nx, ' tent of the testimony,'
constantly called to' mind that the decalogue in-
scribed on the tables of the ark bore witness to
the covenant between Jahweh and His people.
But there are other ideas symbolized by the taber-
nacle. The innermost chamber, the Holy of
Holies, was the dwelling-place of the deity Him-
self. This could be entered by the high-priest
alone, and only once a year — on the Day of Atone-
ment. In this chamber everything was made of
gold and decorated witli beautifully-made fabrics,
whilst the vestments of the high-priest were con-
spicuous by their gorgeous finery. This gave
expression to the thought that God's most holy
nunister and His chief abode should be adorned
with beconung dignity and splendour. On the
other hand, in the Holy Place, which could be
entered by the priesthood only, the furniture was
of gold, whilst the outer pillars, which were taken,
no doubt, as belonging to the court, were made of
brass. The court, which was for the people, had

1 Hist, of the People of Israel, Eng. ed., London, 1888, i. 123.

2 EDi, col. 33S3.

3 Hebrdische Archdologie, Tiibingen, 1007, p. 392.
* Thcoloijisch Tijdschr'i/t, ii. [1879] 45511.

5 OT Uit:t., Edinburgh, 1903, p. 166.

148

SYMBOLISM (Semitic)

only brass. The covering for the Holy of Holies
was made of costly materials with figured cheru-
bim ; the curtain at the door of the Holy Place
was without cherubim, and that at the court was
simply made of white linen. We can thus see
how the costliness of the adornments of the dift'er-
ent ajiartments symbolized their sacredness ; the
more sacred a chamber was, the more sumptuously
was it adorned.

' Together the curtains are designed to form the earthly, and,
with the aid of the attendant cherubim to symbolize the
heavenly, dwelling-place of the God of Israel.' i

The sacrificial system of the Hebrews symbol-
ized self-surrender and devotion to the will of God,
the need of forgiveness, and the blessing of divine
fellowship. The peace-offering with its com-
munion-feast showed the idea of fellowship between
God and man ; the tamid, or continual offering,
symbolized Israel's pledge of unbroken service to
Jahweh ; whilst the sin-offering with its sprinkling
of blood showed that one of the conditions of
cleansing oneself from sin was to place oneself
submissively before God. The care taken in the
preparation of tiie aromatic compounds of the
incense suggests a symbolic meaning. From Fs
141* it appears that incense was regarded as a
spiritual symbol of prayer. Bahr regards the
shewbread as a symbol of the fact that Jahweh
was ever present with His people and was the
giver of their daily bread. Circumcision was a
tribal badge and showed that the patient had been
admitted a member of the tribe, whilst the Sabbath
symbolized the completion of the work of creation.
In Ex 31'^ it is actually described as an everlasting
symbol (nin) between Jahweh and Israel. The
long hair worn by the Nazirite symbolized his con-
secration for some special service. In ancient
religions the offering of one's hair, like the offer-
ing of one's blood, symbolized the making of a
covenant between the worshipper and his god.
The frontlets, or totclphMh (Ex 13"^), were badges
worn upon the forehead and arm to show that the
worshipper belonged to a certain religious com-
munity, and as a worshipper of the national deity
was subject to His help and protection. ^ Fire
occurs as a symbol of the divine presence (Ex 20^^
3* etc.). It was also regarded as a purifying
agent (Is 48^°), and to pass through fire was there-
fore a symbol of purification. Would not this
explain why sacrifices were burned before they
could be accepted by God? Water was another
source of symbolical purification. Ablutions were
so common among the Hebrews that it is difficult
to distinguish washings performed for the sake of
the body and those with a symbolical significance.
Anointing ^ denoted the consecration oif a person
or even of an inanimate object (such as the taber-
nacle and its appurtenances or the stone at Bethel).
In Ps 921" i^ jg referred to as a symbol of prosper-
ity and joy, and the cessation of the practice was
therefore a symbol of mourning (2 S 122"). The
word asherah, which appears very often as a name
for Astarte (1 K IS^", 2 K 2V etc.), came to be
used as a name for the symbol of the goddess'*
(Dt 7*, Ex 34^^ etc.). The hammantm Avere most
probably symbols of the sun-god, who is called in
Phoenician inscriptions jon Sj;^,* whilst the masse-
bhdth were symbols expressing gratitude for' a

1 A. R. S. Kennedy, art. 'Tabernarle,' in SDB, p. 885.

2 Cf. the custom among later Jews of fastening to the door-
post a small box containing certain texts from OT, and the
Babylonian custom of hanging up images of some protecting
deity at the entrance to houses (L. W. Kincr, in ZA xi ri8961
50-62). ^

3 For the origin and significance of the rite see A. H. H.
Kamphausen, art. 'Salbe,' in Kiehm, Ilandworterbuch des Idbl.
Altertxims'i, 1893-94.

4 G. A. Barton, ' The Semitic IStar Cult,' Ilebraica, ix. [1893]
131-l(J.->, xi. [1895] 73.

5 A. Bloch, Phiin. Glossar, Berlin, 1890, p. 22.

divine revelation (Gn 28^" 31^^ etc.). As to bull
symbolism, it most probably originated among
the Hebrews themselves (and was not borrowed
from the Egyptians, as hitherto supposed). The
Hebrews being an agricultural race, it was natural
that they should look upon the bull as a symbol of
strength and power. The bulls on the lavers of
Solomon's temple may have been due to the influ-
ence of Pliojnician workmen, for among the
Phcenicians Baal was represented as a bull. The
horns of the altar are regarded by some scholars
as symbols of ancient bull-worship. The ziqqurats,
or temple towers, of Babylonia consisted usually
of three, four, or seven stones, no doubt on account
of the symbolic sacredness attached to these
numbers. The quadrilateral shape of the ziq-
qurats, with the four corners towards the four
cardinal points, symbolized the four quarters over
which the Babylonian kings held dominion. The
lions (symbols of Nergal) and the bulls (symbols of
En-lil) which stood at the entrances of Assyrian
temples probably symbolized the means which the
gods had at their disposal for punishing man.
The names of the temples symbolized the character
of tlie gods to whom they were dedicated. Nabu's
temple was known as E-pad-kalama-suma, ' the
house of him who gives the sceptre of the world'
— no doubt suggested by the staff which formed
the symbol of Nabu. Sin's temple at Harran was
called ' the house of joy,' and that of Shamash
M'as known as ' the house of the universal judge.'
The basin of the temple known as apsu represented
the domain of Ea, the water-god. The ziqqurats
and the basin thus became ' living symbols of
current cosmological conceptions.' ^

We may now turn to the symbols of the gods
themselves.^ The symbol of Ramman, the storm-
and thunder-god, was a lightning fork, whilst an
axe represented the destruction which storm and
thunder bring in their wake. His nature as a
solar deity was also symbolized by a bull. Sin
had a crescent, either by itself or with a di.sk.
Since the moon at certain phases suggested the
appearance of a horn, he was represented as an
old man with a flowing beard, and wearing a cap
on which were the horns of the moon. The horn
was thus regarded as his crown and came to
symbolize his power. This explains why the
Assyrian kings adorned themselves with a horned
crown as a symbol of divinity.^ Ann symbolized
' the abstract principle of which heaven and earth
are emanations.'^ Such exjiressions as 'light of
heaven and earth,' by which Ninib was known,
symbolized his beneficent character as a solar
deity. But the fiery rays of the sun might also
be destructive, and he was therefore represented
also under the form of a lion. Ea's symbol con-
sisted of a ram's head which projected from a
frame. This symbol occurs on the Bavian relief
and the Esarhaddon stele. But on boundary-
stones his symbol is usually an animal with the
head of an antelope and the lower part of a fish.
As the water-god of Babylonia, fountains were
sacred to him, and he was regarded as the giver
of fertilitj'. He was the Cannes of Berossus —
half man, half fish — who came out of the water
to instruct the people. The symbol of a fish was
therefore suggested either by tiie idea of fertility
or by the fact that he was god of the water.
Nabu, as scribe of the gods, was symbolically
represented as carrying tlie tablets of fate and
recording the decision of tlie gods upon them.

1 M. Jastrow, The Religion o/ Babylonia and Assyria, Boston,
1898, p. 653.

2 These sjinbols can be studied most conveniently' from the
Mdmoires de la dcUgation en Perse.

■* In OT the horn was a svmbol of power and its exaltation
signified victory (1 K 2211, Jer 48'-» etc.).
* Jensen, p. 274.

SYMBOLISM (Semitic)

149

The start" by which he is represented symbolizes
eitlier the stylus of a writer or a ruler's sceptre.
The solar god Marduk symbolized the sun of
spring which brings about the growth of vegeta-
tion and the revival of nature. As a warrior-god
his symbol is a spear, and as a storm-god he is
represented by a horned dragon. Sometimes he
is represented by the symbol of a dog, and in a
lexicographical tablet ^ there is a reference to
four dogs of Marduk. As the goddess of love and
the symbol of creation Ishtar was represented by
a female figure with her breasts exposed and a
child on her left arm sucking her breast. She
OTmbolized every feminine phenomenon of the
Babylonian pantheon. She was the mother of the
gods and the mother-goddess, and was therefore
prayed to in hymns as ' helper and heavenly mid-
wife.' As godaess of the passions she was repre-
sented on seal-cylinders as nude, with the dis-
tinctively feminine parts particularly emphasized.
In the astrological system she was identified with
Venus and regarded as a symbol of light. Some-
times her symbol is a star ^ of various shapes.

Nergal, who symbolized the hot sun of mid-
summer, was represented by a lion ; Nusku, the
fire-god, by a iamp ; and Nirgusu by an eagle.
HommeH connects the name Bau with bohu
of Gn 1, and suggests that the goddess was a
symbol of the watery depths of the universe. On
one of the inscriptions of Nabu-pal-iddin Shamash
is represented as seated in his shrine ; before him
is a table resting on a wheel, and attached to the
wheel are cords held by two male figures which
direct its course. These figures represent the
messengers of Shamash, Malik and Bunene, who
occupy the position of chariot-drivers. The sun's
movement across the heavens, which is here
symbolized by the wheel, was thought of as a
drive* (cf. Ps 19'^). On seal-cylinders his bene-
ficent character is symbolized by the manner in
which he pours forth streams of water from jars
placed on his shoulders. But the most common
symbol of Shamash is a sun-disk.

The chief symbol of Ashur was a standard which
consisted of a pole surrounded by a disk enclosed
within two wings. Above the disk was the figure
of a warrior shooting an arrow. The terra-cotta
images of Bel found at Nippur ^ represent him as
an old man with a flowing beard, a real ' father '
of the gods. He personified the various forces of
nature whose seat and sphere of action is the in-
habited world. Together with Anu and Ea,
therefore, he symbolized the eternal laws of the
universe.

2. The symbolism of common life. — A Hebrew
slave who refused to take advantage of the liberty
open to him after seven years' service had one of
his ears bored with an awl and pinned to the door
to show that he was in future to be devoted to the
service of that house ^ (Ex 21^). Elevation to a
position of superiority was symbolized by placing
a crown on the head (2 S P», 2 K ll^^ etc.). The
worshipper spread out his hands in prayer to show
that he desired to obtain divine mercy and help
(Ex 92"- S3, 1 K 8" etc.). Washing of the hands
was a symbol of innocence. In Dt 2P the heifer's
neck was broken to show tliat the murderer de-
served the punisliment, whilst the elders of the

1 H. C. Eawlinson, The Cuneifunn Inscriptions of Western
Asia, London, 1861-84, ii. 56, col. iii. 22-2.5.

■'' On a Phoenician gem the gazelle ia figured along with the
star and dove as a symbol of Astarte (W. R. Smith, Kinship
and Marriage in Early Arabia'^, London 1003, p. 227 f.).

3 Die semit. Volker und Sprachen, Leipzig, 1881-83.

■» See A. Jeremias, The OT in the Light of the Ancient East,
Eng. tr., London, 1911, i. 116.

5 H. V. Hilprecht, Explm-ations in Bible Lands during the
19th Century, Kdinburgh, 19118.

BNowack, Lchrbueh der hcb. Arch., Freiburg i. U., 1894, i.
177.

city by washing their hands showed that they were
free from the guilt. Hostility towards a person is
shown by gaping with the mouth (Ps 35"', Job 16"»
etc.); ill-feeling by clapping the hands (Ezk 6"
2V 22^3), or by spitting in the face (Nu 12'*, Dt
25^*) ; and anger by gnasliing the teetii (Ps 35"^,
Job 16**, La 2'" etc.). The key of the door was
probably looked upon as a symbol of authority,
and to place it upon a man's shoulder showed that
he was appointed steward (Is 22--). Covering a
woman with one's mantle signified the intention
of acting as her protector (Ezk 16"). The father
of a new-born child acknowledged it as his off-
spring by placing it upon his knees (Job S'^). In
a Babylonian poem describing the wickedness
wrought by the evil spirits they are said to snatch
the child from the knees of a man. The use of
salt as a condiment and the piquancy which it
gives to insipid articles of diet caused it to be
regarded as a symbol of life. An abundance of
salt has the eflect of preventing the growth of
vegetation, and therefore the ploughing of a city
with salt denoted that it was condemned to eternal
destruction (Jg O'*^). It was a mark of reverence
to cast off" the shoes on approaching a sacred
person or place (Ex 3^ Jos 5'^). To appear bare-
foot was a sign of great emotion or of mourning
(2 S 153", Is 202 etc.), and to draw off the .shoes
meant to give up a legal right (Ru 4P). The taking
of an oath was symbolized by placing the hand
under the thigh of the adjurer (Gn 24^ 47-**), or by
lifting up the hand towards heaven^ (Gn 142'-).
As kissing was a means by which parts of the
body of difierent persons came into contact, it was
naturally a symbol of affection and reverence
(Gn 27^6, Ex 18', Ku P etc.). Various symbolisms
were used in mourning.* Sackcloth was worn to
show that the mourner's grief for the departed
was so great that he was ready to give up all tiie
pleasures and conveniences of life (Gn 37^"", 2 S 3'*').
The tearing of one's garment denoted that the
mourner's dearest friend had been torn from him
(Gn ZT-^ 4413 etc.). The mourner went about
barefoot and bareheaded (2 S 15'", Ezk 24"), sat
in ashes and sprinkled ashes upon his head (Jer 6^®,
La 3"* etc.), and practised various mutilations of
the body (Jer 16^ etc.). Shaving the head (as
among the Arabs at the present time) was also a
sign of mourning. The making of a covenant was
symbolized by the person who gave the pledge
passing between the jiarts of an animal cut into
pieces, and thus showing that he was ready to be
similarly treated if he failed to keep his promise
(Gn 15«fl-etc.).

Light represented to the Orientals the highest
human good. The most joyful emotions and
pleasing sensations are described under imagery
derived from liglit (1 K U^, Ps 97" etc.). It ^yas
only natural that there should follow a transition
from corporeal to spiritual things, so that light
came to typify true religion and the happiness
which it brings. Sin, wickedness, chaos, were
represented by darkness. The lion was a symbol
of strength (Jl P). Kneeling was a mark of
homage to a superior, and is therefore referred to
as an attitude of worship (2 Ch 6'^ 1 K 8»^).

In Babylonia it was customary for the suitor to
present gifts to the girl's parents. According to
some scholars, this symbolized tiie purchase of the
bride — a practice which existed in earlier times.
Various symbolisms were connected with the
marriage ceremony, but their meaning is obscure.
The officiating ministers bound sandals on tlie feet
of the newly-wedded pair,'* gave them a leather

1 Cf. the Babylonian expression 7!?".v^ Ifate.

2 M. Jastrow,' ' Dust, Earth, and Ashes as Symbols of Mourn-
ing among the Ancient Hebrews," J AOS xx. [1899] 133-150.

3T. G." Pinches, Hates mi some llecent Discoveries in the.
liealm of Assyriology, London, 1892-93.

150

SYMBOLISM (Semitic)

girdle, and fastened it to a pouch of silver and
gold. The first of these ceremonies may have
symbolized the marriage-contract between them.
We are told in the Code that, if a maid behaves
insolently towards her mistress, the latter may
put an abuttu on her and reduce her to slavery.
The adoptive parent may do the same with a
disobedient son. What the ahuttit was is un-
known. Jensen has suggested that it was some
kind of incised mark which acted as a symbol of
the person's position (cf. the mark on Cain's fore-
head [Gn 4^^]). The repayment of a debt or the
dissolution of a partnership was symbolized by
the breaking of a tablet. Mutilation is often
referred to as a punishment for crime, and the
form of mutilation was symbolical of the offence
itself. For striking a father the hand was cut
off; for ingTatitude evidenced by speech the
tongue was cut out ; as a punishment for unlawful
curiosity the eye was torn out ; and as a mark of
disobedience the ear was often cut off. The cut-
ting short of the hair was a mark of degradation.
The city walls were regarded as a symbol of
shelter.^ Swearing by the gods and the king was
a means of sanctioning an agreement. When a
contract was made, both parties and witnesses
added tlieir names to it. And this was authenti-
cated by impressing their seals or making a nail-
mark. The Code states explicitly that a woman
was not a Avife without 'bonds.' This was a
marriage-contract Avhich symbolized an official
acknowledgment of the union. An artisan sym-
bolized his adoption of a child by teaching him a
trade. The penalty of breaking a contract was
the payment of two or more white horses to the
god. The exact meaning of this .symbolism is
unknown, but white no doubt suggested purifica-
tion and innocence. In Babylonian magic there
was a symbolical tying and loosening of knots
according as the sorcerer wished to strangle his
victim or to release him from any demon by which
he had been captured. If a magician wished to rid
himself of an object, he Avould burn or torture an
image of it, believing that the victim would meet
with the same fate as his image. By ' seizing the
hands of Bel,' the Assyrian kings legitimized their
claim to the Babylonian throne.

3. The symbolism of numbers and colours. —
It is doubtful whether the Hebrews used numerical
.symbols in OT times. On the Moabite Stone and
the Siloam inscription the numbers given are
invariably in words. But this does not exclude
the possibility that numerical symbols, which
were employed by the Babylonians and Egyptians,
were also used by the Israelites. In S. Arabian
and Phoenician inscriptions also the numbers are
partly written and partly indicated by figures. The
numbers most commonly used with a symbolical
meaning are three, four, and seven.^

White symbolized purity and innocence. It
represented light, which impressed the Hebrew
mind not only by its brilliance and beauty, but
by its divine symbolism and profound moral
connotation (Lv 16*- "^, Dn 7", Ps 1042). As black
absorbs all colours and thus buries the light, it
symbolized death, humiliation, mourning (Mai 3",
La 4^ etc.). Blue, representing the colour of an
unclouded sky, symbolized revelation (Ex 24'°). It
was the first of the colours used for the curtains of
the sanctuary, and the Israelites M'ere commanded
to have a ribbon of blue fringe on the edge of
their garments in order to remind them of Jahweh
(Nu 15^^^-). Red, as the coloiir of blood, repre-

1 The Code says that, if a father repudiates his son, 'he shall
leave house andjard.' 'Yard' simply moans 'enclosure' and
may refer to the city walls, as a symljol of shelter (C. H. W.
Johns, Bab. and Assyr. Laws, Contracts, and Letters, Eklin-
l>urj,'h, 1904, p. 42).

-Of. art. Ni'MHKRS (Semitic).

sented bloodshed, war, guilt (Zee 6^). Purple was
the distinguishing mark of royalty, representing
dignity and honour (Est 8'^ Jg 8^"), whilst green,
as the colour of plants — growths to which people
look forward in winter — .symbolized hope and
resurrection.' It was also the symbolic colour of
the moon.^

4. Special symbolisms in OT. — Ahijah tore his
garments into twelve pieces in order to show that
the kingdom of Israel would be similarly divided
(1 K IP"'^-). One of the sons of the prophets asked
his comrade to smite him, and by his wound thus
showed the punishment that Ahab had deserved
(20^^). Zedekiah, a false prophet, put on horns
in order to show that Ahab would push the Syrians
as witli horns of iron (22'').

In considering the special symbolical actions of the
prophetic books, we are confronted with very great
difficulty. For scholars are divided in their views
as to whether these actions were actually performed
in their literal sense or were merely conceived as
symbolic visions in the minds of the prophets.
It seems almost certain that there are a number
of such actions which could not have been per-
formed literally. It is impossible, however, for
the present writer to discuss in this brief article
the category to which each of these many prophetic
symbolisms belongs. But a brief discussion of
some of these from the books of Jeremiah and
Ezekiel may give some indication as to the
difficulties in arriving at a definite decision. In
Jer 13'-" Jahweh tells the prophet to go to the
Euphrates and hide his linen girdle in a rock.
After a while he is told to remove the girdle, and
he then finds it to be marred. The lesson is that,
just as a girdle fi-om its nature clings to a person,
so Israel is closely united to Jahweh.

Now, on the one hand, it may seem unlikely
that Jeremiah should have undertaken a journey
from Jerusalem to Babylon — a distance of about
200 miles — in order to bring out this point to the
people. But it is possible that the journey was
actually performed. (1) We know that the
prophet was absent from Jerusalem during part
of Jehoiakim's reign, and, as we have no account
of his whereabouts during this period, it is possible
that he made the journey to Babylon then. (2) In
Jer 39'"- we are told that Nebuchadrezzar behaved
in a mo.st friendly way towards him on the capture
of Jerusalem. This can be explained by the
suggestion that king and prophet had met pre-
viously, and that it was on the occasion of the
prophet's visit to Babylon. In Ezk 4* we are told
that the prophet lay upon his side f(?r 390 days.
How can this be taken literally ? Did any person
actually count the number of days ? In 4'^ we are
told that Ezekiel used human excrement for fuel
in baking some barley cakes. Surely it cannot
reasonably be suggested that the prophet would
have inconvenienced himself by going to such
extremes merely in order to bring home to the
people some divine message which he could very
well have preached in a much more suitable
manner. There are some scholars, chief of whom
is A. Klostermann, who argue that these symbolical
actions were performed. The dumbness of Ezekiel
(3^--''), they suggest, was due to a temporary loss
of speech, and they explain similar performances
by somewhat similar suggestions. Against this
it may be argued that the prophet here refers to
his keeping silent from delivering any prophetic
message rather than actual speechlessness. Again,
the fact that the prophet had to remain at home,
in order to carry out the diAone command, suggests

1 Hammurabi says that he 'bedecked the ^Tave of Malkat
with" green,' the colour of resurrection (introduction to his Code
of Laws).

'^ Jeremi.as, i. llii.

SYMBOLO-PIDBISM

151

that it was not loss of speech but an injunction
to refrain from reproving his co-religionists any
more. The present writer is tlierefore inclineti
to agree with R. Siuend, A. Kuenen, and E. Hiiliu
in regarding many of the symbolisms of Ezekiel
as being merely symbolical visions in tlie mind
of the prophet and as not having been performed
externally.

Literature.— Very little indecfl has been written by modern
scholars on OT symbolism. Among the older works the most
important is C. Bahr, Syinbolik des momisehen Cultus, 2 vols.,
Heidelberg-, 1837-39. For discussion of prophetic symbolism by
modern scholars see F. Giesebrecht, Die Beru/sMgabung der
alttest. Propketen, Gottinsen, 1)<!)7 ; F. E. Kbnig:, 'Zur
Deutnng der symbolischcn Handlunueii des Propheten Hesekiel,'
in NKZ iii. [1892]; E. Hiihn, Die Mrssianischen Weissafjtmgcn,
2 vols., Tiibincren, 1899; W. Nowack, Die kleinen Propheten,
Gottin^en, 1S97, p. 29; F. Delitzsch, Iris: Studies in Colour
and Talks about Flowers, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1889.

For a study of Babylonian symbolism see W. J. Hinke, A
New Boundary Stone of Nebuchadrezzar I. from Nippur,
Philadelphia, 1907; W. H. Ward, The Seal Cylinders of
Western Asia, Washington, 1910 ; P. Jensen, Die Kosmologie
der Babylonier, Strassburg, 1890 ; K. Frank, Bilder und
Symbole der babylonisch-assyrischen Gotter, Leipzig, 1900 ;
J. de Morgan, Mimoires de la delegation en Perse, Paris,
1900-05, vii. 137-1.'J3; F. Hommel, ' Ursprung des Tierkreises,'
in Aufsdtze und Abhandlunqen, Munich, 1900, ii. 23C-208.

Maurice H. Farbridge.

SYMBOLO-FIDEISM.— Symbolo-lideism i is
the name given to the theology taught in the
second half of the 19th cent, at the Protestant
Faculty of Paris by Professors Augusta Sabatier
and Eugene Menegoz, and disseminated since by a
large number of their pupils and disciples. It has
also heen called the tlieology of the Paris school.

As its name indicates, this theology has two
aspects : (a) symbolism, which deals with religion
more particuiarly from the point of view of its
form, and (b) fideism, which deals with it from the
point of view of its content. Sabatier devoted
himself specially to the former and M6negoz to
tlie latter aspect. But the two conceptions are
inseparable and interdependent. Together they
form a theology with a distinct character of its own.

The basis of symbolism is the psychological
observation that the essence of things escapes us,
and that we know only their manifestations in the
form of images, figures, and symbols. We cannot,
e.g., know what God is in Himself. We know
Him only by the more or less anthropomorphic re-
presentation which we form of Him in our thought.
This we express by the terms 'Father,' 'Lord,'
'Master,' 'Captain,' 'Sovereign,' 'King,' or by
emblems bringing out one or other of His attri-
butes— e.g., Lion, Rock, Banner, Fire. These
symbols are without doubt the expression of a
living reality, but tlie conformation of our brain is
such that it cannot grasp that reality naked ; our
mind can apjirehend it only wlien it presents itself
in the garment of a more or less sensuous repre-
sentation. This observation holds good in regard
to all religious data, and is borne out in the most
subtle dogmatic systems. The task of the theo-
logian is to lay bare the eternal truth from under
its contingent manifestations and its historical
formulaj ; moreover, these formula; are subject
to the laws of historical evolution.

As regards the Deity, it is the name ' Father,'
habitually used bj^ Jesus Christ, that best suits
the religious man's conception of the Supreme
Being — perfect, just, merciful, eternal, all-embrac-
ing ; a Spirit both transcendent and immanent, on
whom man feels himself absolutely dependent,
while at the same time conscious of liberty and
responsibility before Him. On the ideas of liberty
and responsibility depend those of .sin and penalty,
which in turn suggest those of pardon and salva-
tion. A lively conviction that we are created for
life and not for death, for hajipiness and not for

1 In recent years the word ' fideism ' has I'rniuently been used
alone.

sud'ering, rouses us to aspirations after salvation.
Vv'e desire life, happy life, eternal life. The whole
idea of salvation is summed up in these words.

How are we to attain this life, this salvation?
Conscience replies : By the pardon of our sins.
But how is pardon to be obtained ? It is with this
vital question that fideism is concerned. The term
' fideism ' (Lat. Jiilcs, ' faith ') was employed in the
religious sense for the first time by Menegoz in his
licjldxions sur I'Evangile du salut.^ Its meaning
is iuost concisely indicated in the phrase : ' We
are saved by faith, independently of beliefs.'

The distinction between faith and beliefs is one
of the fundamental premisses of fideism. By faith
is meant the movement of the self towards God —
a movement which implies forsaking sin, repent-
ance. The man who repents and gives his heart
to God is saved, whatever his beliefs may be. This
statement is opposed to the old orthodoxy, which
made adherence to certain ofhcial dogmas a condi-
tion of salvation. Fideism declares that a man is
saved by faith alone (' sola fide'). At the same
time, it recognizes the value of doctrines. Doc-
trines are dynamic ideas which make for good
when true, and for evil when false. P'ideists re-
gard them therefore as pedagogic instruments of
tiie first order. It is for this reason that they
attach so nmch importance to the pursuit of truth
and oppose so resolutely doctrines which they con-
sider erroneous. It is only through a great and
regrettable misunderstanding that their opponents
reproacii them with indifi'ereuce to doctrine ; and
it is also false to assert, as has been done, that
iideists fail to appreciate the intellectual factor in
religious faith. Faith, according to their teaching,
is an activity of the self in its unity, and therefore
must comprise all the elements of the soul's facul-
ties— thought, feeling, and will. But the essential
factor in salvation is the inward movement towards
God, not intellectual adherence to some doctrinal
tenet. Fideists reject the doctrine of salvation by
beliefs without thereby denying the spiritual in-
fluence of beliefs, as the Reformers rejected the
doctrine of salvation by works, while maintaining
that good works are obligatory on Christians.

In a general way, and as a result of historical,
critical, exegetical, and philosophical studies, fide-
ists have departed from orthodox theology and
returned to the simple doctrine of salvation as
taught by Jesus Christ, according to their inter-
pretation, to the multitudes in His preaching of
the gospel ; hence their emphasis on repentance
and on consecration of the soul to God as conditions
of salvation.

As regards the idea of salvation, they find it in
the symbolic interpretation of the primitive Chris-
tian conception of the Kingdom of God. This idea
has for them two aspects: (1) the entrance of
believers at death into celestial happiness, and (2)
the gradual establishment of the Kingdom of
Justice and Peace on the earth. These two ideas
combined constitute in their eyes the Kingdom of
Heaven.

The name ' Symbolo-fideism,' which expresses
the union of symbolism and fideism, gained cur-
rency from two articles by Eugene Menegoz, signed
T. P. ('Theologien protestant') in the Eglisc Libre
(1S94, nos. 31 and 33). Auguste Sabatier accepted
this title (Esquisse, p. 456). It passed into Holland
witli the thesis by J. Riemens entitled Het Synibolo-
fideisDie : Beschrijving en Icritische Beschouwing
(Rotterdam, 1900), and into Germany with Gustav
Lasch's Die Thcologie der Pariscr Schule: Char-
alderistik und Kritik des Syinbolo - Fideismus
(Berlin, 1901).

Symbolo-fideism has given rise to numerous con-
troversies, an echo of which is found in current
1 Paris, 1879, § 44.

152

SYMPATHY

religious journals and theological reviews. Its
adversaries have also published a number of po-
lemical pamphlets. These are referred to in the
Avri tings mentioned below.

LiTBRATURB. — The two principal works of Aug:uste Sabatier
on the subject are the Usquisse d'une philo.sophie de la religion
d'apri's la psychologie et I'histoire, Paris, 1897 (several times re-
edited), Eng-. tr., London, 1897, and Lcs Relvjions d'autoriU et
la religion de I'esprit, Paris, 1904 (published from MS, after the
death of the author), Eng. tr., London, 1904. The writings of
E. M^negoz are collected in Publications diverses sur lefidi-
isme et son application a Venseignement chritien traditionnel,
5 vols., Paris, 1900-20. The reader will find in these works re-
ferences to other works of the same authors. See also Hector
Haldimann, Le Fidiisme ; Etude critique de la doctrine du
'Salut par lafoi, ind^pendamment des eroyances,' Paris, 1907 ;
E. M^n^goz, Religion and Theology, London, 1908 ; Le Salut
par lafoi, independamment des eroyances: Anihologie du fide-
isme, by the Comit6 des publications religieuses libirales de
Genfeve, Geneva and Paris, 1913; A. Delcourt, Le Fiddisme:
La notion integrate du salut et I'essence de VEvangile, Paris,
1914. A. Thiebaut has given an objective and critical exposi-
tion of fideisra in the Journal religicux des Eylises ind^pend-
antes de la Suisse romande, 1917, nos. 23-26.

Eugene M^n^goz.

SYMPATHY.— Sympathy, as the etymology
denotes, is ' feeling with ' others. Two persons feel-
ing alike do not, however, make a true sympathetic
couple unless the feeling of one has jiartly caused
or is reinforcing the feeling of the other. The
perfection of mutual sympatliy is reached when
similar feelings originate spontaneously in the
two and reinforce each other. Any relation, how-
ever, in which there is a mutual reinforcement
of feeling, however originated, is one of mutual
sympathy.

I. Emotional contagion. — The primary fact in
sympathy is that the feeling of one person can, on
occasion, cause similar feeling in another. In its
primitive manifestations this occurs without re-
flective consciousness of the feeling, and certainly
without distinction of persons in respect of its
origin. This is shown in the contagion of popular
excitement — e.g., panic, war- frenzy, the intensified
enthusiasm of public meetings, the wild joy, the
furious hatred, the boundless attection, that mark
the excited crowd. The emotion, or its mani-
festation in some, excites similar emotions latent
in the others, and forthwith by sympathetic re-
inforcement the emotional disturbance in each is
abnormally increased. Probably it is only those
who, from the beginning, have some set against
the prevalent emotion that maintain a normal
level throughout. Such sympathetic outbursts
must be themselves short-lived, and, as the cause
of excitement is withdrawn, the persons affected
by contagious feeling return to their ordinary
emotional level. This may even be one of indifier-
ence to the popular frenzy in which they took part.
It may, indeed, be one of revulsion if they have
been drawn, as sometimes happens, into a condition
of which in their normal moods they disapprove.
Such revulsion would happen, e.g., if an advocate
of peace found that he had been drawn by fellow-
feeling into a demonstration of war enthusiasm.
The hot fit is followed by a cold fit. Hence the
instability of popular acclamation, the apparent
superliciality of feeling which appeal's when people
liable to sympathy of this primitive unrefiective
kind are massed together. The most suitable
material for the typical ' fickle mob ' is a town
population sympathetically sensitive and intellect-
ually immature.

The short-lived character of the feeling thus
contagiously aroused follows in the nature of the
case, because there is no settled identification of
self-conscious personality with it. I feel in a sense,
but do not feel myself as feeling : I do not take
the feeling into myself as mine. It is on me and
moves me, but it does not enter into any relation
to that total of ideas, impulses, feelings, and
desires which is me. It may be a mere motive

excitement, moving me blindly to action, or it
may take possession of me completely with fixed
idea and over-mastering mood, acting instead of
me and overpowering me. In either case I come
out of it, and in the latter case as one recovered
from a madness. Something like this, no doubt,
befell Parisians in the brief violence of the Terror.

2. Self-conscious sympathy. — When self is
identified with the feeling which nevertheless is
ascribed to another person as origin, we have
sympathy proper. The development of self-con-
sciousness goes hand in hand indeed with the
exercise of sympathy. We learn to know our-
selves, and to become all that we are capable of
becoming as self-conscious persons, by our dealings
with our fellows, and pari passu with our con-
sciousness of them as other selves. In so far,
however, as we are clearly conscious of self, we
are prepared to set bounds to the operation of
primitive sympathy. A new condition of feeling,
discontinuous with my previous state so as to
preclude its origination in me, is roused in me by
sympathetic contagion. It is to the self an in-
vasion from without. As a feeling, moving me
but not mine, it must be referred to a neighbouring
conscious self, who is manifesting it independently.
Our first concern, however, is its treatment by
the self which is invaded. Feelings that harmon-
ize with the total state of this self enter into it as
elements in its development : the symjiathy of
children with parents and other elders plays a
large part in the building up of their personality.
Confidence in the elders who give the lead to
sympathy predisposes to acceptance of their guid-
ance. The emotional being of the child is educated
in this way. If of average docility, it takes the
form suggested to it by its society. On the
other hand, the suggested feeling may be out of
harmony with the character as already formed :
thus the brave man may feel the horror communi-
cated to him by the panic-stricken multitude, but
he overcomes it as no possible part of himself.
When the feeling thus communicated to us takes
strong hold, the repulse by a strong character is
correspondingly emphatic. In sensitive natures
this gives rise to a peculiar sense of revulsion, as
towards something put into us against our will ;
and the transference of this revulsion to the source
of contagion is probably the chief cause of violent
personal antipathy. Between this attitude of
abhorrence towards the induced emotion and will-
ing receptiveness of it, as extremes, lie all degrees
of being moved by a feeling from which, as outside
the disposition of our own personality, we neverthe-
less withhold ourselves. Whether we admit the
feeling to influence over us, or harden our will
against it in a sort of self-defence, it appears to us
essentially, and throughout its action, as the feeling
of another person with which in a measure we feel.
This definite ascription of the feeling to another is
the second characteristic feature in sympathy, and
gains prominence with the developing consciousness
of self and of other selves.

3. Control of sympathy.— In passing it may be
noted how large a part in life is played by the
partial hardening of the heart against tiie contagion
of social feeling. This control of sympathetic
distraction in general belongs to the preservation
of self as maintenance of character. It is not only
that undesirable emotions — e.g., of hatred, fear,
envy— should be suppressed, as they are by the
self-possessed though sensitive members of the ex-
cited crowd. ^ Experience soon reveals that the
preservation of self, even in the ordinary physical

^ Common self-possession, as in the man who is not liable to
the contagion of feeling, must be distinguished from the subtle
excellence of sympathy under control. Probably this is one of
the qualities of the born leader.

SYMPATHY

153

sense, requires much systematic control of emotion,
whether initiated sympathetically or otherwise.
An emotional nature loosely controlled is morally
unstable and makes for a nervous break-down in
course of time. This is the hysteric type, so far
as it depends on moral character. It is a main
principle of moral health that the emotional life
as it increases should be kept more and more
strictly in subordination to the ends which it
subserves. The precise definition of those ends
belongs to the subject of ethics : the average man
conceives them simply as the happiness of personal
health for himself and his associates, together with
some service in furtherance of the common weal.
It may be that the rank and tile of modern
humanity suffer from lack of vitality and variety
in the emotional life, but for the moment we are
not concerned with them. Persons of the sym-
patlietic cast are — under modern conditions more
especially — liable to so much emotional invasion
as must result in nervous exhaustion if not system-
atically kept in check. It is interesting to note
how the habit of control over sympathy develops
with experience from youth to maturity : the first
great sympathetic grief overwhelms us as if it were
our own ; later we have learnt to throw ourselves
outside the emotion into the actions required to
assuage the sufferings of our friend ; later still, to
those who are overtried, callousness may come,
with the exhaustion of either physique or morale.
Most of these observations apply to all feeling,
however initiated. Sympathetic feeling differs
from other feeling as being specially liable to in-
crease of control by development of the element of
otherness in it. This is of a piece with another
useful psychological truth, namely that the tension
of any violent feeling may be relieved by treating
it as an object of imagination or thought. Tenny-
son's lines bear on this point :

' Likewise the imaginative woe,

That loved to handle spiritual strife,
Diffused the shock thro' all my life,
But in the present broke the blow.' i

In constructing a story, an essay, or a poem which
depicts the emotion as afi'ecting imaginary persons,
the sense of its personal attachment is obscured :
it is projected more or less, i.e. thrown out of self-
consciousness into the non-ego. Similarly, but as
of course and instinctively, we project our sym-
pathetic feelings back into the other self and,
although still feeling them, are as a rule much
relieved. This relief is no doubt chiefly due to the
stop that is placed on the disturbance of the
emotional personality in general by the sharp
dissociation of the new feeling from those immedi-
ately pertaining to the self : it is the other person's
feeling, and, though it disturbs me, I limit that
disturbance by knowing it as something which has
not its origin, and is therefore not necessarily
permanent, in me. This control of the sym-
pathetic disturbance furthers and is furthered by
practical activity in relief of the other's distress.

4. Identification with the ' other.' — The ex-
ceptions indeed in this case explain the rule. When
the sympathetic feeling is ascribed to a person much
beloved, it may affect us more than if it were of
our own origination. This, no doubt, is what is
meant when it is said that another person is dearer
to us than ourselves. The consciousness of the
beloved person's consciousness is in this case so
established as part of our own that the projection
of the feeling into it does not in the least dissociate
the self from the feeling. So far as we know what
the beloved person feels, we go on feeling it and
being further disturbed by it all the time. Indeed
there appear to be, in cases of intense affection
when the self identifies itself passionately with
1 In Memoriam, Ixxxv.

the other, two ways in which the sympathetic
feeling may become more disturbing than the
equivalent primary feeling would be. (1) In pro-
jecting it on the beloved other, imagination, moved
by the habit of afiectionate concern, may greatly
exaggerate its force and significance : the finger-
prick which, in spite of instinctive tears, is a trifle
to the baby may bulk large in the distressed
imagination of the anxious mother ; and the same
kind of thing happens in a thousand hidden ways
when love prevails, and it happens for plea.sure as
well as for pain. (2) Each person has an intimate
sense of the powers and resources within himself
by means of which he bears his troubles and con-
trols his emotional being generally. About the
beloved other, however intimately known, he is
never quite so sure, and thus, no matter how equal
things may otherwise be, the sense of mystery
breeds, as it were, a germ of fear that heightens
pain and, by release from it, also heightens joy.
This goes, moreover, with the essential fact that
love at its strongest exceeds self-love in desiring
the welfare of its object. The heightening in this
way of feeling sympathetically experienced may
perhaps be discriminated introspectively as an
additional element of anxious concern about sub-
jective consequences. Such concern is given to
their own emotions by none but morbid people.
And indeed even in the lover-like relation to which
this tender anxiety naturally belongs it may be
so exaggerated as to be morbid concern of self for
the other. For this reason it is often well that
persons who get too much on one another's mind —
as we say — should be sometimes separated.

The absence of this intiiuate aflection in the ca.se
of ordinary associates makes it possible to limit
tlie sympathetic disturbance by instinctively pro-
jecting it back into the other mind, consciousness
of which is only now and then associated with the
consciousness of self. There are, of course, all
degrees of dependence on one another in this
respect. A man may go through life without one
associate in whose welfare he has any genuine
lasting interest, capable of sympathy but never
in danger of being shaken by it. Most persons,
however, have friends sympathy with whom does
penetrate into them, as well as move them out of
themselves. Some men are, in the absence of
contrary cause, friendly to all their associates :
these are universally sympathetic also, in propor-
tion to their primary sympathetic sensitiveness.
Friendliness, however, as the disposition to
identify oneself with another, must be carefully
distinguished from the primary cajiacity to feel as
others feel.^ When they are combined, we have
the sympathetic nature as popularly understood.
But an unfriendly man may be sensitive to
another's feelings, in which case he not only pro-
jects them on the other but sharply dissociates
himself from all interest in him. It is as if he
said, ' I know what you feel ; I feel you feeling it ;
but it is nothing to me.'

5. Insight and sensitiveness. — Apart from un-
friendliness, however, this cool dissociation of self
from interest in the other, combined witii sym-
pathetic sensitiveness, explains the gift of neutral
or cold insight which plays so large a i)art in the
intuitive knowledge of men. Intellectual con-
structiveness, which bodies fortli an idea of the
man's character as shoviii by his actions, is the
ordinary substitute for intuition ; and in some
ways it is a safer guide. The intuitionist, e.g.,
may mistake his man by overestimating the
significance of a transitory mental attitude. He
is also likely to eke out his intuitions by specula-

1 Friendship is in its degree the affectionate interest in
anotlier's consciousness of which the extreme has been described,
I and friendliness is the disposition to be so interested.

154

SYMPATHY

tions and imaginings into which all sorts of error
may creep. If he abounds in self-confidence, he is
a dangerous guide : but, if he treats his gift humbly
as a useful auxiliary, it will serve him in good
stead and improve with such exercise.

A person of sympathetic bent may liave experi-
ences of cool insight, but with this difference that,
since in such case he does not identify himself
with the other, lie is moved to change the state of
the other into identification with him. Tims the
orator feels that his audience is puzzled or hostile :
they do not convert him, but he is not indifferent,
so he puts out his strength to express Iiimself and
make them feel his feeling. The mere lecturer, on
the other hand, only tries to show and make them
see his meaning. The orator is the speaker whom
the Americans call ' magnetic ' : he makes his
hearers feel as he does, at least for the time. But
the beginning which he makes is at the other end
of the coil, by insight into the feeling which is
theirs but not his. This is the getting into sym-
pathetic touch. By showing this sympathy on
neutral ground or even in respectful dissent, he
fixes the attention of his hearers. His interest in
them interests them in him : then the position is
reversed, the mind of the speaker shown, and the
original attitude of the audience merged in the
new state by which they are identified with him.
This kind of thing happens every day on a small
scale in the experience of sympathetic people. To
understand, to be interested though in disagree-
ment, to persuade — these are the means, and in this
order, by which one person transforms the mental
attitude of another. The more instinctive the
process is, the better, sympathy operating in the
pair by its natural impulse to mutual identification
of mental content.

6. Affinity of character.— In so far as the syni-
pathetic bent in the full sense turns upon friendli-
ness of disposition, persons may be characterized as
sympathetic generally, i.e. in relation to all sorts
of other persons. In so far, however, as it depends
on primary contagiousness of feeling, affinities of
character must profoundly affect the relation
between any pair. Racial type, e.g., is a basis of
such affinity, and the mutual intelligibility of two
compatriots, while partly arising from like habits
of expression and community of associations, turns
also on functional capacity to feel alike. In what-
ever way we explain the prime fact of emotional
contagion, it is evident that no one can communi-
cate to another a feeling of which the latter is
constitutionally incapable. The fearless man
cannot feel like the cowai'd, nor the liberal man
like the mean. Each can only see that the other
acts in a manner directly opposite to himself and
recognize the corresponding state of mind as a
mystery. To sympathize with another, we must
be able to feel like him. Some would say, further,
that we must have felt on our own origination as
he now feels ; but that is not so certain, though
perhaps it generally happens so. Our capacity to
.sympathize, therefore, is at least limited by the
possibilities of our character. How far these are
limited, or how far they may be extended beyond
our present experience of them, we never know.
Certain it is that in human society we run up now
and then against mysteries, persons with Avhora
after much acquaintance we never get in touch,
who always seem to us as if they were feeling
their way through life at the other side of a high
wall over which we cannot see, through which we
cannot hear, them. At the same time, we meet
others with whom, in trifling things and large
alike, we find ourselves in tune, so much in tune
that <liversities of aim and opinioii, though stand-
ing out the more clearly, do not mar the general
hai-inony. But ment:il ccmditions are so complex

that likeness of condition between two minds must
generally be of a very partial kind.

7. Similarity and association. — Another influ-
ence to the same eflect whicli enters into these
cases is natural similarity in habit of expression.
This is best seen in racial affinity : the stock of
native gesture due to heredity, including facial
expression, intonations of voice, and a multitude
of tiny movements, felt rather tlian seen — all are
available for that involuntary play of subtle signs
which is the veiled language of sympathy.
Whether contagion of feeling originates with
instinctive imitation of feeling-signs or not, its
development in relation to the complex psychoses
of the adult is dependent on the swift interpreta-
tion of their secret signs. Human beings are
indeed so profoundly interesting to each other
when they really show themselves that an easy
mutual intelligibility is often almost equivalent to
friendship at first sight.

Intelligibility follows also on intimate associa-
tion, and this is favourable to the sympathetic
relation. A common stock of experiences, habits,
and even feelings is formed by association in life,
and the result is similar to that of congenital
affinity, though lacking the charm of its ever-recur-
ring unexpectedness. Congenital affinity, it should
be noted, is not limited to cases of sinular racial
type. It is a happy accident of human development
which may be encountered at any turn.

8. Sympathy in education. — The value of
sympathy as an element in the development of
moral life is too large a subject to be treated here.
A few words, however, may be devoted to (1) the
teacher's use of sympathy in education, and (2)
the training of sympathy in the child.

(1) The teacher's use of sympathy, like that of
the orator described above, begins in his own
sympathy with the learner's state of mind and
ends in the acliievement of the learner's sympathy
with his. The teacher's sympathy requires as a
starting-point, therefore, some demonstration on
the child's part, and to evoke this in as good a
form as possible for his purpose — but in any form
rather than none— must be his first care. By
entering into the cliild's mind thus shown to him
he establishes the contact of sympathy, and by
maintaining this contact he leads where he will,
provided he keeps to the possible levels of the
child throughout. It is not so much in regard to
the method of individual lessons as in respect
of his general procedure and influence that the
teacher's tact is shown. A mistake of intellectual
method is a small matter compared with an error
in the procedure of moral discipline. It is quite
possible to keep in touch with the child's sym-
pathies, even when punishment seems to estrange
him for a time.

(2) In the training of sympathy the first requisite
is to encourage its manife.stations when they occur
spontaneously, and to suggest conduct which is the
natural expression of interest in others. The
tendency to sympathize with joy as well as with
sorrow— Mitfreud as well as M Uleid— should be
called out. All this belongs to the development of
the sympathetic nature, which, however, also
stands in need of disciplinary training. This, for
the most part, life supplies, and the educator
should be wary lest he interfere unwisely and too
much. The delicate process of control and modera-
tion by which each self sets limits to its sympathies
had better be left to itself ; and, as a rule, it is
dangerous to train the young to repress, otherwise
than by more fully expressing, their nature. Wise
discipline trains to the control of one function for
the sake of fulfilling another more perfectly.
Thus, emotion is in general controlled by using
it to subserve the voluntary and intellectual life.

SYNCRETISM

165

Thought and conduct are the antidotes to hysteria
and emotional riot. As regards sympathy in
particular, we should be chiefly concerned to
develop first its voluntary and, second to that, its
intellectual side. The barren sympathy with
suffering, e.g., which does not go on to some com-
forting act is morbid because it ends in useless
emotional disturbance. Doing in accordance with
the occasion is the habit to which sympathy should
be most carefully trained. Its other requisite is
that it should be intelligent, and this is often a
much-needed lesson. A useful sympathy with
others requires imagination and reflexion suflicient
to construct a true ideal of what they want. This
intelligent appi'eliension of another's case is of
inestimable value in making the fellow-feeling, as
well as the friendly action, fit.

Persons who are ' too sympathetic to be of any
use in trouble ' are persons who, by neglecting to
help their fellows as need arose, have let themselves
get into a habit of being overwhelmed by painful
fellow-feeling. The remedy is to do something for
the prime sufferer. This is the natural course in
the case of an unspoiled will.

LiTKRATURB.— W. Mitchell, Structure and Growth of the
Mind, pt. iii. London, 1907 ; James Mark Baldwin, Social and
Ethical Interpretations in Mental Developmeiit, New York,
1897, ch. vi. ; William McDougall, An Introduction to Social
Psychology, London, 1908, The Group Mind, Cambridcfe, 1920 ;
G. Tarde, Les Lois dc I'imitation, new ed., London, 1900 ; James
Sully, The lltiman Miiul, do. 1892, vol. ii. ch. xv. ; William
James, The Principles of Psychology, 2 vols., do. 1891, oh.

xxiv. f. S. Bryant.

SYNAGOGUE.— See Worship (Hebrew) and
(Jewish).

SYNAGOGUE, THE GREAT.— See Juda-
ism, vii. 593 f.

SYNCRETISM,— I. Untechnical use of term.

— The term ' syncretism ' has a very curious record.
It is as old as Plutarch, who seems to have coined
it, or at any rate to have made it current. In his
essay on brotherly love^ he observes that even
brothers and friends who have quarrelled prefer to
associate with one another, in face of a common
danger, rather than to fraternize with the foe ;
which is a Cretan precedent and principle,

'for, although the Cretnns were frequently at faction and
feud with one another, they became reconciled and united
whenever a foreign foe attacked them. This they called
" syncretism " ((rvyKpT)Tt(r/xds).'

By ' syncretism,' in this political sense, therefore,
we are to understand the instinct of self-defence
which sinks private differences before a threatening
peril on the outside. The ' syncretists' close their
ranks; they like quarrelling among themselves,
but they would rather exist than indulge in fatal
internecine strife at home.

After Plutarch the term became submerged.
Fourteen centuries later it re-appears in the pages
of Erasmus, who was in his own way, especially
when the way ran through the Adagia, a ' syncre-
tist' of the reconciling order, averse to feuds.
Erasmus sets doAvn the reference to Plutarch, and
he also employs the term in his correspondence.

Tlius we find him writing from Louvain (22nd April 1519) to
Mtlanchthon, hoping that scholars of all jiarties will close their
ranks against the barbarians : ' Vides quantis odiis conspirent
quidam adversus honas literas. Aequum est nos quoque <rvy-
Kprfriieiv. Ingens praesidium est Concordia.' 2

During the next century and a half the term is
tossed about Europe by members of the Reformed
and of the Roman Church, sometimes as an appeal,
more often as a tatmt ; theologians who endeavoured
to reconcile extremists were dublied ' syncretists,'
and ' syncretism ' was indill'crently and acri-
moniously applied to all ironical proposals, whether

1 I)e Fraterno amore, 19.

2 Opus Kpistolarum, wl. V. S. Allen, Oxford, 1000-13, iii. .139.

these were the product of a Laodicean indifference
or of a genuine love for moderation. In passing
from the humanists to the theologians, the term
upon the whole acquired disparaging associations,
which continued to cling to it. ' Syncretist ' be-
came almost a synonym for 'hybrid.' It was
derived from avyKepdvi'Vfj.t, and the supposed ety-
mology corroborated tlie connexion of the term
with all that was heterogeneous.

This is the predominant meaning of the term in ordinary
French. In untechnical English it also denotes 'fusion 'of a
more or less illegitimate or artificial kind. Thus HaUami says
of Giordano Bruno : ' What seems most his own ... is the
syncretism of the tenet of a pervading spirit, an Anima Mundi,
which in itself is an imperfect theism, with the more pernicious
hypothesis of an universal Monad.'

2. Philosophical and ecclesiastical applications.
— In the history of philosophy ' syncretistic ' has
been applied to the harmonizing efforts of those
who, like Cardinal Bessarion in the 15th cent.,
refused to allow their love of Plato to 1)0 identified
with any depreciation of Aristotle. The contro-
ver.sy between the Aristotelians and the Platonists
had been sharpened by the impetus given to
Platonic studies after the fall of Constantinople.
Partisanship ran strong, and the more moderate
men failed to draw the rival schools together.

' Throughout all the tanglos of this complicated controversy,
a thread of gold is interwoven by the serene and imperturbable
temper of Bessarion.' 2

What happened in 15th cent, philosophy was
repeated on a larger scale in the theology of the
17th century. The ' syncretistic controversy ' of
that age rose out of the efforts made by G. Calixtus
(1586-1656), a distinguished scholar at Helmstadt,
to draw the Lutheran and the Reformed Churches
together. 'A plague o' both your houses,' he
cried, like Mercutio. But it was Mercutio's dying
cry of indignant protest. Calixtus lived and
worked to check the plague. He was acutely
sensible of the harm and danger to Christianity
wliich the sharp internal divisions within the
Church produced. But his broad, catholic temper
met with little response among his contemporaries.
The controversy lasted even after his death, assum-
ing political as well as theological forms. The
' syncretistic' party in the Church failed, however,
to carry its principles into effect. Even well-
meaning and wise attempts to emphasize the
fundamental Christian principles held by various
Reformed Churches, or by all the Reformed
Churches in common with the Roman Church,
were suspect in that age of hardening division and
widening cleavage. Men were told that in view
of the Roman peril they would be well advised to
subordinate their private idiosyncrasies in the
Reformed Church ; or Christians in both Cimrclies
were reminded that the menace of outside heatlien-
ism should make them close their ranks. But
'syncretism' of this kind was generally branded
as a betrayal of principles or as an attempt to
secure unity at the expense of truth. The ' syn-
cretistic controversy' was a quarrel over peace,
and such quarrels are not the least bitter upon
earth. What the ' syncretists,' in Plutarch's sense
of the term, called a harmony, their opponents
called a 'hybrid.'

The Roman Church had a 'syncretistic' controversy of its
own, an eddy in the turbulent dispute over the relations
between grace and free will, which poured from the last quarter
of the 10th century.3 'Syncretic' is the term applied to the
system of belief which endeavours to harmonize the conflicting
views of the Thomist and the Molinist parties by assuming two
sorts of efficacious grace, which are held together by prayer.

3. In comparative religion. — ' Syncretism,' as
men like Calixtus and Zwingli used it, still re-
tained something of the practical sense which

1 Introd. to the Literature of Europe, 4 vols., London, 1837-39,
pt. ii. ch. iii.

2 J. E. Sandys, Uist. of C'Ussical Scholarship, CaroUridpe,
1903-08, ii. 75.

;> Cf. CK iv. 238 f., vi. 713 f.

156

SYNCRETISM

Plutarch had originally attached to the expression.
But this is lost in the technical, modern applica-
tion of the term to a phenomenon in the liistory of
religion, i.e. to the fusion of various religions in
doctrine or in cult. Here 'syncretism' denotes
generally an unconscious, wide-spread tendency,
due to or fostered by some re-adjustment of
political relationships or by some clash of civiliza-
tions. There is a blending of religious ideas and
practices, by means of which either one set adopts
more or less tliorougldy the principles of another
or both are amalgamated in a more cosmopolitan
and less polytlieistic shape. Such movements in
the religious world are often preceded and acceler-
ated by a new philosophical synthesis as well as
by a political re-arrangement, but the outcome
invariably is a unification of deities, which, as
J. Toutain has pointed out,^ proceeds on one or
other of two lines : either two deities of diflerent
religions are assimilated by comparison or several
deities are grouped together in a fresh synthesis.
The motives for this re-statement are drawn from
the dawning consciousness that any particular form
of religion is no longer adequate by itself, that
others possess like features, possibly of superior
eiiicacy and appeal, and that such features can be
incorporated Avithout detriment to the essential
jirinciples of the particular religion in question.
The study of comparative religion exhibits this
phenomenon in a variety of shapes and stages, but
it is specially prominent during the first four
centuries of the Christian era.^

The tendency to this syncretism or amalgama-
tion of deities and cults had been in operation long
before the rise of Christianity. When one tribe
conquered another, or when two tribes or nations
formed a political alliance, there was a strong
movement towards fusing their gods. The foreign
power, especially if it were dominant, fascinated
many of its subject or weaker neighbours. An
exchange of deities might be made, out of courtesy.
Similarities in ritual were developed, and stress
was laid on what was common to the two religions.
Now and then the gods were identified, and this
was specially easy in tlie primitive days when
certain gods were still nameless powers ; ^ men
were invited to recognize their own gods under the
names of foreign deities or to welcome the latter
as allies. The connexion between Israel and
Canaan is an illustration in point,'* and an equally
familiar one is tlie influence of Assyrian rites upon
the religion of Israel under kings like Manasseh
and Anion,* when syncretistic influences were
specially powerful in consequence of the political
situation. The phenomenon is by no means con-
fined to tiie history of Israel's religion in the
ancient world. For different reasons syncretism,
or, as some prefer to terni it, 'theocrasy' (Oeo-
Kpacria),^ was rife at one period in Greek religion
owing to Oriental influences,'' and as late as the 8th

1 Les Cultes paiens dans I'empire romain, Paris, 1908-11, ii.
227 1. See J. H. Moulton, The Christian Religion in the Study
and the Street, London, 1919, pp. 253-268 (' Syncretiam in
Religrion ').

2 Of. ERE vi. 232 f . ; A. Harnaok, The Mission and Expansion
of Christianity"'; Eng. tr., London, 1908, i. 33ff., 312ff. :
J. Reville, La Religion d Rome sorts les Sdvhres, Paris, 1886, ch.'
iv. ; J. Huby, in Christus : manuel d'hist. des religions, do. 1912,
p. 340 f. ; S. J. Case, The Evolution of Early Christianity,
Chicago,' 1914, pp. 71 ff., 191 f. ; S. Angus, The Environment of
Early Christianity, London, 1914, p. 23 ff. ; W. R. Inge, The
Philosophy of Plotinus, do. 1918, i. 4C f.

3 Cf. F. B. Jevons, An Introd. to the Hist, of Religion,
London, 1896, pp. 23Sf., 255 f., 390 f.

4Cf. ERE vii. 441 f., 582.

s Cf. B. Stade, Biblische Theologie des AT, Tubingen, 1905-11,
i. 235 f . > 6 . .

6 E.g., recently F. Legge, Forerunners and Rivals of
Christianity, Cambridge, 1915, ii. 32 ('the theocrasia which
was welding all the gods of the mysteries into one great God of
nature ').

7 Cf. HDB V. 150 f., and ERE vi. 421 f.

cent, of our era a similar blending took place in
Japan. ^ ]>ut it is in the history of Judai.sm,
particularly during the two centuries preceding
the Christian era, that the elements and issues of
syncretism are most clearly marked.^

The main impetus to this rise of syncretism came
from the political re-adjustment after Alexander
the Great. The Seleucid period witnessed a con-
tact between the East and the West, round the
Mediterranean basin, which led not only to a
fusion of Babylonian with Greek and Koman
deities^ and to a ferment of Oriental religious feel-
ing throughout the Grajco-Roman world, but also
to movements which, in spite of the vigorous
reaction led by the Maccabees ■• and their supporters,
attected some circles in Judaism itself. The
Hellenizing tendency was fostered by Jewish
writers like Eupolemus and Artapanus. It went
hand in hand with the allegorizing of Homer and
of the OT and with the Stoic philosophy of the
Logos. As the tendency to syncretism was innate
in Egyptian religion* — the spread of the Serapis-
cult is only one later instance of it — and as Alex-
andria formed the centre of activity not only for
the amalgamation of Egyptian and Greek or Syrian
cults but also for speculative Judaism under the
spell of the new ideas of cosmopolitanism, it is not
surprising that a step was there taken in the
direction of a syncretistic Judaism, which should
assimilate and employ current Greek ideas of a
cosmopolitan, cosmic character. The exponent of
this syncretism is Philo.

' Uu syncr^tisme dans lequel sont adrais tons les 616ments, en
particulier p(iripaticiens et platoniciens, qui s' accordent avec
l'id6e stoicienne fondamentale de la sympathie des parties du
monde, telle serait la diifinition la plus exacte des vues cosmo-
logiques de Philon.' 6

Philo's aim was not to blend Judaism with
Hellenism. He adhered to his religious inherit-
ance. But he endeavoured to enrich and safe-
guard it by re-stating it in terms of the current
religious philosophies of his day.

As Judaism on the whole resisted this Philonic
speculative tendency,' so did Christianity in the
main resist the later Gnostic movement with its
syncretistic impulse during the 2nd and 3rd
centuries.^ Syncretism was partly an evidence of
strength and partly an indication of weakness at
that period. So far as it meant a readiness to set
the new faith in a positive relation to the elements
of truth in contemporary cults and mysteries, so
far as it breathed a spirit strong enough to assimi-
late vital data from its new soil and yet preserve
its distinctive characteristics, it was healthy. In
this respect it carried on the work of the best
apologists, linking the Christian tradition to the
new situation and proving that the faitli was too
vital to remain a Semitic cult. But there Avas
another side to syncretism, and to this the Church
was keenly, if not always wisely, alert. The
fascination of the movement lay in its cosmopolitan
appeal — an appeal which was the more seductive
that already, within paganism itself, the move-
ment had made headway, as we see from the tone
of men like Plutarch, Maximus of Tyre, and
Numenius," and from a specific phenomenon like
the transformation which had come over a deity
such as Isis ^^ in the popular pieties of the age. The

1 ERE vii. 483; J. Dahlmann, in Christus, p. 122 f.

2 Cf. H. A. A. Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery-Religions.
London, 1913, p. 57 ff.

3 ERE vii. 434''.

4 Cf. W. O. E. Oesterley, The Books of the Apocrypha, London,
1914, p. 22 ff.

5 Cf. A. Menzies, Ilist. of Religion, London, 1895, p. 145.

8 E. Brdhier, Les Id(^cs philosophiques et religieuses de Philon
d' Alexandrie, Paris, 1908, p. 161.

' Elsewhere combinations of Judaism and paganism are to be
detected, however — e.g., in Asia Minor, in the worship of 0eby
v>|(«rTos. 8 Cf. ERE vi. 232 f.

» Ih. vi. 282'>, ix. 308b. in Cf. ib. vi. 378 f., vii. 434 ff.

SYNDERESIS

157

passion of the time was for a vague monotheism,
which should reflect and answer the unity of the
empii'e. A cosmopolitan syncretism, in the 3rd
cent.,^ began to overlay the earlier national religions
and to embrace the Syro-Hellenic and the Western
cults in a synthesis which regarded all deities as so
many varied expressions of the One, and all rites
as more or less acceptable forms of approach to
this central, all-pervasive Deity.^ The individual
features of the separate gods and goddesses became
less and less distinct. Idiosyncrasies were obliter-
ated, and stress was laid, from the religious as well
as from the philosophical and the political points
of view, upon the all-embracing unity — generally
conceived as a solar pantheism. A man like Mac-
robius voices this in the 4th century. It underlay
the pagan reaction of Julian, which was its last
serious challenge to a recalcitrant Christianity.
For, although the Church admitted elements which
were of semi-polytheistic character, in the worship
of the saints, the exploiting of miracles, and even
the adoration of the emperor, nevertheless formally
the sense of Christianity decided against syncretism
of the Gnostic and later of the Neo-Platonic shape.'
This is the paradox of the situation. Christianity
proved by its exclusiveness that it was not, and
was not to be, a merely ' syncretistic ' faith, in the
sense of being eclectic or derivative. At the same
time, it not only assimilated bravely and wisely
many elements organic to its growth, but also ad-
mitted, as we see, e.g., in its later Egyptian popu-
lar developments,'' semi-pagan features which were
a handicap ultimately to its successful advance.'
«iThe syncretistic situation was at once an oppor-
tunity and a risk for Christianity. The opportun-
ity was often seized, and the risk was sometimes
too much for the faith. Still, the environment
did not mould Christianity as it moulded move-
ments like Mithraism and Neo-Platonism. The
Catholicism of that age suffered from the desire to
conciliate the natural man, but it had more in it
than an indiscriminate selection or an anxious
imitation, such as syncretism usually exhibited.

The tendency of syncretism, when broadly
viewed, was to henotheism or pantheism rather
than to monotheism. It is true that syncretistic
movements meant a break away from polytheism.

"The first corollary of a truly pantheistic religion is not so
much toleration of all forms of worship, ajj a tendency to
embrace them all in a single syncretistic system. The one God
is the same for all. What, then, does the name they give him
matter?'"*

Such is the theme of a book like the Saturnalia of
Macrobius, and it is the principle of the religious
synthesisunderlyingPlutarch'sphilosophyof things.
But, as the arguments of a Neo-Platonist like lam-
blichus show, this serene indifference was not incom-
patible with ideas which were henotheistic rather
than monotheistic, and the popular cravings proved
too much for even a monotheistic principle in Chris-
tianity. Pope's opening lines in ' The Universal
Prayer ' —

1 'The expansion of the imperial organisation, the mixture of
nationalities in the capital, and the Hooding of them by Oriental
elements, the heightened intercourse, the prolonged residence
of the legions in the provinces and their penneation by foreigners,
finally, since the 3rd century, the advent of emperors who were
foreigners and unfamiliar with the national spirit of Rome— all
these produced the syncretism of religions' (P. Wendland, DU
heUen.-rom. Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zu Jxidentum und
Christentum'^, Tiibingen, 1912, p. 152).

2 See O. Wissowa, Religion und Kultiis der Riiimr, Munich,
1902, p. 80 f. ' The reconciled East and West met in Rome to
exchange compliments and gods ' (J. jMartineau, Ensays, lieoiews,
and Addresses, London, 1890-91, ii. 315).

3 ERE ix. 320.

* Cf. P. D. Scott-MoncriefJ, Paganism aiid Christianity in
Eqypt, Cambridge, 1913, pp. 126 f., 129 f., 150 f.

5 Cf. Harnack, Hist, of Dogma, Eng. tr., London, 1894-99, ii.
124 f.

6 G. d'Alviella, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of the Con-
ception of God {BL), London, 1892, p. 232.

' Father of All ! in ev'ry Age,

In ev'ry Clime ador'd,
By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord ! ' —

echo the syncretistic aspiration in its exalted and
abstract form. But syncretism, like Catholicism,
appealed to lower as well as higher cravings. The
adoration of a Deity like this left the heavens
strangely bare for tho.se who had been accustomed
to a richer variety of worship, and thus the syn-
cretistic tendency was welcomed as it allowed
these heavens to be repeopled by a host of spirits
and saints. Syncretism, in practice, almost invari-
ably fostered mythology. Sages and saints, no less
than savages, yielded to its spell in this direction.
It was found quite compatible, in pagan syncretism,
to unite a reverence for the One with some special
adoration of one or more favourite, traditional
deities. 1 And it is a question how far even the
Christian Church of the 4th cent., e.g., which had
rejected in earlier days the hospitable syncretism
of a monarch like Alexander Severus, tolerated,
for the sake of their associations and popular appeal,
forms of adoration which were, strictly speaking,
out of line with essential monotheism.

Literature. — The literature has been noted during the course
of the article ; the ' syncretistic controversy ' of the 17th cent,
is discussed by L A. Dorner, Hist, of Protestant Theology, Eng.
tr., Edinburgh, 1871, ii. 177 f. ; K. Loffler, CE xiv. 383 f. ; P.
Tschackert, PRE^ xix. 243ff.,and in J. H. Blunt, Diet, of
Sects, Heresies, Ecclesiastical Parties, and Schools of Religious
Thought, London, 1874, p. 585 fl. JaMES MoFFATT.

SYNDERESIS.— The word ffwri^pvffis, which
has no classical authority, should mean ' preserva-
tion.' In scholastic and mystical theology it
appears, often in the corrupt forms syndercsis or
smderesis, in a sense which is hardly justified by
the etymology of the word. T'^prjcns is used in later
Greek in the sense of ' observation,' and awT-qp-qci^
may have been coined on the analogy of awdSriaii.
The first example is in Jerome :

' Quartamque ponunt quae super haec et extra haec tria est,
quam Graeci vocant o-vi'tjjptjo-iv, quae scintilla conscientiae in
Cain quoque pectore, . . . non extinguitur, et qua . . . noa
peccare sentimus.' 2

Bonaventura ' couples synteresis with intelligentia,
as intellectus with ratio. Elsewhere he connects
synteresis with conscientia.

' Benignissimus Deua quadruplex contulit ei adiutorium,
scilicet duplex naturae et duplex gratiae. Duplicem enira
indidit rectitudinem ipsi naturae, videlicet unam ad recte iudi-
candum, et haec est rectitudo conscientiae, aliam ad recte
volendum, et haec est synteresis, cuius est reniurmurare contra
malum et stimulare ad bonum.''*

In the Itinerarium he defines synteresis as ' apex
mentis sen scintilla.' Hermann of Fritzlar speaks
of it as a power or faculty in the soul, wherein
God works immediately, without means and with-
out intermis.sion. Iluysbroeck defines it as the
natural will towards good implanted in us all,
though weakened by sin. Giseler uses similar
language, saying that the spark (so Eckhart speaks
of a Fiinkclein in the soul which cannot be ex-
tinguished) was created with the soul in all men,
and is a clear light in them, striving in every way
against sin and impelling steadily to virtue, and
pressing back towards the source from which it
came. In Thomas Aquinas synteresis is the highest
activity of the moral sense. Gerson says that the
cognitive power in man has three faculties — the
simple intelligence or natural light, which comes
from God Himself ; the understanding, which is
the frontier between the two worlds ; and the
sense-consciousness. Synteresis is the efi'ective

1 W. Pater notes this in Marcus Aurelius : 'To his pious
recognition of that one orderly spirit, which, according to the
doclrine of the Stoics, diffuses itself throughout the world . . .
he bad added a warm personal devotion towards the whole
multitude of the old national gods, and a great many new
foreign ones' (Marius the Epicurean^, London, 1892, i. 198).

2 in Ezech. i. 1. 3 Itinerarium mentis ad Deum, i.
* Breviloquium, ii. 11.

158

SYNERGISM

faculty answering to the first of these, and con-
tempkition is its correspondinsj; activity. The
word also occurs in Albertus Magnus and Alex-
ander of Hales. Eckhart sometimes seems to
identify synteresis with the Filn/calein or Ganster,
and with the intellectus agens or die obersie
Vcr7iunft ; but the tendency of his philosophy is to
make the ' spark ' supra-rational and uncreated ;
he even says: ' Diess Filnkelein, dass ist Gott.'
In the earlier writers synteresis is usually thought
of as a remnant of the sinless state of man before
the fall, while in the bolder thought of the school
of Eckhart it becomes the seat or organ of divine
immanence and of the highest personal inspii'a-
tion. The notion of an impeccable ' soul-ceutre '
may be traced back to the Neo-Platonists.

LiTBRATCRB. — 'W . Preger, Gesch. der deutscheii Mystik im
Mittelaltar, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1874-81 ; A. Lasson, Meister
Eckhart der Mystiker, Berlin, 18G8; W. R. Inge, Christian
Mysticism, London, 1899. W. K. INGE.

SYNDICALISM.— See Socialism.

SYNERGISM.— I. General meaning of the
term and its Scriptural support. — The term
' synergism ' {(xwepyelv, awspyds, ' to co-operate,'
'fellow-worker') became definitely fixed as a
terminus tcchnicus in theology in the IGth century.
It was applied to the later views of Philip
Melanchthon and his followers on the question as
to the relation between the Holy Spirit (or God's
grace) and man's will in regeneration. This view,
broadly stated, is that the human will can and
does co-operate with ti)e grace of God as a veixc
caxisa regcnerationis. It opposes the position ex-
pressed in the sentence ' Homo con vertitur nolens.'
The human will was, it is true, not regarded as
the primary cause (hence synergism dillers from
Felagianism or even Semi-Pelagianism) ; that was
unreservedly assigned to God's Spirit and to the
preaching of the Word, but the energy of the
human will was given a place, and its assent an
essential place, in the act of regeneration. The
enunciation of this view caused unusual heat
among theologians, because its truth or falsehood
affected the whole realm of theological truth — the
eftects of the fall on human nature, the nature
and working of God's decrees, the responsibility of
the sinner, in fact all Christian anthropology and
soteriology.

The term ' synergism ' owes its origin to Scrip-
ture, but the Scriptural usage of the word operates
in a different universe of discourse from the theo-
logical. In the NT awepyeiv (ffvvepyds) is never
applied to the psychological relation, Avhatever
that may be, whether creative or co-oi)erative,
between God's Spirit and man's will in regenera-
tion or conversion. Its general usage is to
describe the objective co-operation of Christian
brethren in the furtherance of God's kingdom on
earth.

In 1 Co S'J (Oeov yap iay^cv (TvvepyoC) the co-operation referred
to is that between men in their outward labours for God, not a
co-operation between them individually or unitedly with God,
however true that may be in itself ; and at any rate it refers to
post-conversion experience, not to pre- or simul-conversion
relationships. In Ph 213 the reference is to men already
regenerated, and the same is true of Ro S'-iS, if 6 Oebs is the true
text — God works in all things for good with those who love God.
It does not directly refer to what takes place in conversion, nor
does it state the active elements involved therein and their
relationships. Again, in Mk IG^u the co-operation of the ascended
Lord with the heralds of the gospel is spoken of in regard to
miracles. But the word in Scripture is never used of man's
natural faculties or capacities (before conversion) working
together with the Spirit of God to efiect regeneration, which is
the specifio and proper theological application of the term. If
thus synergism is to be rejected or to be defended from Scrip-
ture, it must be by reference to the truth of Scripture, and not
to its letter.

2. The origin and development of synergism in
Melanchthon's doctrine. — The earlier writings of

Melanchthon betray no synergistic tendencies.
On the contrary, they are in some respects more
rigidly deterministic than even Luther's. The
religious man is profoundly conscious of his
dependence on God's grace. He does not dream of
co-ordinating or equating his own freedom with
the grace of God as causal in his salvation. This
is true even of those who are legitimately called
synergists. * Arminians usually pray like Calvin-
ists,' said Charles Hodge, adding, what is equally
true, that ' Calvinists frequently preach like
Arminians';^ i.e., they appeal to men as respon-
sible voluntary agents. The difficulty arises when
one or other of these aspects of experience is
made the determining factor in the elaboration of
a theological system. Truth is largely a matter
of proportion and balance. To begin with,
Melanchthon, whose mind was eminently of a
systematic cast, worked out his system under the
dominating influence of the experience of divine
dependence. The Holy Spirit teaches us, he says,
that all things happen necessarily by predestina-
tion, and therefore there is no such thing as
freedom of our will. To maintain free Avill was
to dethrone the grace of God from its unique
sirpremacy. This was his position in the first
edition of his Loci Communes Rerum Thcologi-
carum,^ and it was even more rigidly expressed in
his Commentary on Romans and Corinthians.*
Free will he regq-rded as a scholastic figment
emanating from ctft'nal wisdom and obscuring the
blessings "brought to us by Christ. It made men
arbiters of their own salvation and consequently
undermined the immediacy of Christian assurance
and froze the stream of personal devotion to the
Redeemer. Melanchthon resolutely applied this
conception of predestination to all events, physical
and moral, outward and inward :

'Si ad praedestinationem referas humanam voluntateni nee
in externis, nee in inteniia operibus ulla est libertas.' Since
man is born a child of wrath, it follows that he is born without
the Spirit of God, and therefore ' nihil nisi uarnalia sapit, auiat,
et quaerit.''*

Man has no power over his inward affections, and,
though Melanchthon admits that in outward
things he has some freedom, even here the power
of will seems to vanish. Thus Melanchthon,
applying a transcendental conception, predestina-
tion, to the facts of human life, as he read them
or understood them from Scripture, came to assert
that no real causality existed anywhere but in
God's will, and so the betrayal of Judas is as truly
and as immediately an act of God as the calling
of Paul. The reprobation of the damned is as
l>roperly and in the same sense the effect of God's
will as the salvation of the elect. We are not to
think of certain events as determined while others
are allowed. All things immediately flow out of
God's will necessarily. All questions as to the
rightness of God's procedure he silences by regard-
ing these questionings as issuing from man's carnal
inquisitiveness.

It follows from this position that man could
contribute nothing to his own conversion. He
could not repent of himself, and so-called morality
(pre-conversion) has no spiritual value.

' Homo per vires naturales nihil [potest] nisi peccare. Carnale
est quidquid per naturae vires fit, Socratis constantia, Zenonis
moderatio, nihil nisi carnales afl'ectus sunt.' 5

At this stage we see Melanchthon planted firmly
on the experience of God's free grace which gave
its strength to the new outlook of the Reforma-
tion, combating strongly the popular Roman
Catholic view according to which man's free will
aided by certain ecclesiastical rites contributed

1 C. A. Salmond, Princetoniana, Edinburgh, 1888, p. 177.

" Originally published at Wittenberg and Basel in 1521, and
ed. T. Kolde, Leipzig, 1900.

3 Nuremberg, 1522. ■• Loci, 1521, p. 97.

■> lb. pp. 97-115.

SYNERGISM

159

sometliing to man's salvation — a view which cut the
vital nerve of personal trust in Clirist as the alone
lledeemer and opened a door by which the whole
mechanism of merits and of an external ecclesiasti-
cal authority as ultimate source of redemptive
assurance could be reinstated. Melanchthon,
however, was extravagant in his elaboration and
his application of the truth of man's dependence on
God for salvation. He confused in the interests of
a theory natui'al and moral causality, and left no
moral bridge between nature and grace. He raised
a spiritual feeling — of supreme importance, no
doubt — to a position of absolute sovereignty over
man and nature and over God Himself. It was
impossible that this could be the final resting-
place of one like Melanchthon to whom the ethical
interest was so important and who was of a
mediating spirit.

'Ego mihi conscius sum, non uUaiu ob causam unquam re
OeokoyrjKdvai, nisiut mores lueos eiuendai-em.'i
Accordingly he was soon convinced, both by the
development of his own experience and by the
movement of events, of the necessity of defending
his position from misconceptions— not now so
much from the side of Rome as from pretended
followers of free grace itself— and this led him to
modify his earlier views. He now came to see that
there were many positions previously held by him
which he would have to alter. His study of the
Greek fathers, whose views on free will were
determined bj^ their hostility to Eastern fatalism,
and who were very conscious of the moral con-
tinuity between nature and grace (often the two
were not clearly distinguished by them), influenced
his thought, and we find him frequently quoting
from Chrysostom : ^X^cet /xh 6 Oebs ^ovXd/xevov 8i
^\Kei, or from Basil : ij.6vov d^X-qcxov Kal debs irpoa-

The contentions of Erasmus as against Luther
undoubtedly influenced Melanchthon also, and
the result was emphasis on tlie will's own activity
in conversion.

His increasing familiarity with the classical
moralists and the Stoics, but above all his earnest
ethical nature, stimulated into protest by the
fanaticism of enthusiasts Avho regarded regenera-
tion as an immediate unmediated ojitis operatum,
led him to alter his views or, as he thought him-
self, to replace the emphasis. Pre-conversion
morality was now given a moral valuation. Men
were saying that they could do nothing, and so
they defended everything that they did or felt
inclined to do, however wicked or outrageous.
Roman Catholics Avere thus given an occasion to
ocpiate Lutheranism with immoralism in personal
life and anarchy in society, and the doctrines of
grace had therefore to be set on an ethical basis
for the benefit alike of opponents and of adherents.
The result was the advocacy by Melanchthon of
what became known in the Lutheran Church as
synergistic views. It was in his eyes not a
capitulation or a palinode, but an ethical rehabilita-
tion of the doctrine of free grace, although it was
viewed by genuine Lutherans as a reversion to
Pelagianism.

' One egg is not liker another than liia synergy is to the
Pelagian,' said Matthias FlaciusS the Illyrian, a champion of
Lutheranism, concerning the views of JMelanchthon's follower
Victorine Strigel. ' Man, they say, can by the natural powers
of his free will equip and prepare himself for tlie reception of
God's grace— exactly the teaching of the godless sophists,
Thomas of Aquino, Scotus, and their disciples,' said Nicholas
Amsdorf of Johann Pfeflinger and Melanchthon.'*

1 From a letter to Joachim Camerarius, in Corpus Reforma-
torum, ed. 0. G. Bretschneider and H. E. Bindseil, Halle and
Brunswick, 1834-60, i. 722.

2 Loci, 1535, p, 376, and elsewhere.

'^ Weimar Disputation, 9th session (cf. Luthardt, Die Lehrc
vomjreien Willen, p. 226).

* Offentliche Bekeniitnis der reincn Lehrc, dcs EoanjtilU, etc.,
Jena, 1568.

Synergism, however, is to bo understood not
from the extreme censures of its opponents, not
even from the extreme statements of its advocates,
but rather when we look on it as an ethical protest
against positions that threatened to submerge the
conscience and heart and to disarm the Church in
her fight against licence and anarchy. It is there-
fore necessary to state Melanchthon's position
more fully.

3. Melanchthon's synergism and its effect on
his theological outlook. — Melanchthon's interest,
we have said, was mainly practical, not theoretic.
Accordingly his interest latterly in predestination
was that of the custodian of morals. He desired
to safeguard God's moral purity from any shadow
that might be cast upou it by this dogma and at
the same time to free man's moral nature from the
paralysing efl'ect of a monergistic determinism.
His early statements were extravagant. Now he
emphatically declared that God could in no sense
be regarded as the author of sin. Evil was i)er-
mitted by Him, but it was abhorrent to His
nature. He therefore felt obliged to give up the
dogma of an eternal decree of reprobation. The
cause of man's sin was in man himself, and the
hardening of his heart was due to wilful dis-
obedience and perversity. Man's own responsi-
bility for his spiritual state was emphasized. The
ofier of God's grace was universal. Original sin
was a fact, j^et man's will, though it could not
initiate a gracious state, could yet adopt an atti-
tude of welcome or of repugnance to God's grace
oUered in His Word. Accordingly v/e lind
Melanchthon editing the original Augsburg Con-
fession in this interest.

Art. 18, which originally read, ' Justitia spiritualis is effected
by the Hoi}- Spirit which is received into the heart through the
Word,' he altered to read, 'Justitia spirituali.t is effected in us
when we are helped (adjuvamur) by the Holy Spirit.' The
same alteration, adjuvari, is made in art. 20. He prepared the
Leipzig Interim in the same spirit : ' Although God does not
justify men through their merits, nevertheless the merciful
God does not act on man as on a block but draws him so that
his will co-operates, provided he has come to years of dis-
cretion.'

Melanchthon's position is clearly stated in the
revised edition of his Loci (published in 1533) in a
sentence that became famous and stereotyped in
after controversy :

' In hoc exemplo videmus conjungi has causas, verbum,
Spiritum sanctum et voluntatem non sane otiosani, sed re-
pugnautem iufirmitate suae ' ; or, as he expressed it in later
editions: 'hie concurrunt tres causae bonae actionis, verbum
Dei, Spiritus sanctus, et humana voluntas assentiens nee
repugnans verbo Dei. Posset enim excuterc ut excutit Saul sua
sponle, sed cum mens audiens, ac se sustenans non repngnat,
non indulget diffidentiae, sed adjuvaute etiam Spiritu saiicto
conatur assentiri in hoc certamine voluntas non est otiosa.'i

There is little doubt that Melanchthon applies
this to the act of conversion, and his view wiis th;it
the positive assent of the will was essential,
although, as Herrlinger - points out, ho maintained
at times that the help of the Holy Spirit was
necessary to enable the will to accept the gospel.^*
While he does not make it at all times quite clear
wliether this assent was itself the result of the work-
ing of God's Spirit or due to the natural energy of
the will, yet he seems certainly to maintain that
something must be gTanted to the will itself, and
here is the point on which the synergistic con-
troversy hinges. This dubiety is noticeable also
in some of his followers. One of theui, Pezclius,
interprets his nuister as teaching that the will was
a causa suhordinata, after the Holy Spirit in the
Word had roused up the soul.''

Latterly he defined the will after Erasmus as
facidtas apiMcandi ad sc gj-atiavi, and therefore
the ditlerence between the saved and the lost is

1 Corp. Rcfnnii. xxi. 658.

2 Vic ThciiliKjic. Mclanchtkmis, Gotha, 1879.

3 See I. A. Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, iv. 171.
i See Luthardt, p. 180.

160

SYNERGISM

ultimately due not to election — for even God fore-
saw something in the elect which conditioned His
election — nor to reprobation, but to man himself.
The difficulty which confronted Melanchthon was
just to determine what constitutes responsibility,
and, even if his solution is defective and open to
verbal criticism, as it certainly is, it is a merit
that he recognized the problem in its seriousness
and that he tried to solve it on moral grounds.

Melanchthon's synergism also afl'ected his
practical outlook. To those who defended civil
and social outrage because they were sinners, and
would remain sinners unless changed by a divine
act which they could do nothing to initiate, he
sternly said that man in spite of original sin had
liberty in outward actions, the reason could control
the will, and the will the bodily movements. No
man could say, like the servant of Zeno, that he
was compelled to sin by fate. It is clear that his
soul loathed this Manichaiism, as he called it, and
his safeguarding of predestination from those wlio
so understood it was clamantly demanded by the
circumstances of the age and of many ages since.
It is surely as immediate a datum of Christian
experience that the sinner is responsible for his sin
as that he asci'ibes his salvation to God's grace.

Melanchthon did not take a prominent part in the Majoristic
controversy, which arose over George Major's statement that
'good works are necessary for holiness,' but by various utter-
ances he Indicated that, whilst maintaining the Lutheran
position that justification is of grace alone, he was anxious to
show that a holy life was the inevitable consequence and the
test of the reality of a justified life. Amsdorf's statement that
'good works are harmful to holiness' he characterized as a
'lewd saying ' {unflalige liede).^

4. The synergistic controversy. — Melanchthon's
statements concerning free will were ambiguous
and so hesitating that men, accustomed to the
breezy statements of Luther on the same subject,
felt as if he attributed to the will more than he
actually expressed, and his acceptance of Erasmus's
formula gave this feeling a colour of truth.
Luther on this point was definite :

'In geistlichen und gottlichen Sachen was der Seelen Heil
betrifft da ist der Mensch wie die Salzsaule, wie Loth's Weib, ja
wie ein Klotz und Stein, wie ein todt Bild, das weder Augen
noch Mund weder Sinn noch Herz brauchet.' 2

What Luther advocated with zeal Melanchthon
admitted with reserve. Controversy was therefore
inevitable, and it broke out violently, occasioned
by two disputations of Pfeffinger,^ a Leipzig pro-
fessor and disciple of Melanchthon.

He tried to answer the question wh.y one man under the
preaching of the Word became converted and another did not,
and the decisive factor, he maintained, was that one willingly
assented and the other did not. The difference cannot be
attributed to a difference in the activity of the divine will :
therefore the difference lies in man himself. We must there-
fore attribute a certain synergy to our will. Man even now in
his fallen state is not as a statue or a stone, nor is he purely
passive, for, if that were the case, there would be no difference
between the pious and the impious, the elect and the damned,
Saul and David. God would become a respecter of persons and
the author of contumacy in the impious and the damned. On
the other hand, the human will has not the power to effect
spiritual motions without the help of the IIolj' Spirit, but the
Holy Spirit moving through the Word of God, and the mind
thinking, and the will not resisting but complying under the
Spirit's influence — these are the causes which concurrently
produce conversion.

Pfeffinger's defence and explanation of Melanch-
thon's views called forth violent opposition
especially from Amsdorf and Flacius. The former
(see above) said that, according to Pfeffinger,
man could prepare and equip himself for con-
version by the natural powers of his free will
without the aid of the Holy Spirit. Verbally this
was very unjust, Imt essentially it had an element
of truth in it. Flacius appealed to Luther's words
and declared that man was worse than a stock or

1 Corp. Reform, ix. 407.

2 Enarr. in Ps. xc.

3 Propositiones de libero arhitrio and Qumstinnes qxdnque de
libertate voluntatin humance, Leipzig, 1555.

stone because he offered resistance to God's Spirit.
The will therefore does not co-operate ; it opposes
and resists. Every one knows that this criticism,
though infelicitously expressed, is in touch with
reality and spoken out of personal experience. As
regards regeneration, man is absolutely passive —
he is spiritually dead ; the image of God is not
only wholly obliterated, but is transformed into
the image of Satan. Man thus contributes
nothing positive to his own conversion ; any
contribution of his is negative and resisting.

Pfeffinger replied to Amsdorf and incidentally
mentioned Flacius. He declared himself more
explicitly as holding that the unconverted will had
the power of either obeying or resisting God's
offer in His Word. Thus the controversy raged,
the new university of Jena contending for the old
position of Luther and violently opposing the
synergistic movement, which was stoutly advocated
by the faculties of Leipzig and Wittenberg. At
last, at the instigation of Flacius, an attempt was
made to silence opposition by authority. John
Frederick II., Elector of Saxony, was appealed to,
and by his command a Book of Confutation and
Condomnation of all prevalent heresies was
published at Jena in 1559. Of its nine divisions
the sixth was devoted to the refutation of
synergism. Those who taught that man had
power in his will to co-operate with the grace of
God in conversion were stigmatized as over-
throwers of the grace of God. It was false to
maintain that man can do anything by his free will
in accepting or rejecting grace. Human nature
is wholly adverse fi-om God and hostile to God and
is subjected to the tyranny of sin and Satan.

In a similar strain the orthodox Lutherans —
Amsdorf, Wigand, Tilman Hesshuaen, etc. — spoke
and wrote against synergism and deduced this
anthropology from their predestinarian views, the
last-named saying that, in one respect,

' God did not wish that all men should be saved, for He did
not elect all. God's will acts in one uniform way on men just
as on stocks and stones.' 1

Melanchthon raised his voice against this deter-
ministic delirium and declared that it is absurd to
talk of conversion until the will consents, that to
reject God's grace is an act of will and not an act
of God, and that human nature had at least power
in outward actions. An attempt was made to
make the book binding on teachers and preachers,
but without success. Even in Jena, the citadel
of orthodoxy, Pastor Hugel refused to read the
document from the pulpit, and Strigel raised his
voice on the synergistic side. Both Strigel and
Hugel were imprisoned, and it looked as if
synergism were tloomed in Jena, for the university
was strengthened in the orthodox interest by the
appointments of Wigand and .Judex to professorial
chairs and by the recall of Musseus, all of whom
were strong champions of orthodoxy. However,
the prisoners were set free after an imprisonment
of less than six months, and a further attempt
was made to settle the dispute by public dis-
cussion. This disputation lasted from 2nd until
8th Aug. 1580, and occupied thirteen sittings.
The interest for us centres in the positions de-
fended and refuted regarding free will and God's
grace.

To begin with, Strigel maintained that the
substance and qualities of human nature were
not obliterated by the fall nor altered, but only
hindered in their activity. His position he made
clear by a curious physical illustration.

A magnet, he said, cannot attract iron when smeared with
onion-juice, yet it retains its magnetic properties, and it can
attract though smtared with goat's blood. It is the same
magnet in both cases, but its activity is hindered in the one

I See Luthardt, p. 241.

SYNERGISM

161

case and not in the other. So by the fall man's nature is not
destroyed, but only weakened. He is like him who fell among
thieves between Jerusalem and Jericho, half-dead, or like one
weakened by disease but not dead like a corpse.

Strigel is here aiming at a distinction which
satisfies many theologians— that between formal
freedom and material freedom or that between
natural ability and moral ability, a distinction
largely used by Jonathan Edwards but in currency
before his day.i According to this distinction,
man does what he pleases and wills what he
pleases. That is the very meaning of will — it is
not compelled from without ; but, though man has
this natural ability, as a matter of fact he does not
will the good spiritually simply because he does
not want to — he lacks moral ability.

Seeberg contends that Strigel was groping after
this distinction, but did not adequately express it.^
That is certainly true of him at this Weimar
disputation. He did not make his meaning clear,
but afterwards he distinguished very clearly
between efficacia {dwafits) ox facultas, on the one
hand, and capacitas or aptitudo, on the other.
Man has lost the first through the fall, and the
Holy Spirit restores to the will the Syya^is or
efficacy or faculty of believing, which was lost by
the fall. At this disputation, hoAvever, Strigel did
not go so far as that. When asked by Flacius if
the human will co-operated with the Holy Spirit
before conversion or only after, he hesitated and
said that to him conversion was not a point but a
line, not the beginning of the Christian life but the
whole of it.

It is evident from reading the disputation that
Strigel really wished to attribute power to the
will, but at the same time to ascribe the chief
place to the Holy Spirit— so that synergism is an
unfortunate term to use of factors that cannot be
equated. He repeated the Melanchthonian for-
mula : ' Concurrunt in conversione haec tria :
Spiritus sanctus movens corda, vox Dei, voluntas
hominis quae voci divinae assentitur,' a sentence
which is ambiguous ; and on this point no decision
could be reached. On the other hand, Flacius
went so far as to say that the very substance of
the soul was altered by the fall and by sin, and
that therefore man was purely passive, or active
only in hostility to God. Peace could not be
restored by public controversy. In a few months
the party of the lUyrian was driven from the
country, and Flacius, a man of undoubted erudition,
died in his fifty-fifth year at Frankfort-on-Main!
Strigel also left and died in Heidelberg at the
early age of forty-five.

5. The Formula of Concord.— After various
unsuccessful attempts at a solution of this and
other disputes the Formula of Concord =* appeared,
and, as it became an authoritative standard of the
Lutheran Church, its position on this topic must
be stated here.

The problem is dealt with in artt. 1 and 2 of the
Formula, and, while no personal names are men-
tioned, the views of contending parties are very
clearly kept in mind. In the 1st art., dealing with
original sin, a clear distinction is drawn between
actual transgressions {actualia delicta) and the here-
ditary sickness of the soul. Man's nature is in all
its parts poisoned by inherited sin, and for this
condition man is guilty and condemned by God's
law, so that by nature men are the children of
wrath, and from this state they can be saved only
by the benefits of Christ's merit. How this cor-
ruption is transmitted is described. God creates
every soul afresh, but because of physical genera-
tion from corrupted seed the hereditary disease of

1 It is used by Twisse, Howe, and very clearly by Isaac Watts

the famous hymn-writer.

\ ^'^^''ti^i. ;^f Dogrmngeech., Leipzig, 1895-98, ii. 356.
3See£iJ£iiL 849.

VOL. XIL — II

sm IS propagated. Yet God is not the author of
sin in either its origin or its development, nor is
man's substance converted into sin. Original sin
IS not to be identified with the essence of man. A
clear distinction must be made between our nature
(which was created, and which is daily preserved,
by God), in which original sin dwells, and that
original sin itself which dwells in our nature. To
teach otherwise is Manichaeism, not Christianity.
This IS further corroborated by the fact that the
Son of God, according to His human nature, is con-
substantial with us, His brethren. He took our
nature, but it was sinless in Him. Further, God
m sanctifying men purifies them from sin, accept-
ing them for Christ'^s sake. He gives them grace,
but He has eternal hostility towards sin itself.
Moreover, if original sin were the substance of the
soul, the doctrine of the resurrection of believers
would be null and void. Thus the Formula dis-
poses of the Flacian error. Yet, while all this is
so, man before God in his actual fallen state is
truly and spiritually dead in all his faculties, as
far as spiritual good is concerned. Strigel's illus-
tration of the magnet will not do. Man is not
simply surrounded by outward hindrances; he
cannot do anything, however small, in his natural
state in regard to spiritual things. He has not
the capacity 'in rebus spiritualibus aliquid in-
choandi, operandi aut cooperandi.'

In the 2nd art., in which we have an attempt at
an analytical solution, the relation of man's powers
to the Holy Spirit is set forth. In fallen man
before conversion there does not remain the
smallest spark (' ne scintillula quidem ') of spiritual
power by which he can prepare himself for appre-
hending God's grace, or for applying or accommo-
dating it to himself. Rather he resists it. Man
is capable certainly of being converted. He is still
a reasonable creature, but as regards any real
initiative 'hac in parte deterior est trunco, quia
voluntati divinae rebellis est et inimicus.' He has
a capacity for conversion, but a passive one, and
his conversion is purely a work of the Holy Spirit.
At the same time it is stated that man by natural
reason and will has somehow power to live a decent
outward life. Thus the Formula of Concord, while
strongly opposing the strange view of Flacius as
regards the substance of the soul of fallen man, at
the same time as strongly opposes the view which
would give any power to the will in initiating con-
version. Of Melanchthon's three causes it makes
the Holy Spirit alone the efficient cause, the will
and nature of man being only a subject to be con-
verted, while the Word of God preached or read is
the means through which the Spirit works. Great
stress is laid on the Word of God as the means of
the Spirit's working. Thus God softens men's
hearts, draws them, and reveals to them their sin ;
and, realizing His anger, they feel in their heart
contrition which makes them attend to the promises
of the gospel, and so faith ('scintillula fidei') is
quickened in their soul and 'hoc modo Spiritus
Sanctus qui haec omnia operatur in cor mittitur.'

Thus the Formula of Concord unhesitatingly
rejects synergism. In conversion the real agent is
the Holy Ghost, the assent of the will is not a
cause, but is itself an efiFect of the Spirit's M'orking
through the Word. Co-operation may be spoken
of after conversion, but even then we must not
think of God's Spirit and man's will as if they were
like horses drawing a load and working side by
side. God's Spirit in the converged man works on
and through the will.

6. The Keformed position as regards synergism,
—The problem of the relation of man's nature to
the grace of God was agitated in the Lutheran
Church after the Formula of Concord a.x).A has been
a subject of dispute down to the present day.

162

SYNERGISM

In the Reformed Church the same problem
arose, though it was approached somewhat ditt'er-
ently. The distinctive feature of the Calvinistic
system is its logical consistency ; every doctrine is
discussed not only by itself but in the light of the
whole. The supreme regulative principle in Calvin-
ism is the sovereignty of God ; and, when man's
regeneration was viewed in the light of this prin-
ciple, it was recognized that God's grace acted
differently on men who are regenerated and on
those who are not. That is obvious, but whence
the difference ? It was due to the detennination of
God. God, who had elected some, did so not as a
bare matter of decree or quiescent foreknowledge
or fortuitously waiting on their faith, but ener-
getically through a series of efficient means — the
redemptive mission of His Son, the preaching of
the Word, the irresistible working of the Holy
Spirit ; and these were effective all along the line
in the case of the elect, leading them from spiritual
death to grace and glory. Now, in the case of the
unregenerated it was a sufficient proof that this
divine redemptive causality had no place, that it
failed in this link of regeneration. It was non-
existent here ; therefore it was wholly non-
existent. God did not elect them ; the redemption
of His Son was not purposively undertaken or
efficaciously operative in their case. Thus the
question of the will is so embedded in the logical
coherence of the system that to moot it is to raise
the question of the validity of the system as a
whole, and that is what happened in the case of
Arminius, and especially — for Arminius himself did
not attribute regenerating power to the will — in
the case of his followers Simon Bischop(Episcopius),
Philippus van Limborch, and others. The objec-
tions to Calvinism, as far as the subject of this
article is concerned, were directed mainly against
what was called irresistible grace and the extent
of the Atonement.

The Arminians — for we may leave the Socinians
out of account ; W. Robertson Smith has aptly de-
scribed them as ' Pelagians of the intellect ' — held
that grace worked similarly on all, the diiference
from which conversion arose being due not to
God's grace but to man's own wall. To them irre-
sistible grace (or, more properly, efficacious grace)
meant necessity, and so the responsibility for the
final damnation of the lost fell on God. Again,
they maintained that by the Atonement the possi-
bility of salvation was opened to all, and they vehe-
mently rejected the doctrine of the eternal repro-
bation of some, as Wesley so strenuously did
afterwards. The Synod of Dort attempted to
settle the problem, but in the Reformed Church
as in the Lutheran it keeps constantly emerging.
Here even more than in the Lutheran Church,
which diffidently refrained from applying predes-
tination theories to its anthropological and escha-
tological views,^ the problem is an acute one,
for the question of God's moral character is raised,
and it is from this quarter, rather than from the
sphere of religious psychology, that the opposition
emerges, and here its strength lies. Hence we find
that Calvinistic apologetic has largely been a
defence against what is regarded as misunderstand-
ings, perversions, and unwarrantable inferences.

In regard to efficacious grace the Calvinist did
not mean that God's grace did violence to the
human will by outward or inward compulsion, or
that it altered the nature of the will as such,
which always has worked and does work volun-
tarily, but that grace affected the disposition of
man in such a way that the resistance of the
will was changed into obedience. It was not the
obedience of the will that made grace effica-
cious, but much more the efficacy of grace that

1 Cf. also the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church.

made the will not only in act but in disposition
obedient.

Some Calvinists, notably the school of Samur,
agreed with the Arminians that the Atonement
was intended for all mankind ; but the Arminians
contended further that it is left to the free will of
man either to concur with or to reject this intention.
The Calvinists felt that, while this opened a possi-
bility of salvation to all, it made salvation certain
for none ; the Atonement thus became itself a
contingency rather than a reality, and they could
not understand a purpose of God which could thus
be frustrated. To leave the future of mankind
hanging on the slender thread of the free will — even
if that thread was not itself an illusion — seemed
too precarious to be consistent with a purposive
God, and rendered the salvation of the regenerate
itself problematic, a denial of the perseverance of
the saints. Hence the position that the Atone-
ment was meant for those that are saved or to be
saved, and that grace is efficacious in the case of
the elect ; and so the empirical fact that some are
not saved is itself a proof that in God's secret pur-
pose the Atonement was not meant for them.

Here also, as in the Lutheran Church, and as in
the internal disputes on this question between the
Jesuits and the Jansenists in the Church of Rome,
as well as in the disputes between Rome and
Reformers on this point, we see the question at
issue in spite of many cross currents in the dis-
cussion itself. The Calvinistic and Arminian
problem is even more illuminating than the
Lutheran because it is more conscious of the per-
vasive nature of the issue. It is a matter not of
anthropology simply, but of theology in all its
bearings. A survey of the discussion, in spite of
the changed outlook of our own day, reveals the
palpable dangers on either side and at least
teaches us where we are not to search for an ade-
quate solution.

The problem is not an accident of history, but a
fundamental problem of thought, perhaps the
problem which goes deepest of all — the relation
between God and man. It goes deeper and higher
than the question of man's place in nature or man's
place in history ; it is the question of man's place
in relation to God.

7. Conclusion. — What, then, is the significance
of the synergistic controversy for modern Christi-
anity ? It is evident that many of the preconcep-
tions accepted by both parties alike, whether we
look at the discussion as handled by Augustine
and Pelagius, by Flacius and Melanchthon, by
Calvin and Arminius, or by Jansenist and Jesuit,
are antiquated. The march of natural science has
raised afresh the whole question of the nature of
man, and the problem is now whether man's nature
can be explained from below as a development of
life in general. Alongside of the activity of
science has gone a prodigious wealth of philosophi-
cal speculation dealing with the nature of man,
his place in the universe, and the value of his experi-
ence and his ideals. The profound changes also in
the structure of society, the emergence of demo-
cratic ideas, and the consequent application of
new categories in the explanation of the signifi-
cance of human life have changed the outlook con-
siderably. The more direct activities of Christi-
anity itself, its vast missionary ideals and efforts,
the investigations into the psychology of the Chris-
tian life, the insight into what is permanent in
Christian experience as distinct from what is acci-
dental or subsidiary — in short, the main currents
of modern thought and life — have poured through
Christian theology tUl the old landmarks are sub-
merged, and history and reflexion alone make us
certain that the unity of experience is a reality
and that the problems of the spirit change not.

SYNERGISM

163

however much the outlook may change. It is on
this changed background and in the light of these
tendencies that the problem of synergism can
alone be approached.

{a) Modern Christianity in all its schools has
had to fight against a naturalistic conception of
man. From this point of view we can appreciate
the emphasis laid by the early Greek theologians
on man s freedom. Whatever may be thought of
their view of freedom, the important point is that
as against fatalism Christianity asserts that free-
dom has a real meaning as applied to man. So all
Christian schools to-day, whether they be histori-
cally affiliated with Augustine or Pelagius, em-
phasize freedom as against physical necessity or
direct determinism. Freedom has a meaning in
regard to man that it has not in regard to matter.
It is necessary to be cleai" on this point because
naturalistic necessitarians too often claim the
Augustinian and the Calvinist as on their side,
whereas they are working on a different level of
experience altogether. This is brought out clearly
by the following considerations.

(1) According to Calvinism and Arminianism
alike, man was originally created in the image of
God, and his final end is 'to glorify God and to
■enjoy Him for ever.' This is deeper than any
change brought about by sin and subsists as an
inalienable characteristic of human nature.

'A lady once said to me, "The more I see of myself, I see
nothing so properly mine as my sin." I said to her, "Well,
you do not see deep enough. There is something far more
properly j'ours than your sin ; and your sin is improperly yours.
It is a blot in your being, which, if you do not get quit of it,
will never cease to be unnatural to you. No ; the image of
God is more properly yours, though you had no share in the
production of it." ' i

(2) It has always been held that man is re-
sponsible for his sin. He has formal freedom, nor
can he ever become a non-moral being in the sense
that he can become non-voluntary in his actions or
place himself beyond the claims of the moral law
on his character. Whatever his actual condition
due to sin, these things hold true. His reason,
conscience, and will always act rationally, morally,
and volitionally. Again, the question here is not
whether we agree Avith the content of this nature
as explained by different schools of Christian
thought. We may consider that the Arminian
view gives too much, and the Calvinistic view too
little, real freedom ; but the important point is
that from the general Christian standpoint man is
not explicable in terms of mechanism, however
subtle or refined in form. The synergistic con-
troversy has no meaning either for opponent or for
defender if the naturalistic view of man is true.
The theory of T. H. Green* as to the relation of
the character to volitions is simply Calvinistic
psychology in a philosophical dress, but its whole
motive is to overthrow the naturalistic conception
of man.

(6) Synergism becomes a real problem when
man's freedom is viewed in the light of God's
activity. We are so accustomed to defending
liberty against material necessity in our age that
we are apt to forget that the real problem of free-
dom emerges on the religious plane. What mean-
ing and content are we to give to man's freedom,
not now as against nature, but as against God
Himself? Two main streams of thought emerge
in history on this question.

(1) The Pelagian, looking almost exclusively at
man's free power of initiative, became jealous even
of God's interference. Man on this view is a bare
individual and largely, if not wholly, his own
creator. His sin is a bare act of vnll, undetermined
by what went before and unaffected by what comes

1 John Duncan, Colloquia Peripatetica^, Edinburgh, 1871, p.

2 Prolegmnena to Ethics, Oxford, 1883.

after. His wiU is his unconditionally, for the
character is the result of acts of will ; but an act of
will can alter it easily. His merit is his own, and
his salvation is his own. God never gets inside
the adytum of man's free spirit, and free wUl is
primarily the power of choosing between alter-
natives.

(2) To the Augustinian the problem was far
more complicated. He recognized that man was
organically related to the past. The influences of
the past affect his will and disposition and char-
acter. He does not begin as a moral neutral or
moral unit. Sin is more than a bare act of will.
When a man becomes self-conscious, it is there not
simply as the result of a wrong choice, but as the
fruit of a vitiated disposition and itself a source of
vitiation. The characteristic of moral awakening
is the discovery of our bondage. We become
conscious of our need of freedom more than of the
fact that we are free. The interposition of God is
not regarded as a violation of freedom, but wel-
comed as the restorer and succourer of true freedom
itself, which to the Augustinian meant acting in
accordance with the highest. This deeper view of
man led Augustine to the certainty of pre-individ-
ual iniquity — racial evU — as it led Kant to posit
a supra-temporal fall. Objections may be raised
to phrases like original sin, the guilt of Adam's
transgression, the fall of Adam, supra-temporal
fall, and it is right to aim at verbal accuracy if
possible, but it is essential that the repudiation of
inadequate phraseology should not be accompanied
by the rejection of the realities bodied forth by
inaccurate phrases.

We have the same tendencies in philosophy in
our day represented by pluralism in its many forms
and by absolute idealism. The former is so alive
to the importance of the individual that in its
extreme and logical forms it makes the individual
eternal a parte ante, and, if God is recognized, it
is as a.pri7nus inter pares ; the latter is so conscious
of the claims of God that it tends to annihilate
the personal life of the individual a parte post.
The problem as to how a man can act against
God's will is insoluble intellectually, and the
Calvinist has great difficulty, in spite of his insist-
ence on man's accountability and God's holiness,
in saving himself from the pitfall of pantheism
where sin is factorized into something different
from what it is to the conscience. Yet, however
sinful man's state may be, however the sinner may
be alive to the deep-seated nature and wide extent
of this disease, he accepts responsibility for it as
his. He cannot devolve the responsibility on
Adam or on circumstances. That is the moral
attitude. The intellect may attempt to explain
sin either scientifically as a residuum from our
animal origin or philosophically as due to finitude
or as a necessary stage in our development; but
every explanation that explains away the moral
attitude is itself unsatisfactory. Pantheism,
material, philosophical, or theological, suffers
shipwreck on the conscience. But, on the other
hand, though we are compelled to recognize centres
of activity acting contrary to God's will, it is im-
possible to give them the self-subsistence that we
give to God. Even in sinning they depend on Him
and are within the scope of His control. The
Christian doctrine of creation — creation in time,
for creation has no other meaning in regard to
dependent beings — saves from pantheism and
pluralism alike. While all subsist in God, person-
alities have a limited power of self-antagonism to
God, but they do not compel God to disown His
character as Source and responsible sustainer of
all. He creates personalities with the capacity to
create themselves. Their endowments and facul-
ties, which vary so much as regards both individuals

164

SYRIANS (or Aramaeans)

and races, which are also so clearly dependent
on their historical setting, are of God. It is this
inalienable immanence of God that accounts for
the presence of high ideals among men however
sinful, for the unrest and lack of harmony in the
life of man of which Pascal speaks so eloquently,
and it is this that makes salvation possible and
essential. The Augustinian tended to view man's
original constitutive nature as made in God's image
as an affix of an ideal human ancestor, and to leave
man as he now is nothing but his sinful organic
relations. A logical distinction was made an
absolute distinction in rerurti natura. The divine
image in man was practically regarded as &fulgor
appearing once in Adam for a brief space, but now
no more ; but sin has meaning only when the in-
alienable immanence of God in man is fully re-
cognized. The Church has never agreed to the
Flacian view of human nature as itself sin ; but its
language has often been perilously near it, and,
when it has, protests have been raised, as in New
England, where the amiable qualities of man have
been emphasized until the need of salvation has
been minimized or evaporated. On the ground,
then, of man's original creation, we understand
that man has freedom which, alas, has been
exercised against God Himself, though given by
God and intended by Him to coincide joyfully with
His own.

How to reconcile God's holy omnipotence and
foreknowledge with this human fact seems an in-
soluble problem. We must give content to God's
predestinating activity ; it is not enough to posit
a quiescent, non-interfering divine knowledge ;
otherwise there is no guarantee of the ultimate
success of God's purposes. But, on the other hand,
we must not look on God's absolute decrees as the
moral cause of sin or as acting mechanically in
man, and certainly not as an insurmountable
barrier to the recovery of his true freedom, and
that in a moral way.

The synergist fought against a view of God
which made Him in the case of some men the
obstacle to salvation, withholding His grace from
some, and making remedial provision only for
some ; and in this the synergist was right. Here
again the Christian doctrine of the new creation is
the safeguard. God is not only inalienably im-
manent in man by virtue of the first creation ; He
is also redemptively active in man through Christ.
The Calvinist is mainly right in his psychology of
conversion.

God's grace is efficiently active, and the consent
of the will is the result of that activity ; yet He
is active in harmony with man's true being, and
man's consent is voluntary. Man does not simply
accept the offer of grace by the power of his un-
aided will and so convey it into the soul. His will
is never unaided ; grace comes into the soul as
a power of God moulding the will itself. The
acceptance itself is not the cause of its presence.
The supremacy of grace and its efficiency is main-
tained by the religious consciousness on self-ex-
amination, but the acceptance itself is an act of
will.

The miracle here also is not that a man's will
should be effectually motived to harmonize with
God's redemptive activity ; the miracle is that
some men should resist even this. It is not to be
thought that their resistance is due to the fact
that God withholds or withdraws His gracious
activity or that He uses it only gingerly. The
gospel ofiFer is to all, even the Calvinist says, and
it is a bona fide offer ; it is more, for the cost to
God — what we mean by the Atonement — is so real
and so great that the activity of God is an energy
penetrating into man. God does not deal with
the sinner simply in the way of punishing him ;

He deals with him in a redemptive way. How can
this fact of man's resistance, again, be reconciled
with God's omnipotence in grace? Many, like
Schleiermacher, find refuge in final universal
salvation, in a probation extending beyond this
life. But God's omnipotence is a reality which
recognizes now man's power of resistance because
it values man's freedom. This resistance does not
annihilate the divine omnipotence, nor does it rob
God of His character as Creator and Redeemer,
were the resistance to be eternal.

The value of sj'uergism is in its denials. It is
wrong to regard God's activity as doing violence
to this initiative of man. The weakness of syner-
gism is that it tends to regard this activity of man
as separate from God to begin with and as only
co-operating with God. The relation between
them is more intimate. God Himself is present
from the outset in this freedom ; and when, as in
Christian experience, the soul awakens to the
presence of God, then it is felt that God has done
so much in Christ, and is doing so much, that it
is joyfully acknowledged that the will's power is
His, and the renewal of it is His work. Salvation
is not an acquisition of the will so much as the
welcome deliverance and liberation of the whole
personality. Religion in its strength emphasizes
God, and in so doing frees man into the liberty of
joyful service.

Literature. — The lives of the reformers, and the general
treatises on the history of the Reformation, all deal with the
synergistic controversy. J. W. Richard, Philipp Melancthon :
The Protestant Preceptor of Germany, 11,97-1560, New York,
1898, gives a good account of Melanchthon in English ; cf . Karl
Schmidt, Philipp Melancthon, Elberfeld, 1861.

C. E. Luthardt, JHe Lehre vomfreien Willen, Leipzig, 1863,
gives a detailed history of the controversy in its origin and
development ; also Die Arbeiten Melancthons im Oebiete der
Moral, Leipzig, 1884 ; Flotow, De synergismo Melancthonis,
Vratislaw, 1867, is a special handling of the subject referred to
by G. Kawerau, who has written much on the various antagon-
ists in the synergistic controversy ; see SchafE-Herzog, xi. 223 £f.,
also PRES xix. 229 flf. ; E. F. Fischer has a treatise on Melanch-
thon's teaching on conversion (Melanchthons Lehre von der
Bekehrung), Tubingen, 1905 ; and Paul Tschackert, Die
Entstehung der lutherischen und der refonnierten Kirchen-
lehre, Gottingen, 1910, pp. 520-531, is an excellent summary.

The literature on the Formula of Concord is relevant to the
discussion ; cf. F. H. R. Frank, Theologie der Eonkordien-
formal, vol. i., Erlangen, 1858; R. Rothe, Dogmatik, Heidel-
berg, 1870, p. 171 ff. ; F. Loofs, Leitfaden zum Studium der
Dogmengeschichte*, Halle, 1906. R. Seeberg, Lehrhuch der
Dogmengeschichte, Leipzig, 1895-98, as well as other treatises
on dogmatics, give relevant sections. See also H. Heppe,
Gesch. des deutschen Protestantisinus, 4 vols., Marburg, 1853-
56 ; I. A. Dorner, System of Christian Doctrine, Eng. tr.,
Edinburgh, 1880-82, iv. 164 ff. For Reformed doctrine see
literature under art, Calvinism, and for the modem problem
H. Wheeler Robinson, The Christian Doctrine of Man'^,
Edinburgh, 1913. See also artt. Conversion, Frbb Will, Grace.

D. Mackenzie.
SYNODS.— See Councils and Synods.

SYRIANS (or Aramaeans).— I. General intro-
duction.— The Hebrew 'Aram' is rendered in the
LXX by Supia, ' Syria.' We may therefore take it
for granted that originally the words 'Aramaeans'
and ' Syrians ' were synonymous. At a later time
'Syrian' and 'Assyrian' were used indiscrimin-
ately: 'A<r(n5/)tos = 2i^/)ioy = 2ypoj. ^ According to
Gn 1{P, Aram was one of the five sons of Shem,
and, according to Gn 10^, Aram was the father
of Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. The Aramaeans,
or Syrians, are therefore Semites.

A complete study of the Aramaeans would include
that of all the races whose languages, manners,
and religions come within the Sj'rian scope. But
our purpose here is to consider only the pagan
Aramaeans. We shall not touch upon Western
(i.e. Biblical) Aramaean, represented by several
quotations preserved in the OT and the NT, nor
the Egyptian papyri and ostraka, particularly
those of Elephantine, nor the Jewish dialects^

1 Cf. T. Noldeke, in Hermes, v. [1870] 443 ff.

SYRIANS (or Aramaeans)

166

represented by the Targums, the Megilloths, and
the Jerusalem Talmud, nor Samaritan, nor the
fragments of Christo-Palestinian literature. All
those are of the greatest importance from the
general Aramaean point of view, religious as well
as philological, but are outside the scope of this
article. The same remark applies to the difterent
branches of Eastern Aramaean, which includes the
Babylonian Talmud, the literature, language,
and religion of the Manichaeans, Mandseans, and
Hananians (qq.v. ). We shall also leave untouched
the study of Syriac (language and literature) and
the chief Neo-Aramaean (Christian) dialects.

The best kno^^'n of the pagan Aramaeans are
the Palmyrenes (q.v.), the Nabataeans {q.v.), and
the Syrians of Damascus and of the region north
of Syria. We get our information on these races
from the OT, ancient inscriptions, and Latin and
Greek coins and documents.^

The ethnic arami, '91N, 'AramaBan,' is found in 2 K 520,
On 2520, Dt 266. Its fern, is aramiia, .TSIN in 1 Ch 714. The
plur. is aramim, D'EiN in 2 K 828f. gis. The corresponding
Greek of the LXX is respectively fiaSovqK tov 2vpov kx ttjs
Meo-OTTOTanitas, a&e\^Ti)v Aapav toO Svpov (Gn 2520), etc ; i) Xvpa
(1 Ch 714) ; oi Svpoi (2 K 828).

The adverb 'a"i.s", arami, ' in Aramaean,' is translated by the
LXX 2upt<rrt in Is '36", 2 K 1826, Dn 2^, 2 Es 47.

The OT gives the following information on the
pagan Aramaeans.

Aram ^oba (Zobah), n^is D^N (LXX -niv Svpiav Sov^o), in
1 S 1447, 2 S 83 e«<^, 106-8, 1 K ll^s etc. This expression means
an Aramaean state in the north of Canaan or its capital. The
town of Zobah was situated in Lebanon, according to 1 Ch 183.

Aram Ma'aka (JUaachah), na^^D Dis (LXX eic Svpia^ Maaxa),
in 1 Oh 196, means a territory at the foot of Mount Hermon
(Jos 1313). The name of the people is Ma'akati (Maachathites),
'npj^D ; according to Dt 314, the Ma'akati dwelt beyond the
kingdom of Og ; they were not included in the conquest of the
descendants of Manasseh (cf. Jos 125 1311, 2 S 2334).

Aram beth Rel}ob (Beth Behob), a'lnrn'i D^^? (LXX 'Pow^),
in 2 S 106-8, was a small Aramaean or Syrian kingdom which
supplied mercenaries to the sons of Ammon when fighting
against Joab, King David's general. They took to flight before
Joab, who re-entered Jerusalem in triumph. Rehob is said to
be in the north of Palestine, in the region of Laish, or Dan

(Jgl828).2

Aram Naharaim (Nahor), DHOi di? (LXX «is ttji/ Meo-orro-
Ta/xiW), is identified by the LXX with Mesopotamia (Gn 24io,
Dt 235, Jg 38, 1 Ch 196), 'Syria of the two rivers.' This is a
mistake. Naharaim means 'countrj' of the river,' and corre-
sponds to the Narima of the Tel el-Amarna letters and to Nahrina
in the Egyptian inscriptions ; it extended along the two banks
of the middle Euphrates.3 At the time of the Khati the name
Naharanna was given to the country lying between the Balikh
and the Orontes.*

Paddan Aram (Padan-aram), QiK J^S (LXX « ttjs Me<ro-
woTOfit'as 2vpi«), in Gn 2520 282- 6-7 3iiS 3318 399 etc. This term,
' field of Aram (?),' perhaps refers to northern Mesopotamia.6

2. Damascus. — Aram DamSsSq, pbtji q-in (LXX
Si/p/a AanaffKoG), in 2 S 8"-, 1 Ch 18"', is Syria of
Damascus, which came to the help of Hadadezer,
king of Zobah ; David slew 22,000 Syrians and
put garrisons in Syria of Damascus (Syria-
Damascus).

In the course of time Syria (Aram) comprised
numerous divisions, the chief of which, besides
those mentioned above from the Bible, were :
Batania, or country of Bashan, Commagene with
its capital Samosata, Cyrrhestice with Cyrrhus
as capital, Chalybonitis with its capital Chalybon
(Halep = Alep), Coele-Syiia with Heliopolis (Baal-
bek) as capital, Seleucide, or Tetrapolis, with
Seleucia, Antioch, Laodicea, and Apamea as
principal towns, Chalcidice with its capital Chalcis
(Kinnesrin), etc. In many cases we have not
enough information about these divisions to treat
them separately. The best plan will be to give a

1 Cf. Noldeke, ' Die Namen der aram. Nation und Sprache,'
in ZDMG xxv. [1871] 113 fif.

2 Cf. F. de Saulcy, Diet, topog. abrdg^ de la Terre Sainte,
Paris, 1877, p. 260.

3 Cf. La Bible du eentenaire, Paris, 1916, p. 28.

4 Cf . G. Maspero, Hist, ancienne des peuplet de I'Orient
dassique, ii.

5 Cf. La Bible du centenaire, p. 32

r6sum6 of the details supplied by history, inscrip-
tions, and other documents, grouping them round
Damascus and the Damascene.

The god who received most worship was Hadad,
whose consort was 'the Syrian goddess,' or
Atargatis. This god was also called RamS,n or
RammS,n. These two names appear as early as
3000 B.C. in the cuneiforms. This deity does not
appear in Phoenician texts. Hadad is represented
in the same way in Syria and Mesopotamia. He
is the god of lightning and thunder ; he shakes
the mountains ; he is beneficent when he sends
the rain which fructifies the earth ; he is the
destroyer when he sends floods and inundations.
According to the inscriptions of Senjirli, Hadad
was the first of the gods of northern Syria in
the 8th cent. B.C. His chief sanctuary was at
Hierapolis (Mabbog, Manbij), near the Euphrates.
He was specially worshipped by the agricultural
populations of Syria as the protector-god of the
narvests. In time his cult became confused with
that of the sun ; his head was then ornamented
with rays ; this identification is particularly notice-
able in Heliopolis (Baalbek), where the cult of
Hadad and that of the sun are one and the same.
In Roman times Hadad became Jupiter Optimus
Maximus ; he received various local denominations
(Dolichenus, Hadaranes, Heliopolitanus), but he
can always be recognized by the fact that he is
represented with the buU or that he is mentioned
along with his consort, the Syrian goddess
Atargatis. A third personage is usually connected
with these great gods, regarded as their son or
their daughter. These three together form the
triad kno^vn as the dii syri. They have sanctuaries
in a great many Syrian towns — Rhosus, Raphaneae
on tie Lebanon (in Graeco-Roman times). But
the principal sanctuary of the Syrian gods, after
Hierapolis, was Damascus, and the Bible mentions
kings of Syria in the 9th cent. B.C. with theo-
phorous names, such as Ben-Hadad, Tabrimm6n.
It is even possible that this cult of Hadad exercised
a certain influence on some Israelite centres, which
would explain the representation of Jahweh by
a young bull. In Roman times Hadad became
Jupiter Damascenus. In all probability Jupiter
Heliopolitanus, the god of Heliopolis (Baalbek),
should be identified vnih. Hadad.

The consort of Hadad is Atargatis, the great
Syrian goddess — also under the names Allat and
Venus — who must not be confused with Astarte,
the Phoenician goddess. Coins of Hierapolis call
her 'Ate or 'Atar'ate. She was represented with
her head surrounded with rays. The symbol of
Atargatis was composed of the crescent moon in
conjunction with the solar disk.

Besides the divine couple, Hadad and Atargatis,
the Syrian pantheon included other deities, of
secondary rank, several of whom had a purely
local character.

Reshef, or Rashuf, was the incarnation of
thunder and lightning. He was often represented
as a soldier armed with spear, ma«e, bow, and
shield ; he carried on his helmet a gazelle's head
surmounted by two sharp horns, Reshef is also
met with in Phoenicia and in Cyprus. He was
in later times identified with Apollo. Some
scholars regard him as a Phoenician rather than
a Syrian deity.

The inscriptions also mention Rekub-El, ' the
charioteer of El,' who is probably an importation
into Syria of the charioteer of the sun-god of the
Assyrians. El was an important deity, but did
not occupy the first rank in the Syrian pantheon.

Bel was worshipped in Syria, as in Assyria and
among the other Semitic races.

Alongside of sun-worship the Syrians devoted
a very special cult to the moon-god. Of two

166

SYRIANS (or Aramaeans)

Neirab inscriptions (6th cent. B.C.) one mentions
Sahar, Sliaraash, Nikkal, and Nusk, the other
omits Shamash, 'the sun,' and mentions only
Sahar, Nikkal, and Nusk. Sahar, the moon-god,
was the chief deity of HaiTan. His wife, Nikkal,
corresponds to Nin-gal, ' the great lady,' wife of
Sin, the Assyrian moon-god. Their son, Nusk
(Nusku in Assyrian), represents fire, according
to some scholars, and, according to others, he
personifies the crescent moon.*

The stele of Teima (an oasis in the north of
Arabia) names three Aramaean deities : ' Salm,
Singalla, and Ashira, gods of Teima.' Lagrange'^
proposes to identify Salm with Salmu, the 'dark,'
the dark planet, i.e. Saturn. According to other
writers, the word salm, * image,' ' statue,' means
the idol of the local god {ba'al) of Teima ; Singalla
is of Assyrian importation and denotes the great
Sin ; Ashira corresponds to the Asherah of the
Canaanites.

An inscription recently discovered by Pognon
in the region of Aleppo, but probably the oldest
Syrian inscription, mentions not only Zakir, king
of Hamath, and La'ash, but also a new deity, the
god AJur (800 B.C.). He is probably a local god,
the genius loci of Hazrak, for in the continuation
of the text the important part is ascribed not to
Alur but to Ba'al Shamain.

Of the three Senjirli inscriptions that of Hadad,
the oldest, mentions the gods Hadad, El, Reshef,
Kekub-El, Shamash, who accorded to Panammu
what he asked of them. Lagrange * calls attention
to the fact that no goddess figui"es in this list.
The second inscription, called that of Panammu,
dates from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser lii. (754-727
B.C.) and mentions the gods Hadad, El, Rekub-El,
Shamash, and all the gods of Jadi. The third one,
called that of Barrekub, dates from the same
period, but does not mention any deity, except
that Barrekub declares that, on account of his
loyalty, his lord Rekub-El and his lord Tiglath-
Pileser have placed him on his father's throne.

"When Zenobia Avas taken captive to Rome, the
cult of the Syrian gods penetrated to the gi-eat
city with her (or before her). This fact is now
duly established by the discoveiy of a sanctuary
to Janicula in the gardens of the Sciarra villa.
There we read inscriptions dedicated to the Syrian
god Adad (Hadad) of Lebanon on a small white
marble altar. There is also an inscription
dedicated ' diis syris ' at Spalato.'*

Literature. — Lucian, de Dea syria ; C. Clermont-Ganneau,
Htudes d'arcMologie orientate, vol. i. in 2 pts., Paris, lSSO-95,
Recueil d'arcMologie orientale, do. i. [1888], v. [1902] (the
remainder in course of publication) ; G. Maspero, Bist.
ancienne des peupUs de I'Orient classimie, do. 1895-99, ii. ;
W. M. Ramsay, art. 'Hierapolis,' in HDB ii. 379f. ; M. J.
Lagrange, Etudes sur les religions simitiques-, Paris, 1905,
passim, and pp. 491-510 for the inscriptions in AramEsan
dialects ; F. Cumont, Les Cultes d'Aste Mineurc dans le
paganisme remain, do. 1906, Les Religions oricntales dans le
paganisme remain, do. 1906 ; R. Dussaud, Notes de mytholegie
syrienne, 2 pts., do. 1903-05, and artt. 'Hadad' and 'HeUo-
politanus,' in Pauly-Wissowa ; P. Gauckler, ' Le Bois sacr6 de
la nvmpbe Furrina et le sanctuaire des dieux syriens, au
Janicule, h Rome,' in CAIBL, Mar. 1907, pp. 135-159; H.
Pogrnon, Inscriptions sSmitigues de la Syria, de la Misopotamie,
et de la rigien de Mossoul, Paris, 1908 ; R. Dussaud, ' Le
Royaunie de Hamat et de Lou' ouch au viii* sifecle avant J.-O.,'
in RA i. [1908] 222-235; R. Savignac, review of Pognon's
work in RB, 1908, pp. 596-600; A. Legendre, art. 'Syrie,' in
Dictionnaire de la Bible, ed. F. Vigouroux, Parie, 1891-1912,
V. 1930-48; H. A. Strong and J. Garstang, The Syrian
Goddess, London, 1913 (cf. R. Dussaud, in RER I [1913] 387 f.).

3. The Nabataeans. — According to some scholars,
the Nabatieans were Arabs who used Aramaean as
their literary language ; according to others, on
the contrary, they were pure Aramaeans who in
the course of their migrations mingled on the one
side with the southern populations of Arabia,

1 Clermont-Ganneau, iStudes d'arehiologie orientale, ii. 182 f. ;
Lagrange, Etudes 8ur les religions simitiques, pp. 499-501.
!i Pp. 501-504. 8 p. 494. 4 OIL iii. 1961.

while to the north they became masters of Trans-
Jordan as far as Damascus. The oldest Nabatsean
inscriptions (1st cent. B.C.) contain no Arabisms;
afterwards, at the beginning of the 1st cent, of our
era, Arab influence makes itself clearly felt,
especially in the regions of 9egra and Medain
Saleh.

The Nabataean sources now in our possession are
inscriptions, which are published in the second
part of CIS, and coins, which have been studied
most recently by R. Dussaud and have revealed an
almost unbroken succession of kings, from Obedas
I. (90 B.C.) to Malichus ill. (A.D, 106). But before
these dates a Nabatsean race was known which in
312 B.C. was powerful enough to gain the victory
against Antigonus. After this victory the Nabat-
aeans, an essentially trading people, occupied the
north of Arabia, the country of Edom, and the
Damascene. F. H. Vincent has gathered together
all that is known about the pantheon of the Naba-
tceans ; they honoured the sun, to whom they built
an altar on their houses, and to whom they offered
libations and burned incense. The following are
the principal deities. Dushara (Dusares) seemed
to occupy the first rank and to be the god of
the king. Then came Allat (fem. of Allah) and
Manuthu or Manavat. The god Hobal belonged
originally to Syria. Mutaba and Harisa are
almost unknown. Qaysa was perhaps the ancient
national god of the Edomites. The names of the
goddesses Vagrah and Tada are from a doubtful
reading as well as those of Nashbu and Elge. The
Syrian god Ba'al Shamin was also adopted by the
Nabataeans. The Nabataeans erected temples to
their gods. The temple comprised a small building
to contain the statue of the god, a sacred enclosure
(haravi), votive stelae, and niches for the icons.
' Whether the Nabataeans were strongly Arama-
ized Arabs or real Aramaeans, they gave a very
large place in their pantheon to the deities and
cult-objects of Aramaean or Syrian origin. See,
further, art. Nabat^ans.

Literature. — M . de Vogiie, Inscriptions simitiques publiiet,
Paris, 1869-77, ' Textes nabat6ens,' pp. 100-124 ; C. Clermont-
Ganneau, ' Les Noms royaux nabat^ens employes comme noms
divins,' in Reeiuil d'arcMologie orientale, i. [1888] 39, ' Le Cippe
nabat6en de D'meir et I'introduction en Syrie du calendrier
remain combind avec I'fere des Sdleucides,' ib. 48, ' La Statue du
dieu Obodas roi de Nabatfene,' ib. ii. [1898] 366, ' Les nouvelles
Inscriptions nabat6ennes de P6tra,' tfc. 370, ' Manboug-Hierapolis
dans ks inscriptions nabat^ennes,' ib. iv. [1900] 99, 'Le Dieu
nabat6en Chai''al-Qaura,' 16. 382; F. H. Vincent, 'Les Naba-
teens' in RB, 189S, pp. 567-588 ; R. Dussaud and F. Macler,
Voyage arcMolegique au Safd et dans le Djibel ed-DrUz, Paris,
1901 ; R. Dussaud (in collaboration with F. Macler), Mission
dans les regions disertiques de la Syrie moyenne, Paris, 1903
(= extract from vol. x. of Nouvelles Archives des missions
scientifiques) ; E. Littmann, Semitic Inscriptions (Publications
of an American Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1899-1900,
iv.). New York, 1904 ; R. Dussaud, ' Numismatique dee rois de
Nabat&ne,' in JA i. [1904] 189, Monnaies nabatierines (=extract
from RN, 1905, p. 170) ; M. J. Lagrange, Etudes sur les
religions simitiques"-, Paris, 1905 ; G. Dalman, Petra und seine
Felsheiligtiimer, Leipzig, 1908, Neue Petra Forschungen und
der heilige Felsen von Jerusalem, do. 1912 ; J. B. Chabot,
Les Langues et les litteratures aramiennes, Paris, 1910, pp.
21-23 ; A. J. Jaussen and R. Savignac, Mission arcMolegique
en Arabic (nmrs-mai 1907), i., ' De Jerusalem au Hedjaz Medain-
Saleh ' (Publications de la SoeUU des j'ouiUes arcMologiques,
ii.), Paris, 1909 (see review by R. Dussaud in Journal des
Savants, Oct. 1910, pp. 460-474, entitled ' Les Ruines de H6gra ') ;
R. Dussaud, art. 'P6tra' in La grande Encyclopidie, Paris,
n.d., p. 531 f. ('son importance [de P6tra] nous est surtout
connue k l'6poque gr6co-romaine. EUe est alors la capitale des
Nabat6ens. . . . Les Nabat6ens sont des Arabes. La langue de
leurs inscriptions est aramdenne, ce qui prouve simplement la
diffusion de I'aramSen ii I'^poque gr6co-romaine. L'ancien
idiome arabe s'est conserve dans les noms propres ') ; CIS, pt.
ii. (vol. 1. 1 [1893], 2 [1902], ' Inscriptiones nabatese,' no. 167-489,
vol. Ii. 1 [1907], no. 1472 f.).

4. The Palmyrenes. — See art. Palmyrenes.

LiTERATUEB.— In addition to the Literature appended to art.
Palmtrknks, see L. Double, Les Cisars de Po/mj/re, Paris,
1877 ; L. G. Deville, Palmyre : souvenirs devoy age etd'histoire,
do. 1894 ; R. Dussaud, Notes de mytholegie syrienne, 2 pts., do.
1903-05 ; J. B. Chabot, Les Langues et les literatures ara-
miennes, do. 1910, pp. 19-21 ; Ripertoire d'ipigraphie simitique
(published by the commission of the CIS), do. 1900 ft.

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

167

5. Syrian cult. — In their pantheon, as in their
religious practices, the Aramaeans had naturally
very close relations with the Assyro-Babylonian
cults on the one hand and with those of Phoenicia
and Canaan on the other. They practised the
local agrarian cults, in conjunction with the wor-
ship of sun, moon, and stars, preferably on high
mountains or sharp mountain-peaks, regarded as
the abode of the gods. They worshipped sacred
trees (the tree of life) and plants. They also
rendered worship to sacred springs, and Palmyra
possessed a specially consecrated river, whose Tyche
was venerated. Certain sacred rivers had miracu-
lous powers : if the offering sank to the bottom of
the water, it was approved by the deity; if it
floated, it was not approved.

As among the rest of the Semites, sacred en-
closures have been found among the Aramaeans,
known as haram, and much used among the Arabs.
The boundaries of the haram were fixed by stelae,
several of which have been recovered during the
course of excavation.

We have little information concerning the after
life among the Semites in general, and the Ara-
maeans in particular. Like the ancient Hebrews,
they probably had Sheol, the kingdom of the dead.
From the Senjirli and Neirab inscriptions, which
are very important funerary texts, we learn that
the Aramaeans believed that a part of the dead
person survived, called nephesh, 'soul.' It was a
material principle, to which they had to offer food
and drink.

Among the most venerated objects of worship
we must mention the sacred stones, or baetyls,
which assumed various aspects. The presence of
the god was materialized by a stone placed in the
sacred enclosure. The inscription of Hadad shows
that the Aramaeans worshipped the nesib, a hewn
stone or statue. A Palmyrenian inscription shows
among the Aramaeans the use of the massebhdh
iq.v.), in the sense of 'stele.' And they dis-
tinguished between the funerary stele, nafsha,
•soul,' of pyramidal form, and the votive stele, or
mesjida (whence our word 'mosque,' through
Arabic), which meant the place in which the deity
was worshipped.

As regards the personnel of the cult, we hear of
the priest, komer, attached to the service of such-
and-such a god. It was he who offered the holo-
caust. Barbers played an important part, both in
Performing the ritual incisions and in shaving the
eads of those who dedicated their hair to the deity
in consequence of a vow. There were also scribes,
charged more especially with keeping the accounts
of the temple. Sacred prostitutes were not lacking
in the Aramaean cults ; and lastly we must mention
the familiars of the temple, who rendered services
to the faithful who came to worship or make vows,
and who lived in the surroundings of the temple,
finding their food in the remains of the meals
offered to the gods.

6. Calendar.— The Aramaean calendar is fairly
well known ; the Nabataeans and Palmyrenians
employed the Seleucid era, and for a very long
time the Syrians made their year begin in autumn.
The names of the months of the Palmyrenians are
all known : Tishri, Kanun, Kslul, Tbt, Shbt, Adar,
Nisan, Ir, Sion, Qinian Ab, Elul. Those of the
Nabataeans are the same, except the second and
tenth, which are not known. This information
refers to the Aramaeans in Roman times. The
ancient names of the months have not yet been
brought to light by the oldest inscriptions (Senjirli
and Neirab).

Literature.— Ph. Berger, Les Inscriptions simitiqves et
Vhistoire (a lecture delivered at the Sorbonne), Paris, 1S83,
( = extract from Bulletin de I'Asgociation scientifique, 155) ; CIS
I. i. [1889], ii. [18.53), iii. [1902], 11. i. [1907] ; Ph. Berger, La
Bible et les inscriptions. Paris, 1890 ; R. Duval, Les LxtUra-

tures aram4en7ies, do. 1896 ; G. Maspero, Eist. aTicienne des
peuples de POri^nt classique, do. 1895-99, ii. ; A. H. Sayce,
art. 'Aram, Aramseans,' m EDB i. 138 f.; T. NBldeke, artt.
' Aram ' and ' Aramaic Language,' in EBi i. 27ft-286 ; lUpertoire
d^ipigraphie simitique, ed. by the commission of CIS i. (Paria,
1900-05), ii. pt. i. [1907], pt. ii. [1908], pt. iii. [1912], s.v.
'Aram^en,' 'Nabatien,' ' Palmyrdnien ' ; R. Dussaud, 'Les
premiers Renseignements historiques sur la Syrie' (= extract
from the Revue de I'Ecole d'anthropologie de Paris, July, 1902,
pp. 252-264), Notes de mylhologie syrienne, 2 pt«., Paris,
1903-05 ; M. J. Lagrange, Etudes mr les religions simitiques^,
do. 1905 ; A. Lods, La Croyance d la vie future et le eufte des
morts dans Vantiquiti israHite, 2 vols., do. 1906 ; R. Dussand,
' Un Monument du culte syrien et d'6poque perse,' in RER il.
[1913] 62-68, art ' Syrie,' in La grande Encydopidie, do. n.d.,
XXX. 798 f. FluSDfiBIC MACLER.

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS.— I. Scope of this
article. — Much confusion has arisen from the fact
that several different bodies of Christians— Jacob-
ite, Maronite, Nestorian, Malabarese, and others —
habitually call themselves 'Syrians,' as well as
from the fact that the word 'Syria' itself has
meant difllerent things at different times. It will
therefore be well at the outset to define the scope
of this article.

The East Syrians or Nestorians call themselves ' Suray6,' said
to be a corrupt form of ' Snryay6.' 1 The Syrian Jacobites are
in the Syriac vernacular commonly called 'Siryan^,' by way of
distinction (or better ' Suryan6 ' or ' Seweryan6 ').2

The name 'Syria' (Syr. Suriya, Gr. "Lvpla. or
'Loip, 'e locis Palestinae maritimis')^ has been
derived from 'Tyre' (Syr. SQr), though it is spelt
with a different s. It varied in meaning from
time to time. In Roman days, at the beginning
of our era, it denoted the country west of the
Euphrates and north of the Arabian desert, in-
cluding Palestine and Palmyra, and extending
north to the Taurus; though the Roman procur-
ators or the Herods ruled all or part of Palestine,
being more or less independent of the governors
of the Roman province of Syria. At a later date
' Inner Syria ' meant Palestine (and the coast lands
to the north thereof), and 'Outer Syria' meant
Mesopotamia.* The modern Turkish vilayet of
Syria is only a fraction of the old Roman province,
and lies east of the Lebanon, extending from
Hama on the Orontes in the north to the Hedjaz
in the south, Damascus being the capital, while
the vilayet of Beirut is west of the Lebanon, and
the old Judaea is an independent sanjak under a
muteserif^ Thus the term 'Syrian Christians'
has little relation to the term 'inhabitants of
Syria.' The most comprehensive definition of the
former is ' those Christians who use or have used
the Syriac language in their liturgical services or
as a vernacular.' It thus includes the Jacobites
of Mesopotamia, the Nestorians, the Maronites of
the Lebanon, the Syrian and Chaldaean Uniats,
and the Christians of St. Thomas in Malabar.

The history of many of these Christians has
usually been considered in Europe only as far as it
affects their relations with certain heresies, i.e.
only from one episode (however important) of
their annals. These doctrinal questions have
already been dealt with in artt. Monotheletism,
MONOPHYSITISM, and Nestorianism, and will
therefore not be referred to in this article except
incidentally, and when they are necessary to
explain the history or customs of the Synan
Christians. .

2. Syriac-speaking Christians. — Syriac is a
branch of the Aramaic family of languages. The
written or classical Syriac— the Syriac of the
liturgies and patristic literature— was the language
spoken at Edessa, and was not very distant (though
differing somewhat in grammar and vocabulary)
from the Aramaic of Palmyra and that of Palestine
(the Biblical Aramaic of the OT, or ' Chaldee, as
it used to be called), perhaps not more distant
1 R. Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriaeus, ii. 2586.
2i6. ii."25S6. 3 /&. ». 2585. * E).

5 The Geographical Journal, 1. (1917] 18.

168

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

than some dialects of ' English ' now current in
the British Isles are from one another. The
Edessa Syriac was the medium of commerce in
the valley of the Euphrates, and was used far and
wide for literary purposes. But, though this was,
and is, the written language, other dialects of
Syi'iac were spoken vernacularly throughout a
very wide district, from the Mediterranean to
the eastern limits of Mesopotamia, Assyria, and
Adiabene (east of the Tigris), and southwards to
the borders of Egypt and Arabia.^ There were
many Syriac-speaking monks in Egypt in the 4th
cent, and later.^ Even the Armenian Christians
used Syriac till the 4th century.* Thus there
were many Syriac dialects. They were not the
lineal descendants of classical Syriac, but were
rather in the position of sisters or nieces of that
language.*

Syriac gradually gave way, vernacularly and to
some extent liturgically, to Arabic after the
Muhammadan conquest, though it has had locally
a considerable influence on the vocabulaiy, pro-
nunciation, and even the grammatical forms of
the Arabic which supplanted it.* The only Christ-
ians who now speak it habitually are the East
Syrians (Nestorian and Uniat Chaldaean), among
whom it is practically the only language used
(though many of the Mosul Uniats also speak
Arabic), the Jacobites of Jebel Tur, and the people
of Ma'lula near Damascus. The other Jacobites
and the Maronites now ordinarily use Arabic for
their vernacular. The Malabarese have probably
never used Syriac vernacularly — unless the im-
migrants from Persia used it for a while (see below,
§ 9) — but have always spoken an Indian dialect.
It may be noted that many Jews in E. Turkey
and Persia have a vernacular closely akin to the
spoken Syriac of the Nestorians ; and the language
of the Mandaeans {q.v.), or so-called 'Christians of
St. John,' if they still exist, is another branch of
Aramaic. In the early ages of Christianity the
literary language of Syria proper was Greek (see
below, § 3), but Syriac was the popular language
there till after a.d. 500. It should be remembered
that Antioch itself was a Greek, not a Syriac,
centre. The city was predominantly Greek,
though Syriac was the language of numerous
monks in it and its neighbourhood, and of the
country people.^

All the above-mentioned Christians use classical
Syriac as their liturgical language ; and many of
them use it still as their literary language, as all
did till the Middle Ages. It will thus be seen
that the prayers in the Church services are only
imperfectly, if at all, understood by the majority
of the worshippers. In Syria proper, however,
niany of the prayers are said in an Arabic transla-
tion, so as to be intelligible to the people ; they
are then written in Syriac characters, and this
combination of Syriac and Arabic is called
Carshuni (Syr. garshuni).'' But those services
which are the bishop's own — e.g., ordination — are
in Syriac only, as are all the prayers which are said
inaudibly by the priest.

The vernaculars differ from classical Syriac in different
degrees. The East Syrian vernacular dialects, which vary a
good deal among themselves, differ from it perhaps as much
as Italian from Latin, while the Ma'lula dialect has retained
more of the older grammar and is less analytically developed. 8
This last vernacular is particularly noticeahle as being pre-
served by those who are so far isolated from other Syriac-

1 M. Parisot, in J A xi. [1898] 240.

2 J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, pt ii., Ignatius and
Polycarp\ London, 1889, i. 827.

3 P. C. Burkitt, Early Christianity outside the Roman
Empire, p. 19.

* T. Noldeke, Grammatik der neusyrischen Sprache, p. xxxv.
0 Parisot, pp. 240, 246.

" I'ansot, pp. 240, 246.

6 Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity, p. 45.

7 Payne Smith, i. 790.

8 See Parisot's sketch of this dialect.

speaking Christians. Ma'lula (called Seleucia by the Turks)
is a village of some 1000 inhabitants, situated on a high plateau
about 5000 ft. above sea-level, north-east of Damascus ; while
two neighbouring villages, though most of their inhabitants
have become Musalmans within the last 250 years, also speak
Syriac vernacularly. Ma'lula consists ecclesiastically of two
divisions ; half are of the Uniat Melkite rite (see below, § 6),
half of the Greek Orthodox rite. Each division has an ancient
monastery.i The local tradition is that the inhabitants are
immigrants from the east, from the district of Singar or Sinjar
(west of Mosul), which is now largely inhabited by Yezldis, or
so-called ' devil-worshippers ' ; but this tradition is of very
doubtful value.2

Of all the Syrian Christians, whether they have
lost their own vernacular or have retained it, it
may be noted that their clergy are supposed all to
be able to read and write and understand classical
Syriac ; and most of them can do so, and can even,
with some difficulty, speak it. But this is now
only as a foreign language.

There are some differences of pronunciation. The East
Syrians (Nestorian and Uniat Chaldaean) say a when the West
Syrians (Jacobite) and the Maronites say 6 (e.g., malkd, malko,
' a king '), the former being the older sound, preserved to us in
transliterationsilike Talitha (Syr. tlithd), Maranatha (Syr. Maran
etha or possibly Marana tha). The East Syrians hardly ever
aspirate p (except when it is used to form a diphthong), and
many of them never aspirate t or d; almost all of them pro-
nounce the vowels Rbhaga (Rwa^) and Rwaha alike as u, the
6 sound being produced onl3' by a combination of the vowel
Zqapa (Zqapha) with w or aspirated b or p. One point with
regard to transliteration of Syriac words into Roman characters
must be mentioned. European Orientalists usually write twice
a medial consonant in certain verbal formations and in words
derived from them, because it is said to be ' virtually doubled'
(e.g., 'Addai' for 'Adai'). The Syrians themselves, however,
dislike doubled letters, and in their vernacular admit them
only in a few (chieflj' foreign) words, and in that case they
pronounce each letter distinctly, like the d's in ' mid-day.' On
the other hand, they sometimes compensate for not doubling a
medial consonant by converting a preceding short a into a long
one. Most of them pronounce aspirated Eaph (kh) and Qeith
(t) alike.

3- Syrian Christianity in early times. — In con-
sidering the spread of Christianity in these regions
before the theological controversies of the 6th
cent, caused the divisions which exist to this day,
we are faced with the difficulty that legends are
the traditional groundwork of the religious history.
It is not easy to estimate the amount of truth or
falsehood that underlies the legends ; but there is
no doubt that all these regions were largely Christ-
ianized at an early period.

(a) The RoTnan province of Syria. — Here we are
not troubled with legend. In the 1st cent, of our
era the province extended to the Euphrates, and
was conjoined with Cilicia.* Antioch was the
civil metropolis, and was likewise the headquarters
of Syrian Christianity ; there the disciples were
first called 'Christians' (Ac ll''*). Greeks and
Syrians were both represented at Antioch (see
above, § z). There is no evidence as to the extent
to which the Church services were conducted in
the Aramaic vernacular rather than in Greek ; but
probably, at a time when the worship was in the
main extemporaneous, both languages were used.
Though most of the people, perhaps, understood
Greek, even if it was not their mother tongue, yet
experience shows that the last sphere in which a
vernacular gives way to the language of commerce
and public life is that of religion. It is therefore
probable that Syrian Christians in the Roman
province to a large extent worshipped in their
vernacular from apostolic times onwards. But
Greek was the literary language. Ignatius, bishop
of Antioch at the beginning of the 2nd cent., wrote
in Greek (he calls himself 'bishop of Syria');*
Lucian and Dorotheus, Diodorus, bishop of Tarsus,
and Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia (both these
of Antioch), Chrysostom, Theodoret, bishop of
Cyrrhus — all of the 4th and 5th centuries — did

1 Parisot, pp. 255-261. 2 lb. p. 270.

3 W. M. Ramsay, A Historical Commentary on St. Paul's
Epistle to the Galatians, London, 1899, p. 277 ; of. Gal l^i.

* rov iirCiTKoirov 'Zvpia.'s (Rom. 2 ; of. 9, where he speaks of the
' church in Syria,' and God as its shepherd in his stead).

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

168

the same. The Antiochene school of theology was
clearly a Greek school. ^ A trace of the mixture of
the Greek and Syriac elements may be seen in the
Pilgrimage of ' Silvia ' (' Etheria '), a work j)robably
of the end of the 4th cent., which describes the
bishop of Jerusalem as knowing Syriac {^ siriste'),
but as always speaking Greek and having his
sermons and the lections interpreted into Syriac
by a presbyter who stood by.^

In the 4th cent. , when the provincial organization
of the Church was promoted, Antioch was one of
the great centres, and its bishop was called a
' metropolitan ' ; the corresponding verb is found in
canon 19 of the Council of Antioch in encceniis (A.D.
341), and the name itself in can. 6 of Nicaea (A.D.
325), which says that the rights formerly possessed
by Antioch must be preserved to it. Thus Antioch
had long exercised some sort of jurisdiction over
neighbouring sees. Yet the Apostolic Constitutions,
a Greek work written in Syria c. A.D. 375, does
not mention metropolitans, any more than the
other 'Church Orders' do.* This is important in
connexion with the supposed dependence of Seleucia-
Ctesiphon on Antioch, for which see below (c).

{b] Edessa. — This famous city of Mesopotamia,
called in Syriac Ur-hai (now Urfa), was the capital
of the kingdom of Osrhoene (a Greek name derived
from • Ur-hai '). ' Edessa ' was the Greek name
for the city. The kingdom was independent till
A.D. 216, when it was incorporated in the Roman
empire. According to the well-known legend of
Abgar and Addai, Edessa was Christianized in the
middle of the 1st cent. ; the legend is given in full
in the Doctrine of Addai (see below, § 4), and in a
shorter, and perhaps more original, form by Euse-
bius,* who says that his account was translated
from the Syriac. Edessa is represented as a
heathen city, which worshipped (the Doctrine tells
us) Bel and Nebo,* though Burkitt suggests that
these names come from a perusal of the OT and
not from any real historical reminiscence.' Abgar,''
the heathen king or toparch of Edessa, sends mes-
sengers to our Lord, and a correspondence ensues ;
after the Ascension the apostle 'Judas Thomas'
sends Addai (called by Eusebius Thaddseus, and
said to be one of the Seventy) to Abgar to teach
him the faith.^ Addai does many mighty deeds ;
one of his converts was Aggai, who ' made the
silks and headbands of the king,' and he was made
bishop * by Addai as his successor. Addai died a
natural death at Edessa, but Aggai was afterwards
martyred by the son of Abgar ; and, as he could
not consecrate his successor Palut by reason of his
sudden death, the latter was sent to Antioch and
was ordained by Serapion the bishop. Narsai,
king of Assyria, sent messengers to King Abgar to
learn about all these matters. Such is the legend.
As we have it, it is of the 4th cent. , though clearly
based on one that is a good deal older; R. A.
Lipsius ^* concludes that the extant correspondence
between our Lord and Abgar was manufactured c.
A.D. 200. What is the substratum of truth in all
this it is not easy to say. The mention of Serapion
(bishop of Ajitioch, A.D. 190-210) gives us a date for
Palut, and Lipsius " regards the latter as the first

1 See art. Aktioohknb Thboloot, vol. L p. 584 fit.

3 vii. 5.

SA. J. Maclean, The Ancient Church Orders, Cambridge,
1910, p. 72 f.

*HEl. 13.

B So also the Acts of Sharbil, for which see below, § 4.

6 Early Eastern Christianity, p. 17 ; cf. Is 461.

"> Most of the independent kings of Edessa were called either
Abgrar or Ma'nu.

8 In the Ethiopic Preaching of Judas Thaddceus in Syria
Thaddsus is associated with St Peter, not with St. Thomas
(E. A. W. Budge, The Contendings of the Apostles, London,
1899-1901, text and Eng. tr., ii. 867).

9 ' Guide and ruler ' ; so also the Edessene Canons (see below,
I 4) call the bishop, can. 17 and (?) 24.

10 DCB iv. 881. u lb. iv. 876.

historical bishop of Edessa. But there is no need
to dismiss Addai entirely to the realms of myth.
If the Edessenes were casting about for an early
founder of their Church, they would be much more
likely to fix on the great apostle ' Judas Thomas,'
whose tomb was claimed for Edessa in the middle
of the 3rd cent, (see below, § 9), than on the un-
known Addai. It seems to be likely, therefore,
that Addai (probably a Palestinian Jew) was the
first preacher of the gospel at Edessa, perhaps early
in, or about the middle of, the 2nd century. The
real Abgar who favoured Christianity may have
been Abgar ix. , the last independent king of Edessa-
Burkitt ^ suggests that the consecration of Palut by
Serapion of Antioch represents a movement for
closer union with ' Western ' (Greek) Christianity,
and perhaps means a break in the episcopal succes-
sion.

In the 2nd cent. Bardaisan (Bardesanes) was
born at Edessa (A.D. 155-223?);=^ he is reckoned
as a Syrian Gnostic (though this is doubtful), and
was a most learned man, a great hymn-writer,*
and author of a polemic against Marcion. All his
works have perished except the extant Syriac
treatise de Fato, which is usually thought to be
his; Eusebius* tells us that he wrote a book with
that title. Burkitt ^ assigns the de Fato (which is
called in the MS the Book of the Laws of Countries)
to Bardaisan's disciple, Philip, on the strength of
the work itself ; but many think that the insertion
of ' Philip ' (a very unusual Syriac name) is only a
literary device, and that Bardaisan himself is the
real author. He certainly is the chief speaker in
the dialogue, which is between a Christian and a
heathen, and turns largely on the question why God
allowed man to sin. Eusebius® and Epiphanius'
say that Bardaisan was originally a follower of
Valentinus, and Epiphanius makes him always a
Valentinian. The fullest biography of this enatic
writer is by Michael the Syrian, Jacobite patriarch
of Antioch (1166-99), but his details cannot be
entirely trusted. The school of Bardaisan survived
his death, and remained in opposition to the ortho-
dox party ; Rabbula is said to have converted the
remnants of it.^

One of the most famous of the Edessenes was
Ephraim (Ephrem) the Syrian (bom c. 308, 1 373).
He came from Nisibis ® to Edessa and founded or
reorganized a seminary there, which became the
great university of the East, though for a while
after his death it fell under Arian influences. He
was a deacon only, said to have been ordained by
Basil of the Cappadocian Csesarea, and to have
declined advancement ; ^^ his own statement, that
he had 'the talent of the priesthood,'" does not
contradict this, for in Syriac 'priesthood' {kahnuthd)
includes all orders of the ministry. He was a most
diffuse writer, and achieved a great fame in pos-
terity.^^

In the 5th cent, the most famous Edessenes were
two of the bishops of Edessa. Rabbula (bishop
from 411 to 435) was the son of a heathen priest
and of a Christian mother. He was converted

1 Early Eastern Christianity, p. 28 ff.

2 See F. J. A. Hort, in DCB i. 250 ff., for the date.
8 See art. Hymns (Syriac Christian).

* HE iv. 30.

6 Early Christianity outside the Roman Empire, p. 14.

6 Loe. cit. '' Beer. hi.

8 Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity, p. 189.

9 As appears both from the Syriac (Nsibhin, pron. N?iwin) and
from the Greek, the middle t is long, contrary to the ordinary
pronunciation. The word forms the end of a Greek hexameter
m the epitaph of Abercius; see the restoration in Lightfoot,
Ignatius and Polycarp^, i. 496. Burkitt has pointed out to the
present writer that the pronunciation with short i perhaps
comes from the Armenian form of the name, ' Mtsbin.'

10 Sozomen, HE iii. 16. " DCB ii. 138 n.

12 For Ephraim see also Theodoret, HE iv. 26, and Jerome, de
Vir. illustr. 115 ; for a very unfavourable view of his intellectual
powers see Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity, p. 96 fl.

170

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

after he attained to manhood ; and he became a great
ascetic, and the friend of Cyril of Alexandria. At
the end of his life he strenuously opposed Nestorms.^
The other famous bishop was his successor, Ibas
(bishop from 435 to 457), who was inclined to favour
Nestorius (see below, § 8).

During all this period the Church seems to have
made rapid progress. Eusebius ^ says that bishops
from 'the whole of Syria and Mesopotamia' at-
tended the dedication of Constan tine's great church
at Jerusalem in 335. r v i,

(c) The Persian empire. — A great deal of light
has been thrown on early Syrian Christianity in
Persia by the recent publication of the works of
Nestorian writers. Formerly we had to rely mainly
on the accounts of Jacobite authors like Bar
Hebrseus. The two sets of accounts correct one
another and disprove more than one myth ; and
Neale's narrative in his History of the Holy Eastern
Church 8 needs much correction in this respect.

One legend is a continuation of that of Abgar and Addai
already mentioned. Man, disciple of Addai, travelled from
Edessa and evangelized ' Persia ' (i.e. what became later the
eastern part of Asiatic Turkey, as well as the modern Persia),
penetrating as far as the province of Fars. Mari is not
mentioned in the Doctrine of Addai, which, however, has a hint
that Christianity extended from Edessa into Persia. Nor is
Mari mentioned in the lately published and very valuable
History of Mshiha Zkha (lit. ' Christ has conquered '), of the 6th
cent., which states that Addai was the apostle of Adiabene and
AssjTia (this apparentiv contradicts the Doctrine, which makes
Addai live and die at Edessa), and that he ordained Pqidha as
first bishop there. The Nestorian Swnhadhus, or Book of Canon
Law,4 names as the ' converters' of that region Thomas ' of the
Indians and Chinese ' {Sinayi), ' Bartholomew, that is Nathanael,
of the Aranisans, Addai of the Seventy, the teacher of Aggai,
and Mari of Mesopotamia and of all Persia.' 8 This is all clearly
m3'thical, but is there any truth underlying the legend? Some
consider that there was no Christianity, or at least no organiza-
tion of Christianity, east of the Tigris before the Sasanid empire
was established by a revolution, a.d. 225. This is perhaps going
rather too far. If there was nothing before the third decade of
the 3rd cent, to build upon, it is unlikely that so early a writer
as Mshiha Zkha could have given us such details ; he could not
have invented Pqidha out of nothing. It is quite probable that
there were Christians in Assyria in the 2nd cent., for Tatian,6
the disciple of Justin Martyr, tells us that he was born ' in the
land of the Assyrians.' This must be discounted by the fact
that he probably wrote only in Greek, though many think that
his Diatessaron (for which see below, § 4) was written in Syriac ; ^
and that he may therefore have been of Greek parentage, and
have been converted to Christianity when in the West. We
learn from Epiphanius that he laboured in Syria and Meso-
potamia.8 In any case there was no bishop at Seleucia-
Ctesiphon, the twin-capital of the Persian empire, situated on
the Tigris below Baghdad, till the end of the 3rd century. Papa
is the first known bishop of that city ; he was consecrated
e. 280.

Another legend ia much later, and professes to account for
the existence of a patriarch at Seleucia-Ctesiphon. It is given
by Bar Hebrsus and other writers, and in the Silnhddhus,^ &nd
is to the effect that two men went from Persia to Antioch to
receive the episcopate in 190. According to the first writer, one
of them was crucified as a Persian spy, as was Slibha (pron.
91iwa, lit. ' cross,' still a common name), the bishop of Antioch,
while the other escaped to Jerusalem and was consecrated there,
returning with a letter conferring the patriarchate on the
Church in Persia. The SUnhddhus does not name Slibha, but
says that two patriarchs, ' one of the East and one of the West,' i"
were crucified on the doors of the church of Antioch, and it
gives the pretended letter of the 'Western patriarchs' to the
'Easterns,' bestowing on the latter a patriarchate, and absolving
them from the duty of sending their patriarchs to Antioch to be
consecrated. The first patriarch, it says, was either Papa or
Shahlupa — it does not profess to be certain. n This Shahlupa
was probably the bishop of Adiabene, east of the Tigris and
between the two Zabs, who was a contemporary of Papa. The
letter of the ' Westerns ' is a late forgery. The earlier writers,
like Mshiha Zkha, know nothing of the story, despite the fact
that that historian wrote the life of Aha d'abhuh, the bishop
who is said to have escaped. The whole is doubtless a fiction,
and it is improbable that the Persian ChrisUans ever depended
for their bishops on Antioch, though they doubtless received

1 For his Biblical work see below, § 4.

2 VU. Const, iv. 43. 3 Gen. Introd. i. 139 ft.
*This is here quoted in the MS form used by the Nestorians

themselves. It is also incorporated in a larger collection given
by Chabot (Synodicon Orii^ntale).

8 ix. 1. 6 To the Greeks, 42.
1 E. Nestle, in HDB iv. 646. 8 Ear. xlvi. 1.

9 ix. 1, 5.

10 The ' West ' means what we should call the ' Near East.'

11 For Pipa see above.

their Christianity from Edessa, and Edessa possibly received it
from Antioch. 'The idea of patriarchates, it need hardly be said,
belongs to a much later time than these pretended events.
The East Syrian (' Persian ') metropolitanates were organized
c. A.D. 410. There is no early evidence of Antioch exercising
jurisdiction over the Church in Persia. When Papa was con-
demned by his brother bishops, he appealed, successfully, to
Edessa, and perhaps to Nisibis.i

An important event for the Church occurred in
A.D. 297, when five Persian provinces were ceded
to the Roman emperor.^ This strengthened the
ecclesiastical ties between East and 'West.' The
cession made Nisibis a Roman city. Its most
famous bishop at that time was James of Nisibis,
who was born there towards the end of the 3rd
century. Ephraim was his disciple, and was
baptized by him. James himself was a great
author of Syriac works.*

It is remarkable that, though James was present
at Nicjea in A.D. 325, the East Syrians knew
nothing officially of that council till the Synod of
Seleucia-Ctesiphon in A.D. 410, when they freely
accepted the Nicene decrees and creed. To this
day they use a rather peculiar version of the longer
fomi, the so-called ' Constantinople ' creed, which
came into general use (see below, §9). The Arian
controversy did not touch them ; and an illustration
of this may be seen in the fact that Aphraates,
whose Homilies (see below, § 4) are a continuous
exposition of the Christian faith, does not mention
Arianism at all, though he lived at a time when
that heresy was prevalent in the ' West.'

The principal East Syrian bishops of Seleucia-
Ctesiphon after Papa and before the Nestorian
period were Simeon Bar Saba^ (martyred under
Sapor II.), Yahbh-alaha I. (pron. Yaw-alaha), and
Dadhishu. Of other bishops may be specially
mentioned Aphraates (Aphrahat), in the 4th cent.,
whose see was perhaps Mar Mattai, near Mosul
(see below, § 5), and MSrutha (early 5th cent.),
bishop of Maipharqat or Martyropolis, north of
Nisibis, author of the Book of Martyrs (see below,
§ 4). Marutha often acted as adviser to the Persian
king and as ambassador to the Roman emperor.
The Sunhddhus * mentions an earlier Marutha, who
was (it says) present at Nicsea, but it is probable
that he did not exist, and that the statement is
due to a confusion.

The period was marked by many personal
quarrels,' a feature of later history also, and by the
great persecution under King Sapor n. (tA.p.
379), which lasted some 40 years and resulted in
many martyrdoms.' The Persian kings at one time
favoured the Church and at another persecuted it.
It is important to notice that even in the early
days the political conditions tended, quite apart
from theological considerations, to separate the
East Syrians from the rest of Christendom. It
was the policy of the Persian authorities when they
tolerated Christianity to separate it as much as
possible from that in the rival Roman empire.
Another persecution, at the instigation of the
Magians, whose religion was that of the State,
broke out under King Bahram (Yararanes) v.,
c. A.D. 420. Theodoref makes it arise under his
predecessor Yazdegerd, though continued under
Bahram, but Socrates ^ says more accurately that
it arose after Yazdegerd's death.

The title of the bishops of Seleucia-Ctesiphon,
c. A.D. 400, was ' the Catholicos of the East,' and this
is still preserved by their successors. The title
' Patriarch ' was added a little later, at the Council
of Dadhishu, held A.D. 424 at ' Markabta of the

1 W. A. Wigram, Introd. to the Hist, of the Assyrian Church,
p. 53 f.

a The provinces reverted to Persia in 352.

3 For notices of him see Theodoret, HE ii. 26, and Gennadius,
de Script. Eccles. § 1 (continuation of Jerome's de Vir. illtistr.).

* i. 3, 6. * Wigram, ch. iii.

6 Sozomen, HE ii. 10 S. 7 HE v. 3S.

S HE vii. 18.

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

171

Arabs.' This council firmly established the in-
dependence of the ' Eastern ' patriarchate.

4. The Syriac Bible and early Syriac literature.
— Before the doctrinal divisions of the 5th cent,
there was a considerable activity in Syriac litera-
ture, all written in what we call ' classical Syriac '
(see above, § 2). The Gospels were current in Syriac
in five forms, (a) The four ' Gospels separate ' (Syr.
Ewangeliyon da-Mpharrshi), now generally called
the ' Old Syriac,' are known to us by two MSS :
the Curetonian, discovered in Egypt in 1842, and
ed. by Cureton in 1858 ; and the Sinaitic Syriac, a
palimpsest discovered by Mrs. Gibson in the monas-
tery of ISIount Sinai in 1893. Both of these have
the above Syriac title, which distinguishes them
from the Diatessaron (see below). Both are perhaps
of the 4th century. The Curetonian has the same
type of text as the Sinaitic, but differs from it in
many details.^

(b) The Diatessaron of Tatian (2nd cent.), some-
times called by the Syrians ' the Mixed [Gospels],' *
is a harmony of the four Gospels, and is known to
us through a commentary on it by Ephraim handed
down in an Armenian translation, by quotations
in Aphraates, and by an Arabic translation of
the Harmony itself made in the 11th cent, by
the Nestorian monk Ibn at-Tayyib.' The Dia-
tessaron is mentioned in the Doctrine of A ddai.

(c) The Pshitta,* or ' simple ' version, so called to
distinguish it from the complicated recension of
Thomas of 5arqel (see below), is the version still
used by Syrian Christians. The name is first found
in the 8th or 9th century. This version, which is
now often called ' the Syriac Vulgate,' contains the
whole Bible, OT and NT (including the OT Apoc-
rypha), less 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and
Revelation. Because of its universal acceptance, it
may safely be assigned to a date before the divisions
of the 5th century. The Gospels in this version
have been critically edited by G. H. Gwilliam.' It
appears that Tatia'n's Harmony was at one time in
popular use among the Syrian Christians, but early
in the 5th cent. Rabbula, bishop of Edessa (see above,
§ 3), and Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, were instru-
mental in its being abolished and destroyed in favour
of the ' separate Gospels.' Burkitt's theory has
been very generally accepted, viz. that the Pshitta
Gospels are a revision of the 'separate Gospels'
made early in the 5th cent, under the direction of
Rabbula ; that the Diatessaron was written in
Greek (but see above, § 3), probably at Rome, by
Tatian, and translated into Syriac in his lifetime,
c. A.D. 170 ; and that the 'separate Gospels' date
from c. A.D. 200, the translator being familiar with
the Diatessaron.^ These views are combated by
Gwilliam, who is inclined to assign a much earlier
date to the Pshitta Gospels;'' he objects that
Burkitt's theory is not adequately attested, does
not explain the disappearance of the ' Old Syriac,'
and does not account for the acceptance of the
Pshitta in the 5th cent, by Nestorians and Jacobites
alike.® The fact that the East Syrians were not
definitely Nestorian in Rabbula's time, or indeed for
a long time after him (see below, § 8), appears to
the present writer adequately to account for their
being ready enough to accept such a version of the
Gospels in 'place of the Diatessaron.

1 For these two MSS see F. C. Burkitt, Evangelion da-
Mepharreshe, Cambridge, 1904. For the date see Burkitt, Earli/
Christianity outside the Roman Empire, p. M, and Evang. ii.
13 28

2 Burkitt, Evang. ii. 116. 8 n,. il. 4.

4 Usually written in English Peshitta, Peshitto, or Peshito, but
all these forms give the ordinary reader an erroneous idea of
the pronunciation of the first syllable. Also the first t is
pronounced quite differently from the second.

6 Tetraeuangelivm Sanctum, Oxford, 1901.

6 Burkitt, hvana. ii. 5.

7 Stxtdia Bihlicdet Ecdesiastica, v. [0.x ford, 1908] 189 fl.

8 On this last point see Burkitt, Evang. ii. 162, and Earl]/
jSasteni Christianity, p. 59 ff.

{d) Recensions of the Pshitta were made by
Philoxenus, bishop of Mabug (Hierapolis, near the
Euphrates), A.D. 508 (not now extant), and by
Thomas of I^arqel (' Harklean ' version), A.D. 616.
Both of these writers were Monophysites, and it
appears that the only dissatisfaction with the
Pshitta that made itself felt was among the
Jacobites, and not among the Nestorians. But
even among the Jacobites that version remained
supreme.

Soine characteristics of the Pshit1;a may here be mentioned.
Its MSS, unlike those of the Greek Bible in the 5th cent., all
show practically the same text. Some of them are as old as
the 5th cent., the oldest c. a.d. 450. One rather noticeable
difference between the ' Old Syriac ' and the Pshitta Gospels
occurs in the Lord's Prayer, where the former has 'our con-
tinual bread,' the latter ' the bread of our need.' Another
difference is in the gender of ' Holy Spirit.' The noun ' spirit '
being feminine in Syriac, the older writers make ' Holy Spirit'
feminine also, and Aphraates speaks of the Holy Ghost as ' our
mother,' just as the Gospel according to the Hebrews speaks of
Him as our Lord's mother. But from the time of the rshij,ta
onwards 'Holy Spirit' is made masculine by a grammatical
revolution, though in Lk 4l and Jn 7^*9 Psh there is a survival
of the older usage, the feminine being retained.

Hitherto we have considered only the Gospels. There is no
extant text of Acts or the Epistles older than the Pshitta, but
quotations in Aphraates and in Ephraim's Commentarj/ on the
Pauline Epistles, now extant only in an Armenian translation,
are of some slight help.i In Aphraates and in the genuine worka
of Ephraim there is no clear reference to any of the Catholic
Epistles. The Doctrine of Addai expressly confines the
Scriptural canon to the Law and the Prophets, the Gospel,
St. Paul's Epistles, and Acts. Thus the Pshitta, admitting as it
does the principal Catholic Epistles, shows an ad\ance on the
way to a fuller canon.2 The Pshitta OT was not revised by
Rabbula, and is undoubtedly much'older than his time, perhaps
dating from the end of the 2nd century. 3 The translator had a
good knowledge of Hebrew, though he was somewhat influenced
by the Septuagint. Burkitt thinks that he must have been a
Jew, and that he made his translation for the Jews, who
had probably settled at Edessa before it became a Christian
centre. The OT quotations of the Acts of Judas Tliomas, the
Doctrine of Addai, the Edessene Caiions, Aphraates, Cyrillona,
and the genuine works of Ephraim (for all these see below) agree
largely with the Pshitta, but their Gospel quotations do not do
so, rather resembling the ' Old Syriac ' and the Diatessaron.
After Babbiila all the quotations but two agree with the
Pshitta, the 'Old Syriac' having thus almost entirely dis-
appeared.4 The ' Old Syriac ' Gospels appear to be later than
the Pshitta OT, as the translator of the former, translating direct
from the Greek, uses Hebrew proper names correctly trans-
literated from the Hebrew, as does the Pshitta translator
of the OT. The Old Syriac Gospel translator could hardly do
this unless he had the correct forms of the proper names
before him already in use.s

Of other early Syriac works, in addition to
liturgies, some of which seem in their main features
to have been written before the middle of the 5th
cent., and in addition also to early Syriac trans-
lations of Greek books, the following may be
mentioned. (1) The Disputation with Manes, by
Archelaus, bishop of Kashkar in Mesopotamia (3rd
cent.?), is now extant only in Greek fragments and
in a Latin translation, but was originally written in
Syriac. (2) The Doctrine of Addai, ^ already men-
tioned, is a work of the latter part, or, according
to R. A. Lipsius,^ of the beginning, of the 4th cent. ,
giving the legend of Abgar (see above, § 3). (3) The
voluminous works of Ephraim consist of commen-
taries, homilies, letters, and hymns.® At least one
of his works. On the Holy Spirit, was translated
into Greek before Jerome s time.* (4) Aphraates,
the Persian martjT and sage, wTote his Homilies
A.T>. 337-345. Tlieir theological attitude calls for
some remark in view of their aloofness from
Hellenistic influence. There is no special diflerence
between him and ' Western ' ■wTiters in the present-
ment of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and in
Aphraates, as elsewhere, baptism is ' in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy

1 Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity, p. 48.

2 76. p. 59. 8/6. p. 70.
4 lb. pp. 54-56. 6 lb. p. 73.

« Ed. G. Phillips, London, 1876. 7 DCB i. 31.

8 For a list of the works attributed to him of which we have
pre-Muhommadan MSS, see Burkitt, Evang. iL 113 ; but some
works in later MSS mav also be genuine.

9 de Vir. Ulustr. § 115.

172

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

Ghost.' Man is a temple for God to dwell in.^
But the doctrine of the sacraments must be noticed.
The teaching about the eucharist, indeed, is more
or less that of the Greek-speaking Christians. The
body and blood of our Lord are received by the
faithful. Fasting communion is enjoined, but
special stress is laid on fasting from sin. Yet this
seems to be only the complement and groundwork
of the literal fasting. One passage," however, is
thought by Burkitt^ to show that Aphraates
considered baptism, and the sacramental system
generally, to be only for ascetics, and not for the
married laity. This conclusion has been much dis-
puted. At least it is certain that Aphraates
favoured the postponing of baptism till after
marriage, just as Constantine postponed it till the
end of his life. The same tinge of ultra-asceticism
is seen here that appears in the Acts of Judas
Thomas (see below and § 9). But there is no evidence
that this was more than the private opinion of
individuals, or that the original East Syrian
Church as a whole considered full membership to
be incompatible with anything but the ascetic life.
(5) The Syriac Doctrina Aposfolorum (or Edessene
Canons) was written c. a.d. 350 and is a kind of
• Church Order.' As is the case with many books
of that class, it puts injunctions into the mouth of
the apostles, and it is of great interest as telling us
of the customs of the Edessene Church in the 4th
century. It makes Addai the apostle of Edessa,
and Aggai,* a maker of silks,' the apostle of Persia,
Assyria, Armenia, Media, the countries round
Babylon, the ' Huzites and the Gelae, as far as the
borders of the Indians and as far as the land of
Gog and Magog.' This shows that the East
Syrians at a very early date were a missionary
body. (6) The Syriac Marty rology may be dated
c. A.D. 350. It is found in the MS (dated 411)
mentioned below. It mentions ^abblb the deacon,
as well as Sharauna and Guria (on whom a metrical
homily is extant), but not Aggai, Sharbil, or
Barsamya (see below). (7) Abba (Abha, pron.
Awa), the disciple of Ephraim, wrote a commen-
tary on the Gospels, of which only a few fragments
remain. (8) Cyrillona wrote his poems c. A.D.
396.* (9) The Martyrdoms of Barsamya and of
Habbib, and (10) the Acts or Eypomnemata of
Sharbil, are accounts of the deaths of three Edessene
heroes." (11) The de Fato of Bardai^an (?) has
already been mentioned (§ 3). (12) Marutha (§ 3)
wrote his Book of Martyrs early in the 5th cent,
to commemorate those who suffered in Persia in
the great persecution of Sapor II. (13) The Life
of Babbula (see above) was written shortly after
his death, A.D. 435. (14) The ^c^s of Judas Thomas
(the apostle) is a highly interesting religious novel,
written by one who was of doubtful orthodoxy, but
was perhaps a pioneer missionary in E. Mesopo-
tamia in the 3rd cent., or possibly Bardaisan
himself, or at any rate one of his school. The
Syriac origin of this work is maintained by
T. Noldeke and F. C. Burkitt« and others.'' The
Acts contain the well-known Hymn of the Soul,
for an English translation of which see Burkitt's
Early Eastern Christianity, p. 218 ff.; but the
hymn is really an independent Syriac composition
added to the Acts. These Acts, while unorthodox,
are probably not Gnostic, being very different from
the Greek Acts of John, which are thoroughly

1 Hmn. xvii. 2 ih. vii. 20.

s Early Christianity outside the Roman Empire, p. 51 f., and
80 the later Early Eastern Christianity, p. 125 ff.

* Burkitt, Evang. ii. 150 ; Lightfoot, Ignatius and Polycarp^,
i. 168. ^ „^ , .,

8 For a summary of these histories of Barsamya and Sharbil
see Lightfoot op. cit. i. 66 f. Lightfoot remarks that they must
not be taken as genuine history.

6 JThSt i. [1899-1900] 280 ff., ii. [1900-01] 429, iu. [1901-02] 94,
and Evang. ii. 101.

7 For these Acts see further below, § 9.

Gnostic. In the Syriac Acts there is no inner
circle to whom alone the whole truth is taught.^
(15) Syriac may be the original language of the
Clementine story which has been reproduced in the
Clementine Homilies and Recognitions. An earlier
form of the story,'' perhaps of the 3rd cent., has
lately been discovered in Syriac.^

There are also several translations of Greek works into
Syriac which were made before the great separation of Syrian
Christians. Thus the works of Eusebius were so trans-
lated very shortly after his death ; a MS of a Syriac
version of the Martyrs of Palestine and the Theophania is
extant, dated a.d. 411, and this is not the original autograph,^
and another of the Ecclesiastical History is extant dated a.d.
462.5 Pamphilus the martyr, Eusebius's teacher, had a society,
c. A.D. 300, which translated Greek works into Syriac.6 The
Ignatian Epistles were translated into Syriac (the ' Curetonian
Syriac Letters') at least in the 5th cent., and, if the six
additional letters are not an integral part of this version,
probably earlier. 7 It is noteworthy that Syrian Christians, by
means of classical Svriac, made many Greek works, philosophical,
scientific, and religious, known to the East. Some Greek works
are known to us only in their Syriac dress ; and even some
works in Armenian come to us from the Greek through the
Syriac. The principal era of Armenian translations from the
Syriac was the 5th century.8

5. West Syrians or Jacobites.— We now proceed
to consider the divisions of Syrian Christianity
which resulted from the Christological controversies
of the 5th century. It is not necessary here to
repeat the accounts of those controversies which
have already been given in this Encyclopmdia ; but
we may discuss the general history and the customs
of the different Syrian bodies which separated from
one another and from the 'Western' Church of
Constantinople and Rome.

The Syrian Monophysites may be considered
first. 8 In Syria proper there was a constant con-
tention between them and the Orthodox for more
than a hundred years after the Council of Chalcedon
(A.D. 451), and the patriarchs of Antioch were some-
times Orthodox and sometimes Monophysite, The
most famous of the latter was Severus, who main-
tained possession of Antioch itself from a.d. 513 to
518 ; he was an author, and wrote in Greek. He
was a great admirer and quoter of Ignatius's
Epistles. i» He was the leader of his party till his
death c. a.d. 540, after which a double succession
to the patriarchate was continuous ; and it has been
preserved to the present day. The final breach
between Orthodox and Monophysites may be said
to have occurred in the reign of Justin li., the suc-
cessor of Justinian. He persecuted the Mono-
physites, and an account of these troubles may be
read in the third book (the only part extant) of
John of Ephesus, a contemporary. John was
Monophysite bishop of Ephesus in the 6th cent.,
but he wrote in Syriac, and was the first Syriac
historian. He was a native of Amida (Diarbekr).
For James of Sarug (t A.D. 521 or 522), who has
been thought to have been a Monophysite (but this
is very doubtful), and for other early Syrian poets,
see art. Hymns (Syriac Christian), § i.

The Syrian Monophysites are called Jacobites
from Jacob Baradai (Baradaeus), or Zanzalus, a
monk of a monastery near Edessa, who came to
Constantinople c. A.D. 540 to plead the cause of
Monophysitism. After remaining there fifteen

1 Burkitt, Early Christianity outside the Roman Empire, pp.

a Edited with translation by A. Mingana, Some Early Judceo-
CArisfian i)ocurnen£s, Manchester, 1917. , „. . ^

3 For most of the above works see W. Wright's Short Hist, oj
Syriac Literature ; many of them appear in English in the
' Ante-Nicene Christian Library,' xx. [Edinburgh, 1871], though
they cannot all claim to be ante-Nicene.

4 DCB ii. 320. * ^^- P- 326.

6 Lightfoot, Ignatius and Polycarp^, 1. 327.
7/6^.326. 8/6.P 86f. ^ ^^ ^

9 For the struggle between Monophysitism and orthodoxy
after the Council of Chalcedon, and for the alternately favour-
able and unfavourable attitude of the Byzantine Court towards
the latter, see art. Monophysitism. With the opponents of
Chalcedon in Egypt and in Armenia we are not here concerned.
I 10 Lightfoot, i. 178.

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

173

years, he was consecrated bishop by the imprisoned
Monophysite bishops in the capital, and sent to
Syria to organize his sect. He consecrated Sergius
to succeed Severus at Antioch, and appointed Paul
the Black to succeed Sergius. He is said to have
ordained two patriarchs, 89 bishops, and an enor-
mous number of clergy. He is often called bishop
of Edessa, but Bar Hebraeus ^ says that he was a
bishop with no fixed see. John of Ephesus was
his panegyrist. He died in 578, and after his death
the Monophysites were driven from Antioch. The
term * Jacobites ' was a nickname, given by the
Orthodox ; but the Jacobites themselves readily
accepted it, tracing it, however erroneously, to the
apostle James, to whom also they ascribe their
principal liturgy. Their controversy with the
Greeks, like the controversy of the East Syrians
with the Greeks, was not only theological ; it was
largely tinged with national differences. Indeed
both were to a considerable extent contests between
Syriac thought and Hellenistic culture.

In the 7th cent, the Muhammadans conquered
Palestine, Syria, and the East ; and at first the
new rulers favoured the Jacobites as the rivals of
the Greeks. The principal writer of this period
was James (Jacob) of Edessa (1708), who was a
poet, commentator, and letter- writer, and a volu-
minous translator of Greek works into Syriac. To
him, e.g., we owe the knowledge of the ' Church
Order ' called the Testament of our Lord, a Greek
work of c. A.D. 350, now extant only in Syriac.

The Jacobite patriarchs have continued to this
day (at any rate from the 13th cent., or, according
to Neale,^ from the end of the 16th cent.) to style
themselves 'of Antioch,' though they transferred
their residence to various places — to Malatia on the
Euphrates, to Amida, and finally (in the 12th cent.)
to the monastery of Deir-el-Za'afaran (the * safltron
monastery') near Mardin, where they have been
ever since.

Perhaps the most eminent Jacobite of all history
was Gregory Bar Hebraeus, or Abulfaraj (t 1286),
a man of Jewish parentage, who became a convert
to Christianity and afterwards maphrian or metro-
politan of Mosul, having formerly held other sees.^
He wrote many works, and his Chronicle (which
may be read in Assemani) is a valuable history.
He seems to have been greatly esteemed even by
his Nestorian opponents, who attended his funeral
in large numbers ; he died at Maragha (south of
Tabriz), but was buried in the monastery of Mar
Mattai on Jebel Maqlub (Syr. Elpeph), a day's ride
north-east of Mosul, and his grave is still shown
there. His Chronicle is, for his age, fairly trust-
worthy, but when he deals with Nestorian matters
it should be compared with the writings of that
body.

A less known Jacobite writer was Dionysius
Bar-salibi (Syr. slibhi, pron. sliwi), also called
James, metropolitan of Amida, a theologian and
commentator, probably of the 11th century.*

We know less of Jacobite organization and cus-
toms, ecclesiastical and liturgical, than we do of
those of the Nestorians, of which we have been
fully informed in the last quarter of a century.
For the modern Jacobites the best short account
is to be found in O. H. Parry's Six Months in a
Syrian Monastery, which has been largely drawn
upon in the description which follows. The eccle-
siastical hierarchy consists of the patriarch ; the
maphrian, who since the 12th cent, has had his see
at Mar Mattai (see above) or in Mo§ul itself ; and
bishops of Jerusalem, Damascus or Horns (Emessa),
Edessa, Amida, Mardin, Nisibis, Maipharqat (now
Farqin ; see above, § 3) and Ma dan, Aleppo,
Jezireh (on the Tigris), and Tur 'Abhdin (Jebel

1 Assemani, Bihl. Or. ii. 327. 2 Gen. Introd. i. 152.

3 Assemani, ii. 244 S. * Renaudot, Lit. Or. ii. 453.

Tur). There are also some bishops without sees,
as at Mar Mattai, where, when the present writer
visited the monastery in 1887, the establishment
consisted of one bishop and one monk. The patri-
arch is elected by the people, and the election is
confirmed by the bishops resident near Mardin ; it
is common for the maphrian to be promoted to the
chief position. The patriarch, or more rarely the
maphrian, consecrates all the bishops, who must be
either monks or widowed priests ; those chosen
from the monks are called matrdn, or ' metro-
politan,' while those chosen from the widowed
priests are called asqof {iirlffKoiros), and are of
slightly lower rank, not being eligible for the
patriarchate or maphrianate. Each bishop has the
prefix 'Mar' ('my lord') before his name.^ The
patriarch and the other bishops are recognized by
the State as judges for their own people, especially
in minor matters, and in questions of marriage and
divorce. The canonical age for the ordination of
bishops is 35, of deacons 20 ; but this has never
been kept as a fixed rule. Bar Hebraeus was
ordained bishop at 20 ; deacons are often ordained
as little boys, but they must be able to read the
Psalms in classical Syriac. The parish priests,
who are elected by the parish councils of deacons
and laymen, must be married men ; if their wives
die, they enter a monastery or else become asqofs.
A second marriage is not allowed to them. The
priests must let their beards grow, but they shave
their heads completely. The leading priest in a
large town is often made a chorepiscopus, but he is
not a bishop, and cannot ordain. There are many
deacons in each village — they are engaged in secular
work during the week — as they are indispensable
for the celebration of the eucharist. Minor orders
are practically obsolete.

Several ground-plans of churches ma^ be seen in Parry.2 The
altar, at least in most cases, stands m an apse, not (as among
the Nestorians) attached to the east wall, and there are seats for
bishops and clergy behind. This is also the usual Greek custom.
The whole sanctuary in Syrian churches, Eastern and Western,
is called ' the altar ' (Syr. madhb'hd), though this name is some-
times also given to the holy table itself. The latter is usually
of stone, though in some of the Jacobite churches it is of wood.*
There are side chapels with ' altars,' north and south of the
sanctuary — the churches face east — and in some cases, as at
Mar Mattai, there is another chapel at the north side for the
burial of bishops, called beith qaddisM (' house of the saints ').
Between sanctuary and nave there is a stone wall or screen,
sometimes with folding doors, and always with a veil. The nave
has no furniture except one or two lecterns. The altar is usually
placed under a baldacchino. The Jacobites, like the Nestorians,
do not allow images in their churches, but have a great venera-
tion for the cross.

Monasteries are common ; the monks are often
laymen, though they are sometimes in holy orders.
The monasteries are under the rule of the diocesan
bishop except where they contain the tomb of a
patriarch or a maphrian; in that case they are
directly under the patriarch. Nunneries seem to
be obsolete. The technical Syriac term for the
monastic life, among both the Jacobites and the
Nestorians, is 'sadness,' 'mourning.''*

The eucharistic liturgy ordinarily used is that of
' St. James,' a translation of which, in the Jacobite
form, is given in Brightman's Liturgies Eastern
and Western, i. 69 fl". The Syrian Jacobites,
Maronites, Uniat Syrians, and Malabar Jacobites
all use the same liturgy with some variations.^
Leavened bread is used, and must be baked for each
occasion. The leaven is handed down from remote
ages, as among the Nestorians. The eucharist is
reserved for the sick, but only for communion on
the same day. Little children (who are confirmed
immediately after baptism) are communicated.

1 For the forms of admission to holy orders see art. Ordhjation
(Christian), 5 1». r . j • ,0-,

2 Pp. 328, 332, etc. S Neale, Gen. Introd. l 181.

4 Syr. abhiluthd (see the Nestorian Sunhddhus, vii. 2, can. 7,
etc.).

8 For a list of other Jacobite liturgies see Brightman, 1. p.
Iviiiff.

174

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

The antidoron or eucharistic bread not consecrated
(Syr. bur/dhd = €v\oyla) is distributed after the
service. The celebrant wears albe, amice, un-
divided stole, yellow shoes, a maniple over each
arm, and a chasuble split down the front and
buckled with silver at the neck. The vesting
takes place in the side chapel, where also the
elements are prepared. There are in some churches
daily eucharists. There are no special vestments
(except girdles, and often, for the deacons, stoles)
at the daily offices. These last have not been
published, and exist in manuscript only. One of
the great features of Jacobite worship is the
peculiar addition of ' who wast crucified for us ' to
the Trisagion ('Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy
Immortal, have mercy upon us'), which is used at
many of the services. The addition was first made
by Peter the Fuller (tA.D. 477), and was eagerly
adopted and retained as a test of Monophysitism.^
Baptism is not allowed to be administered in private
houses. The child at baptism is signed with moron,
or unguent (whicli is consecrated once a year by the
patriarch), anointed all over the body with oil
( wliich has been hallowed by the moron), immersed
in water thrice up to the neck, clothed, and con-
firmed.^ Confession before communion is recom-
mended by the canons, but is now almost obsolete.
Some of the canons ^ are more strict, and insist on
confession before communion on Maundy Thursday,
Christmas, and Pentecost.'* The fasts are some-
what severe. Besides Lent and Advent, both of
which are strict fasts, there are (a) the Fast of the
Ninevites, three days in spring, said to have been
instituted owing to a plague in the 6th cent.,' and
strenuously maintained also by the East Syrians ;

(b) the Fast of the Apostles, after Pentecost ; and

(c) the Fast of Mary, August 1-15. Wednesday
and Friday are fasts in each week, from sunset to
sunset.

The Jacobites are to be found chiefly in Meso-
potamia and northwards to ^arput and Diarbekr,
but there are also a good many of them near
Damascus and a certain number around Mosul.
The largest numbers are perhaps to be found in the
hilly region of Jebel Tur (Arab, also Tur 'Abdin ;
Syr. Tur 'Abhdin), N. of the line Mardin — Nisibis
—Jezireh. In this district Syriac is stUl spoken
vernacularly. Here some of their oldest and most
interesting churches are situated.^ It is always
difficult to reckon numbers in Turkey ; but
Gibbon's estimate ^ of from fifty to eighty thousand
is certainly too low. We may perhaps put the
total in Turkey at rather less than 200,000.»

Certain communities of Jacobites have become
Uniat (see below, § 6). Jesuit missionaries first
came to Mesopotamia in 1540. In 1646 the Uniat
patriarchate was fixed at Aleppo, and the patriarch
took his title from that place. The Syrian Christ-
ians in that neighbourhood mostly belong to that
jurisdiction.

6. Melkites and Uniats. — The former name,
which is derived from Syr. malka ('king'), a word
used also, like /Sao-tXeys, for an emperor, was invented

1 But the ancient and authoritative Jacobite statement of faith
(the 'Creed of our Sainted Fathers '), published by the Syrian
Patriarchate Education Committee in English {The Ancient
Syrian Church in Mesopotamia, London, 190S), emphatically
states that the Trisagion with this addition is addressed to ' the
Only-begotten Son," and not to ' the Three blessed Persons ' (p. lO;.
This ' Statement of faith' is quite free from Monophysitism. It
denies that the divine nature of our Lord was commingled with
the human nature, or that the two natures became commixed
and changed so as to give rise to a third nature, and asserts that
the two natures became united in indissoluble union without
confusion, mixture, or transnmtation, and that they remained
two natures in an unalterable unity.

- For early Syrian baptisms see laelow, §8.

3 Several collections of these may be read in H. Denzinger,
RituB Orientalium, i. 475 ff.

■1 lb. p. 437. 5 Wigram, p. 214.

sParry, p. 169ff. 7 vL 55.

8 For the Jacobites in India see below, 5 g.

in the 10th cent, by the Jacobites for those Christ-
ians who adhered to the Council of Chalcedon. It
was a nickname, meaning ' royalists,' and implying
that they could stand only by the support of the
Roman emperor. It may be compared with the
nickname ' Erastians ' used in this country at the
present day ; both have a somewhat similar shade
of meaning. But the name * Melkites ' was quite
readily accepted by those to whom it had been
given in derision,^ and was applied to all those
who were in communion with Constantinople,
whether Syrian, Egyptian, or Greek. In compara-
tively recent times the name has been given, and
given exclusively, to the Christians of Syria and
Egypt who have been drawn from the Orthodox
Eastern Church and have been united to Rome.
Such, e.g., are the ' Syrian Melkites,' whose liturgi-
cal language is, or was, Syriac.

The name ' Uniat ' is applied to those Eastern
Christians who have been united to Rome, but are
allowed to keep their own liturgies, liturgical
language, and ecclesiastical customs, especially as
to the marriage of their clergy — though in all
these respects modifications, sometimes very con-
siderable, have been introduced. The earliest of
these ' Uniats ' are the Maronites (see below, § 7) ;
but there are also four Uniat Churches of the
Graeco-Slavonic rite — the Bulgarian, Greek Mel-
kite (formed of Arabic-speaking Orthodox after
the Synod of Bethlehem, in 1672), Rumaic or
Roumanian, and Ruthenian ; there are also the
Armenian Uniats ; the Syrian Uniats, drawn from
the Jacobites in 1646 (see above, § 5) ; the Chaldaean
Uniats, drawn from the Nestorians (see below, § 8) ;
and the Malabar Uniats (see below, § 9). The
Uniats have nine Eastern patriarchs. Those of
Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch live in
Rome. In addition there are Uniat patriarchs of
Jerusalem (Greek), Antioch (Maronite), Antioch
(Greek), Antioch (Syrian), Cilicia (Armenian),
Babylon (Chaldsean).^ European readers are
often confused by the fact that there are no fewer
than six patriarchs who take their title from
Antioch — one Greek Orthodox, four Uniats, and
one Jacobite.

The Syrian Uniats use the liturgy of ' St. James ';
the rubrics are often in Carshuni (Arabic in Syriac
characters), the audible prayers both in Syriac and
in Carshuni, the inaudible in Syriac only.* The
Chaldsean Uniats use the liturgy of 'Addai and
Mari ' with some amendments; their daily services
are considerably abbreviated compared with those
of the Nestorians, and in the case of the long festal
Night Service about six-sevenths are omitted.''

7. Maroaites. — These Syrian Christians of the
Lebanon derive their name from their teacher
John Maro, or Maron, a learned monk, who was
named patriarch of Antioch, perhaps early in the
8th century. He has often been confused with an
earlier Maron, called by Gibbon ' ' a saint or
savage of the fifth century,' whose relics were
greatly venerated. In the time of John Maron
the Monothelete controversy was still going on,
and these Lebanon Christians espoused that cause.''
They were thus in opposition to their Christian
neighbours, and later, as Christians, to the Muliam-
madan authorities ; and they received the nick-
name ' Mardaites ' or ' Rebels ' (Syr. marldhe).

In 1182 they renoimced Monotheletism under the
influence of their patriarch Aimeric, and were
united with Rome, then numbering about 40,000
souls. ^ At that time the connexion with the West

1 Gibbon, vi. 44, note 109.

* A. Riley, ' Synopsis of Oriental Christianity,' The Giiardian,
xliii. 947 (liTth June, 1SS8), since reprinted.

S Brightman, Liturgies Eastern, and Western, i. p. hi.

* Conybeare-JIaclean, Rituale Arimnorum, p. 298.

B vi. 55. 6 See art. Mosotheletism.

7 Neale, Gen. Introd. i. 154.

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

175

was through the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem.
After the destruction of that kingdom in the
I4tii cent, relations with Rome were at times
broken off, but they were resumed, and still con-
tinue. In the year 1584 Pope Gregory Xlll.
founded a college in Rome for training their
clergy, and this institution has the honour of
having in the 18th cent, educated the learned
brothers J. S. and J. A. Assemani, to whose
literary labours scholars are so much indebted
for their knowledge of Syriac Christianity. The
Maronites subscribed the decrees of the Council of
Trent in 1736.

They are allowed to retain their own liturgical
customs, and use the Syriac ' St. James ' and other
anaphoras.^ The rubrics in the printed books are
in Carshuni ; some of the formulae are in Carshuni
and Syriac."

The Maronite clergy may marry. They also
elect their own patriarch, who still takes his title
from Antioch. He lives at the monastery of
Qanobin (koiv6^iov), in the Lebanon, and has under
his jurisdiction bishops at Aleppo, Tripoli (in Syria),
Byblusand Botra, Baalbek or Heliopolis, Damascus,
Berytus, Tyre and Sidon, and in Cyprus.* Their
numbers are difficult to estimate. Gibbon* gives
150 priests and 100,000 souls, but they probably
number about a quarter of a million.

They have suffered much from their feuds with
their neighbours, the Druses, and in the year 1860,
after great massacres of the Maronites, the British
and French governments intervened for their
protection.

8. East Syrians, or Nestorians.— We may now
take up the history of the Church in the Persian em-
pire from the middle of the 5th centui-y.* The first
great event for the East Syrians after the Council
of Ephesus, A.D. 431, was their final expulsion by
the emperor Zeno from the school of Edessa and
the consequent founding of the school of Nisibis,
A.D. 489. Ibas (Syr. Ihibha, pron. ihiwa, lit.
' given * ), bishop of Edessa, who was strongly
Dyophysite, had been condemned by the Latro-
cinium, or ' Robber Synod,' of Ephesus in 449, but
was acquitted and restored to his see by the Council
of Chalcedon two years later, after having anathe-
matized both Nestorius and Eutyches. During his
lifetime the Monophysites made no way at Edessa,
but after his death in 457 they became predomi-
nant there, and after a long struggle expelled their
opponents. This was a decisive event in the Persian
Church. Although up to that time it had had no
direct dealings with Nestorianism, its tendency was
mainly Dyophysite, and the influx of Nestorians
from the Roman empire greatly strengthened that
tendency. Nevertheless it is a mistake to suppose
that the Persian Church at some definite date in
the 5th cent, espoused Nestorianism and was
therefore cut off from the Catholic Church. The
process was a gradual one. The principal influence
in the latter half of the 5th cent, was that of Bar
Soma (Barsumas, lit. ' son of the fast '), bishop of
Nisibis, who had taught at Edessa, and now, in
the vacancy of the catholicate, organized the East
Syrian Church in a Nestorian sense ; he must not
be confused with his namesake of the Latrocinium,
who was a Monophysite. There was some opposi-
tion to 'Nestorian' doctrine, especially from the
monks of Mar Mattai (see above, § 5), who to this
day are Jacobites. The catholicos Acacius (Syr.
Aqaq), who was bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon from

1 For a list of these see Brigbtman, Liturgies Eastern and
Western, i. p_. Iviii.

2 Tb. p. Ivii.

3 Neale, Gen. Introd. i. 164. For their forms of admission to
holy orders see art. Ordination (Christian), § 14.

■» vi. 57.

* For the doctrinal controversy which occupied the Council
of Ephesus see art. Nestorianism.

485 to 496, went to Constantinople on a mission
from the Persian king, and there declared that his
Church knew nothing of Nestorius ; he was admitted
to communion by the Orthodox, having anathe-
matized Bar Soma.^ We may perhaps discount his
statement as an Oriental exaggeration ; but the
incident shows that the separation was not yet
complete. StUl later, good relations with Constan-
tinople took place in the time of Mar Abba (pron.
Awa) the Great, a contemporary of Jacob Baradai
(see above, § 5). This prelate, a convert from
Magianism, was catholicos from 640 to 552, having
been a teacher at Nisibis, and having visited
Jerusalem, Egypt, Greece, and Constantinople in the
time of Justinian. In his Catholicate, as it would
seem, the Council of Chalcedon was accepted by
the East Syrian Church. " The Swihddhus'' quotes
with approval one of its canons, and dates the
council as ' 25th October, 763 of Alexander,' i.e.
A.D. 452 (sic) ; the session of that day was particu-
larly solemn, and was attended by the emperor and
empress : it ended the principal work of the
council.*

One of the first matters discussed in this period was the
marriage of bishops and clergy. A council was held in 484 at
Beith Laphat (also called Gondisapor, perhaps the modem
Shiraz) ; it allowed them to marry, and even permitted a second
marriage to clerical widowers. This was confirmed in a council
held by Acacius in the following year. Several patriarchs were
married : Babhai (pron. Ba-wai), catholicos from 496 to 505, his
successor Silas, Elisha, Paul, and Ezekiel, all of the 6tii
century.5 But Mar Abha set his face against episcopal marriage,
himself declining to marry ; and after his time it became rare.
The present rule is that a bishop must be a rabban (' monk,'
but see below), and may not marry or have married, and must
never have eaten flesh-meat ; nor must his mother have eaten
meat during her pregnancy." There is evidence that the rule
against eating meat did not hold in the 7th ceutury.7 It is
noteworthy that Ebedjesus (see below) in his SUnhadhus
passes over the question of episcopal marriage in silence, and
does not refer to the decrees which permitted it.8

The definite official adoption of Nestorianism, or
of what was taken for such, must be dated at the
beginning of the 7th cent., when the East Syrians
formally repudiated the term ' Theotokos ' and
adopted the phrase 'two qnomi, one parsopa
(irp6a-<inrov), two natures' with reference to our Lord.*
The opposition to the 'Nestorians' of the Mono-
physite minority in Persia was greatly strengthened
by the influx of a large number of captives of the
latter persuasion from Syria, in 540 and 573, under
Chosroes I. ; the influence of Shirin, the Christian
queen of Chosroes II. (590-628), was latterly in their
favour.^"

Monasticism was at one time a most flourishing
institution among the East Syrians. Tiionias of
Marga (see below) gives us a graphic description of
his own monastery, and we have other sources of
information in Sozomen," in P. Bedjan's Acta
Martyrum et Sanctorum, and elsewhere.^- It seems
to have been introduced into the East from Egypt
by Mar Awgin (pron. Ogin ; = ' Eugenius,' 1 363 ?),
who founded the famous monasteries of Mount Izla
(near Nisibis) and Deir-el-Zaafaran (near Mardin ;
see above, § £). He is said to have been the teacher
of James of Nisibis. His Life is included in

1 Wigram, p. 170,

" :, Hist.

353 fif.

4 Hefele,

3 lb. p. ISS. S V. 21.

0/ the Councils of the Church, Eng. tr., iii.

5 Wigram, pp. 175, 173, 212 ; Budge, Book of Governors, i. p.
cxxxii f.

6 Cf. Jg 13*f-

7 Wigram, p. 249. Eusebius (HE ii. 28) says that James the
Just ' was holy from his mother's womb ... he did not eat
flesh (eix^l/vxov)' ; i.e. he was a Nazirite, though abstinence from
flesh was not part of a Nazirite's vow.

8 The Sanhddhils (vii. preface) says that bishops were usually
chosen from among the monks.

9 Wigram, p. 258. But the latest investigations show that
qnoma ( = hypostasis) is used in the earlier sense of ' substance,'
not of 'person.' This makes the phrase, if redundant, at least
quite orthodox.

10 lb. pp. 242, 247. U EE vi 34, very short.

12 For an account of the institution see Budge, Book of
Governors, i. p. ex vii ff.

176

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

Bedjan's work, but it is remarkable that Thomas
of Marga does not mention him. The great organ-
izer of monasticism among the East Syrians was a
later monk, Abraham of Kashkar, a town between
the lower Euphrates and the Tigris. Abraham
refounded Mount Izla in the 6th cent., and his
canons, which are still extant,^ are included in the
Nestorian Sunhddhus.^ His successor as abbot,
Dadhishu, made canons accepting the doctrines of
Diodorus, Tlieodore, and Nestorius.^ The rules as
to jurisdiction of monasteries were the same as
among the Jacobites (see above, § 5) ; in the ' patri-
archal ' monasteries the diocesan bishop might not
officiate nor be mentioned in the litany.* One of
the most famous of the monasteries was that of
Beith "Abhe (pron. 'Aw6), probably founded by
Jacob of Lashum, a monk of Mount Izla, in the 6th
cent. ; its situation is uncertain, but probably it
was near the Great Zab. ' This monastery produced
from the 7th to the 9th centuries many patriarchs,
as well as its famous historian, Thomas of Marga.
The monastery of Rabban Hormuzd, about 30
miles north of Mosul, is close to the village of
Alqosh (Elkosh), wliere the tomb of the prophet
Nahura, in a Jewish synagogue, is still shown.
The monastery Avas founded by Hormuzd of Beith
Laphat, c. 600. He spent the last 22 years of his
life there and was buried within it, as were several
patriarchs.8 The number of monks had dwindled
from lifty in 1820 to about ten in 1890,^ a new
monastery having been built at the foot of the hills,
not far away. When the present writer visited the
two monasteries in 1887, there was in the new one
a large number of monks, busily engaged. Both
the monasteries now belong to the Uniat Chaldeeans
(see above, § 6). There were also many other
monasteries elsewhere.^

Monasteries are now quite obsolete among the
Nestorians, though a few rabbans (monks) live in
the world under a private rule, neither marrying
nor eating meat, such as the late well-known
Rabban Yonan (Jonah) of Quchanis.®

Among a large number of Nestorian writers the following may
be mentioned. Narsai (t c. 502), a poet and homilist, called
' the Harp of the Spirit," went to Nisibis from Edessa on the
expulsion of the Nestorians. Ebedjesus says that he wrote 360
homilies ; of these 47 have been published in Syriac by A.
Mingana, and those on the eucharist and baptism, translated
mto English by R. H. Connolly, are of the greatest importance
for the history of the early East Syrian rite. Mshiha Zkha was
the writer of a most valuable history in the 6th century (see
above, §3). Ishuyahbh in. (pron. Ishuyaw), who was catho-
licos for ten years from 650, was the reputed author or reviser of
the ordination and baptismal services, and also of the Hudhra
(see below). 10 In the earlier Syrian rite of baptism, as evidenced
by Narsai, the Syriac Didascalia, and some other Syriac de-
scriptions, the anointing seems to have been only before baptism ;
the post-baptismal anointing was added among the Jacobites in
the 5th cent., probably by Severus (see § 5), and amono- the
Nestorians by Ishu'yahbh.u Thomas of Marg-a, bishop in the
9th cent, of that city (on the Zab) and metropolitan of Beith
Garmai (east of the Tigris), was a monk of Beith "Abh^ (see
above); his Book of Governors, a monastic history, is most
valuable as filling a gap of 300 years in the history, otherwise
hardly known. George of Arbela, metropolitan of Mosul and
Arbela (south-east of Mo§ul) in the 10th cent., wrote a commen-
tary on the services of the Church, which is valuable for the
history of the Nestorian liturgies.12 Mari Ibn Suleiman ('son
of Solomon ') was a chronicler of the 12th century. Ebedjesus
(E. Syr. /Abhdishu, pron. "Odishu, lit. 'servant of Jesus')
metropolitan of Subha (pron. Suwa), by some identified with
Nisibi8,i3 in the 13th cent, compiled the Sunhddhus, or 'Book of

I Book of Governors, i. p. cxxxiv. » vii 3

3 76. vii. 4. *Ib vil. 6. 6 Budge, i. p. xli fl.

6/6. p. civil ff. 7 lb. p. clxix.

8 For the Jacobite monastery of Mar Mattai near Mo§ul see

_9 Maclean-Browne, Catholicos of the East, p. 19. The Sun-
kadhus ioThida monks to marry 'like the rest of the clerks and
laymen or to eat meat in their monasteries (\ii 2 can 5)

1" Cf. Budge, i. p. Ivi. > • /•

II T. Thompson, The Offices of Baptism and Confirmation,
Cambridge, 1914, p. 31. See also art. Confirm atiou, §§ 6, 7.

i-iFor an account of this book see Connolly, Liturgical
Uomihes of Narsai, p. 75 ff. "

13 But see R. Payne Smith, Thes. Sj/r. ii. 3373,

Canon Law,' now in constant use by the Nestorians, though
many of its provisions have become obsolete. 1

The missions of the East Syrians have been far
extended. Their work in India is attested in the
6th cent, by Cosmas Indicopleustes (see below, § 9).
Gibbon remarks ^ that ' the barbaric churches, from
the Gulf of Persia to the Caspian Sea, were almost
infinite.' The missionaries extended their labours
to Socotra, Ceylon, Turkestan, and even to China,
where the Nestorian monument of Si-ngan-fu, dated
A.D. 781 ('1092 of the Greeks'), attests their
activity, which also gave rise to the legend of
Prester John (q.v.), a supposed priest-king in Tar-
tary. Wherever they carried their teaching, they
used Syriac as their liturgical language, even
though it was not that of the people.* Thus the
Malabarese have always used Syriac liturgies.
This great activity swelled the numbers of Syrian
Christians exceedingly, and the Nestorians and
Jacobites together are said to have been more
numerous than the Greeks and Latins together.*

Under Muhammadan rule East Syrian Christi-
anity was alternately favoured and persecuted.
Under Tamerlane (' Timur the Lame') m the 14th
cent, it was almost annihilated. But a remnant
survived and is still to be found in the mountains
of Kurdistan in E. Turkey, in the upland plains of
Azarbaijan in the north-west of the present Persian
kingdom, especially in that of Urmi or Urumi (often
called in Europe Urmia), and in the low-lying plain
of Mosul (Nineveh). The patriarch, who after the
foundation of Baghdad (A.D. 762) had left Seleucia-
Ctesiphon for that city, later removed to the north.
But disputes as to the succession divided the patri-
archate. The Nestorians themselves are now under
the rule of Mar Shimun (these two words are
pronounced as one and are accented on the first and
last syllables), who lives at Quchanis in the almost
inaccessible mountains which surround the Great
Zab, a beautiful retreat near the small town of
Julamerk. Each successive catholicos takes the
name 'Shimun' (Simon), whatever his baptismal
name. The East Syrians of the Mosul plain, now
called Chaldaeans, have been united with Rome
since 1680, when they were received by Pope
Innocent XI. Their head ('patriarch of Babylon ')
bears the name Mar Eliya (Elijah). He has several
bishops, each styled metropolitan, under him. He
retains the title ('of Babylon ') which the Nestorian
patriarchs often used when they lived at Seleucia-
Ctesiphon ; it is also found in the Sunhddhus.^
There were at one time patriarchs at Amida (Diar-
bekr), who also were united with Rome ; these
bore the name Mar Joseph.

All the East Syrians speak Syriac vernacularly,
though many of those in the Mosul plain speak
Arabic also. It is common to hear the sailors on
the Tigris steamers talking vernacular Syriac, these
being Chaldsean Uniats. The total number of
Nestorians and Uniats combined is, or was till
lately, perhaps about 300,000.

A detailed account of the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the
Nestorians is given in Maclean-Browne, The Catholicos of the
hast, ch. be. The patriarch, or catholicos, has under him a
mafrdn, or metropolitan, who bears the dynastic name of Mar
Hnan-isha (' mercy of Jesus '), and several bishops, the number
varying considerably from time to time. The present method
of filling bishoprics (including the patriarchate) is for each bishop
to bring up one or two boys or young men, his nephews or near
relatives, as potential successors. Such a one is called in the
vernacular ndfar hUrsl (' keeper of the seat '), and is not allowed
to eat meat or marry ; the bishop ordinarily nominates the one

^ 1 For a list of the works of Ebedjesus see Assemani, Bibt. Or
1. 3ff., 380 ff. G. P. Badger (Nestorians and their Rituals, ii'
380 ff.) gives an English translation of his best known work the
Marganltha (' Pearl ■), and (ii. 361 f.) of his catalogue of authors
and their works, chiefly East Syrian. For East Syrian hjTnn-
wnters see art. Hymns (Syriac Christian).

I Y.'.vt^- 3 Renaudot, Lit. Or. ii. 563.

* Gibbon, VI. 60.

5 ix. 1. The above remarks and much of what follows apolv
to the time before the Great War.

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

177

whom he wishes to succeed, but in theory the people elect from
amoDg the ' keepers of the seat.' In the 15th cent, the catholicos
made a law restricting the catholicate to members of his own
family. This was an innovation, though perhaps not a very
recent one. The catholicos consecrates the bishops ; but the
metropolitan consecrates the catholicos.!

In most villages there is at least one priest, In some several ;
and deacons are very numerous, as the eucharist cannot _ be
celebrated without the assistance of a deacon or of a priest acting
as deacon. Occasionally a priest is made an archdeacon (arkdn),
but this is now only an honour, not involving special duties.
Formerly there were chorepiscopi and periodeutse ('visitors');
these were presbyters, not bishops. The office of periodeuta is
at least as old in Syrian Christianity as Eabbiila (6th cent.), as
he mentions it in his canons.^ The East Syrian Book of Heavenly
Intelligences 3 enumerates nine orders in three divisions ; (1)
the episcopate : patriarch (or catholicos), metropolitan, bishop ;
(2) the presbyterate : chorepiscopus, periodeuta (or archdeacon),
presbyter ; (3) the diaconate : deacon, subdeacon, reader.
These are said to correspond to the angelic hierarchy (as given
by pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita and others) of (1) cherubim,
seraphim, thrones ; (2) dominions, virtues, powers ; (3) prin-
cipalities, archangels, angels. Minor orders are now obsolete.
There are no longer any deaconesses.

Many of the ecclesiastical customs of the Nes-
torians are those also of the Jacobites (see above,
§5). But there are some differences. The Nes-
torian priests and deacons may marry, and if their
wives die they may marry again ; but the parish
priests are not obliged to be married, though as a
matter of fact they are hardly ever single men.
The churches, which (especially in the mountains
of Kurdistan) have exceedingly narrow and low
doors, sometimes only accessible by a ladder, and
which are often built for security in a cleft of a
rock or in some almost inaccessible place, are nearly
all of the same pattern. Outwardly they show no
sign of Christianity save a small cross oeside the
church door. They have no towers or spires, such
as the Armenian churches have. Internally they
have a stone wall reaching to the roof and dividing
the nave from the sanctuary ; a doorway in this
wall is covered with a veil which is drawn back at
certain parts of the service. On the nave-side of
this wall is a raised pace called bema (a name which
in other Eastern communions means the sanctuary),
and this again is bounded by a dwarf wall with
apertures in the middle and at the side, where the
clergy stand to communicate the people. This
raised pace somewhat corresponds to the Greek
cuXias.* Against the dwarf wall, towards the nave,
are projections (said to contain relics) for the cross
and for books. The altar is attached to the east
wall, and is usually built into a recess therein. It
is oblong, not square as among the Greeks. The
people stand in the nave to worship, the men in
front, and the women behind ; there are no seats,
and if there is any occasion for sitting, such as a
sermon, the people sit on the matted floor. Two
other features of the churches may be noticed : a
baptistery (also used as a vestry, and usually for
baking the eucharistic bread), at the south-east
corner of the church next the sanctuary ; and a
court (often open to the air) on the south side of
the nave, where the daily prayers are said in
summer. This is the usual arrangement, and is
that of the church of Mart Mariam (St. Mary) at
Urmi in Persia, which claims to be the oldest
church in the world, and to contain the tomb of one
of the Wise Men of Bethlehem, built (as the most
ancient tombs are) into the wall of this church — in
this case at the south-east comer of the nave."
The people are called to worship by a wooden
board (Syr. ndqusha) hit by a mallet ; this is the
Greek crrjfiavTpov.^ Bells are seldom used to summon
to prayer, though there are often strings of small
bells hung inside the church.

1 For the forms of admission to holy orders see art Ordina-
tion (Christian), § 13.

2 Given in Burkitt, Early Eastern ChrUtianity, p. 144.

3 Maclean-Browne, p. 184. * Neale, Gen. Introd. i. 201.

5 For a ground plan see Maclean-Browne, p. 301 ; for plans of
two other famous churches see pp. 291, 296.

6 Neale, Gen. Introd. i. 217.

VOL. XII. — 12

The vestments worn at the eucharist differ
somewhat from those of the Jacobites. For a
chasuble the Nestorians wear a kind of cope
{ma'd^rd), which has no fastening at the neck,
and IS very diflBcult to keep in position. The
priests' stoles, like those of the West, do not differ
in shape from those of the deacons ; maniples and
amices are not worn. Private confession, though
often referred to in the service-books, is now
obsolete. The fasts are the same as those of the
Jacobites, but the fasts of the Apostles and of
Mary are almost if not quite obsolete, as are some
others mentioned in the East Syrian books. The
Wednesday and Friday fasts ao not in practice
begin on (what we call) the evening before, but
they end at sunset ; all Eastern Christians reckon
the day as beginning and ending at sunset, and
our ' Sunday evening ' is their * Monday evening.'

The chief liturgy used by the Nestorians is that
of 'the apostles Addai and Mari.' This liturgy
has many early features, especially a form of
eucharistic invocation of the Holy Spirit which
is not as fully developed as that in most of the
Great Liturgies. It prays that the Holy Ghost
may come and rest on the oblation, and bless and
sanctify it, that it may become (or be) for us for
the remission of sins, etc. ; and it does not ex-
plicitly mention the change in the elements. But
the most curious feature is the absence of the
words of our Lord spoken at the Last Supper,
when after ' blessing ' or ' giving thanks ' He gave
the sacrament to the disciples ('This is my body,'
etc.). Neale ^ argues on a priori grounds that
' Addai and Mari ' must have originally had these
words. But this is a precarious statement ; there
are other instances of at least the partial omission
of the words. 2 This liturgy in no way refers to
the Nestorian controversy. On certain days of
the year the anaphora of ' Addai and Mari ' is
not used, but that of 'Theodore the Interpreter'
(of Mopsuestia) or that of ' Nestorius ' is sub-
stituted, the first part of the liturgy, and the
ending, being common to all three. All these
anaphoras date, in some form, from very early
times ; the first probably, in its earliest shape,
was compiled before A.D. 431 ; the other two are
certainly not the work of the bishops after whom
they are named, but are the work of East Syrian
authors. The author of ' Nestorius ' must have
had a Byzantine liturgy before him, as many
traces of that rite are found in it. But all three
anaphoras are quite distinctly of the East Syrian,
not of the Byzantine, family of liturgies. All
three seem to have been composed before Narsai
(end of 5th cent.), though doubtless many more
modern additions have been made to them.

Eucharists do not occur very often among the
Nestorians — some five or six times a year as a
rule, though in a few churches weekly eucharists
are the custom. The people communicate, as
they pray, standing, the mothers holding up the
very little children in their arms to receive. All
receive in both kinds separately (the species of
bread in their hands), except the very little ones,
for whom the celebrant dips a small portion of the
consecrated bread in the chalice and then puts it
in their mouth. Reservation for the sick is not
allowed. The eucharistic bread is leavened.' All
services, without exception, are sung; but no
instrumental music is allowed.

The baptismal customs do not differ greatly from
those of the Jacobites.* The service is closely
modelled on the eucharistic liturgies, than whicn

1 Oen. Introd. i. 486.

2 A. J. Maclean, Ancient Church Orders, pp. 40, 45, Early
Christian Worship'^, London, 1915, pp. viii, 25.

3 For a curious tradition as to the handing down of the
leaven see Maclean-Browne, p. 247.

* For a description see Maclean-Browne, p. 267 fl.

178

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

it is certainly later. There is, however, no kiss
of peace. The triple immersion is absolutely
total. As with all Easterns, the presbyter con-
firms, and lays his right hand on or over the
neophytes ; the use of the consecrated oil at this
point is not explicitly mentioned in the sei'vice-
book, but it is customary for the priest, when
signing the neophytes with the sign of the cross,
to do so with his thumb which he has dipped in
the oil. There are now no interrogations or re-
nunciations,* though they are alluded to in the
5th cent, by Narsai, where the renunciations have
special reference to heresy. * Private baptism is
not, in practice, allowed ; if a village has no
church, a child must be carried to another village
which has one. Thus some children die un-
baptized, though it is not likely that a person
would grow up without baptism. Sponsors are
considered as being akin to their godchildren, and
the relationship is a bar to marriage.

The non-liturgical services are of great interest,
and are extremely long, at least in theory. They
consist mainly of hymns and anthems.^ The great
number of martyrs in the East Syrian Church is
retiected in the frequent mention of them by name
in these anthems. The calendar is remarkable,
and in some respects unique. Most of the saints'
days fall on a Friday, and suit very well with the
arrangement of the ecclesiastical year, which is
divided into periods of about seven weeks each,
more or less — Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter,
'The Apostles' (after Pentecost), 'Summer,'
' Elijah,' ' Moses,' and the ' Hallowing of the
Church.' A few of the holy days, however, fall
on fixed days of the month, as Christmas (Dec. 25),
Epiphany (Jan. 6), St. George (April 24, etc.),
St. Cyriac and St. Julitta (July 15 and Dec. 22),
St. Peter and St. Paul (July 29), St. Mary (Aug. 15),
Holy Cross Day (Sept. 13, not 14 as elsewhere).
The twelve a,postles are commemorated together
on a Friday before Lent, the four evangelists on
another, the ' Greek doctors ' (Diodorus, Theodore,
Nestorius) on a third, the ' Syrian doctors ' (especi-
ally Ephraim, Narsai, Abraham [of Kashkar?, see
above]) on a fourth. On other Fridays are com-
memorated St. James the Lord's brother, St.
Mary, St. John Baptist, St. Peter and St. Paul
(a second commemoration). Mar Abha or else the
patron saint of the church, St. Stephen, the forty
martyrs of Sebaste, all the departed, the Seventy,
and some others.

The choirs are divided into two parts, and ac-
cording as the first or the second choir begins the
anthems the week is called 'Before' or 'After,'
' Before and After ' (Syr. Qdhdm u-Wdthar) being
thus taken for the name of the ordinary book of
daily services. The propHa for Sundays, fasts,
and festivals are of very great length, and are
contained in the books called Hudhrd ('cycle')
and Gazzd (' treasure '), two enormous MS volumes,
and some others. These two are not published ;
but the complete East Syrian service for the
Epiphany is given in English in Conybeare-
Maclean, Rituale Armenorum, p. 288 ff. (from a
MS in the Library of the Propaganda Fide in
Rome), with the cues all filled in, and a part of
these two books is published in Syriac in the
Breviarium Chaldaicum. The Psalms are said
(at least in theory) all through twice a week, and
the whole Psalter is recited on festivals of our
Lord. In the litanies, which are numerous, and
one at least of which is said at almost every
service, the ruling patriarch, metropolitan, and
bishop of the diocese are commemorated by name.
The marriage-service and the buiial-service for

1 See art. Abrenuntio.

2 Connolly, Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, p. 37.
s See art. Hymns (Syriac Christian), § 4.

laymen (an'idhd) have been published in Syriac*
The burial-service for the clergy {kurastd) is much
longer and more elaborate than that for laymen.
These burial-services are most dramatic, and
consist partly of dialogues between the departed
and the mourners, or between the departed and
those already in Sheol. After the funeral the
kiss of peace is given, at least in the case of priests
and bishops. AH pass in line and kiss the hand
of the departed, or a cross laid on his breast, and
so take leave of him.' Badger gives an English
translation of the baptismal - , marriage - , and
ordination-services, and of the burial-service for
priests.*

9. Christians of Malabar, or of St. Thomas.—
Ancient tradition, in which, however, we can have
little confidence, makes St. Thomas the apostle
the first teacher of Christianity in India. The
legend is told in the Syriac Acts of Judas Tlwmas
(see above, § 4), which, curiously enough, makes
Thomas (lit. 'twin') the twin-brother of our Lord.
J. R. Harris sees here traces of the influence of
the Heavenly Twins on Christian legend.* The
Ethiopic legend of St. Thomas* is still fuller.
Our Lord divides the world into twelve portions,
and Thomas's lot is to go to India. Very un-
willingly, but encouraged by our Lord, he goes,
guided by Peter and accompanied by Matthias.
Jesus appears in the form of a rich man, who sells
Thomas as a slave, the price to be given to the
poor and needy. Peter and Matthias return.
Thomas is set to work as a stonemason, carpenter,
and physician ; but he afterwards explains that
the buildings which he undertook to buUd were
the souls which he won to Christ. He appoints
a bishop, priests, and deacons, and departs in a
cloud, having been miraculously clothed again in
the skin Avhich had been flayed off him. Accord-
ing to another account,® he was pierced by soldiers'
spears and died. The opposition is said to have
been largely due to his preaching encratism,^ and
persuading wives to forsake their husbands. The
Acts of Judas Thomas says that the relics of the
apostle were transferred to Edessa (a.d. 232?).
It has been suggested by some that the name
'Christians of St. Thomas' comes from another
Thomas than the apostle. This later namesake,
Thomas Cannaneo, is variously assigned to the
4th or the 9th century.^ Another legend connects
Pantfenus of Alexandria (c. a.d. 200) with India,
where, it says, the apostle Bartholomew had already
preached." Pantsenus is said by these writers to
have found there a copy, in the Hebrew language,
of St. Matthew's Gospel, and to have left it behind
him.

The first certain historical testimony to the
existence of Christians in India is that of the
Alexandrian merchant who afterwards became a
monk, and whom we know from his Indian travels
as Cosmas Indicopleustes. He travelled far, and
his Christian Topography of the Whole World in
twelve books, still extant, is a valuable historical
piece of evidence, though it is marred by the
erroneous geographical conceptions of the day.
The first six books may be dated c. A.D. 547, the
rest c. 560. Cosmas's other works are not now
extant. He travelled in India and Ceylon, and
describes ' Mali ' (identified with Malabar) on the
Indian coast, the centre of the pepper trade. He

1 See under Literature at end of this article.

2 Maclean-Browne, p. 287.

3 Nestorians and their RitvMls, ii. 196 ff.

4 The Dioscuri in the Christian Legends, London, 1903, p.
20 ff.

5 E. A. W. Budge, Contendings of the Apostles, London, 1901,
Eng. tr., ii. 319 ff., Ethiopic text in vol. i.

6 lb. ii. 353. ' See art. Enoratitks.

8 Howard, The Christians of St. Thomas and their Liturgies,
p. 15 f .

9 Eusebius, HE v. 10 ; Jerome, de Vir. Ulustr. 36.

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

179

testifies to a large number of Christian churches
on the coast of India and in Ceylon and Socotra,
whose clergy, he says, were ordained by the
Persian archbishop of Seleucia, and were subject
to his jurisdiction ; the Church there had had
many martyrs and a ilarge number of monks.
Thus we may gather that the ' Christians of St.
Thomas ' are the fruits of the missionary activities
of the Church of the Persian empire (see above,
§ 8), and that their Christianity had begun long
before Cosmas's time, probably in the 4th century.

The subsequent history is somewhat obscure.
Immigrations of Christians to Malabar from
Baghdad and elsewhere occurred twice in the
8th and 9th centuries, and the immigrants inter-
married with the native Christians. The later of
these movements was under two Nestorian priests
(bishops ?), Mar Sapor and Mar Peruz. The fame
of the Malabar Christianity spread to the West,
and King Alfred of England sent ambassadors to
that country.^ The converts were protected by
the king of Cochin. They had their bishop at
Angamala, and he was styled * Metropolitan of
India,' having in his jurisdiction 1400 churches
and 200,000 souls in the whole district.*

A theory has lately been put forward by P. T. Geevergese, a
native Malabar Syrian, in a tract entitled Were the Syrian
Christians Nestorians 1, to the effect that the Malabarese were
Jacobites till the 15th cent., when they became Nestorians for
a hundred years. It is agreed that their Ohurch was originally
founded from Seleucia-Ctesiphon, and that they were under the
CatholicoB of the East in the pre-Nestorian period ; but this
writer maintains that thereafter they depended on the
Jacobites, not on the Nestorians. The only arg^ument of
any importance adduced in favour of this theory is the exist-
ence of two inscriptions at Kottayam, a town of Travancore, in
Pahlavi, the official language of the Persian empire during the
Sasanian djnasty ; they are said to be of the 7th or 8th century.
One of the inscriptions has a line also in Syriac, in Estrang61a
characters, perhaps of the 10th century. The two run thus :
(a) ' In punishment by the cross (was) the suffering of this One,
He who is the true Christ, and God above, and Guide ever
pure'; (6) ['Let me not glory save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ] who is the true Messiah and God above and Holy
Ghost.' The words in square brackets are in Sjrriac. Qeevergese
amends ' Holy Ghost ' to ' Guide ever pure ' aa in the former
inscription. These are said to be anti-Nestorian. But is this
the case ? The ' Nestorians ' of the Persian empire never failed
to assert that He who died upon the cross was God. The
existence in Malabar of an old Jacobite Bible of the 12th cent,
or earlier proves nothing in the absence of evidence as to when
it was brought there. The suggestion that the Portuguese
inquisitors found some liturgical practices existing which
showed .traces of Jacobite rather than Nestorian influence,
though ex hypothesi the latter had been predominant for over
a hundred ; years, will hardly bear examination. Thus the
inquisitors mention a liturgy 'of Diodorus' as being in use.
There is no such known Nestorian liturgy. Therefore, it is
maintained, the liturgy in use was non-Nestorian, i.e. Jacobite.
It would indeed have been remarkable if the Jacobites had
named one of their liturgies after the real father of Nestorian-
ism. Renaudot 3 supposes that ' Diodorus ' is here a mistake
for ' Theodorus,' but, as the Synod of Diamper mentions both
Diodore and Theodore, this is very unlikely.* Geevergese
agrees that the Nestorians of the Tigris valley at the end of
the 15th cent, and the beginning of the 16th sent bishops to
Malabar, on the request of deputies who had come thence, and
he maintains that these converted Malabar from Jacobitism to
Nestorianism. It does not appear to the present writer that
Geevergese has proved his theory ; but there is possibly this
amount of truth in it, that certain of the Malabarese Christians,
who have unfortunately always been conspicuous for quarrel-
someness (like their spiritual ancestors), may have had dealings
with the dissentient Jacobites of the Tigris valley, or with the
Western Jacobites, before the 15th century. Thus a deputation
is said to have gone to the Monophysites of Alexandria to ask
for a bishop for ' India ' (Malabar?), a.d. 696.5

An ecclesiastical revolution was effected by the
Portuguese in the 16th century. They established
the Inquisition at Goa in 1560. The Synod of
Diamper, in the south of Cochin, held in 1599
under Alexius de Menezes, archbishop of Goa,
united the Malabarese, then estimated at about
200,000 souls,* to Rome, and rooted out all traces
of Nestorianism, Celibacy of the clergy was
enforced, and made retrospective. All old books

1 Howard, p. 21. « Gibbon, vi. 51. ' ii. 5C9.

4 Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, i. p. Ixxx.

5 Keale, Patriarchate of Alexandria, ii. 88.

6 Howard, p. 23.

and liturgies were destroyed, or radically altered,
so that probably there does not now exist a single
complete copy of the liturgies as used before the
synod. Renaudot remarks^ that the Portuguese
censors incautiously condemned things which had
nothing to do with Nestorianism. The liturgy
which they found to be principally used was
closely related to, or practically the same as,
the Nestorian ' Addai and Mari ' (see above, § 8).
An English translation of this* is published by
J. M. Neale,^ who says* that it is given as revised
by Menezes and the Synod of Diamper. Yet this
cannot be altogether the case, as it contains the
names of Nestorius, Diodore, and Theodore, as
well as of Ephraim, Abraham, and Narsai (see
above, § 8), and the phrase ' Mother of Christ ' for
' Mother of God ' (see below). Neale gives some
of the prayers in what was probably the original
order, but indicates by numbers the order in the
form approved at Diamper.

The change from ancient customs was effected
only after great opposition on the part of the
Malabarese themselves, who rallied under their
bishop. Mar Abraham (t 1597). It was his death
that made the Synod of Diamper and the real
union with Rome possible.'^

It is interesting to notice the changes of custom
and of liturgy effected at Diamper. Up to this
time the Malabar Christians had had but a single
bishop at a time ; hence, perhaps, arose the custom
for the chrism at confirmation to be consecrated
by a priest [catanar) rather than, as elsewhere
in the East, by a bishop ; indeed, the Malabarese
were accused of not having had confirmation at
all,* though this is clearly a mistake. The chief
changes in the eucharistic liturgy made at Diamper
were the following. The popes name was sub-
stituted for that of the patriarch of Babylon.
For the names of Nestorius, Diodore, Theodore,
and other ' Nestorian ' fathers, those of Cyril (of
Alexandria) and others were substituted. The
phrase ' Mother of God ' replaced ' Mother of
Christ.' Where, before the consecration, the
words ' the body,' ' the blood,' occurred (as often
in Eastern liturgies by anticipation), the words
' bread,' * wine,' were substituted. In the ' Nicene '
creed the phrases ' God of God, Light of light,
very God of very God,' which were said to have
been wanting in the Malabar form, were inserted ;
probably Avhat is meant is that the first two of
these phrases were wanting in Malabar, as they do
not occur in the Nestorian creed (see above, § 3).
The phrase ' consubstantial with the Father ' was
substituted for ' Son of the essence of the Father,' the
usual equivalent in Syriac (Neale unfortunately
does not give the text of the creed in his Malabar
liturgy). The host was ordered to be elevated at
the consecration. But the chief change was a
reversal of prevalent Oriental conceptions of
liturgy. The epiclesis, or invocation of the Holy
Ghost, was moved from its place after the narrative
of the Last Supper and placed before it,'' the
wording being altered so as to make the epiclesis
refer only to a good reception of the sacrament.
For these changes see Howard, p. 40 ; but two
of his statements appear to be doubtful. The
Portuguese censors probably found no narrative
of our Lord's words at all, as they were working
on 'Addai and Man' (see above, §8); they prob-
ably therefore inserted them from one of the
other anaphoras, though not in the place where

1 ii. 565.

2 From the Latin of J. F. RauUn's Hist. eecl. Malabaricce.

3 Liturgies of St. Mark . . . and the Church of Malabar, p.
12s If.

i lb. p. xvi. « Howard, p. 26. * lb. p. 38.

7 For a doable invocation in the Egyptian rite, one before
and one after the narrative of the Last Supper, see art.
Invocation (Liturgical), § 6.

180

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS

they are found in those anaphoras, but in the
place which they thought most suitable. The
other statement, that the Portuguese altered the
wording of the epiclesis, is also doubtful, for, as
Neale gives it,^ it agrees exactly with the epiclesis
of ' Addai and Mari,' which, as we have seen, is of
a somewhat early type, throwing most of the
emphasis on the effects and purpose of the con-
secration, for the benefit of the communicants,
rather than on the change effected in the bread
and wine. The history of the changes at Diamper
fully justifies Renaudot's dictum quoted above,
and shows that the Portuguese censors were quite
ignorant of liturgical science.

The Portuguese changed the episcopal see from
Angamala to Cranganor on the coast, so that it
might be more accessible to them, and that they
might have a greater hold on the native Church.
But during the whole time of their rule in India
they aroused constant opposition from the Mala-
barese, whom the terrors of the Inquisition were
never able entirely to subdue.

In 1663, after more than 60 years of Portuguese
rule, the Malabarese were enabled by the Dutch
conquests in India once more to assert their in-
dependence, induced thereto by the murder of
Theodore, a bishop sent from 'Babylon.' The
Dutch expelled the Jesuits from Malabar soon
after 1663. But the Malabarese were not united
among themselves, and about half remained in
obedience to the Roman see, Avhile the rest be-
came independent of it. These last gladly
accepted Gregorius, Monophysite bishop of
Jerusalem, who came from the Jacobite patriarch
at Mardin in 1665. Gregorius consecrated Thomas
as metropolitan, and since then the Malabarese
have been in the main Jacobite. This change of
front appears remarkable at first sight. Yet we
must remember that in their origin neither the
Malabar Church nor her mother, the East
Syrian Church, was Nestorian, for they both
existed before Nestorianism was propounded.
And, though many East Syrians were genuinely
Nestorian, it is very doubtful if their Church was
consistently and officially so ; still less certain is
it that the Malabarese were strongly imbued with
that doctrine. Hence we can understand why
they grasped at the first hand that was stretched
out to help them in getting rid of the Western
authority which was imposed on them, but under
which they had never rested content.

In the year 1700 and afterwards Nestorian
bishops were sent, but they only secured the
allegiance of a minority. In the 19th cent, the
history is one of constant litigation between rival
parties. The Nestorians of Malabar, after many
lawsuits, won recognition in the courts and part of
the endowments. In the year 1850 they obtained
a bishop from Mar Shimun, the Nestorian catho-
licos (see above, § 8). Later, another was sent,
but he was murdered by robbers on the journey.
In 1907 Mar Shimun consecrated Mar Timotheus
(Abimelech), who now holds office.^

There are now perhaps 300,000 Syrian Christians,
all told, in India ; the majority are Jacobites, and
have since the 17th cent, adopted the Jacobite
liturgies and customs.* The metropolitan usually
consecrates his own successor, from the family in
which the archidiaconate has been hereditary.
The archdeacon is called ramban. The eucharist
is only rarely celebrated ; the laity must com-
municate at least three times in the year,* but
there are often eucharists without lay communi-
cants. The churches are plain, consisting of nave

1 Liturgies, p. 149 f.

2 Heazell-Margoliouth, Kurds and, Christians, p. 196.

3 An account of these may be seen in Howard, p. 56 ff.
•* Howard, p. 147.

and chancel without transepts. ^ There is one altar,
the so-called 'side altars' being used only, as in
the Nestorian churches, for holding a cross, or
books, or the like. The altar itself is 4 ft. high
by 6 ft. long and 3J (or 4) ft. wide, sometimes of
stone and sometimes of wood. It stands out from
the east wall, as in the Jacobite churches of
Mesopotamia, in contrast to the Nestorian altars.
At the eucharist the altar is covered with a white
cloth, and has a frontal. On it are placed a
wooden cross (often with the figure of our Lord
painted on the wood), two candlesticks, a book-
stand, a slab of wood or marble for the chalice and
paten to rest upon, a * sponge ' of silk for wiping
the priest's fingers and for cleansing the chalice
after the service, and three veils for the chalice
and paten. The bread is leavened, and must be
prepared on the day when it is used ; each bread
is round, and stamped with a cross. It is called
variously Qorbana ('Oblation'), 'first-begotten,'
'the Seal,' ' the Body,' 'the Coal' (Is 6^). These
are common Syriac names elscAvhere for the
eucharistic bread. The naves of the churches
have earthen floors ; they have no furniture except
two bells inside the church ; a gallery is often
placed at the west side of the nave. On the nave-
side of the chancel arch there is a space railed off,
not unlike the Nestorian bema (see above, § 8),
but some 12 ft. wide as compared with a 3 ft.
width of the bema. The churches sometimes have
pictures ;* this is probably a relic of Portuguese
influence. There is always a veil at the chancel
arch, which is drawn back at certain parts of the
service. Externally the churches have little
adornment ; the west front has three storeys, and
is whitewashed. The roof is high-pitched, that of
the chancel being always higher than that of the
nave. The vestments worn seem to be much the
same as those of the Jacobites of Mesopotamia
(see § 5), and are more elaborate than those of the
Nestorians. At the eucharist the celebrant wears
special shoes, whereas the Nestorians take their
shoes off ; also a black serge or coarse cotton robe
(perhaps a sort of cassock), a white linen albe, a
stole in one piece with an opening for the head,
girdle, maniples, chasuble (or cope) of silk damask,
and cap.* At ordination the clergy receive the
tonsure,* as do the Nestorians, the latter, however,
only cutting off some of the ordinand's hair in the
form of a cross. As in the worship of all Syrian
Christians, much incense is used at the eucharist
and other services.

In some externals, especially in the matter of
vestments, the Nestorian Malabarese seem to have
assimilated their customs to those of their
Jacobite neighbours.

10. Modern missions. — Besides the Jesuit,
Dominican, and Lazarist missions to the Uniat
bodies mentioned in § 6, there have been during
the last 80 years various missions to the Jacobites
and Nestorians. The American Presbyterian and
Congregational Boards of Missions have long had
missionaries among them ; the Archbishop of
Canterbury's educational ' Assyrian Mission ' has
worked among the East Syrians since 1886 ; and
later the Russian Church sent a mission to them.
Similarly missionaries from the West have laboured
among the Malabarese in India. To all these
missions we are largely indebted for a knowledge
of the people, and for the publication of the Bible
in classical and vernacular Syriac, of patristic
texts, and of other liturgical and educational
works.

LiTERATURB. — i. GENERAL. — J. S. Assemani, Bihliotheca
Orientalis, 4 vols., Borne, 1719-28 ; J. M. Neale, Hist, of the
Holy Eastern Church, pt. i., General Introductior^, 2 vols.,

1 Howard, p. 123 ff.
s lb. p. 132.

2 Ih. p. 153.
4 lb. p. 160.

TABU

181

London, 1850, Patriarchate of ArUioch, do. 1873, a posthumous
fragment ; E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
ed. W. Smith, do. 1862, vol. vi. ch. xlvii. ; F. C. Burlritt,
Early Eastern Christianity (the Syriac-speakins' Church), do.
1904, Early Christianity outside the Roman Empire, Cam-
bridge, 1899 (both for the early period).

ii. TBS Jacobites (for their doctrine see Literature given
under art. Monophysitism).— J. W. Etheridge, The Syrian
Churches, London, 1846 ; O. H. Parry, Six Months in a Syrian
Monastery, do. 1895 ; J. M. Neale, The Patriarchate of Alex-
andria, 2 vols., do. 1847 (chiefly for the 'Jacobites' of Egypt,
but this is scarcely a correct designation for the Egyptian
Monophysites) ; C. J. Hefele, A Hist, of the Councils of the
Church, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1872-96, iii. 449fl. ; Jacob of
Edessa, Letter to Thomas the Presbyter (on the liturgy), the
Syriac in Assemani, BibL Or. ii. 479 S., English in Brigbtman,
as below (vii.).

iii. THE MARONITES (for their former doctrine see Litera-
ture given under art. Monotheletism). — J. W. Etheridge, as
above (ii.); F. J. Bliss, in PEFSt, 1890, p. 74ft., 1892, pp. 71 ff.,
129£r., 207ff., 308fif.

iv. The Nestorians (for their doctrine see Literature
given under art. Nestorianism). — J. Labourt, Le Christian-
tsme dans I'empire perse, Paris, 1904 ; A. J. Maclean and
W. H. Browne, The Catholicos of the East and his People,
London, 1892 ; W. A. Wigram, An Jntrod. to the Hist, of the
Assyrian Church, do. 1910; F. N. Heazell and Mrs. Mar-
goliouth, Kurds and Christians, do. 1913 ; J. W. Etheridge,
aa above (ii.); G. P. Badger, I'he Nestorians and their Rituals,
2 vols., do. 1852 ; J. B. Cbabot, Synodicon orientale, Paris,
1902 ; P. Bedian, Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum (Syriac), do.
1892 ; R. H. C5onnoUy, The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai (in
English), Cambridge, 1909 (=TS viii. 1 ; illustrates the growth
of the anaphoras) ; A. Mingana, Homilies and Poem^ of
Narsai (in Syriac), Mosul, 1905 ; E. A. W. Budge, The Book
of Governors : the Historia Monastica of Thomas of Marga
(Syriac and English), 2 vols., London, 1893.

V. Malabar Christians.— G. B. Howard, The Christians
of St. Thomas and their Liturgies, Oxford, 1864 ; G. M. Rae,
The Syrian Church in India, Edinburgh, 1892 ; J. F. Raulin,
Historia ecclesice Malaharicce, Rome, 1745 ; P. T. Geever-
gese, Were the Syrian Christians Nestorians f, Madras, n.d.

vi. Vernacular Striao dialects. — M. Parisot, ' Le
Dialecte de Malula,' in JA xi. [1898], xii. [1898] ; P. J. Bliss, as
above (iiL) (Ma'lula) ; A. J. Maclean, Orammar of the Dialects
of Vernacular Syriac, Cambridge, 1895 (East Syrians, Jews of
Azarbaijan, eta), and Dictionary of the Dialects of Vernacular
Syriac, Oxford, 1901 (the same, and fur 'Abhdin, etc.) ;
T. Noldeke, Grammatik der neusyrischen Sprache, Leipzig,
186S (East Syrians) ; L Rosenberg, Lehrhueh der neusyrischen
Schrift- und Umgangssprache, Vienna, 1901 ; E. Sacbau, Skizze
des Fellichi-Dialekts von Mo^ul, BerUn, 1895 ; A. Socin, Die
neu-aramdischen Dialekte von Urmia bis Mosul, Tiibingen,
1882 ; M. Lidzbarski, Die neu-aramdischen Handschriften,
Weimar, 1896 ; D. J. Stoddard, Modem Syriac Grammar
(American Oriental Society, vol. v., 1856), published separately.

London, 1855; R. Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus, 2 vols.,
Oxford, 1870-1901. The Bible in the Urmi dialect has been
pubUshed by the American Bible Society, New York, 1893
(earlier edd. at Urmi), and many books in the same dialect have
been published at Urmi by the various Mission presses there.

vii. LrrvRoicAL books used bt Strian Chhistians.—
(a) Translations. — F. E. Brigbtman, Liturgies Eastern and
Western, i., Oxford, 189G (has Eng. trr. of 'Syriac St. James'
[West Syrian] and ' Addai and Mari ' [East Syrian], and a Latin
translation of an East Syrian liturgy in fragments first published
by G. Bickell); J. P. Margoliouth, Liturc/y of . . . Addai and
Mari (with two other East Syrian liturgies and the baptismal
service), London, 1893 ; E. Renaudot, Liturgiarum Oriental-
ium Collectufl, 2 vols., Frankfort-on-Main and London, 1847,
vol. ii. (Latin tr. of several Syriac liturgies, Eastern and
Western) ; A. J. Maclean, East Syrian Daily Offices, London,
1894 (Eng. tr.) and East Syrian Epiphany Rites (Eng. tr. in
one volume, with F. C. Conybeare's Rituale Armenorum),
Oxford, 1905 ; G. P. Badger, as above (iv.) (Eng. tr. of East
Syrian liturgies, etc.); G. B. Howard, as above (y.) (Jacobite
Malabar liturgies) ; H. Denzinger, Ritus Orientalium, 2 vols.,
Wurzburg, 1863-64 (baptismal-, marriage-, and ordination-
services of thts minor Eastern Churches, etc. ; Lat. tr.) ; J. M.
Neale, The Liturgies of St. Mark . . . and the Chxirch of
Malabar, London, 1859 (Eng. tr. of the Malabar Nestorian
liturgy). (6) Syriac texts. — For the Nestorians the Archbishop
of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission has published from the old
MSS : fdkhsd (the three anaphoras, baptismal-service, etc.),
London, 1890; Qdham u-Wathar (Daily Offices), do. 1892;
Liturgtcai Psalter, do. 1891 ; Lectionary Tables, do. 1889 ;
Siirgddhd (calendar tables), do. 1894 ; Burdkhd (marriage-
service), do. 1892 ; 'Anidhd (burial-service for laymen), do.
1900 ; Bd'uthd (service for the Rogation of the Ninevites), do.
pt. i., 1894, pt. ii., 1902. For the Uniat Chaldseans the Lazarists
have published similar works adapted to that community,
especially Liber psalmorum, Horarum Diumarum, Ordinis
Officii Divini et Homiliarum Rogationum, Paris, 1886 ; Brevi-
arium Chaldaicum, do. 1886 ; older is the Missale Chaldaicum,
Rome, 1767 (' Addai and Mari' only). For the Uniat Malabarese
see Ordo Chaldaicus . . . juxta ritum ecclesice Malaharicce,
Rome, 1775 and 1844. For the Jacobites no Syriac text of St.
James appears to have been published (Brigbtman, i. p. Ivi),
but for the Syrian Uniats see Missale Syriacum, Rome, 1843,
and The Book of the Clerks (in Syriac), Beirut, 1888. For the
Maronites see Missale Chaldaicum, juxta ritum . . , Maroni-
tarum, Rome, 1592 and 1716, Qozhayya, 1816, 1838, and 1855,
Beirut, 1888 ; Liber ministri misses, Rome, 1596 and 1715 ;
Diaeonale Syriacum, do. 1736. An old but general collection
of texts and Latin translations is J. A. Assemani's Codex
Liturgicus Ecclesice Universce, Rome, 13 vols., 1749-66 (euchar-
istic hturgies, baptismal oflBces, ordination-services, etc.). For
a fuller bibliography ol Syriac liturgies see Brigbtman, as
above (Introduction).

viii. For SYRIAC texts of early works by Ss'rian Christians
see W. Wright, Short Hist, of Syriac Literature, London,

1894. A. J. Maclean.

T

TABERNACLES.— See Festivals and Fasts
(Hebrew).

TABU. — The word ' tabu ' is properly an
adjective and appears to mean literally 'marked
oflf' (perhaps from Polynesian ta, 'mark,' pu,
' exceedingly '). Applying equally to persons and
things, it signifies that casual contact with them
is forbidden as being fraught with mystic danger.
Custom enjoins a negative or precautionary attitude
towards them because of the supernatural influence
with which they are temporarily or permanently
charged. In short, they are 'not to be lightly
approached,' and that always for some magico-
religious reason. The term is native to the Pacific
region, but has been adopted, with some modifica-
tion of meaning, to designate a fundamental cate-
gory of comparative religion. Thus, as in regard
to the cognate term niana {q.v.), it is advisable to
distinguish the local from the generalized sense.

I. Local meaning^ of tabu. — (a) Coolers discovery
of tabu. — ' Taboo,' used indifierently as adjective,
noun, or verb, was introduced into English by
Captain Cook. He first met with the word, in
1777, at Tonga.^ Hence, by the way, the popular-

1 See J. Cook and J. King, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean,
1776-80, London, 1784, i. 286, and pasHm.

ization of the Tongan form tabu, tapu being usual
elsewhere in Polynesia, with kcq}u in the Hawaiian
group ; though in Melanesia tabu again occurs,
as also tambu. When Cook later on discovered the
Sandwich Islands, he found the institution of tabu
prevailing there with even more rigour than at
Tonga, whereas it seemed to him to have been
less strictly observed in the Society Islands, except
as regards the tabu resulting from contact with
the dead.^ He gives a clear and consistent account
of the notion involved, stating that tabu ' has a
very comprehensive meaning, but in general
signifies that a thing is forbidden,' being ' applied
to all cases where tnings are not to be touched.'
He also emphasizes its ' mysterious significance '
and duly notes the 'mixture of religion' in a
certain ceremony concerning which ' we seldom
got any other answer to our inquiries but taboo.' '^
Moreover, he makes it clear that religion herein
made common cause with law and government.
In reference to the same ceremony, he says :
' When we returned to the king, he desired me
to order the boat's crew not to stir from the boa't ;
for, as every thing would, very soon, be taboo,
if any of our people, or if their own, should be

1 A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 1776-80, ii. 249.

2 lb. i. 2S6, 350, ii. 40.

182

TABU

found walking about, they would be knocked
down with clubs, nay, mateed, that is, killed.'^

Indeed, Captain King (who carries on the story
after Cook's death) is perplexed to decide how far
the 'implicit and scrupulous obedience' of the
natives in regard to the prohibitions laid upon
them — as when Karakakooa Bay was tabued, at
the request of the navigators, while the remains
of Captain Cook were being committed to the deep
— was due to some ' religious principle ' and how
far to ' the civil authority of their chiefs.' " The
Avhole account, however, makes it clear that king,
chiefs, priests, and the gods themselves, formed
one undivided theocracy, whereof tabu constituted
the chief instrument, at once spiritual and temporal
in its nature and effects. More especially, it en-
sured a complete control of the economic situation.
Thus at Tonga the special officer who 'presided
over the taboo ' was a veritable food-controller :

He and his deputies inspected all the produce of the island ;
taking care that every man should cultivate and plant his
quota ; and ordering what should be eat, and what not. By
this wise regulation, they effectually guard against a famine ;
a sufficient quantity of ground is employed in raising provisions ;
and every article, thus raised, is secured from unnecessary
waste.' 3

For the rest, tabu was the corner-stone of the
class-system, ensuring the subjection of women
to men, of the lower orders to the chiefs, and of
all to the king, whose very name was tabu on
penalty of death.*

(6) Primary connexion of Oceanic tabu with a
theocratic system. — Here, then, in this alliance of
the religious with the civil forms of authority,
we have the distinctive mark of tabu as understood
in its local sense. R. Taylor's definition of it, as
'a religious observance established for political
purposes,' "> hits off what is at any rate its leading
aspect in Oceania. In the Polynesian islands a
class of chiefs with a social influence proportionate
to their nuxna, or supernatural power, was every-
where recognized ; and in the Eastern groups at
any rate there were supreme potentates who might
fairly be termed kings, though sometimes, as at
Tonga in Mariner's day, the religious head of the
community might be said to reign while the war-
chief, his inferior in the hierarchy, actually
governed.* On the other hand, no chieftainship
proper is to be found in Melanesia. Here, how-
ever, the secret societies exercise a tumultuous,
but none the less forcible, control over affairs by
means of tabu ; while, conversely, ' in cases where
the English word taboo can be employed there is
always in Melanesia human sanction and prohibi-
tion.^ Thus there is every reason to suppose that
throughout the Pacific we have to do with customs
belonging to a single type. This view is supported
by the remarkable fact that, despite the diversity
of tongues obtaining in this Avide area, the word
tabu in one of its dialectical forms, as well as the
complementary term mana, is in general use.
But, if the nature and name of the institution are
uniform, so presumably will be its origin. On the
strength of this argument, W. H. R. Rivers has
recently tried to show that tabu in its Oceanic
distribution stands everywhere alike for the
prestige acquired and the authority exercised by
an immigrant folk— his so-called ' kava people '— -
in its dealings with an indigenous population of
markedly inferior culture.^ It is interesting to
speculate how a system of tabus may have
developed on the spot under stress of such

1 A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 1776-80, 1. 388.

2 lb. iii. 163. » lb. i. 411. 4 /ft. u, 170.

5 Te Ika a Matii, London, 1855, p. 55.

6 Cf. W. Mariner, An Account of the Natives of the Tonga
Islands, ed. J. Martin, London, 1817, ii. 87.

7 R. H. Codrington, rAe Melanesians, Oxford, 1891, p. 215.

8 Of. Rivers, The Hist, of Melanesian Society, Cambridge,
1914, pp. 239, 252, 384, 409, 485.

culture-contact — how, for instance, barbarians,
already worshipping gods and respecting private
property, might come to impose their will on
magic-haunted communistic savages, for whom
threats rather than reasons must be provided as
the grounds of obedience. On the other hand,
if the immigrants came from Indonesia, as the
theory assumes, it is also possible that they brought
some form of the custom with them ready-made,
since the Indonesian pomali is ' exactly equivalent
to the "taboo" of the Pacific islanders.'

Thus in Timor 'the custom of "tabu" called here "pomdli,"
is very general, fruit trees, houses, crops, and property of all
kinds being protected from depredation by this ceremony, the
reverence for which is very great. A palm branch stuck across
an open door, showing that the house is tabooed, is a more
effectual guard against robbery than any amount of locks and
bars.' 1

This mode of indicating a tabu is similar to the
Oceanic. Thus, when Cook wished to set up his
observatory in the SandAvich Islands, the priests
tabued the place for him by setting up wands ; ^
and the soloi, or tabu-marks, of the Banks group
in Melanesia usually consist of the leaves of some
plant.' It may well be, then, that the property-
mark, with its implication of a transferable curse,
came into Oceania along with the notion of private
OAvnership. It certainly was most effective in pro-
tecting property — far more so than the guns which
the early mariners discharged at the thievish
islanders with a like object in view.

(c) Secondary developments of tabu in Oceania. —
It remains to note that, whereas the essence of
tabu in its local signification consists, as has been
shown, in a theocratic form of government, which
in its turn may have developed by way of an
apotheosis of landlordism, the ramifications of the
notion are endless and cover the whole religion
of Oceania, at any rate so far as it is taken in its
negative aspect, namely as a system of scruples.
The theocracy could consecrate a site, or devote
a victim, or appropriate a house or canoe, or
betroth a woman, or proclaim a rest-day for men
or a close-time for game, all these being cases of
the communication of tabu by a ritual act of
imposition, such as could at will be neutralized
by a ceremonial removal.* On the other hand,
many tabus were inherent rather than acquired,
such as those associated permanently with women,
strangers, the sick, and the dead, or for the time
being with the Avoman in child-birth or the warrior
on a campaign. The world-wide distribution of
similar beliefs concerning an infectious impurity
makes it extremely improbable that they can be
referred in the mass to an immigrant culture or
treated as mere reasons of state, the by-products
of the administrative scheme. At most we may
say that, in so far as the direction of affairs was
centralized and deliberate, they were incorporated
in the political machine and to a like extent
became subject to manipulation. Thus, at Hawaii
in 1819, King Rihoriho at one stroke abrogated
the laws of the tabu ; though only, let us note, to
make way for la tabu, the British Sunday.' So
much, then, for the local or Oceanic sense of tabu
with its special connotation of a theocratic system
of controls, a more or less consciously organized
body of sanctions backed by the joint authority
of Church and State.

2. Scientific meaning of tabu.— (ri) Tabu as an
aspect of rudimentary religion. — For the purposes
of the science of comparative religion it is con-
venient to drop the implication of a human
sanction and to insist solely on the supernatural

1 A. R. Wallace, The Malay Archipelago^, London, 1869, i.
196, iL 450.

2 Oook-King, iii. 10, 36. » Rivers, i. 92.
* Of. Taylor, pp. 78, 91.

5 W. EUlis, Narrative of a Tour through Hawaii, London,
1826, pp. 16, 62, 95.

TABU

183

or mystic aspect of the penalties in store for the
tabu-breaker. In this way it is possible to bring
together under one head a large variety of
avoidances characteristic of the less advanced
peoples, of whom it may broadly be said that
they have no king but custom. Just as their
response to traditional rules is largely automatic,
so, correspondingly, the rule itself has imputed to
it a no less automatic power of self-maintenance
and self-vindication. Indeed, so necessary is it for
general purposes to lay stress on the immanence
of the sanction normally attributed to a tabu that
it is safer to deny the name altogether to pro-
hibitions deriving their force mediately from a
god or his earthly representative and to distinguish
these as religious interdicts or bans. Tabu, in
/short, is to be understood as meaning 'unlucky
j to meddle with ' rather than forbidden by edict
^ human or divine. It belongs to what may be
termed the perceptual (L6vy-Bruhl would say
' prelogical ') stage of religion, when values are
massively apprehended without analysis of their
grounds. At this stage emotion of the collective
or mobbish order is paramount as regards both
the excitatory and the inhibitive processes that
govern the social life. Now of all the emotions
Fear is inhibitor-in-chief, having in virtue of its
haunting quality a special power of sustained
control. A primary source of fear is the unfamiliar
or strange as such ; and this kind of fear in vary-
ing degree is always present as an element in that
complex emotion of awe or reverence which is the
root of religion. Tabu, then, stands for the whole
mass of such fear-inspired inhibitions in so far as
they proceed directly from the religious emotion,
as it regulates the social tradition in the relative
abeyance of reasoned direction. Here we have at
any rate the psychological clue to a vast variety
of customary abstinences — 'negative rites,' as they
may be called — of which the particular conditions
are a matter for historical treatment in detail.

(6) Tabu and the notion of contagion. — It may
next be noted that emotions are infectious. It
is, indeed, the leading principle of mob-psychology
that emotions are propagated more readily than
ideas, their external manifestations lending them-
selves to unintelligent imitation. Moreover, fear
is, perhaps, the most infectious of all. Hence the
fear-inhibition embodied in tabu always implies
an infectious unluckiness — a transferable curse on
meddlers. As A. van Gennep in his analysis of
the fady { = tahu) of Madagascar shows, the in-
stitution rests on two notions, one being that of
tohina, 'contagion.'^ 'Everything,' says Jevons,
'which comes in contact with a tabooed person
or thing becomes itself as dangerous as the original
object, becomes a fresh centre of infection, a fresh
source of danger to the community.''*

Jevons goes on to discriminate between * things
taboo,' the primary sources of such contagion,
and 'things tabooed,' in which the tabu-infection
is not inherent but derivative.* 'A single thing
taboo might infect the whole universe,' as he says
with pardonable exaggeration ; * but in practice
the transmissible fear is strictly limited in its
possible etfects, being confined to certain channels
prescribed by convention. Meanwhile it is not
always easy to draw the line between the two
classes. The clearest cases of 'things tabooed'
are those in which, as in Oceania, a divine chief
tabus something hitherto common, or noa — say,
a hunting-ground — and then after a time restores
it to ordinary use. But, when Jevons accepts at
its face-value the Polynesian explanation that the

1 Tahou et toUmisme d Madagascar, p. 17.

2 F. B. Jevons, An Introd. to the Hist, of Religion, London,
1S96, p. 61 f. ; see the whole of ch. vi. for examples.

3 lb. p. 69 f . 4 Tb. p. 69.

ciniate conuitions,
storical. In other\
liters of custom, \
litance, not of the |

tabu on the sick is due to the fact that they are
possessed by an atua, or spirit, and therefore
pronounces them 'tabooed but . . . not taboo,' ^
it is at least arguable that a ' pre-animistic ' basis
must be sought for the belief ; for what more
perceptibly contagious than certain (and those
precisely the stranger and more alarming) forms
of disease ? It is surely no mere superstition to
suppose that sickness — nay, as it were, death
itself — is ' catching.' On the other hand, it is
hardly profitable, in deference to the theory that
the emotions of man afford the best criterion of
his instincts, to regard ' things taboo ' as so many
danger-signals to which mankind has an innate
predisposition to attend. Tabus need rather to be
studied in relation to their proximate conditions,
which are not biological but historical,
words, tabus are primarily matters
forming part of the social inheritance,
individual heredity.

(c) Tabu and the notion of supernatural power. —
The other notion on which the tabu of Madagascar
rests, according to van Gennep,* is that of hnsina
=mana, or supernatural power. The person or
thing is not to be trifled with, because liable to
react with a force of unknown range and degree.
There is a spiritual electricity that must be in-
sulated lest it blast the unwary. Now, if religion
were all fear, such mana would rank as wholly
bad, since fear is a shrinking from evil. But other
primary constituents of the religious mood make
rather for interest, receptivity, approach, com-
munion. For reckless self-assurance, indeed — for
what the Greeks knew as C/Spis — there is always ' the
devil to pay.' But fear tempered with wonder and
submissiveness, and thus transmuted into reverence,
is the forerunner of love. So mana has its good
side as well, though from the standpoint of tabu
this helpfulness remains, so to say, in reserve,
being a consummation that lies beyond the purview
of the fear-inhibition as such. Meanwhile to an
advanced theology that has clarified its concepts by
the method of antithesis the savage apprehension
of mana by way of tabu seems blurred and equi-
vocal, an experience of something monstrous, half*
devil and half-god. And that there is some such
ambiguity in the value perceived cannot be denied.
The sacred and the abominable, the pure and the
obscene, the hallowed and the accursed pivot with-
in the same perturbed awareness of the object.
Nevertheless, rudimentary religion has gone a
long way towards defining in practice, if not in
theory, the good and the bad manifestations of
the hidden power. Thus the novice at initiation /
or the warrior on a campaign is tabu that he may/
seek and find grace in the self-concentration that
ensues after spiritual crisis overcome. On the
other hand, the criminal is tabu because his very
soul is attainted ; wherefore, as the words of his
doom, ' Sacer esto,' imply, he cannot touch water
and fire lest he sully their purity with his foulness.

(d) Tabu as a source of personal religion. — At
this point it may be observed that the institution
of tabu is not only the main organ of social dis-
cipline at the lower levels of culture, but likewise
the seed-bed of personal religion. The latter ;
function hinges on the fact that to be tabu with '
respect to society is at the same time to be tabu in
relation to oneself. The external signs of this self-
regarding attitude of precaution are often ludicrous
enough, as when a man cannot feed himself, or
must scratch his head with a stick, or needs to
snuff up the lioliness that exudes from his fingers.
But an inward-seeking view reveals a profit even
in such practices. The mana to be conserved is
just that part of a man that he feels to be most

1 An Introd. to the Hist, of Religion, p. 70.
- Loc. eit.

184

TABU

worth the saving— the will for power. Such power
may be coveted for temporal ends. Savage
shepherds of the people are not more disinterested
than the rest of their kind. But at least it is

f)roxiraately envisaged as a spiritual power. At
east it is the sort of power that comes with and
after self-abnegation and the exercise of humility.
There is good evidence, too, that a sense of
unworthiness consequent on the violation of his
self -regarding tabus — as one might say, his ' vows '
— is enough to cause voluntary resignation of
office on the part of the primitive wonder-worker.
There can be no doubt, then, that the experience
both of the access of inspiration and of its with-
drawal is often perfectly genuine ; and, again,
that the due safeguarding of such a gift is a lesson
first acquired in the school of tabu. Further, not
to lay exclusive stress on the ecstatic experience
peculiar to the religious genius, the whole develop-
ment of personality, so far as this comes about by
way of reverie and reflexion, arises largely out of
the tabu condition. No other such opportunity is
afforded in the gregarious life of the savage tribes-
man for that self-communing whereby man eventu-
ally becomes master instead of slave of the sense-
world. Self-respect, again, is nourished on privacy ;
the king or priest must keep his distance from the
profanum vulgus, lest he make himself cheap not
only in their eyes but also in his own. ^ For the rest, |
tabu stands for the etiquette of savage life, and byj
encouraging mutual consideration enables manners;
to ripen into morals, the end of which is freedom. .'
(e) Danger of the over-development of tabu. —
Hitherto the fruitfulness, the educative value, of
tabu as a factor in religion of the perceptual or
rudimentary type has been chiefly signalized.
After all, the inhibition of impulse affords the
measure of human advance. But such inhibition
may be overdone, with paralysis of the will to live
as a consequence. Tabu as such represents nega-
tion, and a religion made up mostly of negations
is necessarily sterile. Denial, even self-denial,
cannot but be soul-destroying, if taken as an end
in itself. Hence a meticulous scrupulosity is a
mark of degraded religion. Nothing, e.g., is so
characteristic of the dairy-cult of the Todas as the
web of tabus in which every action of the priest-
dairyman is emmeshed, and Rivers not without
good reason comments : ' The Todas seem to show
us how the over-development of the ritual aspect
of religion may lead to atrophy of the ideas and
beliefs through which the religion has been built
up.'*^

Even a positive rite such as prayer may degener-
ate into formalism. Much more is this likely to
happen with the negative rite or tabu, wherein
the nature of the spiritual activity subserved is
less immediately manifest. In the last stage of
such decay — and in this also the case of the Todas
is instructive^ — the scrupulosity itself tends to
become a sham, an organized hypocrisy of evasions.
The function of ritual in religion is to relieve
attention in regard to things indifferent, and of
negative ritual to do so in regard to things actually
disturbing — all this in order to set attention free
for active converse with the divine. It is true
that there is in many forms of religious experience
— and they are perhaps especially to the fore in
rudimentary religion — a characteristic prelude of
apparent inaction, a spell of listening, as it were ;
and, so far as the tabu condition corresponds to
this halt on the threshold, it is apt to seem barren
of results when it is not. To judge fairly in each
case, we must watch the ritual drama as a whole
1 Cf . kapukapu, ' to put on airs of distance or separatiofa from
others,' with mamana, ' to respect oneself,' in E. Tregear, The
Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, Wellington, N.Z.,

1891jipp^203, 473,

Todas, London, 1906, p. 455.

8/6.

to see whether the passivity induced is of the preg-
nant order. As an incident in a ' rite of passage '
to a higher plane of experience, the chrysalis stage
of the soiil is symptomatic of development. If,
on the other hand, the will to win through be
somehow asphyxiated on the way, negation has ■
triumphed ; too much safeguarding has destroyed ;
the husk has stifled the germinal process.

(/) Methods of studying tabus in detail. — This
cursory sketch of tabu aims at no more than a
generalized version of the institution as it bears on
the earlier growth of the spirit of religion. A
fuller treatment might be based on the study of
the particular systems of tabu native to the various
ethnic areas— as has here been attempted only in
regard to the Pacific region — when many differ-
ences of detail and shades of local colour would
doubtless come to light. In defence of the present
method, however, it can be urged that to deal with
tabus on the ethnological principle would well-nigh
involve a survey of religions on the same distribu-
tive plan, since every savage people has a religion
and every savage religion has its tabus. Nay
more, savage religion tends to be co-extensive with
the social life itself ; so that a regular panorama
of cultures may seem to be the logical outcome of
such a method. Another way of dividing up the
subject (but one again that must inevitably lead
too far afield) would be that of distinguishing
certain main departments of activity typical of
primitive society as a whole and showing how each
is conditioned by its own set of special tabus. The
food-interest, e.g., is engirdled by one vast net-
work of ritual controls, the sex-interest by another.
Indeed, the critical stages of every vital process
are hung about with such customary danger-
signals. Sometimes these traditional fears can
be shown to correspond to facts ; more often they
appear arbitrary, sheer aberrations of fancy, due
to false analogy or what not, that have been incor-
porated in the tribal lore by a historical chance.
Thus, however detailed our study of tabus, we are
not likely to arrive at the explanation of minor
features. For these reasons it has seemed prefer-
able here simply to enlarge on the general principle
that, at the primitive level, the object of religious .
belief or worship is always tabu, just as it is always
mana as well ; and that, moreover, tabu forms the
hither aspect of the religious experience, inasmuch
as fruition is reached through fear.

ig) Tabu from the standpoint of civilization. —
Tabu being properly an institution of savagery, it
would hardly be in point to consider at length
its ulterior consequences for civilization — as apart
from its survivals in folk-lore, which indeed are
numerous. But a word about such after-effects
may be added by way of conclusion. We must
not look for them solely within the sphere of
religion as it is now. With the gradual substitu-
tion of a rational for an emotional system of
controls, there has come about a decentralization
of authority whereby disciplines once merged in
an all-pervasive religious sanction have been in-
vested with quasi-independent functions. Politics
to-day deals with the divine right of kings, law
with the sacredness of property, morals with the
virtues of temperance and chastity, and so forth.
In all such cases the tendency is to refuse any
validity to the old-world sentiment of tabu. Reason
prefers to rest its case on grounds of so-called
common sense. At most the immediacy and seem-
ing unconditionality of the tabu-feeling might
enlist the sympathies of certain schools of ethical
thought. As for modem religion, while it hesitates
to adopt a rationalist outlook, it is naturally anxious
to purge its traditional rites of the mildew of
ancient superstition. On all sides, however, so
far as the influence of a philosophy of man makes

TALMUD

18&

itself felt, there is of late manifested a deeper
interest in the emotional life, more especially as
it relates to conduct. Alike in social psychology
with its study of the crowd and in individual psy-
chology with its doctrine of the subconscious the
conviction is growing that society and mind alike are
controlled from below, as it were, as well as from
above — that reason is at best a constitutional ruler
whose authority rests not on force but on consent.
It may be, then, that, examined from this point of
vieAv, the primitive institution of tabu will be
found to embody elemental principles of order that
to-day are as active as ever beneath the surface of
a changed custom. Experience, which is experi-
ment, has doubtless taught us to reject many a
freakish usage dear to the old order ; but this experi-
ence, which in its most critical form is science,
bids us seek beneath the accidents of history for
those essential laws whereby our racial sense of
direction is continuously maintained.

Literature. — (i.) For tabu in Oceania see the works cited
above, early authorities such as Cook and Mariner being especi-
ally enlightening, since the original social system has long been
gone, at any rate in Polynesia ; compare also Th. Waitz and
G. Garland, Anthropologie der Haturvolker, Leipzig, 1859-72,
vi. ; W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, London, 1831, iv. ; G.
Turner, Samoa a Hundred Years Ago a7id Long Before, do.
1884 ; Old New Zealand, by a Pakeba Maori, do. 1884 ; since the
same cultural influences presumably extend to Indonesia and
the Malay region (including Madagascar), see also W. W.
Skeat, Malay Magic, do. 1900. A. van Gennep, Tabou et toU-
inisme d, Madagascar, Paris, 1904, brings the local into relation
with a general interpretation.

(ii.) For a world-wide review of the facts about tabu see J. G.
Frazer, The Golden Bought, 12 vols., London, 1911-15, esp. vol.
iii., Taboo and the Perils of the Sotil, and for his general theory
vol. i., The Magic Art, i. lllff., also Psyche's Task'^, do. 1913.
The subject being germane to any systematic account of primi-
tive religion, it is hard to draw up a short list of authorities,
but the following, in addition to those already quoted in the
text, will be found useful : W. Robertson Smith, Lectures on
the Religion of the Semites^, London, 1894 ; E. Crawley, The
Mystic Rose, do. 1902 ; E. Durkheim, Les Formes iUmentaires
de la vie religieuse, Paris, 1912, esp. p. 427 f. ; and, on special
aspects of tabu, Crawley, FL vi. [1895] 130 flf. ; E. Wester-
marck. Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco, London, 1914 ; H.
Webster, Rest Days: a Study in Early Law and Morality,
New York, 1916. For a psychological study of tabu see R. R.
Marett, The Threshold of Religion'^, London, 1914; E. S.
Ames, The Psychology of Religiotis Experience, do. 1910.

R. R. Marett.
TAHITIANS.— See Polynesia.

TALISMAN.— See Charms and Amulets.

TALMUD. — Two great works are known under
the title 'Talmud' — a word (iiD^n) which denotes
primarily 'teaching' and secondarily 'learning.'
The two works are the Palestinian and Babylonian
recensions, both of which are, in form, comment-
aries on the text of the Mishnah (•"ijp'p). The
Mishnah {'repetition,' hence oral teaching by
repeated recitation) was completed about A.D.
200. The Talmud consists of the Mishnah with
the Gemara (Nipa). It represents the scholastic
activities of the Jewish Rabbis from the beginning
of the 3rd to the close of the 5th century A.D.

The history of the compilation of the Talmud
nas been dealt with in many treatises and essays. '
It is not the design of the present article to add to
these or to reconsider the critical literary problems
involved. Two practical questions will occupy us :
(1) the attitude of the outside world to the Talmud, ^
and (2) the causes and nature of the permanent
value of the Talmud within Judaism.

I. The Talmud in history. — The century which
saw the completion of the Talmud also witnessed
the beginning of interference with the normal
circulation of the Rabbinical literature. In the
year 553 the Emperor Justinian was called upon
to arbitrate on a difference which arose between
two sections of Jewry in the Byzantine realm.
Whereas some were desirous of publicly reading

1 See ' Literature ' below.

2 Of. art. Anti-Semitism.

the Scriptures both in Greek and in Hebrew, others
wished to use the Hebrew only. Justinian^
ordered the prsefect Areobindus to promulgate
the imperial decision in favour of the use of Greek
(the Synagogue might use Aquila if it preferred
it to the Septuagint), or of other vernacular
tongues such as Latin in the Italian provinces.
The emperor, moreover, forbade any attempt on
the part of the heads of the schools or elders to
prevent the use of the vernacular by devices or
excommunication. Most significant of all was
Justinian's interdiction of the practice of giving
the Haggadic exposition (devr^poKris) after the
reading of the Scripture. The opening words of
the rescript explain Justinian's intention. The
Jews, he suggested, should read their Scriptures
with an eye to the hidden meaning and see in
them a prophetic announcement of Christianity.
Hence the emperor would naturally desire to curb
the popularity of the Rabbinic exegesis, which of
course would confirm the Jews in their refusal
to admit Christological interpretations. Thus
Justinian, who introduced drastic legislative en-
actments against the Jews, was also among the
first to attempt interference with the free use and
spread of their literature. ^

We must here confine our attention to that
phase of interference which concerns the Talmud.
It was not till the 13th cent, that the attack
assumed practical shape. Paris, in the year 1244,
was the scene of the first public burning of copies
of the Talmud. Before that date the Rabbinic
doctrines had been assailed in the de Insolentia
Judceorum of Agobard ; but from the Paris in-
cident onwards these assaults became far more
frequent and dangerous. Nicholas Donin of La
Rochelle had, while a Jew, been excommunicated
by the Rabbi Yehiel of Paris because of his denial
of the validity of the Rabbinic tradition. This
occurred in 1225; he subsequently joined the
Franciscans, and in 1239 he formally laid an
accusation against the Talmud before Pope
Gregory IX., Avho addressed bulls to many lands
(including England) ordering the seizure of copies
of the Talmud pending a public inquiry. In
France the matter was seriously taken up.
Charges of blasphemy, immorality, particularism,
and absurdity were formulated ; a public dispute
between Donin and four Rabbis was ordered. The
humours and futilities of such debates have been
satirized in Heine's poem ' Disputation. ' But the
consequences were deplorable. The Talmud was
condemned ; many copies of it were burnt ; and
popular outbreaks against the Jews resulted.

Within a few years similar scenes were enacted
in Barcelona. Here again the attack originated
with a Jewish convert to Christianity, Pablo
Christiani. He instigated a public debate be-
tween himself and Nahmanides in 1263, as to the
attributes and coming of the Messiah, and the
Rabbi was sentenced to exile because his defence
of Judaism was pronounced blasphemous. In 1264
Christiani induced Pope Clement iv. to appoint a
Commission of censors, who expunged all those
passages which appeared derogatory to Christi-
anity. In particular, as time went on, Talmudic
references to ancient paganism were misinterpreted
as being attacks on the Church, This charge was
brought forward by yet another erstwhile Jew,
Geronimo de Sante F6, who engineered a public
dispute in Tortosa in 1410, and, like Christiani,
submitted to the verdict of the crowd the most
intricate problems of Biblical exe^e.sis in relation
to Messianic belief. The practical outcome again

1 NovelUe Conslituliones, 146.

a The view of Justinian's rescript given in the text is the one
usually adopted. It is by no means the only possible explana-
tion, for it 18 possible that what Justinian prohibited was the
use of the traditional Aramaic translation (see art. Taroums).

186

TALMUD

was not a settlement as to the significance of Is 53,
but the confiscation of copies of the Talmud.

Of much greater interest was the controversy
which waged round the Talmud at the beginning
of the 16th century. Owing to the part taken by
Reuchlin (q.v.)m this incident, the Talmud became
the battle-ground between the old and the new,
between the obscurantists and the humanists.
Again the protagonist in the attack on the
Talmud was one who had left the Synagogue for
the Church. It must not, however, be thought
that the proverbial zeal of converts has invariably
assumed this guise. In the recent assaults made
on the Talmud by representatives of modem anti-
Semitism (q.v.), powerful among the defenders of
the fair fame of the Eabbinic system were such
famous Judaeo - Christian scholars as Daniel
Chwolsohn and Paulus Cassel. The opponent of
Reuchlin was of a diflerent type. We know very
little as to the antecedents of Johann Pfett'erkom,
of whom Erasmus said that from a bad Jew he
became an execrable Christian ('ex seel era to
Judaeo sceleratissimus Christianus '), for no re-
liance can be placed on the insinuations made by
satirists that in his earlier days Pfeflerkorn had
added to the respectable calling of a butcher the
disreputable career of a burglar. All that we
know is that Pfefferkorn was animated by a strong
animosity towards his former co-religionists, that
his fanaticism far exceeded his learning, and that
he found support for his campaign among the
Dominicans of Cologne. Though the Jews had
been excluded from that city in 1426 and only
regained rights of free domicile there with the
coming of the French in 1798, Cologne remained
durLag the 15th and 16th centuries the headquarters
of the campaign against Jewish books.

It would be unprofitable to repeat the detaUs of
the oft-told tale of Pfefferkorn's pamphlets and
Reuchlin's rejoinders ; of the seizure of Hebrew
books in Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1509, their
restoration, and the long-drawn-out struggle that
ensued in Rome. Nor is it of any importance to
us now whether or not Pfefferkorn wrote the works
that bear his name. The whole incident would
have been forgotten but for certain facts. In the
first place, this battle of the books gave rise to a
famous satire, the Epistolce Obscurorum Virorum,
the first part of which appeared at Tiibingen to-
wards the end of 1514. The eflfect of this rather
savage satire was instantaneous and permanent.
As an exposure of obscurantism it remains one of
the most masterly efforts ever put forward on
behalf of humanism. The struggle between
Reuchlin and Pfefferkorn became, in short,
elevated to a higher plane. Reuchlin, once for
all, struck the true note when he protested against
the destruction of a literature because elements of
it were distasteful to certain of its critics. ' If the
Talmud contains errors,' he said, ' let us render
them innocuous by studying to sift the chaff from
the grain. Do not burn the Talmud, but read it.'
It is to Reuchlin that we owe the foundation of
Hebrew chairs in the universities ; the first
Hebrew text printed in Germany was the edition
of seven Psalms used by Reuchlin in 1512. The
study of Hebrew in Christian Europe commenced
>vith him, was taken up by his immediate suc-
cessors, and has never since been relinquished.^
Reuchlin's devotion to Rabbinisni began with his
interest in the !^abbala. But Hebrew was the
passion of his life. And there is no doubt that to
him we owe that interest in the Talmud which
soon led to the publication of a complete printed
edition of all its tomes. There were, as we shall
see, printed editions of parts of the Talmud avail-
able in 1510, when he wrote that ' he would like
1 S. R. Hirsch, A Book of Essays, London, 1905, p. 14.

to pay the price for a copy of the Talmud twice
over but he had not yet been able to obtain one.' ^
He was referring to MS copies. Within about
a decade of the year in which Reuchlin wrote this
lament it was easy to procure the Romberg edition
printed in Venice. It was fortunate for scholar-
ship that Daniel Romberg began to print the
Talmud in 1520, before the censorship intruded
its hand. Yet the censorship has this value. In
1550 the Talmud was i)laced on the Index. But
the Tridentine Synod in 1564 provided that the
Talmud might be circulated, if the passages ob-
noxious to Christianity were deleted. This was
done, and between 1579 and 1581 there was com-
pleted the censored Basel edition which formed
the model for many subsequent editions. In this
form, claims the Basel editor, the Talmud may be
read by Christians not only without reproach but
even with profit ('etiam cum fructu a nostris legi
potest'). The Inquisitor Marco Marino went
through the Venice edition of 1546-50, censored it,
and affixed his name to the expurgated version
page by page. The expurgated passages have
often been edited and commented on separately.
Attacks on the Talmud, nevertheless, continued.
As late as 1757 copies of the Talmud were publicly
burned in Poland as a result of the Kamenetz-
Podolsk disputation. Literary onslaughts have
naturally continued, and modern anti-Semitism
has displayed much energy in seeking in the
pages of the Talmud grounds for attacks on the
Jews. Those pages contain enough and to spare
of superstition, narrowness, folly, and intolerance.
But the faults are superficial, the merits funda-
mental ; and it is because of the latter that the
Talmud retains its permanent worth.

2. Permanent vadue. — In the first instance the
Talmud represents more fully than any other
Jewish work the lineal development of the religion
of the OT. In several important particulars, the
Talmud, indeed, represents an advance on the OT.
The view (adopted by the school of R. H. Charles)
is untenable that Rabbinism was a degeneration,
while Apocalypse was an advance. On the con-
trary, all the nobler elements of the OT teaching
were absorbed into and developed by Rabbinism^
which was essentially a prophetic system. The
moral life was at once the basis of religion and its
ultimate outcome. The Talmud concerned itself
with life. It therefore drew little or no distinction
between the secular and the religious. This is not
the place to discuss the Pharisaism which is assailed
in the Gospels. For, however we explain the dis-
crepancy, the Pharisaism of the Gospels is not
identical with the Pharisaism of the Talmud.

Hence, though the Talmud, because it combines
secular and religious into one whole, is often
inclined to attach undue importance to ritual
or customary trivialities, it cannot be said that it
does so at the expense of the great principles.
And, when all has been said, the fact remains that,
difficult though it be to harmonize the daUy round
with the higher calls of spiritual moments, the
Talmud did effect this harmonization with a con-
siderable measure of success. The Talmud is inter-
penetrated with the presence of God in human life,
and worship was not merely confined to the hours
spent in congregational prayers. The home was
sanctified as well as the synagogue. This fact con-
stituted and constitutes the worth of the Talmud
to the Judaism of all ages. The liberals who
have rejected the authority of the Talmud have
not rejected its spirit and its outlook.* They, like
the conservatives, feel that the hallowing of life
is the purpose of life. And, among the many
attempts to effect this hallowing of life — in
relation primarily to God, but also in intercourse

1 A Book of Essays, p. 141. * Cf. art. Liberal Judaism.

TAMMUZ

187

with man — the Talmud must be conceded a high
place.

In the main, then, the Talmud retains its worth
because it has so thoroughly absorbed the prophetic
conception of the close interconnexion of religion
and life. But life is not altogether expressible in
terms of conduct. There is the intellectual side.
Now, for long intervals, the Talmud was the main
means by which the Jew cultivated his mind.
Some of the greatest Talmudists of the Middle
Ages were indeed also devoted to science and
philosophy, in the technical sense of those terms.
But there were masses of Jews who knew no other
intellectual interest than the Talmud and the
allied literature. The nature of the Talmud saved
them from stagnation. For the Talmud is a work
of most manifold interest. It concerns itself with
every phase of human activity. To read it in-
telligently— and it was assuredly so read — was a
liberal education in the arts and sciences and
philosophies. So wide is its range that a student
of the Talmud is perforce acquainted with very
many subjects which nowadays are regarded as
distinct disciplines. The mind of the student was
kept alert ; his attitude never became scholastic ;
at every point he was in contact with actualities.
It was an essential function of the Talmud to
maintain this alertness, so that to con over its
pages was not identical with losing oneself in an
obsolete past. The Talmud breathes with vital
freshness.

This enables us to understand why the Talmud
has never been superseded by the codes founded
upon it even by authorities so competent and able
as Moses INIaimonides and Joseph Qaro. The codes
omit the very element which makes the Talmud so
important, so unique. The codes reduce ritual
and religious conduct to rule ; the decisions are
stated in precise paragraphs j they are anonymous.
But the Talmud presents processes as well as
results ; there is little of rule in it, less of precision ;
and the dicta are largely associated with the names
of their authors. We see the religious evolution
in action. And, just as it is in action in the older
book, it remained in action in the modern life.
The claim often put forward by recent Talmudists
that their beloved tomes represent a progressive
Judaism is well founded. Codes have an air of
finality, while the key-note of the Talmud is
continuity.

For the Talmud, after all, comes into line with
the newer theory of the evolution of religion. The
effect of the Talmud, it has been said, was to
obscure the difference between Scripture and
Tradition. This may be true, but modern criticism
tends (on quite other grounds) to obliterate the
distinction. The Scripture is itself a traditional
evolution — so the newer theories hold. The
Talmud in essence anticipated this theory, not in
the direction of belittling the divine character of
the written text, but in the direction of magnify-
ing the human part in the authorization of the
message. Man has his part to play in bringing
the Law into operation— in interpreting it, which
is often another term for expanding it.

We can here merely mention the beauties of the
Talmud, its felicities of thought, its flights of
fancy, its parables, its poetry. The Jew did not
merely feed his mind on the wit of the Talmud or
his spirit on its idealism. His heart and imagina-
tion found their nourishment there also. From its
pages the liturgy derived some of its choicest
prayers. In germ, the Talmud already contains
the mysticism which in later ages grew up so
luxuriantly in Judaism. That this mysticism
rarely became antinomian was due almost entirely
to the Talmud, which more than permitted — for it
encouraged — individu.alism as well as communism

in the religious life. Our present point, however,
is that volumes could be compiled (volumes have
been compiled) out of the fine gems presented in a
literary form which is unlike that of any other
work — unlike in grotesqueness as well as in efli-
ciency.

In the presence of these merits the attacks on
the Talmud failed. Partly they were theological,
partly moral, partly social. Ridicule was cast on
its trivialities ; fault was found with its religious
conceptions ; objection was taken to its attitude
to Gentiles. These unfavourable criticisms were
not all unfounded, for the Talmud contains much
of inferior value, and bears the marks of the
different ages and strata of thought in which it
grew up. Nevertheless, some of the attacks on
the Talmud were absolutely false ; in others the
assailants confused the attitude towards the Rome
which destroyed the Temple with the attitude to
the Rome which became the seat of the papacy.
Often, too, overmuch importance was attached to
the obiter dicta of isolated Rabbis. When, how-
ever, it was protested by Donin in 1239, and by
Romano in 1553, that it was the Talmud that con-
firmed the Jews in their obstinate fidelity to the
Synagogue, the charge was largely just. But that
must be assigned to the Talmud as a merit, not as
a fault. At all events it explains, perhaps in the
most effective manner, how it came about that a
work, so curiously alien from the modern canons
of excellence in literature, has maintained its
position not only with those Jews who more or
less order their lives in accordance with it, but
also with those who, rebels against its authority,
retain an affectionate regard for its spirit. Written
in style far removed from modernity, the Talmud
is one of the most modem of books.

LiTBRATUKB. — S. Schechter, in HDB v. 57-66, with full
bibliography ; W. Bacher, in JE xii. 1-27 (also with biblio-
graphy); H. Graetz, History of the Jews, Eng. tr., London,
1891-92, ii. cha. xiii.-end, and elsewhere in passages indicated
in detail in the Index volume (1898) to the American ed. of the
translation, p. 589 ff. The well-known unfavourable view of
Schiirer is contained in his section on ' Life under the Law,' in
his History, E^g. tr., ii. ii. § 28. An account of the Talmud is
given in I. Abrahams, Short History of Jewish Literature,
London, 1906, ch. iii. Special attention may be drawn to the
brilliant essays of E. Deutsch {Literary Remains, London,
1874) and J. Dartnesteter {Reliqxiet teientifiques, Paris, 1S90).

I. Abrahams.
TAMIL-SPEAKING PEOPLES.— See

Dravidians.

TAMMUZ.— Tammuz was the West Semitic
form of the name of the great Asiatic nature-god,
typifying the changing seasons in their relation to
man's needs, desires, and passions, though the
last-named were far from being so pronounced in
connexion therewith as the other two aspects.
For its meaning, and also other names of Tammuz,
see §§ 7, 10, below.

1. The old view of the legend of Tammuz. —
Prior to the successful reading of the Assyro-
Babylonian inscriptions the legend of Tammuz
was regarded as being exclusively West Semitic,
owing, apparently, to the scene of the god's
activities being located, in the then extant records,
in Syria. There was considerable difficulty, how-
ever, in finding an acceptable root by which the
name of the god might be explained.

2. Its most familiar versions. — According to the
classic legend of Tammuz, his mother had un-
natural intercourse with her own father, urged
thereto by Aphrodite, whom she had offended.
Pursued by her father, who sought to kill her for
this crime, she prayed to the gods, who changed
her into a tree, from whose trunk Adonis (the
Graeco-Syriac name of Tammuz) was in due time
bom. So charmed was Aphrodite with the beauty
of the infant that, placing him in a chest, she

188

TAMMUZ

handed him to Persephone to take care of. The
goddess of the under world, however, when she
found what a treasure she had in her keeping,
refused to part with him again. Zeus was there-
fore appealed to, and he decided that for four
months in the year Adonis should be left to him-
self, four should be spent with Aphrodite, and the
remaining four with Persephone. A variant
account, however, agrees with the Babylonian
legend in making him pass six months with fires-
ki-gal (Persephone) and six with Istar, or
Aphrodite. The classic versions represent Adonis,
or Tammuz, as being passionately fond of hunting,
and undeterred therefrom by the fiercest quarry.
His end was tragic, as he was slain through the
tusk of a wild boar piercing his groin (see § 14).

3. The Syrian versions. — The centre of the
Syrian worship of Tammuz was probably Gebal ;
in any case, Balthi ('the [divine] Lady,' as
Aphrodite seems to have been called in the ex-
treme west of Asia) was believed to have migrated
thither from her realm of Cyprus for love of
Tammuzo (Tammuz). But before Tammuzo she
had loved Ares (Mars)^ and thereby aroused the
jealousy of her husband Hephaestus. In this
version Tammuz is described as the son of Cuthar,
king of the Phoenicians, to whom, when she fled
from Cyprus, Balthi made all the villages around
subject. It was not the irresponsible act of a wild
boar, however, that caused the death of Tammuz,
but the jealousy of either Aphrodite's husband
Hephaestus or her lover Ares, who came and slew
Tammuz on Lebanon whilst he was hunting wild
boars.

The Syrian lexicographer Bar Bahlul also gives the legend as
he had heard it : ' Tomuzo was, as they say, a hunter shepherd
and chaser of wild beasts ; who when Balathi loved him took
her away from her husband. And when her husband went
forth to seek her Tomuzo slew him,' but was himself slain later
on by a wild boar which he encountered in the wilderness, and
his father made a great weeping for him in the month named
after him.

The Rabbinical references to Tammuz are more
curious than instructive with regard to the history
and development of the myths concerning him.

One (that of Rabbi Solomon Isaaki, or Bashi), commenting on
Ezk 814, in order to connect the root of the name Tammuz with
the Chaldaean aza, 'to make hot,' describes it as 'an image
which the women made hot in the inside, and its eyes were of
lead, and they melted by reason of the heat of the burning, and
it seemed as if it wept; and they (the women) said, "He
asketh for offerings." '

This and other varying traditions concerning
Tammuz, however, seem to belong to the Christian
era.

4. The worship of Tammuz in Syria. — In all
probability the mourning for Hadadrimmon men-
tioned by Zechariah (12^^) is a reflexion of the
lamentations for Tammuz, with whom this deity
is said to have become identified ; and in a
passage in Amos (8^") the Israelites lament as for
'an only son.' The most noteworthy Biblical
passage, however, is seemingly that in Jeremiah
(22^^), where it is said that they shall not lament
for Jehoiakim, saying, ' Ah my brother ! or. Ah
sister 1 Ah lord I or. Ah his glory ! ' and where
the word ' sister ' suggests the sympathy of the
mourners for his bereaved spouse or lover. When
Belili, his sister, in the Babylonian legend, says,
' My brother, only (one), do not cause me pain ' ^
(by leaving the world again to go to the regions
below), we have perhaps a better parallel. Byblos,
the Biblical Gebal, was the centre of the worship
of Tammuz in Syria, where, in the month of June,
the funeral-festival of the smitten sun-god was
held, and lasted for seven days. ' Gardens of
Adonis' — flower-vases planted with seeds which

1 Mars is probably to be identified with the Bab.-Nergal rather
than with En-urta (Ninip). The former was the spouse of fireS-
ki-gal (Persephone). (See § 10 below.)

2 See § 6 below.

sprang up quickly, and as quickly, owing to lack
of moisture, faded away — were prepared by the
mourning women as emblems of the early death of
the youthful Adonis. Throngs of wailing women
filled the streets and the gates of the temple,
tearing their hair, disfiguring their faces, and
gashing their breasts. The Galli — emasculated
priests of Ashtoreth, the spouse of Tammuz — took
part in the mourning for ' the bridegroom of her
youth.' These days of mourning were followed by
days of rejoicing for his resurrection, during which
a papyrus-head came over the waters of the
Mediterranean from Alexandria — an emblem of
the severed limbs of Osiris, which, gathered up by
Isis, his inconsolable spouse, after he had been
dismembered by Typhon, had of old arrived at
Gebal. Thus did the legend of Tammuz assimilate
itself with the Egyptian myth of the sun-god
Osiris.

5. Tammuz in Babylonia, his birth-place. — So
far Babylonian sources have furnished but few of
the details of the Syrian and the Greek versions of
the myth of Tammuz. To all appearance the
legend had not been carried from Syria to
Babylonia, as might be expected, but the reverse.
In its original form it must have been of consider-
able antiquity. According to the archaic list of
royal names ^ discovered at Nippur (Niffer), and
now preserved in the museum of the University of
Pennsylvania, Dumu-zi, as the Babylonians called
Tammuz, was a king of Erech and ruled for 100
years. His predecessor Avas the god Lugal-banda,
who reigned for no less than 1200 years, whilst his
successor was the half-divine and only half-
historical king of Erech Supuri, Gilgaraes, who
ruled for 160 or possibly 180 years. According to
this record, Tammuz was a fisherman (Sumerian
Su-ha) of the city Qa-a, a site as yet unidentified,
but which one would expect to find somewhere in
the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf. Though
king of Erech,^ Tammuz was more especially
associated with Eri-du, the divine city of Ea, the
god of the waters, at the head of the same water-
way, and it was only natural that a maritime
people, such as the southern Babylonians were,
should make Tammuz a fisherman. In that pa,rt
of the land he was evidently the god of the fruit-
fulness of the teeming waters, just as, inland, he
was god of the f ruitf ulness of the fertile Babylonian
plain.

6. IStar's search for Tammuz in Hades.— Out-
lines of this legend are given in the articles
Babylonians and Assybians ^ and Heroes and
Hero-gods (Babylonian). ^ From this text we
see that Tammuz was, at the time of Istar's descent,
in the under world with fires-ki-gal (Persephone),
whither he had descended in accordance with the
decision of the king of the gods (Bel-Merodach =
Zeus). This legend likewise shows that Tammuz
had become the lover of Istar, or, as the record
puts it, ' the husband of her youth.' The sacrifices
which she was willing to make on his account are
noteworthy, for at each of the seven gateways of
' the land of No-Return ' she parted— under protest
— with an article of apparel or adornment, until
she appeared in the presence of the queen of the
region perfectly naked. As things went wrong on
earth owing to the absence of the goddess of love,
Samas, Sin, and ^a bestirred themselves and
secured her release. Here the subject suddenly
changes, and the name of Tammuz appears in the
text for the first time :

' If she [^eS-ki-gal] hath not given thee her dismissal, return

to her.
Upon Tammuz, the husband of [her] you[th],
Pour out pure water, [sprinkle] sweet oil.

1 See ExpT xxvii. [1915-16] 519».

a ERE ii. 316«>. » lb. vi. 646».

TAMMUZ

189

Clothe him with a festive ganueat, let him strike up with the

flute of lapis-stone —
Let the joy-maidens dance, [let] the honoured one . . .
[Then] BeUli set [down] her instrument,
[And] " eye-stones " filled [her] la[p?] — i
[When] she heard her brother's voice, Belili smote her

instrument . . .
Her " eye-stones " 3 filled [her] thoughts (?).
" My brother, only (one), do not cause [me] pain (?)."
On the day Tammuz plays on the lapis-flute, they will play

along with him the tambour of chalcedony (?).
The men-mourners and the women-mourners will play along

with him.
May the dead (?) arise and smell the incense.'

Belili, mentioned here as the sister of Tammuz,
appears also in the great list of gods ' in connexion
with Alala, as forms of the deities of the heavens,
Anu™ and Anatu"". The flute of Tammuz, like
the divine vine at ]&ridu, was of lapis-stone,
emblematic of the blue sky, and it is not unlikely
that the other objects mentioned — Belili's 'eye-
stones ' and the ' tambour ' — were of precious and
similarly symbolical materials.

7. Other Babylonian references to Tammuz. —
The first place ought probably to be assigned to
the lists of gods, which furnish us with some of
his names, and the deities with whom he was
identified. The transcription of the group stand-
ing, in Sumerian, for Tammuz is *Dumu-zi,'
though a longer form, * Dumu-zida,' is often found.
The commonly accepted rendering of this group
into Semitic Babylonian is mdru Mnu, 'the true
(or faithful) son.' Of the lists in which the name
is found the most important is probably the
trilingual text (two dialects of Sumerian and
Semitic Babylonian equivalents) published in
WAI ii. pi. 59. In that inscription his character
as a sun-god is indicated by the fact that his name
comes towards the end of the section referring to
the sun-god Samas, after KSttu and Mfisaru, that
deity's two attendants.* After this comes Tu-zi-zi
(? from Tumu-zi), in standard Sumerian [Dumu]-zi,
rendered by Su-ma — i.e. transferring Dumu-zi into
the Semitic Babylonian column — and from the
next line we see that he bore in Sumerian also the
name of U-libir-si (dialectic) or Enligir-si, prob-
ably meaning ' the lord of the righteous covenant,'
or the like. The next line, which begins a new
section, has the name of Sir-du, dialectic Sir-tumu,
the mother of Tammuz. Other deities in this
section are ' the lady of the plain,' Istar, and ' the
lady of the gods.' A section giving further names
of these goddesses follows, and then conjes the
final section of the tablet, beginning with Eres-ki-
gal and explaining her as Allatu™, the Baby-
lonian Persephone. Important as showing the
feminine aspect of Tammuz, which is also visible
in the Syro-Greek view of the deity, is the list ' in
which he is called Ama-usumgal-ana, ' the peer-
less mother of heaven,' which may be one of the
aspects of the planet Venus, described * as ' male
at sunrise.' Another name, En-mersi, dialectic
for Nin-Girsu, the god of Lagas, identifies Tammuz
with that deity and stamps him specifically as the
great god of agriculture.''

8. The abodes of Tammuz in Babylonia. — The
chronological list preserved at Philadelphia,
U.S.A.,^ makes Tammuz a king of Erech and
seems to indicate that his native place was a city
expressed by the characters Ha-a. In the incanta-
tion published in WAI iv. pi. 15, however, Eridu

1 Probably poetically put for some such idea as ' Crystal
tears filled her body ' ; see below.

2 Probably ' crystal tears ' — evidences of the grief she had felt
when Tammuz descended into the under world.

3 Cuneiform Texts from. Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the
British Museum, London, 1908, pt. xxiv. pi. 1.

4 See the art. Eiohtbousnkss (Babylonian), §§ i and 4.
8 WAI u. 54, 349.

6 lb. iii. pi. 53, 1. 31 ; see ExpT xxx. [1918-19] 167».
"> WAI ii. 54, 11. 34 and 36. For references to hia temple at
Ls^aS see § 9 below.
° See § 5 above.

seems to have been his chief city, of which, there-
fore, ^&-& may have been a suburb or even another
name :
' In firidu a black vine grew — in a sacred spot it was made.

Its substance was white-flaked lapis-stone, planted in the
Deep.

Ea's path in Eridu is filled with truitfulness —

Uis seat is the [central] place of the earth.

His abode is the bed of Blngur [the Abyss].

In his holy house, which is like a forest, [his] shelter is set — no
man can enter therein.

In the midst of it is SamaS [and] Tammuz [Dumu-zi],

Between the moutlis of the rivers [or canals] on both sides.'
Here follow the names of the waterways in question : Ka-
^engala, Igi-^jengala, and Ea-na-ab-ul, though the true total
seems to have been four.l

Instead of ' the god §amas (and) Tammuz ' we
might read ' the sun-god Tammuz,' which would
correctly describe his position in the Babylonian
pantheon. The Sumerian original has expressed the
name of Tammuz by the feminine Ama-usumgal-
ana.'^ The connexion of Tammuz with the vine
of firidu, the Paradise-city, stamps him here
likewise as one of the gods of fertility, and it is
owing to^this that he is so closely connected with
the god Ea, to whose nourishing streams the great
fruitfulness of the land was due. It is noteworthy
that Nin-Girsu, the god of Lagas, who was identi-
fied with him, bore also the name of Urn, 'the
husbandman.'*

9. Tammuz as the herdsman. — It has already
been noted that Dumu-zi, or Tammuz, was called
the fisherman (&u -ha = bayaru), but later he
appeared as ' the herdsman.' This view of the
deity is referred to in another incantation :
' The milk of a yellow goat which has been brought forth in the
holy fold of Tammuz [Dumu-zida] —

The milk of a goat of the flock— may he give thee with his
holy hand.

Pour it then into the sMn of an undefiled she-goat.

Azag-suga, the uz-mah-Enlila [' glorious goat of the god
Enlila'], has cauged [it] to be eaten with his sacred hand.

Merodach, son of Eridu, has given the incantation —

May Nin-afea-kuddu, the lady of the limpid fountain, make
him [the sick man] holy, make him pure.'

' The incantation of the milk of the yellow goat, and the flour
of the undefiled she-goat's skin.'

The antiquity of the association of Tammuz
with the flocks in Babylonia is shown by the
noteworthy text in The Amherst Tablets, i.
(London, 1908) no. 119, where 'fleece' is expressed
by the phrase ' sheep of the sky.' This indicates
that the flocks of Tammuz, the sun-god of spring,
were the clouds illuminated by the setting sun,
and comparable with the flocks of Helios in Greek
mythology. In the same publication, nos. 110,
112, and 114 refer to the 'grain of the priest of
Tammuz,' and no. 118 mentions his temple at
Lagas. The date of these inscriptions is about
2300 B.C.

10. The Babylonian hymns to Tammuz.— At
least two series of these existed, and they may
have formed the originals of some of those chanted
by the Hebrew women* as well as by the Phceni-
cians and the other nationalities who accepted or
adopted the cult. The following will show their
nature :

' The ewe and her lamb he taketh ;

The goat and her kid he taketh.

The ewe and her lamb he smiteth down ;

The goat and her kid he smiteth down.

Arise then, go, hero, the road of " No-return."

Alas, hero 1 warrior, Un-azu ;

Alas, hero ! hero, my god Damu ;

Alas, hero ! son — my faithful lord ;

Alas, hero I Gu-silini the bright-eyed ;

Alas, hero I god Nagara, lord of the net ;

Alas, hero t overseer, lord of prayer ;

Alas, hero I thou who [art] my heavenly light ;

1 See ExpT xxix. [1917-18] 182 f., 288.

2 See § 7 above.

8 Tammuz visited not only the under world, but also ' th«
heaven of Anu ' ; see ERE vi. 644<>.
•» Cf . Ezk 8".

190

TAMMUZ

Alas, hero 1 Ama-uSuiugal-ana ;

Alas, hero I brother, mother, heavenly vine.

He goeth, he goeth, to the bosom of the earth —

He will cause abundance for the land of the dead.1

For his lamentation, for the day of his faU,2

In an unpropitious month of his year.s

To the road of man's last end.

At the call of the lord,

[Go], hero, to the distant land which is not seen.'

Or, according to the Sumerian original of the
last four lines :

' In an unpropitious month of thy year.
To the road of the people's end [or rest].
At the caU of the lord,
The worthy one, in his distant land, is not seen.'

• The unpropitious month ' is probably Da'uzu,
or Tammuz ; ' the road of man's last end ' is that
leading to the under world ; ' the lord,' who calls
him, is possibly Merodach, but may be Nergal,
king of that region, the Babylonian Mars.*
After a division-line the text continues :
' Alas, my abundance which has been withheld 1 Alas, my pro-
duce which has been detained 1
My heart is oppressed, shepherd, dwelling in exile —
Where is his city 7 My heart is oppressed 1
From the house of gloom he shall be brought forth —
Thou who art worthy, from the house of gloom thou shalt be

brought forth !
Alas, hero ! warrior, Un-azu,' etc., etc., as above.

Though these lamentations may have been re-
cited by the women and others who joined in the
ceremonies, it is probable that they were origin-
ally placed in the mouth of Istar. The abundance
and plenty referred to is probably the fruit of the
earth ; the oppression of heart was due to the lack
of these things, and also to the god's exile in the
regions below.

The bearing of these hymns upon the legend is
clear. We learn that (1) some accident had
happened to Tammuz, by which his sojourn in the
under world was brought about ; (2) this accident
was that in some way he ' fell ' — either through an
attack by a wild animal (boar) or, like Eshmun,
the Phoenician deity, by his own hand ; (3) the
result was that he passed part of his life in the
under world, whereby the earth suffered and the
under world profited ; (4) the under world, to
which Tammuz went, was man's last abode and the

Elace of the people's rest. Notwithstanding that
e was fulfilling his mission, the exile of Tammuz
was still an unpropitious event for him, the realm
of Eres-ki-gal not being, even for the earth-
dweller, that place of delight which the man look-
ing forward to life with his god in the realms of
bliss would like it to be. It may be supposed,
however, that the worshipper of Tammuz, when he
departed this life to dwell with his god, hoped to
en]oy companionship with him not only in Hades,
but also on earth when his time came to return
thither.

11. The transfer of the legend to Syria. — As
has already been stated,"* the legend of Tammuz in
Babylonia was of considerable antiquity — as early,
in fact, as 4000 B.C. or even earlier, and it had
had, therefore, ample time not only in which to
spread abroad, but also to assume new forms and
receive additions. Besides Byblos, the Babylonian
Gublu (Gebal), Tammuz was also venerated in
many intermediate states and cities — Cilicia,
Cappadocia, Lycia, Lydia, Ephesus, and Pterium.
Everywhere the cult was most enthusiastically
adopted, falling in, as it did, so exactly with the
Semitic view of the nature of things. Apart from

1 Variant rendering : ' Sama£ will make him great in the land
of the dead,' but that ^iven above seems preferable.

3 The full rendering in Semitic is ' E^ed with lamentation on
the day that he fell and (was) in distress,' but the Sumerian is
insufiScient for all this.

3 In the calendar of lucky and xmlucky days (TFJ./ v. 48) the
entries for the month Tammuz (col. iv.) include 'weeping' on
the 2nd day, and ' lamentation ' on the lOtb, but it ia doubtful
whether these really refer to the legend.

* See § 3 above, and § 14 below.

' § 6 above.

the theories which were held as to the creation of
the universe, the legendary teaching connected
with Tammuz dealt only with the continuance of
what had been brought into existence by the
Creator. Regarded as a sun-legend, it was recog-
nized that ' the kindly fruits of the earth ' were
due to his rays, and to the fact that, when these
and their accompanying warmth were wthdrawn
or reduced, the growth of vegetation ceased.

12. The reflex-influence of the legend of
Tammuz in Babylonia and Assyria.— That this
enthusiastic worship of the Babylonian Dumu-
zida, under the name of Tammuz, had influence
in Babylonia and Assyria, sympathetically related
as they were with the Western Semites, is but
natural ; and its greater importance in the countries
of its adoption than in the land of its origin is also
easily comprehensible. This was due to the fact
that the Babylonians had, from the date of the
rise of Babylon, accepted Merodach, who was also
a sun-god, as their supreme deity. Tammuz there-
fore continued to represent simply one of his
forms, and thus remained ineligible as chief of
their pantheon, whose construction, as a philo-
sophical system, his position of supremacy would
have destroyed.

13. The development of the legend farther west.
— In all probability more than one version of
the legend anciently existed in Babylonia and
migrated, with the worship, westwards. Repre-
senting the summer sun, with all its warmth and
its vivifying and productive power, Tammuz was
regarded as the god who passed the six months
between the beginning of autumn and the end of
winter in the under world. As the planet Venus
seems to follow the course of the sun, her dis-
appearance with him was interpreted as due to
her desire to rescue him fiom that prison-house,
but, as her movements do not coincide with the
seasons, she generally had to come forth without
him. • Wlien the time for his release came, there-
fore, he had to return to earth unaccompanied by
his spouse.

In the West the legend was modified, and
Tammuz-Adonis there appears as the son of
the Cypriote king Kinyras and as beloved of the
goddess Aphrodite. He died, it was said, in the
forest of Lebanon, killed by the wild boar typify-
ing winter ; and since the time of that catastrophe
the river Adonis, now the Nahr Ibrahim, ' Abra-
ham's stream,' flows yearly, when in flood,
reddened by his blood. The name Adonis is the
Greek form of the Phcenician Adon, ' lord,' which
this deity, in common with many others, bore.
In the Sumerian hymns (mostly in the dialect) he
is constantly called the ' lord,' un or uwun, and it
is probably owing to this, at least in part, that
Adon (Adonis) became one of his names.

14. Tammuz in Cyprus. — According to Ovid,^
the scene passes, in part, from Assyria (Syria) to
Cyprus. Kinyras, king of that island, had, by an
incestuous relation with his daughter ' Myrrha, a
beautiful son named Adonis. The child was brought
up by the nymphs and had hardly reached man-
hood when he became the lover of Aphrodite.
One day, notwithstanding the goddess's supplica-
tions, he went hunting in the forest of Lebanon
and was wounded by a boar sent by Ares (Mars),
who was jealous of the divine youth. Aphrodite,
hearing of this tragedy, filled the forest with her
lamentations and tried to revive him, but without
success. From the blood of the dying Adonis the
anemone had its birth, and the river Adonis was
thenceforth reddened yearly by his blood.

15. The legend of Tammuz in Greece. — Accord-
ing to Panyasis (5th cent. ), Adonis was the son of
a princess of Assyria (Syria), Myrrha or Smyrna,

1 Metam. x. • See §§ a, 15.

TAMMUZ

191

whom Aphrodite had inflamed with a violent love
for her father Theias. Myrrha profited by her
father's drunkenness and the darkness, but, when
afterwards Theias found out what had taken

Elace, so violent was his anger that he attacked
is daughter, sword in hand. Myrrha fled, pray-
ing the gods for protection, and the divinities who
had been the cause of her ruin, recognizing that
she was not really to blame, changed her into the
tree which, since that time, has borne her name.
Nine months later the tree opened and gave birth
to the beautiful Adonis. Aphrodite took charge
of him and, placing him in a casket, handed him
to Persephone to take care of.

Other variants of the legend of Tammnz are
recorded, but, as they are apparently later develop-
ments and seem not to bear upon the origin of the
myth, it is needless to speak of them here. How
far the above or any other variants may be founded
upon further details from Babylonia is uncertain
and will not be known until the Babylonian legend
of Dumu-zida comes to light.

i6. Why did the legend vary? — Not only was
Tammuz faithful in fullilling his fate and passing a
part of his existence in the under world, but he
was also faithful in bringing, as the god of agri-
culture, the fruits of the earth to perfection in
their season. The climates of Babylonia and of
Syria are so ditierent that any legend common to
both was bound, in its province, to differ ; hence
the variations in that of Tammuz noted here.
According to G. Rawlinson,^ increasingly heavy
showers fall in Babylonia, in November and
December, raising the river-levels. As spring
advances, the showers become lighter and fewer
until about May, when summer-weather arrives.
From May to November rain is very rare indeed,
and the sun's rays are only tempered at morning
and evening by the grey mist. For five months,
therefore, Babylonia is a land of drought. With
this description the month-list of Lagas, whose
principal deity was Nin-Girsu — identified with
Tammuz — seems to agree,* but it is the common
calendar of later days^ that is the most instruc-
tive. In this it would seem that it was the fourth
month, §u-(n)umuna, 'perfection of seed,' or the
like (June-July), that ended the time of pro-
ductiveness, and that this month was called
Du'uzu, the West Semitic Tammuz, as the month
of the god's greatest fruitfulness. The month
next following, Bibi-gar, apparently means
' making heat ' ( = Heb. Ab), whilst the 6th month,
August-September, is Kin-Innanna, 'the errand
of Istar,' generally regarded as that in which
Istar descended to Hades in search of her lover.
Its Heb. name Elul (in Babylonian, Ululu) prob-
ably means 'grief and seems to express the
common Semitic sound of mourning and distress.
In Marcheswan, the 8th month, the opening of
the water-channels took place and was succeeded
by the rain-clouds of November-December (the
Heb. Chislev). The 11th month, January-
February, was ' the month of seed ' and probably
marks the time when sowing became general.
Finally came the 1st and 2nd Adars (Feb.-March),
in Sumerian §e-gur-kud and Dir se-gur-kud, the
two grain-plant cutting months, when the seedlings
were cropped to encourage the increase of sprouts.
Roughly, the 12 months of the year fall into
three groups of four each, Nisan to Tammuz
marking the growth and perfection of the grain,
Ab to Marcheswan practically barren owing to
the great heat, and Chislev to Adar the season
of ii-rigation by the rivers and the sprouting of

1 The Five Great Monarehiea of the Anoient Eastern World,
London, 1862-C7, i. 38.

2 See PSBA xxxv. [1913] 20 ff., 123 ff.

ST. G. Pinches, An Outline of Assyrian Grammar, London,
1910, p. 60.

the crops. It is probably to this that the
three jperiods of the year of Tammuz — with Istar,
Avith Eres-ki-gal or Persephone, and at his own dis-
posal— are due, the division of his year into two
periods of six months each being apparently
Western.

17. Tammuz in the late Assyrian inscriptions.
— In these documents there are certain names
which testify to the popularity of the god — not,
however, under the name of Dumu-zi or Tammuz,
but under that of Adon. The Assyrian form
appears as Adunu, and the names containing it
may be divided into the specifically Syrian and
the Assyrian — the latter apparently imitations, or
translations from Syrian into Assyrian. Among
these are Adunu-apla-iddina, ' Adon has given a
son ' ; Adunu-nadin-apli, ' Adon, giver of a son ' ;
and Adunu-mata-u§ur, 'Adon, protect the land.'
The purely Syrian names seem to be Adunaiz(i) or
Aduna-iz(i), perhaps ' my lord hath sprinkled ' ;
Aduni-tu and Aduni-turi, 'my lord is my rock'
(Heb. 's4r); Adimi-iha, 'my lord liveth (?),'
Aduni-ba'ali, ' Adon is my lord,' is West Semitic
and belongs to about 850 B.C. (he was king of
Sianu), but all the rest fall between 680 and
660 B.C.

Whether, with Vellay, the gods of the countries
into which the worship penetrated niay be re-
garded as having become identified with Tammuz
or not is doubtful. If correct, it was due to the
fact that Tammuz, under the name of Adon,
'lord,' was designated by a word which could be
applied as a title to any god, whether the Merodach
of the Babylonians, the Moloch of the Syrians, or
the Hadad of the Amorites. It is this, in all
probability, that caused Tammuz to become, in
a measure, identified with the Adonai of the
Hebrews — that more general divine name which,
with them, replaced the all too sacred Jahweh
(Jehovah) of their own monotheistic creed.

18. The Tammuz-cult and its contemporary
creeds. — Naturally, the idea of a kind of martyr-
god, dying, it may be, for the good of mankind,
notwithstanding the difficulty of bringing Tammuz
into this category, has to be taken into considera-
tion. The most striking parallel, perhaps, is the
Osiris of the Egyptians ; and the Babylonian
Merodach, who diet! in order that mankind might
be produced from his divine blood, is equally note-
worthy. As Merodach, the ' steer of day, was a
sun-god, it is not unlikely that he was regarded as
dying daily and as being reborn that men might
live. The sun as Tammuz, however, died yearly,
not so much that men might live, but because he
fell under the evil influences of the spouse of
Nergal, the god of battle, disease, and untimely
death. Vellay contends also that Jesus Christ,
like Tammuz, was a sun-god and, also like him,
descended into Hades; but there are so many
fundamental diflerences in the career of the
mythical sun-god of 4000 or 5000 years B.C. and the
Christ of histoiy that comparisons may well be set
aside. The half-mj-thical Babylonian ruler, with
his 100-year reign, comparing so unfavourably
with his predecessor's 1200, may easily have had
a misadventure in the hunting-field which gave
birth to the nature-myth which the Babylonians,
Syrians, and Greeks have handed doAvn to us.

LiTKRATURB. — Charles Vellay, Le Culte et les files d'AdOnit-
Thaimtwvz (AUG, ' Bibliothfeque d'Etudes,' xii.), Paris, 1904 ;
M. Jastrow, Jr., Die Religion Dabyloniens und Assyri-'iis,
Giessen, 2 vols., 1906-12 (details rather meagre) ; T. G. Pinches,
Hymns to Tammuz in the Manchester Mtiseum, Ov>ens ColUje,
Manchester, 1904 (vol. xlviiL pt. liL of the Memoirs and Pro-
ceedings of the Manchester Lit. and Philusophicai Societ)/,
session 1903-04X The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria
London, 1906, pp. 48, 69 ff. ; PSBA xxxi. [1909] 63 (prayer to
Tammui); W. Aldis Wright, in Smith's DB iii. [London,
1893] ; A. H. Sayce, in HDB iv. ; T. K. Cheyne, in E£i iv.

T. G. Pinches.

192

TANJORB— TANTEAS

TANJORE.— I. History.— Tan j ore (Tamil Tan-
javtir, ' city of refuge ') is the capital of the District
of the same name in the eastern portion of the
Madras Presidency ; it is situated in 10° 47' N.
lat., 79° 8' E. long. ; in 1911 the population was
60,341. The District formed part of the ancient
Chola country, and the kingdom reached the
zenith of its power under Rajaraja I. (A.D.
985-1011). During the 13th cent, it passed under
the rule of the Hoysala Ballalas of Dorasamudra
and the Pandyas of Madura. An independent
Nayak dynasty was established in the 16th cent.,
which was displaced by a Maratha kingdom about
1674. It was occupied by the British in 1773
and finally ceded to them in 1799 ; the royal
family, who were pensioned, became extinct in
1885.

2. The temple. — Tanjore owes much of its im-
portance to the great temple buUt by King
Rajaraja I., who was a devoted ^aiva, but tolerant
of other religions. It is known as Brihadlswara,
Brihatiswara, said to mean 'temple of the great
god,' or Rajarajiswara, after its founder. Fer-
gusson writes :

' In nine cases out of ten, Dravidian temples are a fortuitous
aggnregation of parts, arranged without plan, as accident
dictated at the time of their erection. . . . The one great ex-
ception to this rule is to be found at Tanjore. The Great
Pagoda there was commenced on a well-defined and stately
plan, which was persevered in till its completion.' i

Entered by a j5ne gateway [gopuram), which is
supposed to cast no shadow on the ground, the
outer court, used as an arsenal by the French in
1772, is 500 ft. long and 250 broad, and is sur-
rounded on all sides by a cloister. The main shrine
stands to the west, and above it rises to a height
of about 200 ft. a magnificent tower, decorated
with pillars and statues. The summit is crowned
by a single block of granite, weighing 80 tons,
said to have been raised to its present position up
an inclined plane commencing at a village four
miles distant. An interesting feature of the tower
is that the carvings are generally of a Vaisnava
type, while the ornamentation of other parts is
Saiva. Another curious fact is that one of the
figures on the north side of the tower represents a
European ; the popular belief is that it is the figure
of a Dane who assisted in the building or that it
was erected to foretell the British occupation. It
is probable that both the European figure and the
Vaisnava ornamentation were erected by one of the
Nayak princes, and that he was helped by some
Danes who acquired Tranquebar in 1620. The
base of the great temple and many of the other
buildings are covered with inscriptions which have
been translated ; ^ nearly all of them belong to
Rajaraja and his successors.

Another noteworthy building is the temple of
Subrahmanya, god of war, younger son of Siva,'
with a colossal figure of Nandi, the bull of 6iva, ' a
perfect gem of carved stone-work, the tooling of
the stone in the most exquisitely delicate and
elaborate patterns is as clear and sharp as the day
it left the sculptor's hands.'*

'The temple, though beautiful, is not considered .particularly
sacred. The legendary cause of this is that the Saivite saint
Appar was refused admission to it, and that therefore it was
not celebrated in his hymns or those of the other three Saivite
poet-saints. A peculiarity about it is that Sudras are ad-
mitted to the apartment next the shrine, from which in most
temples in this District they are excluded, and that Valaiyans
(a hunting, fishing, iron-making, and cultivating caste],5 who

1 Hist, of Indian and Eastern Architecture, London. 1899.
p. 342 f.

2E. Hultzsch, South Indian Inscriptions, Madras, 1890 ft.,
esp. vol. ii.

^ B. Ziegenbalg, Genealogy of the South-Indian Gods, Madras,
1869, p. 63flf.

* F. R. Hemingway, Tanjore Gazetteer, Madras, 1906, i. 271.

' E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of S. India, Madras. 1909.
viL 272 ft.

are usually not admitted at all, here come as far as the great
bull.'i

3. Tiruvadi.— Tiruvadi (Tiruvaiyaru, 'the five
holy rivers'), six miles N.W. of Tanjore, is a place
of great sanctity, said to be holier than Benares by
one-sixteenth, where pious Hindus desire to die
and where their bones are cast into the river. It
has a fine temple, called Pa&chanadiswara, ' Lord
of the five rivers,' which contains inscriptions of
Rajaraja and his successors."

LiTBRATTjRB.— The authorities have been quoted in the article.
For the early Tamil history see V. Kanakasabhai, The Tamils
Eighteen Hundred Years Ago, Madras, 1904 ; G. Oppert, The
Original Inhabitants of Bharatavarga or India, London, 1893.

W. Crooke.
TAN N AIM.— See Judaism.

TANTRAS.— In the series of sacred books of
the Hindus the Tantras occupy the fifth or sixth
place. According to their character and contents
they are fourth in the order of inspiration and
authority, the degrees being iruti, smrti, Purdnik,
and Tantrik. They are also kno-^vn as a fifth or
the fifth Veda by those who regard them as
authoritative and observe the ritual which they
enjoin. In neither case is the series entirely
chronological or consecutive. The Tantras, which
succeed and are in part dependent on the Puranas,
are also in parts unrelated to the latter and of
greater antiquity. Their date, however, it is
impossible to determine mth any precision. The
existing treatises are probably for the most part
at least reproductions -svith additions and variations
of older works which are no longer extant. In
their present form they are usually ascribed to
the 6th or 7th cent, of our era, but they may
be considerably later. Tantrik usages and popular
formulas were current and practised in a much
earlier age; they belong to a type of thought
that is primitive and among primitive peoples
varies little in the course of the centuries. Until
recent years little was known of these works out-
side of India. A few have now been made access-
ible in translations, but the greater number are
as yet unexplored.

The name tantra signifies a 'web' or 'warp,'
then a continuous or uninterrupted series, and in
religious usage an orderly rule or ritual. The
word was then further applied to the doctrinal
theory or system itself, and finally to the literary
work or treatise in which it was set forth. In the
last sense the word is not found in the Amarakoia,
the great Sanskrit dictionary,^ nor is it used by the
Chinese pUgrims. The Mahdbhdrata also contains
no reference to the Tantras or to any religious
system founded upon them. All these facts are
confirmatory of the comparatively late origin of
the existing books. Sarikara enumerates the
titles of 64 Tantras, comparatively few of which
can be identified at the present day. The best-
known of these treatises and the most worthy of
study are perhaps the Tantrakaumudl, Saktis-
ahgama, Budraydmala, Kdlikd, Kularnava, Tan-
tratattva, and Blahdnirvdna. Translations of the
two last have been published by Arthur Avalon.
Parts of the Hitopadeia also are known as
' tantras. ' *

Traditionally the authorship of these works is
attributed to Dattatreya, who was an incarnation
of the Hindu trinity, Brahma, Visnu, and 6iva.

1 Hemingway, i. 271. For an account of the temple with
illustrations see Fergusson, p. 342 fif. ; ££rll xiv. 430 ; V. A.
Smith, A Hist, of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, Oxford, 1911,
p. 36 f.

2 Hemingway, i. 276 ff. ; Fergusson, p. 346 f. ; ^Sr" xiv. 431.

3 Dated by Macdonell, but with much uncertainty, c. a.d.
500 ; see Hist, of Sanskrit Literature, London, 1905, p". 433 ; cf.
also T. Zachariae, Die indischen WUrterbiicher, Strassburg, 1897,
p. 18 ff.

^ For further titles see Monier-Williams, Sanskrit Diet., s.v.,
and Brahmanism and Hinduism*, p. 207.

TANTRISM (Buddhist)

193

They are therefore to be regarded as equally the
revelation of the three supreme divinities. In form,
however, they are dependent on 6iva alone, who
in dialogue with his wife Durga, or Kali, reveals
the mystical doctrines and observances which are
to be received and practised by his worshippers.
This authoritative or ' higher tradition ' is further
said to have been delivered from his central or
fifth mouth. As such it is pre-eminently sacred
and secret and may not be revealed to the unin-
itiated. ' The Vedas, the ^astras, and the Puranas
are like a common woman, but this mystical Saiva
science is like a high-born woman,' ^ and its com-
munication is forbidden. The real authors of the
several treatises are unknown. They bear the
name also of Agamas, and as such are sometimes
distinguished from Nigama, the text of the Vedas,
Dharmaidstras, and other sacred books. The
Indian commentator, Kulluka Bhatta, asserts that
revelation (h-uti) is two-fold, Vaidik and Tantrik.^
In the popular knowledge and belief they have
practically superseded the Vedas over a large part
of India, where religious practice and ritual are
guided by the teaching of the Dharmaidstras,
Puranas, and Tantras. A native writer and
exponent of tliese works in Bengal asserts that
' two-thirds of our religious rites are Tantrik,
and almost half our medicine.' They are the
Sdstras, the scriptural authority and rule for the
present age, the kaliyuga, and it is therefore
incumbent on all orthodox Hindus to follow their
directions.

In particular the Tantras are the religious text-
books of the ^iiktas and of tlieir various sects.
There are different Tantrik schools, with variant
traditions, the distinctions between which are
little understood outside of their immediate circle
of adherents. The ritual of the Tantras of the
Daksinacharins, however, is said to be pure and
in harmony with the Vedas, while that of the
Vamacharins is intended only for ^udras. Their
influence unquestionably extends far beyond those
who profess to accept their authority. Wilson
quotes a passage from one of these treatises which
cLaims that ' many a man who calls himself a Saiva
or a Vaishnava is secretly a Sakta, and a brother
of the left-hand.'^ Even the Jains of N. India
are said to have adopted formulfe and ritual
from the Tantras, and the Lamaism or corrupt
Buddhism of Nepal and Tibet owes much to the
same source.

The teaching of the Tantras, as of the Puranas,
is essentially based on the bhalcti-mdrga (q.v.),
which is regarded as superior to the karma-mdrga
s,nd jmrna-indrga of the Brdhmanas and Uj^anisads.
Adoration of a personal deity is inculcated, especi-
ally of the wife of Siva, who is worshipped as the
source of all regenerative power. In all these
writings the female principle is personified and
made prominent, to the almost total exclusion of
the male. Ultimately tlieir doctrine is derived
from the philosophy of the Sankhya-Yoga, with
its theory of purusa and prakrti, with especial
emphasis on the mystical side of Yoga teaching
and practice. Like the Puranas also every Tantra
should theoretically discuss in order five subjects —
the creation and destruction of the universe, the
worship of the gods, the attainment of super-
natural power, and union with the Supreme Being.
In reality their contents are almost entirely
magical and mystical, but they range over a wide
variety of subjects, scientific, religious, medical,
speculative, etc., and are interested in all that

1 Quoted from Monier-Willianis, Brdhmanism. and Hiiidu-
igm^, p. 191.

- Sruti46a dvividhd vaidihd tdntriklia, note on Manu, ii. 1 ;
H. H. Wilson, Essays and Lectures, i. 248.

3 H. H. Wilson, Essays and Lectures on the Religion of the
Hindus, London, 1S62.
VOL. XII. — 13

concerns human need and destiny. One at least
of the more important Tantras expounds in meta-
physical terms the nature of the Supreme Brahman,
who is nishkala and sakala, i.e. with or without
prakfti, nirguna, and saguna ; in the beginning
only the nishkala Brahman existed, etc. Great
use is made of mystical syllables, om, dm, um, um,
etc., with which sometimes whole pages of writing
are tilled. By the repetition of these, magical and
supernatural abilities may be gained. The use of
numtras also is enjoined, and numerous examples
ai'e given ; their essence consists in certain mystical
and secret letters or syllables which they contain
(bija). The significance of the letters of the alpha-
bet is taught, the employment of mystic diagrams
{yantra), sacred circles (irlchakra), spells, charms,
and amulets (kavaeha), symbolical movements and
crossing of the fingers (mudrd), etc.

Together with all this, which appears to us so
meaningless and puerile, there is undoubtedly
much that is of historical interest in the Tantras,
and that is of value for the interpretation and
interrelation of Hindu doctrine. They are gener-
ous and broad in their sympathies, recognize no
distinction of caste or sex, ' for men and women
equally compose humankind,' and they forbid
the practice of sati. According to the orthodox
view, the rites and doctrine which they inculcate
are to prevail until the close of the kcUiyuga.

Literature.— H. H. Wilson, Works, i., ii., Essays and
Lectures on the Religion of the Hindus, London, 1862, esp.
i. 24S-251, iii.. Essays on Subjects connected with Sanskrit
Literature, do. 1864, p. 95 £f. ; M. Monier-Williams, Brdhman-
ism and Hinduism*, do. 1891, Indian Wisdom^, do. 1875, p.
501 fit. ; M. Winternitz, Gesch. der indischen Litteratur,
Leipzig, 1908, i. 162 f., 229 n. 3, 481 f.; N. Macnicol, Indian
Theism, Oxford, 1915; W. J. Wilkins, Modern Hinduism^,
London, 1900; Arthur Avalon, Principles of Tantra {Tan-
tratattva), 2 parts, do. 1914 and 1916, Tantra of the Great Libera-
tion (Mahdnirvdna Tantra), do. 1913 ; Arthur and Ellen
Avalon, Hymns' to the Goddess, do. 1913; A. Earth, The
Religions of India^, Eng. tr., do. 1891; R. W. Frazer, Indian
Thought, Past and Present, do. 1915. A. S. GeDEN.

TANTRISM (Buddhist). — A complete study
of Buddhist Tantrism would include the description
and the history of its rites, its deities, and its
doctrines, practically the expose of the many
problems which confront the historian of mediaeval
India. Buddhist tantrism is practically Buddhist
Hinduism, Hinduism or Saivism in Buddhist garb.
The present writer intends only to provide the
reader with a definition of the chief topics.

Buddhists were not quite clear as to the specific
meaning of the word tantra, 'book.' Tiie Tibetan
canon distinguishes the Si'itra (Mdo) and the
Tantra (Egyud), but a number of texts are classi-
fied in both sections : the limits het-ween Sittra (i.e.
MahdydnasUtra) and Tantra are not fixed. On
the one hand, topics which are essentially Maha-
yanist — e.g., hymns to bodhisdttvas (stotra), resolu-
tions to become Buddha (pranidhdn^)—a,re met
with in Tantra ; on the other hand, Ahdulyana-
sutras include a number of fragments and often
whole chapters which would constitute by them-
selves so many Tantrik texts.

A good example is found in the Saddhamiapujidarika, ' Ix)tus
of the true Law,' which contains a whole chapter 1 of dhdranis,
on talisnianic words, invocations in litany form to a female deity
or to a female power ; ' giantesses ' are mentioned as protectors
of the Slit in and of its readers. There are good reasons for
believing that this chapter is a late addition : such an addition
testifies that the spirit of Mahfiyana had become largely tinted
with the spirit of Tantrism, or rather that the Tantrik syn-
cretism made little distinction between Mah.ay.anism and
Tantrism properly so called.

Tantrik books, by assuming the title of Sutra,
secured authority. The Kdrandavyuha is styled
Mahdydnasutraratnardja, ' the verj' best of the
Sutras.' As a matter of fact, the introductory
section is written according to the pattern of a
Mahdydnasutra ; it does not pretend to relate, as
1 Ch. xxi.

194

TANTRISM (Buddhist)

Tantras do, the dialogue of a god with a goddess ;
it preserves the old phrase, ' Thus have \ heard,'
followed by the mention of the place, Sravasti,
Jetavana, and the description of an audience of
bodhisattvas. But, when we consider the chief
topic of the book, viz. the glorihcation of Avalo-
kitesvara as the OM'ner of the * science in six
syllables,' we cannot say that the author has
^vritten what we should like to style a Sutra. In
many cases the Tibetan scholars were not deceived
by mere titles; e.g., although the Suvarnapra-
bhdsa ^ is styled Sutra, it is not in the Mdo, but
in the Egyud, that the Sanskrit and the Chinese
recensions of this celebrated book are to be found.
But the fact remains that Mdo and Rgyud overlap
in a great number of cases. -

These confusions or ' overlappings ' are accounted
for by the fact that a number of speculations,
beliefs, and practices which reach their full
development in the Tantrik or last period of Buddh-
ism were not unknown during the former period
— e.g., the use of talismanic spells. Again, the
Westerns establish a close connexion between the
word ' Tantrism ' and the worse forms of Hindu
(or Buddhist) paganism — magic, theurgy, left-hand
worship — and so far they are right, for the magical
or left-hand practices are properly Tantrik, and not
to be found in Buddhism outside Rgyud ; but these
practices are not the whole of Tantrism. Tantra,
with the Hindus as with the Buddhists, covers a
large field. We find in the Rgyud the texts which
are concerned with worship, whether it is ' Tantrik '
worship or Mahayanist worship, including the
building of domestic stupas, the erection and the
consecration of idols, the stotras or hymns, the
daily offering. Worship, with the whole of the
religious practices, is a Tantrik topic. The
Blmdracharlpranidhdna, ' Resolution of Pious
Conduct,' is reckoned a Tantra, because the recita-
tion of this pranidhdna is one of the daily duties
of a Buddhist devotee of the Great Vehicle : from
the point of view of the Western definition of
' Tantra,' this text is absolutely non-Tantrik : it
is free from any tinge of idolatry, it breathes the
most loft J' spirit of the Great Vehicle.^ Litanies,
lists of 100 names, whether of Prajiiaparamita,
Avalokitesvara, or Maiijusri, are also Tantras.
Litanies may be used for Tantrik or non-Tantrik
worship. We know that the Manjuirindmasam-
giti, 'Collection of the Names of Maiijusri,' is
susceptible of a twofold interpretation : the first is
a gnostic or purely philosophical one, the second
sees its way to give to the most decent phrases the
worst Tantrik meaning.*

Therefore, in order to draw a general outline of
the history of Tantrik ideas in Buddhist literature
and life, we must disregard the traditional divisions
as embodied in the Tibetan catalogues or the
Western theories on the subject, and build a
classification of our own.

I. Early BuddhisJI.— The Old Buddhism, as

Preserved in the Pali canon and in the Sanskrit
[Tnayana literature, has a number of features
which are not specifically Buddhist, which are
alien to the noble eightfold path, which, to put it
otherwise, are more or less Tantrik or open the way
to Tantrism properly so called. Let us mention a

1 P\illy analyzed by E. Burnouf, hitrod. d I'hist. du bond-
dhisme indien, p. 52S.

2 See M. O. Ridding and L. de la Vall6e Poussin, Catalogue
of the Tibetan MSS of the Stein Collection in the India OJice
(Manuscript).

3 Kanjur, Rgyud (Beckh), xxiv. 331 ; also in Vinaya (Dulva) ;
B. Nanjio, A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddh-
ist Tripifaka, Oxford, 18S3, no. 1142, ed. and tr. by Kaikioku
Watanabe, Die Bhadracari : Eine Probe Buddhistisch-religioser
Lprik, Leipzig, 1912.

■* The [Malljuirl]namasariigiti has been published by I. P.
Minayeff together with the Mahdvyutpatti in Buddhism, Re-
searches and Materials, Petrograd, 1SS7, i. sect. 2 (in Russian) ;
we refer to the commentary called A mj-takai}ika.

few topics. (1) There is a general belief in the
mystic power of the ' statements of truth ' ; ^
^akyamuni praises the use of half-magical 'for-
mulas of protection ' which have a large place in
the more recent Sinhalese Buddhism (paritrd,
paritta, pirit).^ (2) In the earliest documents
respect is paid to a number of deities or non-
human beings who are both powerful and un-
friendly ; there is an ' orthodox ' way of dealing
with them, but ' unorthodox ' worship is the
natural result of fear. Yajrapani is regarded as
the ' guardian angel ' of Sakyamuni, as the pro-
tector of the avuu6 of the Church. He is the
pattern of the ' Dharmapalas ' of a later age. (3)
The worship of relics, the building of stupas,
pilgrimages, and idolatry are old features of
Buddhism. (4) Last, not least, the earliest
machinery of meditation or trance is akin to the
more intricate machinery which constitutes the
basis of the Yogatantras. Buddhist ' meditation '
is simply Hindu yoga more or less transformed.
The ' insight into the truth ' (satyadarktna), which
is the only and the sufficient means to nirvana,
practically implies (a) the meditation on loath-
someness (oAubhabhdvand), when the ascetic, often
' a dweller in the cemeteries,' ' purifies his bones '
— i.e. fancies that his flesh is rotten and falls, and
sees only the bones behind, until the whole world
appears to him as full of skeletons — and thus
succeeds in crushing desire ; (b) the restraint of
breath (prdndydina), counting the expirations and
inspirations, in order to render thouglit more
tractable and to direct it towardsthe Buddhist
truths ; (c) the vimoksas, abhibhvdyntanas, and
kasinas, prolonged contemplation of disks of earth,
etc., by which [d) a number of supernormal states
are induced, the so-called dhydnas (jhdna), or
'trances 'and sanidpattis, ot 'ecstasies.' Accord-
ing to the Pali and Sanskrit theologians it is only
when absorbed in those supernormal states that a
man is susceptil^le of rightly understanding the
four Buddhist Truths (satydbhisamaya) and thus
progressing towards nirvdiia. Now it is quite
safe to state that meditations on corpses, restraint
of breath, the diverse methods of inducing trance,
and the trances themselves have been borrowed by
Buddhism from Hindu yoga. Buddhism estab-
lished, more or less artificially, a strong connexion
between those archaic devices of yoga and its own
spiritual aim, nirvana. But Buddhists did not
ignore, and their books do not conceal, the fact
that the discipline of yoya, while it may be made
' supramundane ' (lokottara), i.e. utilized for the
conquest of nirvana, also provides a man with
many 'mundane' (/(^^i^-t/{;«) advantages : he who
lives in cemeteries acquires power over the bhfdas
and the manifold spirits who haunt these places ;
he who ' restrains the breath ' masters thought and
the body ; he who practises trance becomes the
possessor of magical powers and secures rebirth
amongst gods. In short, a man who practises yoga
becomes a yogin, or a siddha, an owner of ' per-
fections ' or ' powers ' {siddhi). It is clear that the
position of Buddhism is not a safe one. Let us
state it in plain words. A monk must perform in
a Buddhist spirit, i.e. for the sake of nirvana, a
number of rites and meditations which confer the
most precious 'mundane' advantages; he must
disregard these advantages — whicli, in India, are
the surest mark of holiness — while he perfectly
knows that he can enjoy them when he likes.
We may be sure — even if there were no documents
to this effect— that many of the monks of early

1 Satyavachana ; see E. W. Burlingame, in JRAS, 1917,
p. 429.

2 See, e.g., R. Spence Hardy, Eastern Monachism, London,
1860, pp. 26, 30, 240 ; H. C. Warren, Buddhism in Translations,
Cambridge, Mass., 1896, pp. 302, 321. A large portion of the
Rgyud is paritrd.

TANTRISM (Buddhist)

195

Christianity were not strong enough to resist so
powerful a temptation ; e.g. , they performed
miracles for 'vain glory.' In such cases they
acted as 'mundane' yogis; technically they
followed the rules that later constitute the Yoga-
tantra.

II. Mahayana. — In Mahay ana bhakti, or
devotion, andpMja, or worship in the Hindu guise,
increase.

Mahayana is, like Hinayana, a thoroughly Buddh-
ist discipline, viz. a way to nirvana ; the dis-
ciple of Mahayana is a candidate for Buddhahood
(bodhisattva, future Buddha), because Buddhas
alone reach nirvana ; he will become a Buddha
by acquiring the wsdom and accumulating the
merit of a IBuddha. But an essential feature of
the doctrine is that the candidate for Buddhahood
cannot succeed without the help of the Buddhas
and of the future Buddhas nearing Buddhahood ;
this help is secured through bhakti. The early
Buddhist paid worship to {5akyamuni, to the relics,
to the holy places, but there was little or no
bhakti in his respectful Ijehaviour. Now the
objects of worship are so many living gods, so
many bhagarnts, quite different from Siikyamuni,
very much like the Hindu bhagnvat, and they are
entitled to the bhakti of the faithful. As has been
pointed out several times, ^ bhakti is seldom free
from elements which easily take a Tantrik shade.
To mention only one point : a man will be saved
by remembering at death the name of Avalokita
or of Krsna. The names of the Buddhas or the
bodhisattvas, the mystic formulas in which they
have themselves placed a wonderful force, acquire
a r61e in the sanctitication of the devotee. Bhakti
has exalted the god to such a degree that bhakti
is no longer necessary. Silntideva, an orthodox
divine of the Mahayanist school, praises without
reservation the use of dharanis for the pardon of
sins.^ The schools of the Mahayana known as
the Sukhavati sects place the highest spiritual
advantages at the command of the man who knows
liow to worship Amitabha.*

Every form of pujd, including the circumambula-
tion of a stupa,'^ offering flowers to a sfiipa, giving
food to the monks, etc., was considered \^ry useful
from the beginning. A treatise like the A dikarma-
pradlpa ^ shows us that Mahayana has added much
to the primitive liturgy ; it gives a description of
the many acts of worship which a Mahayanist
devotee, a ' beginner ' {ddikdrmika), was expected
to perform — recitations of formulas, symbolic
offerings, wondei'ful advantages to be obtained by
acts which easily assume a mechanical character,
so many features which give to Tantrism its
specific aspects. A daily observance was the
eightfold high pujd [astavidhd anuttard pujd), a
sort of worship ' in spirit and truth ' : confession
of sins to the Buddhas and bodhisattvas — to the
Buddhas who have a special claim to the title
of ' Buddha of confession ' ^ — resolve to become a
Buddha, ' application of merit ' ( parindmand), etc.
That this eightfold pfijd often becomes a mere
ritualistic performance — a special kind of dhdrant
— is proved by the fact that it is a part of the
iddhanas (see below). It is well known that
Mahayana is prompt to admit any sort of spells

1 E.g., bj' A. Earth, (Ruvres, Paris, 1914, i. 190.

- &ik^asamuehchaya {Biblwtheca Buddhica, i.), ed. C.
r.endall, Petrograd, 1897, p. 140.

•' See A necdota Oxonicnsia, series m. (Aryan), pt. 2, Oxford,
1S83, and SBE xlix. [1894].

4 See ^ik^asamuchchaya, p. 297 ; I-Tsinjr, A Record of the
Htuidhist Religion, tr. J. Tak.akusu, Oxford, 1896, oh. xxx., 'On
Turning to the Rij^ht in Worship ' : ' What is walking towards
the ri<,'ht or towards the left, however, would seem a little
difficult to determine' (p. 141). I-TsinR has many details on
worship as practised in JIahayivnist convent*.

5 Ed. and tr. L. de la VallOe Pous.sin, Bonddhisine : Etudes et
materianx, London, 1898, pp. 102-282.

6 See ^ikMsamuchchaya, p. 2s9.

that provide ' nmndane ' advantages ^ — of course it
objects to ' black magic' From our point of view,
it is more important to observe that Mahayana
worships a number of beings which are no longer
Buddhist in character.^ The demoniac origins of
Vajrapani are not forgotten ; he nevertheless
obtains a high rank in the pantheon ; as he is the
' destroyer of the enemies of the Law,' he is prob-
ably one of the first gods who have been wor-
shipped under a ' choleric ' aspect.^ Female figures
— e.g., the Tarils — are associated with theBud(lhas,
but there is not in this association any tinge of
' properly so called Tantrism.' The same can be
said of Hariti, the former goddess of smallpox, the
account of wliose avatars is one of the most curious
and the best known pages in the religious and
iconographic history of Buddhism. Her worship,
both in the monastic and in the popular milieux,
gives a correct idea of the INIahayanist and of the
half- Tantrik methods of worship.'*

III. Tantrism proper.— 'i!&ntr\sm, properly
so called, bears a twofold character ; on the one
hand, it is a systematization of the vulgar magical
rites and it has existed under this form for many
centuries in India and in Buddhism itself, to-
gether with its formulas and its pantheon ; on the
other hand, it is a 'theurgy,' a highly developed
mysticism styled Vajrayana ; under this form
Tantrism is an innovation in Buddhism.

Tantrism has its professionals, the sorcerers
(yogin, siddha), and its laymen, the clicntile of
the sorcerers, also all the Hindus who worship
deities or idols of the Tantrik type. The
sorcerers, who are at the same time ' mystics ' or
adepts of the Vajrayana, constitute a number of
schools ; there are many rival secret traditions
characterized by different sets of formulas, of
deities, and of theories.

We shall deal with only two points which
deserve special notice : (1) the methods of saf/Aawi,
(2) the vajrayoga. To be complete, it would be
necessary to study a number of vidhis, or rites,
many of which are part of the Tantrik daily cult
and have been adopted by Mahayanist Buddhism.^

I. Sadhana. — In order to perform a sddhana,
i.e. the evocation of a god, the ascetic must be
duly instructed by a guru and duly consecrated.
The ascetics who have established the manifold
secret sects of Tantrism had to propitiate the
gods by long austerities and meditations before
being favoured with the manifestation of the god ;
they at last received from him the secrets they are
now able to teach to their pupils. The gur^l
therefore assumes great importance: he is the
paramount god of his pupil and the incarnation
of the Buddha himself. When he has been taught
all the details of the rites, the Tantrika must
undertake the sddhana, by which he renders
visible any god he wishes and obtains control over
him. The most important items in tliese niagical
performances are the knowledge of the blja, the
mystic syllable which is the ' germ ' or the 'seed'
of the god, and the knowledge of the vidyd or
mantra, \\\\\c\\ gives to its owner control over him.

On a chosen day the ascetic, after performing the regular
ablutions, wearing a neat dress or a new dress, goes t» a
solitary place, either auspicious — a wood or the bank of a river

1 See, e.g., Jiiastmistik (Bibl. Buddh. xii.), ed. W. RadlofI and
A. von Stael-Holstein, Petrograd, 1910.

2 We say ' in character,' for it is difficult to say whether
Amit.abha, e.g., is not originally a sun-god ; but Aniitibha is
' Buddhistic' ; he is the samhhogakdya, a modern name for the
quasi-eternal Buddha of the Docetic school.

3 The latest authority on the subject is A. Foucher, L'Art

d'Extrnne Orient, xvii., fasc. 3 [1917] ; cf. ./KAS, lJ-9.i, p. 149.

s A glance at the catalogue of the Rgyujl will show the
variet\ of the nidhis.

196

TANTRISM (Buddhist)

—or loathsome — a cemetery — according to the purpose. He
sits there at ease in a purified spot and fulfils in order the
different acts of a Mahiiyanist pujd, offering of fiowers and
perfumes, either mental or real, to the host of Buddhas and
bodhisattpas, confession of sins, etc.i He continues in the same
style by practising the virtues of friendship, pity, joy, in-
difference, by dwelling on the essential voidness of all things.
Thus he is supposed to have acquired both merit (jninya) and
wisdom (jiidna) : all this is only a preparation to the rite
itself. The rite begins with the meditation on the blja of the
god who has been chosen for some technical reason (every god
has his own department in mundane and supramundane
affairs). If the god is Yamantaka or Yamari (the enemy or the
destroyer of Yama, god of death), the syllable is hum ; it is to
be written on the disk which in the magic circle (inan^ala) is
the symbol of the sun. The ascetic causes to arise from hiim
the wrathful Yamantaka, hair bristling, blue, with six faces,
with six arms, with six feet, riding a bull, standing in the
dlnlha pose, adorned with a garland of skuils, exceedingly
frightful. When the god has been summoned in that way, the
ascetic undertakes the second part of the rite : he fancies that
he is the god ; the identity of the ascetic and the god is a
metaphysical truism ; the ascetic does not identify himself with
the god, he only realizes the identity. As soon as the ascetic
knows that he is the god, he possesses all the powers that
belong to the god : any wish he utters in the proper form— for
his voice must be the voice of the god — will surely be
accomplished. 2

As A. Foucher, from whom this definition of
sddhana is borrowed, riglitly observes, the descrip-
tion of the gods as given in Tantrik treatises
must be accurate : any mistake in tlie mental
representation of those frightful persons would be
fateful. The Sadhana treatises have been the
pattern according to which Hindu and Tibetan
artists worked, and they furnish the best means to
the identification of the icons or idols.

Sddhanas serve all sorts of purposes — worship,
white and black magic. In many cases they are
complete with their first part, the summoning of
the deity, to whom worship and prayers are
respectfully offered. More often, when the deities
are the ' girls ' or ' princesses ' {kumdrl, which is
not ' virgin '), or the ' ascetic goddesses ' (yogini),
we have to deal with the worst features of
paganism.^

2. Vajrayana. — But Tantrism is much more
than a pagan system of rites of worship and
sorcery. It is a vehicle (yana, naya), a way to
final liberation or to the stcinmuni bonum. Tan-
trism is the Tantrayana, or the Mantrayana
( = nnyn), 'Vehicle of the Magic Formulas,' more
often and more technically, the Vajrayana.
Vajra, ' lightning,' is originally and remains the
weapon of Indra, of Vajrapani, of the ascetics or
yogins, against human or demoniac enemies. But
vajra has assumed new meanings : (1) it designates
the mystic or divine energy which is identified
with ' intelligence ' (vijiidna) : there are vajrahodhi-
sattvas, ' bodhisattvas of vajra,' vajrayoginis,
' divine female sorcerers,' vajravardhi, ' the divine
sow ' ; all divine beings are so many vajrasattva-i,
'beings of vajra ' ; the supreme being, the
Adibuddha,* is the vajrasattva par excellence.
(2) On the other hand, vajra (with the variant
7nani) is a decent or mystic phrase for lihga, the
male organ, just as padma, lotus, is the literary
rendering of bhaga or yoni.^

To this twofold meaning of vajra correspond
two Tantrik schools, right-hand and left-hand.
Both owe much to the Mahayanist doctrines, to
Madhyamaka, and to Vijfianavada ;* they cling

1 See art. Bodhisattva, vol. ii. p. 749i>,

2 Freely translated from A. Foucher, Etude sur I'iconographie.
bouddhique de I'Inde d'apres des teztes inMits, Paris, 1899-1905,
pt. ii. p. 8f. See F. \V. Thomas, 'Deux Collections sanscrites
et tib6taines de Sddhanas,' Musion, new ser., iv. [1903] 1.

3 On the Tantrik pantheon see A. Griinwedel, Mi/thologie dw
Bouddhisme au Tibet et en Monyolie, tr. J. Goldschmidt,
Leipzig, 1900. The description of the local deities of Nepal in
S. Levi, Le N^pal,^ Paris, 1905, i. 316-392, practically applies to
all parts of Buddhist India.

4 See ERE i. 93.

5 On tlie spell oiji rnani padme hum see JRAS, 1915, p. 397,
and L. A. Waddell, art. Jrwel, vol. vii. p. 555. The old trans-
lation, ' Jewel in the lotus,' may be right after all.

'' See art. Philosophy (Buddhist).

to the theory of universal voidness (h'myatd), but
they develop the concepts of tathatd, tathdgata-
gnrbha, etc., and result in an undisguised monism.
Wliile Mahayana states that all beings are
' future Buddhas,' that all beings are ' embryos
of tathdgatas,' the two Tantrik schools maintain
that all beings are vajrasattvas, are the unique
Vajrasattva ; they also maintain that the nature
of vajra is immanent in all beings and can be
actualized by appropriate meditations and rites.

Now the left-hand school ponceives the nature
of vajra according to the Saivite pattern ; the
right-hand school is nearer the Vedantist or Yoga
tradition : on the one hand the traditions of the
Mahakdlatantra, etc., on the other hand the
Church of the Mahdvairochandbhisarnbodhi, the
Vajrasekhara, etc. — the modern Japanese sect of
Shin-gon-shu.

In the Tantras of the Saivite type, we have to
deal with a Buddhist adaptation of Saivism and
Saktism. The three traditional bodies of a Buddha
are preserved, but the true nature of vajrasattva
is his fourth body, ' the body of bliss ' [dnanda,
sukhamaya, mahdsukhakdya), the body of vajra ;
it is with that body that the eternal tathdgata or
bhagavat eternally embraces his Sakfi, Tara or
Bhagavatl. From this erotic conception of the
nature of being or the divine being it follows that,
in order to actualize his real divine nature, the
ascetic must perform the rites of union mth a
woman {yogini, inudrd) who is the personification
of the bhagavati,^ who is Bhaga vati herself ; as it is
said, buddhatvam yosldyonisamdsritam, ' Buddha-
hood abides in the female organ.' ^ This truth
was discovered by Sakyamuni, who, according to
the Chandamahdrosana, conquered Buddhahood
by practising the Tilntrik rites in the harim. The
most conspicuous topic of this literature is what is
called the stripujd, 'vorship of women : * disgust-
ing practices, both obscene and criminal, including
incest, are a part of this piljd, which is looked
upon as the true ' heroic behaviour ' (duhkara-
charyd) of a bodhisattva, as the fulfilment of the
perfect virtues. Buddhist mythology and mysti-
cism are freely mixed with idktas : the semen is
the five Buddhas, etc. The leading idea that
' everything is pure to a pure man,' omnia sancta
Sanctis, is often expressed. ' Lust is to be crushed
by lust. . . . Do strenuously that which is con-
demned by fools, united with your chosen deity,
intent upon the purification of thought. Women
stirred with the poisonous fire of love provide
their lovers, ascetics of pure mind, with all the
fruit of love. . . . Enjoy all the pleasures of love
without fear. Do not fear ; you do not sin.''*

We may add two remarks. (1) Some ' moral ' rules are to be
observed even in the ceremonies (chakra) which are provided
for the thorough enjoyment of the ina (mdijiaa, ' meat,' madya,
' alcohol,' maithuna, ' sexual union '). A modern Saivite work,
the Mahdnirvdnatantra,^ explains that 'the ascetics should
drink so long as their eyes do not roll and mind is not agitated.
Beyond it, drinking is like that of a beast.' The rite of
pur-n.dbhiseka or tattuachakra must not be practised with any
woman, but with one's own wife ; so far, good, but there are
two sorts of marriages, one for life, the other contracted for
the purpose of the rite and lasting only till the completion ol
the rite. (2) Secret rites are the business of a few 'devotees.'

1 We meet the formula, Bhagavdn bhagavatlbhagefu
vijahdra.

2 On the maithuna rites see C. Bendall, ' Sabhasitasamgraha,'
Musion, new ser., iv.-v. [1903-04]; L. de la Valine Poussin,
' Une Pratique des Tantras,' ICO, Paris, 1899, i. 241, ' Note sur
le Pancakrama,' ICO, Geneva, 1895, i. 137.

3 On stripujd in Hindu Tantrism see H. H. Wilson, Sketch of
the Religioiis Sects of the Hindus, Calcutta, 1846, p. 160 f.
(Select Works, London, 1861-77, i. 256 ff.). Little has been
added by modern scholars ; see R. G. Bhandarkar, y^aii^'fiavism,
ijaivism and Minor Religious Systems ( = GIAP iii. 6), Strass-
burg, 1913, p. 146.

•1 H. P. Hhastri, 'Discovery of a Work by Aryadeva,' c/'.4SB,
vol. Ixvii. pt. i. no. 2 [Calcutta, 1898], p. 175.

5Tr. Manmatha Nath Dutt, Wealth of India, Calcutta,
1899-1900, vii.-viii.

TAOISM

197

On the whole and for the largest number of its adherents,
Tantrism is simply paganism.

According to the left-hand Tantrism which we
have described, the rites of union {maithuna) are
not efficacious by themselves: before practising
them the candidate for vajrasattva-hooa must be
' purified ' in a threefold respect ; he must possess
the body, the voice, and the thought of a
tathngata. This threefold purification constitutes
the Tantrism of the right hand.

These are 'aspersions' or 'consecrations'
(ahhiseka),^ 'marking' (nyasa) which consecrates
the ditt'erent limbs of the body, 'prayers' (japa)
which purify the voice. The most intricate part
of this discipline concerns thought. No Western
scholar has yet endeavoured to understand the
three mysteries of the body, the voice, and
thought, the vajradhdtu and the garbJuidhatu, the
five tathdgatas (the so-called dhyclnibuddhas^) who
are associated with five wisdoms, with the five
dhcitus (earth, etc. ), etc. ; the Buddha, Vajra, and
Padma class of formulas, etc. We depend on the
descriptions of the Shin-gon-shu sect, which are
too meagre and obscure to be thoroughly in-
telligible.* The opinion of the present writer is
that a number of schools are to be distinguished :
there are branches which are connected with
rajayoga (meditation and knowledge are the only
means to the actualization of the nature of a
tathdgata) ; some other branches praise ritualistic
performances, especially ' intertwinings of the
fingers ' {mudrd) ; * some will admit the rite of
union, but with a female described as a jiidna-
mudrCi, a mental female.^

Literature. — i. Tibetan canon. — A. Csoma, Asiatic Re-
searches, XX. [Calcutta, 1820], tr. L. Feer, AMG ii. [18S1] ;
H. Beckh, Verzeichnis der tibetischen Handschriften, Berlin,
1914 (on which see P. Pelliot, JA ii. [1914] 113) ; Taranatha,
Gesch. des BuddhistnibS in Indien, tr. F. A. von Schiefner,
Petrograd, 1869 ; P. Cordier, Catalogue du fonds tibitain de
la Bibliothkqiie nationale, pt. ii., Paris, 1909, pt. iii., do. 1915.

ii. Saiiskrit sources.— C. Bendall, Catalogue of Buddhist
Sanskrit MSS in the University Library, Cambridge, 1883 ;
R. Mitra, The Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal, Calcutta,
1S82 : H. P. 6astri, A Catalogue of Palm Leaf and Selected
Paper MSS, do. 1906.

iii. Editions, translations, or descriptions of Tdntrik texts. —
E. Burnouf, Introd. A I'hist. du bouddhisme indien, Paris,
1845 ; W. Wassilieff, Der Buddhisms,, Petrograd, 1860 ;
L. de la Valine Poussin, Bouddhisme : Etxides et matiriaux,
Brussels and London, 1898 ; C. Bendall, ' Meghasutra,' JRAS,
ISSO, p. 286, ' Subhasitasamgraha,' Mus^on, new ser., iv.-v.
[1903-04] ; Poussin, Etudes et textes tantriqv^s, i. Pailcakrama,
Ghent, 1896.

iv. The Tdntrik literature is supposed to be included m a
fourth basket, the Dhdranipitaka or the Vidyddkarapltaka,
on which see Hiuen-Tsiang, S. Julien, Voyages des pelerins
bouddhistes, Paris, 1853-58, iii. 37 (S. Beal, Si-yu-ki : Buddhist
Records of the Western World, London, 1884, ii. 165) ; I-tsing,
Voyages des pterins bouddhistes : mimoire . . . sur les religieux
emincnts, tr. E. Chavannes, Paris, 1894, p. 101 ; L. de la Vallee
Poussin, JRAS, 1895, p. 433.

V. On the authors of the Tantras.—l,. de la Valine Poussin,
Bouddhisme : Opinions sxir I'hist. de la dogmatique, Paris, 1909,
pp. 355, 384.

vi. On the subdivision of the Tdntras, with the data of
L. A. Waddell, The Buddhisin of Tibet, or Lamaism, London,
1895, p. 152 and H. A. Jaschke, A Tibetan-Eng. Diet., do. 1881,
p. 112, of. the Padmatdntra, Catalogue of the Sanskrit 3lanu-
scripts in the Library of the India Office, pt. iv., Sanskrit
Literature, by E. Windisch and J. Eggeling, London, 1894, p.
847; Sarat Chandra Das, Tibet.-Eng. Diet., Calcutta, 1902,
pp. 342, 396, 586, 697. L. DE LA VALLEE PoUSSIN.

^OTSM. — Taoism is one of the three ' Teach-
inj^f' {Sam Chiao) of China, the others being
Confucianism and Buddhism. Like Confucianism,
and uulike Buddhism, it claims to be a native
growth.

I. Lao-tse. — The primary source for our know-
ledge of Taoism is the Tao-Teh King. This small

1 See Initiation (Buddhist), vol. vii. p. 321, under 4 and 5.

* This phrase has never been met in any Sanskrit book.

3R. Fujishima, Le Bouddhisme japonais, Paris, 1889, pp.
81-99.

*See Si-do-in-dzou, 'Gestes de I'Offlciant,' AMG, Bibl.
d'Studes, t. viii., Paris, 1899.

5 Mudrd has a twofold meaning.

book of about 5000 characters, usually divided into
two parts, ' Concerning Tao ' and ' Concerning Teh,'
comprising 81 chapters, is traditionally ascribed to
Lao-tse (born 604 B.C.), an older contemporary of
Confucius. Lao-tse, surname Li, name Erh ( =
'ear'), also known as Tan, a character which
implies some aural peculiarity, is said to have been
an official at the court of Chow and to have been
visited on one occasion by Confucius, who after
the interview compared him in his lofty incompre-
hensibility to a soaring dragon. Despairing of the
world, Lao-tse retired from office and disappeared
through the Western passes, the guardian of which
induced him before leaving to compose the Tao-Teh
King as a record of his teaching. This account of
him was in later times supplemented by many
marvels — e.g., his prolonged gestation, which
entitled him to be called 'old boy,' as his name
Lao-tse might also be translated. Si-ma Ch'ien
(t 85 B.C.), who gives the more sober account of
Lao-tse, gives also the names of his son and grand-
son and of the great-great-grandson of this grand-
son. He tells us further that about the middle of
the 2nd cent. B.C. a book of Lao's was a favourite
with the widowed empress of the second Han
emperor. The emperor King (156-143 B.C.) is said
to have made it a ' classic' Still further back than
Si-ma Ch'ien we have in Hwainan (t 122 B.C.), Han
Fei (t 230 B.C.), and Chwang-tse (4th cent. B.C.)
many quotations from Lao-tse (or Lao Tan) which
are to be found in the Tao-Teh King. According
to Legge, the first two of these authors quote the
whole or parts of 71 out of the 81 chapters of that
book. On a review of the evidence thus summarized,
Legge concludes that he does not know of any
other book of so ancient a date of which the
authenticity of the origin and genuineness of the
text are so well substantiated.

Criticism, however, has been busy both with Lao-tse and with
his book. Founding upon the name Lao-tse, which may mean
equally well ' old philosopher ' or ' old philosophers,' an extreme
criticism has resolved him into a number of ancient thinkers,
some of whose sayings are preserved for us in the Tao-Teh King.
For this view there is no ground except the ambiguity of the
name. A less drastic criticism, of which H. A. Giles is represen-
tative, allows that at a remote period Lao-tse lived and thought
and taught, and that some fragments of his teaching are preserved
in the tao-Teh King, in which we have those fragments pieced
together by a not too skilful forger of the 2nd cent. B.C. with
padding of his own. This conclusion is said to be practically
certain. The criticism, however, by which it is attempted to
establish this conclusion is somewhat crude. The external
evidence summarized above at least does not support it ; nor
is it warranted by the occurrence in early Taoist writers of
sayings ascribed to Lao-tse which do not appear in the Tao-Teh
King and of sayings ascribed to Hwang-ti which do appear
there, or by the evidence adduced from the Tao-Teh King itself
(repetitions, quotations, late characters, rhyme), while the dis-
crimination of what is admitted as genuinely from Lao-tse from
what is rejected as compiler's padding is too subjective to be
convincing. In favour of the earlier date of the 2'ao-Teh King
it may be noted that, in its general type of tcat-hing and in the
avoidance of technical terms current in later Taoist authors it
leaves on the reader the imiiression that it belongs to a less
developed stage of Taoist thought than is found in them. The
Tao-Teh King, however, still .awaits a thorough application of
sound critical principles. Indian influence on both the matter
and the form of the Tao-Teh King has been asserted by some.
The truth of this assertion cannot be considered apart from the
general archsoological question of the intercourse between India
and China. There is a certain congruence between the mood
of the Tao-Teh King and Buddhism, but not such as requires
the dependence of one on the other as its explanation, and the
present state of our knowledge hardly warrants the assumption
of contact with Indian thought early enough to influence the
Tao-Teh King, unless that book is dated later than all the other
evidence seems to demand. According to D. T. Suzuki, the so-
called Indian influence on the early Taoists is not probable. It
is curious that in Tao-Teh King, ch. 39, § 3, there is an illustra-
tion taken from a chariot and its parts to which T. W. Ilhj-s
Davids 1 quotes a close parallel as having been used by N.igasena,
the founder of the Madhyamika school of Northern Buddhism,
who taught about the beginning of our er.a. It is to be noted,
however, that the same argument, only with a horse instead of
a chariot as illustration, is found in Chwang-tse, bk. 25, p. 126.
It is not difficult to cull from the Tao-Teh King
admirable ethical maxims.

1 Buddhism, London, 1878, p. 97.

198

TAOISM

' The highest croodness is like water. Water is srood for
advantagiiiff all things and does not strive. It takes the place
that all men hate ' (ch. 8). ' He who raises himself on tip-toe
cannot stand : he who straddles cannot walk ' (14). ' He who
overcomes men has force ; he who overcomes himself is strong.
He who knows he has enough is rich ' (33). ' I have three
precious things which I count and hold precious. The first is
gentleness. The second is moderation. The third is not daring
to take the first place under heaven ' (67). To these might be
added, but for the considerations mentioned below, the famous
'Recompense injury with kindness' (63).

The virtues commended lie in the line of self-
siippression. For the inward state of which they
are modifications the characteristic word is hsii,
'eui])tiness,' i.e. freedom from desires. Correspond-
ing to this inner freedom from desires is the out-
ward life of non-action {wei wu wei), i.e. absence
of self-determined action for particular ends.
Hence the world is an ethical danger (12), for it is
by the world that we are drawn out into desire
and action away from the stillness of our inner
being, which it should be our object to keep (5),
though this true type of life is unattractive except
to the sage (35). He attains this life by a process
of abscission of motives, by which he arrives at a
childlike state of spontaneity and tenderness, in
which there is also exemplified the paradoxical
])ossession of security and strength (10, 20, 28, 55).
This ethical ideal is supported by various argu-
ments. Thus in ch. 13 the argument seems to be
that to be in a position to enjoy what the world
regards as honour is to be exposed to what the world
regards as calamity. That which makes me a pos-
sible subject of either is just that I am an object to
myself. The sage therefore treats his person as if
it were alien from him. He never identifies his
happiness with this or that, so never loses his
happiness. Having no private ends, his private
ends are realized (7). Again, it seems to be argued
that as ideas suggest their contraries — e.g., to
know beauty is also to know ugliness— so the sage,
seeing that everything is dogged by its opposite as
by its shadow, refrains from all positive action (2).
From the external world Lao-tse gathers illustra-
tions, both negative and positive, of his teaching.
The short-lived storm of wind and rain suggests
the futility of violent action. Water in its fluidity
and taking the lowest place exemplifies absence of
self-determination and humility, while, as it also
benefits all things and wears away that which is
hard, it illustrates the paradoxical issue of wu wei
('Do nothing') in wu pu wei ('There is nothing
that is not accomplished'). Specially is illus-
tration to be found in vegetable life, which in
obedience to an inner impulse or appointment
passes through its cycle of growth, culminating
and again subsiding (16). The Taoistic life is
therefore a life of equable indifference, outwardly
of non-action, devoid, i.e., of action for chosen
ends ; moved in obedience to an inward spontane-
ity ratiier than motived by outward inducement ;
a life conscious, rather than self-conscious, spon-
taneous rather than self-determined. Hence the
sage is 'simple' (19) with the simplicity of un-
WTOught wood as contrasted with the detiniteness
of a carved beam; i.e., he is free from self-deter-
minatenes.s. Again, he grasps ' the one ' (22),
withdrawing himself from the manifoldness of
self-determination along particular lines and hold-
ing to ' the one,' i.e. the princijjle which Lao-tse
knows as Tao.

The metaphysics of the Tao-Teh King centre in
this conception of Tao. In many passages Tao
has its common meaning of 'a way,' either the
ethical way that men should follow or the method
of action followed by Heaven (cf. ' course of Pro-
vidence ') or prescribed by Heaven for man's follow-
ing. But elseAvhere it is a metaphysical principle
(chs. 1, 4, 14, 21, 25, 34, 37, 40, 42, 51, 62). The
gist of what is stated in these chapters is as follows :

The origin of heaven and earth is nameless (1), is indeed non-
existence (40), something quite indefinite, which, when we
attempt to define it, becomes nothing (14, 25) ; if we must make
a name for it, we may call it Tao : it may seem to be prior to
God (4) ; it becomes nameable in relation to the universe that
springs from it (1), in an order which maj' be partly known (42) ;
not only is it the origin of the universe as a whole, isut it presides
over all beginnings (21), reaching everywhere (25, § 3) and doing
everything, while it seems to do nothing (37).

Summing up what we have here, we may say :
(1) as transcendent existence Tao is something
quite indefinite, which Lao-tse struggles to express
by negatives ; (2) from this indefinite ground the
universe of things issues by a process which is
emanation from Tao as mother and not creation
by Tao as agent ; (3) Tao is immanent in the world,
working in an unobtrusive way, producing and
bringing to perfection individual existences. On
the whole, we perhaps come nearest to the mean-
ing of Tao when we say that it is pure being (most
abstract of categories) endowed with spontaneity,
the ultimate essence and impulse of all definite
things. Obviously this conception of Tao excludes
all idea of its equation with God. In ch. 4 Lao-
tse says of Tao, ' I do not know whose son it is : it
appears to be before God (Ti).' There can be no
doubt that with Lao-tse Tao is the ultimate ground
of all definite existences, Ti among them, while,
by saying that he did not know whose son Tao
was, he lets us see that, having arrived at his con-
ception of Tao, beyond which he could not go, for
in the line of logical abstraction there is no going
further than ' being ' which Ls nothing, he yet
dimly felt that it did not explain itself.

The only otlier term in the Tao-Teh King capable
of a tlieistic interpretation is Tien, Heaven. In
some instances of its use a near approach is made
to what we mean by Heaven when we use it as
equivalent to Providence. In this, its highest, use
it is not merely the physical sky, but a power
supreme in the world of visible things obscurely
connected with the sky, which is the supreme
exemplar of Tao, but, even so, posterior and sub-
ordinate to it. Tao is to Lao-tse the ultimate and
determining fact.

His metaphysic, as thus explained, explains his
ethic. The ground of existence being a perfectly
indefinite spontaneity, a dark abysmal one from
which, for no reason assigned, the multiplicity of
the world emanates, by the immanence of which
the world is and is moved — all this agrees with the
ethical doctrine of abstention from self-determina-
tion and of sinking back on the inner ground of
our being that we may be as this spontaneity in
us causes us to become. Here is the justification
for regarding Lao-tse's doctrine as simply a variant
of ' Follow nature ' ; only we must remember that
Tao is both the substantial essence and the dynamic
spontaneity of all things. This, of course, brings
up the difficulty of accounting for the existence in
natura naturata, the world of concrete things, of
any contrariety to natura naturans, Tao, and
raises the question, neither asked nor answered by
Lao-tse, why a short-lived storm is not as much
an expression of Tao as the enduring stillness of
Heaven. _

Before turning again to the practical side of"
Lao-tse's teaching, we may refer to what may, by
courtesy, be called his tlicorj' of knowledge. It is
by freedom from desire that we can attain to a
knowledge of the mysteries of IVw (1). Inasmuch
as Tao is the principle of all existence, knowing it,
we are at the heart of all knowledge. There is no
need for the sage to expatiate over the world. With-
out moving out of doors he already knows (47).
Knowing one ca.se, he knows all, for Tao is the
one universal princi[)le (44).

We can best return to Lao-tse's practical teach-
ing by the word Teh, which next to Tao is his
key-word. Like Tao, it received from Lao-tse a

TAOISM

199

new meaning, since it is the outcome of Tao (51).
There is indeed a Teh which begins where Tao
ends (38). This is the Teh which is the result
of eflbrt, self-conscious teh. Teh in the Taoist
sense is usually distinguished by some epithet —
'mysterious,' 'large,' 'lasting,' etc. As the out-
come of Tao, it is activity devoid of self-determina-
tion, the expression of the spontaneity of the
immanent Tao. The various virtues commended
by Lao-tse are aspects of, or approximations to,
this teh. It is in this Taoistic sense that we must
take the famous maxim ' Recompense injury with
teh,' where it is a mistake to translate teh by ' kind-
ness.' The maxim is no more than a precept of
indifferent self-possession : ' Be a Taoist, even
though provoked ' (cf. 5).

Lao-tse's practical teaching is completed by his
speculations on physiology and politics. As to
the former, it is asserted that the Taoist adept
attains to ' lastingness ' (7, 16, 44, 59). There is
no place of death in him, and so he passes through
dangers unscathed (50). Hints are also given of
a death which is not destruction, implying a

})ersistence in spite of death which is true long
ife (33). This thought, however, is not developed.
With the other form of longevity appears to be
associated a certain management of the breath
(10, 52), and through this vein of thought there is
a connexion with later Taoist developments.

In Lao-tse's politics, as in his ethics, there are
attractive thoughts — e.g., the protest against
luxury in the court alongside misery among the
people (53) and the detestation of war (31). The
Taoist method of government is laissez-faire. The
sagely king does nothing, and everything comes
right of itself (32, 37, 57). Logically Lao-tse's
thought implies that any sage would be the centre
of a universal sway (49, 57, 77), but it is hinted
that the influence of a sage becomes effective only
when he has the advantage of high place (56).
Here Lao-tse is in line with Confucius, who asserted
that his principles would transform the world if
only he could find a ruler wise enough to give him
office. In describing the society which would
come to being under Taoist influence, Lao-tse
pictures small stay-at-home communities devoid
of letters and of luxury, content with what is
theirs and utterly incurious of what is not. As
men within a Taoist society so societies in their
relation to one another are to act Taoistically.
The right way is one for men and for States (61).

There are unexplained remainders in the Tao-
Teh King, but Lao-tse does give us a reasoned
view of things. As we think back and back, Ave
come to something which we cannot see or hear
or touch, an obscure something from which all
things come. It is in all things, which could not
be apart from it. Yet it never parades itself.
It simply is, a mysterious, ever-during, all-working
existence. Let us conform ourselves to this : let
us become one with it. For it is in us as in all
else — our essence which would realize itself if it
were not hindered by our self-will and self-seeking.
If we put away these, then we know it and are
and become what it tends to be. It is Tao, un-
qualified being, origin of things, and in them as
essence and spontaneity.

2. Taoism before Lao-tse. — The question has
been raised whether Taoism existed prior to Lao-
tse. That there was such an early Taoism is
argued on the grounds of quotations in the Tao-
Tch King from earlier Taoists, the persistent
reference of Taoism not only to Lao-tse but also
to the at least semi-mythical Yellow Emperor
(Hwang-ti, 2697 B.C.), so that 'the words of
Hwang and Lao ' came to be a term for Taoist
teaching, and the allusions in the Tao-Tch King
and other Taoist writings to an age when the

world moved on Taoist principles. It has also
been argued that, while the I -King is dualistic,
it also contains allusions to a monistic and ideal-
istic strain in pre-Confucian speculation, and that
a doctrine of that from which the dual principles
derived (Tao) was in various forms well known.
Hence, it is claimed, the I-King, the doctrine of
Tao, and some strongly held ethical principles
intuitively known were the materials on which
Confucius and Lao worked, Lao appropriating the
monistic sayings of the I-King but placing his
chief reliance on the doctrine of Tao as handed
down from the Yellow Emperor.^ In the same
line E. H. Parker " says that there is little doubt
that Lao-tse simply gave a name {Tao) to a floating
group of ethical principles already for many cen-
turies spread far and wide over China and already
well known as the maxims of Hwang-ti, and that
every single thought in the Tao-Teh King had
been foreshadowed, usually word for word, in the
Book of History, Book of Rites, Record of Rites,
Book of Changes, Book of Odes, or other very
ancient work. Among these other ancient works
Parker puts the volume attributed to Kwan-tse,
which he dates from the 7th cent. B.C. In spite
of all that is here said, it may still be reasonably
maintained that there is no conclusive evidence
of an explicit Taoism previous to Lao-tse. Even
Parker does not deny a certain originality to Lao-
tse in developing a new quietistic conception of
how human affairs once presumably were, and
ideally should be, regulated. There may have
been a floating group of ethical principles which
Lao-tse took over, but it is the reasoned quietism
of the Tao-Teh King based on Tao as metaphysical
principle that alone has the right to be called
Taoism, and of the earlier existence of this proof
is yet lacking. In the Tao-Teh King itself there
is no mention of Hwang-ti, and the allusions to
the simpler social conditions of earlier times do
not prove the existence then of a reasoned Taoism.
Certainly this would be proved if we found Lao
quoting ' from some sage anterior to himself who
had already formulated the doctrine of inaction
in the very terms we are accustomed to associate
with the name and fame of Lao-tse himself.'^
The reference is to Tao-Tch, ch. 57. But the
introductory phrase may be translated ' Therefore
the sage says,' meaning that such language is
characteristic of the sage, whether actually or
hypothetically existing, just as the next chapter
contains a similar gnomic reference to the sage's
action. Five other quotations (22, 41, 50, 69, 78)
may be admitted, but they are not of a kind to
prove the existence of Taoism anterior to Lao.
Only if numerous other phrases introduced by
the formula ' ku yiieh' are treated as quotations,
can justification be found for speaking as Legge
does of ' the sentence-makers often drawn on by
Lao-tsze'*or for .saying that Lao-tse 'abounds in
sentences out of some ancient lore of which we
have no knowledge but for him.'' But these
phrases may not be quotations so much as ajjlior-
istic expressions of Taoistic teaching, ]ierliaps
already current with Lao and his school. Parker's
wide reference to ancient literature must be
heavily discounted. It is difticult to justify his
appe.al to books so innocent of Taoism as the
Book of History and Book of Odes. Moreover, it
is one thing to find in ancient literature exjires-
sions congruent with Taoism and quite another
thing to lind expressions essentially Taoistic. It
is true that Tao-Teh is a conjunction of characters

1 Encyclopa'dia Sinica, p. 433.

2 Stvilies in Chinese Religion, p. 53.

3 tiiles, China Bevieic, xiv. 270.

■« The Texts o/Tdoism, pt. i. [SEE xxxix.] p. 2.
5 S. Johnson, Oriental Helijions : China, Boston, U.S.A.,
1877, p. 81.

200

TAOISM

long consecrated by use in the Book of Changes
and the Book of Rites. ^ In the Book of History
or elsewhere we may meet with phrases such as
•The Son of Heaven acts as the people's Father
and Mother, and as such is the King of the world,'
or 'That the Prince of a State should hold dirt
in his mouth is the Providence [Tao) of Heaven.'
But such things do not prove the existence of
Taoism as a scheme of thought prior to Lao-tse.
Nor, when we read in the Tao-Teh King, ' Thus
we cannot say that the ancients meant nothing
by the expression " Bend and survive," ' is it quite
legitimate to annotate, ' Note Lao's allusion to
more ancient philosophy.' There is no evidence
that the ancients grounded this maxim on a
metaphysical Tao. The I-King does in parts ^
contain indications of what may be called Taoist
philosophy ; but this very fact leads Legge to put
the origin of these parts posterior to Lao-tse in
the 5th or 4th cent. B.C. Kwan-tse may be dated
in the 7th cent. B.C., but the work ascribed to
him is suspected of being a forgery of a later date.
In the present state of our knowleage it is probably
right to say that the existence of a Taoist philo-
sophy prior to Lao-tse is not proven. The Tao-
Teh King may still be taken as the earliest
example of TaoLst thought.

3. Taoism after Lao-tse.— The history of Taoism
immediately subsequent to Lao-tse is obscure.
Somewhat later its development can be traced in
a succession of authors.

(a) Lieh-tse. — The earliest of these may be
Lieh-tse ( = Licius, 5th cent. B.C.), but the authen-
ticity of the work ascribed to him is doubtful.
According to him, the whole of things is in per-
petual transformation. The ultimate basis of all
is a vague something which differentiates itself
into cKi, hsing, and chih. The second and third
terms may be translated ' form ' and ' matter '
respectively, though we must beware of assuming
an exact equivalence to these terms as used else-
where (e.g., in Greek philosophy). Ch'i is more
difficult to translate. Giles ^ gives as its meanings
' the vivifying principle or aura of Chinese
cosmogony : breath, vital fluid : force : influence.'
The state of things when these three were in an
undifferentiated and therefore imperceptible con-
dition is called ' chaos,' whether this is or is not
to be identified with the ultimate origin and basis
of things. Progress is made from chaos by an
evolution vaguely indicated, in the final stages of
which the pure and light portions form ' heaven,'
the heavy and gross form ' earth,' and ' man '
appears as the vehicle of their harmonious ch'i.
The general ethical temper is quietist, based now
on ignorance, now on fatalism. Another root for
it is found in the subjectivity of knowledge, and
the absence of any criterion of truth and falsehood,
right and wrong, though this is hinted at rather
than developed. Along with this may be noted
a disclaiming of any discrimination in worth
between waking and dreaming experiences. Views
of death are given which are perhaps not quite
consistent. On the one hand is put the question,
which might suggest Buddhist influence, ' "When
the spiritual enters its gate and the material
returns to its root, where do "I" survive?' On
the other hand, it is asked whether death may
not be another birth. Lieh-tse makes much use of
anecdotes, a good many of which seem to have been
treated by Taoist writers as the stock property
of their school. The magical side of Taoism
shows in Lieh-tse considerable development as
compared with the Tao-Teh King. The secret of
it is such a selfless identification with the life of
nature as brings the Taoist into harmony with

1 Parker, p. 70. * H-g-, Appendix, iii.

3 A Chinese- English Dict.^, London, 1912, s.v.

all its forces, animate and inanimate. The alleged
immunity of a drunken man from injury by
accident is used to illustrate tlie still higher
immunity which one would enjoy who was entirely
under the influence of the ' heavenly ' [i.e. ' natural '
as opposed to 'self-determined') element of his
constitution.

(b) Chivang-tse. — The most brilliant of the Taoist
writers is Chwang-tse (c. 330 B.C.), In him as
little as in the Tao-Teh King is there any syste-
matic exposition of Taoism. In the development
of his views he uses various literary devices —
anecdote, allegory, and imaginary conversation.
In some places he handles somewhat freely not
only Confucius, but even more ancient worthies,
such as Yao and Shun. How little historical
accuracy or consistency is regarded is shown by
the fact that Confucius is also introduced speaking
in quite a Taoist vein. It is not easy to see the
drift and relevance of all Chwang-tse's chapters,
but the reader cannot fail to find a characteristic
attitude towards reality. As in the Tao-Teh King,
the metaphysical basis of everything is Tao, which
as the explanation of all things is not itself a
thing. It is more abstract even than non-existence,
which is made definite by its opposition to exist-
ence, and so it may be called non-existing non-
existence. To call it Tao is only a metaphor.
From this absolute indifference all existences,
including spirits and God, have come. No
explanation is given of this coming into existence
of definite things, though, to be consistent with
the general scheme, the evolution must be un-
motived and spontaneous. The process from un-
conscious indifference to the world of consciousness
and of ditterentiated things is described in the
allegory of ' Heedless ' and ' Hasty ' pitying in-
sensible Chaos, and digging in him orifices of
perception with the result tiiat he died (bk. 7).
Tao is in things, their reality and the regulator
of their processes. In accordance with this view
Tao and things are the hints of the illusory nature
of all knowledge coming through the senses. The
truth of things is perceived by the spirit, and
Taoist ade^jts, when most in touch with reality,
are in a trance, their bodies like rotten tree-
stumps and their minds like slaked lime. One
may notice also the incipient scepticism based on
the relativity of knowledge and the phenomenon
of dreaming. A paragraph more quoted perhaps
than any other from Chwang-tse, though by no
means the most central to his position, is that in
which he hesitates to decide whether he is Chwang-
tse dreaming that he is a butterfly or a butterfly
dreaming that he is Chwang-tse. Since Tao alone
really is, the truth of life is to be found in the above-
mentioned trance M'hen self-consciousness and self-
determination are completely lost. But, as in the
Tao-Teh King, so here, things are taken for granted,
with Tao as their spontaneously operating essence ;
and in accordance with this assumption the ethical
ideal is with Chwang as with Lao a life of
spontaneity. There is inculcated an akscission
of all definite volition and an indifferent yielding
of oneself to the course of nature. Hence follows
a characteristic attitude towards death, which is
regarded as natural and therefore as little to be
feared as birth. The Taoist is independent of all
accidents, which are of no importance in com-
parison with the independent worth of self as an
expression of Tao. It is only false opinion -which
differentiates between this and that outward state.
If all self-determined effort is a departure fi'om the
truth of life, it follows that the devotee of virtue
and the worker of iniquity fall under the same con-
demnation. Hence results a paradoxical levelling
down of moral distinction. A similar strain of
thought appears in Yang-tse, the heresiarch whom

TAOISM

201

Mencius criticized, and is there regarded as con-
gruent with the teaching of Lao Tan.^

(c) Han Fei-tsG and Hwainan-tse. — Other -writers
reckoned as belonging to the Taoist school are Han
Fei-tse(t230 B.C.) and Hwainan-tse (t 122 B.C.).
The Avritings of the former are preserved in 55
chapters, two of which (21 and 22) are entitled
' Explanations of Lao' and ' Dlustrations of Lao.'
Apparent quotations from the Tao-Teh King occur
elsewhere in his writings. Han Fei-tse hardly
discusses the metaphysical side of Taoism. His
book is ethico-political, and is marked by shrewd-
ness rather than by loftiness of tone. One sym-
pathizes with the Chinese student who protests
against his being classed as a Taoist and explains
what he regards as the degenerate nature of his
teaching as due to a perversion to a scheming
selfishness of such sayings of Lao-tse as 'When
one is about to take an inspiration, he is sure to
make a previous expiration' (36) and 'The sage
wishing to be above men, puts himself by his words
below them ' (66). Hwainan-tse is a more genuine
Taoist than Han Fei, but his writings in their
fanciful analogies and extravagant statements
give evidence of a progressive deterioration of
Taoism. Ethically he is superior to Han Fei. In
at least one statement of his fundamental ethical
position he shows a close verbal approximation to
orthodox Confucianism : action in accordance with
the nature (hsing) is called Tao, and this nature is
to be distinguished from the passions (yii).

4. Later Taoist literature. — Later Taoist litera-
ture is voluminous and reflects that medley of
subjects which make up Taoism, such as the
search for immortality (which Chu Hi singles out
as its main object), the conquest of the passions,
alchemy, amulets, the observance of fasts and
sacrifices, ritual and charms, and the multiplied
objects of worship. Much of present-day popular
hortatory literature may be reckoned as Taoist.
Probably the most popular of all Taoist writings is
The Tractate of Actions and their Retributions,
which dates from the Sung dynasty. According
to the original text, retribution takes effect in this
world. The practiser of virtue indeed not only
may receive earthly happiness but also may hope
as the culmination of his reward to become im-
material and immortal, hsien-jen ( — fsi of Bud-
dhism). As for the transgressor, he suffers in his
person and fortune, and, if at his death guilt still
remains unequated by punisliment, judgment ex-
tends to his posterity. Of this retribution Heaven
and spiritual beings are recognized as the agents.
In the illustrative anecdotes added in many
editions to the original text the stage of retribution
includes the other world and successive rebirths in
this world. The inculcated morality has many
excellent details, but extends also to tabus — e.g.,
striding over a well or leaping over food.

5. Present-day Taoism. — Chang Tao-ling (a.d.
34) has been regarded as the founder of present-day
popular Taoism, which is not unfairly described as
a mass of superstitious magic. The earlier litera-
ture, however, makes it evident that before his
time Taoism had yielded to the love of the
marvellous. Chang Tao-ling is said to have re-
ceived from Lao-tse himself, who appeared to him
from the realm of spirits, a sword an^ other
apparatus in virtue of which he was able to exercise
control over the spirit world. Descendants of Tao-
ling, in each of whom it is said tlie soul of their
ancestor is successively incarnate, and whose
residence is at Lung-hu Slian in Kwangsi, have
inlierited his powers, and since A.D. 748 hold by
imperial decree the hereditary dignity of ' Master
of Heaven.' They are often spoken of in works

' J. Legge, Chinese Classics, London, 1861, vol. ii. Slencitts
(Prolegomena, ch. iii.).

on China as Taoist popes. After the introduction
of Buddhism into China Taoism shows very evident
traces of Buddhist influence, whicii was particularly
potent in the 3rd and 6th centuries A.D. In its
religious literature and practices it follows Buddhist
models and borrows Buddhist phraseology. It has
its temples, priesthood, and monasteries. Giles'
statement, that the celibacy of Taoist priests has
been strictly enforced since the 10th cent.,^ is
subject to qualification. Eitel says that Taoist
monks or priests do not take the vow of celibacy.
They may keep their families outside the cloister
walls and spend the whole time between meals
at home.^ Doolittle distinguishes two classes of
Taoist priests.' A Christian influence in the names
and titles of objects of Taoist worsliip has also been
traced by some (e.g., Wieger). Many of the best
known objects of popular worship are members of
the Taoist pantheon; e.g., Yii Hwang Shang-ti,
who is the Supreme Taoist god, is also he to whom
the great name Shang-ti ' sans phrase ' would be
most readily referred by the ordinary Chinese.
Lao-tse is himself worshipped as one of the ' Three
Pure Ones ' whose images are prominent in every
Taoist temple, the two others being Yii Hwang
and Pan Ku. Taoism has produced a plentiful
crop of legends and fairy-tales, the influence of
which is seen in Chinese art.

The gulf between the Taoism of the Tao-Teh
King and preseiit-day Taoism is a wide one. It
has to be remembered, however, that even in the
Tao-Teh King there are passages which suggest a
marvellous mastery of nature by the Taoist adept
and provide a starting-point for that search after
immortality which, accoi'ding to Suzuki, first
opened the door for the inrush of superstition.
The suggestion has also been made that, as the
opposition sharpened between Confucianism and
other strains of thought, all of popular religion
and superstition that found no encouragement in
Confucianism took refuge in Taoism. Over and
above any such accretions and any particular
phrases in the Tao-Teh King which might provide
a germ of magical developments, the general
position of Taoism from the beginning exposed it
to such deterioration. Starting from the assump-
tion that man and nature are fundamentally one,
its quietism obliterated the line between moral and
physical, and promised its adept such a hai-mony
with Nature as laid open to him her secrets and
made him merely the vehicle of her great powers.
The distinctness of the moral person was lost in
the all-embracing sweep of Tao. Confucianism
also speculated on the relation between man and
nature, and thought of the sage as exercising a
cosmic influence. But this influence is the issue
of moral development, and the Confucian emphasis
on selJF-determined morality prevented any sinking
of man into nature.

The nobler elements of Taoism are, however, not
extinct. The Taoist pope is not recognized as head
by all the Taoist priesthood. There are celibate
Taoists among whom the nobler Taoist strain is
cherished, who disclaim any connexion with him.
In some of the secret societies also elements of the
higher Taoism survive. Even in Confucian circles
classical Taoism h.as influence. The writer recalls
one scholar who would not have described himself as
other than Confucianist, who was well acquainted
with the Tao-Teh King, and who used to repeat
with genuine appreciation, ' The highest goodness
is like water.'

6. State relations. — During its long history
Taoism has experienced a considerable vicissitude
of political favour and disfavour. In the pre-Ch'in

1 Confucianism and its Rivals, p. 176.

- }lotes and Queries of China ajid Japan, Oct. 1868.

s Social Life of the Chinese, 2 vols., London, 1806, ch. ix.

202

TARGUMS— TATHAGATA

times the various schools of Chinese thought seem
to have been allowed free play. With the Ch'in
dynasty, the first emperor of which tried to sup-
press Confucianism, Taoism was in favour, and it
continued to enjoy imperial patronage under the
early Han dynasty. Thereafter its political re-
lations were chequered ; e.g., in the 6th cent, it was
suppressed in favour of iSuddhism, while in the
8th cent, it was honoured by the emperor Hsiian
Tsung. After other such vicissitudes it was by
the late Manchu dynasty reckoned along with Bud-
dhism and Christianity as a heterodox teaching
in contrast to the sacred teaching of Confucius. ^
See also art. MYSTICISM (Chinese).

LiTBRATUiiE.— J. Legge, The Texts of Taoism, pts. i. and ii.
\SBE \xxix. and xl.], Oxford, 1891, China Review, Jan.-Feb.
1S88 ; F. H. Balfour, Taoist Texts, London [1884], The Divine
Classic of Nan-hua, Shanghai, 1881 ; S. Julien, Le Livre de la
voie et de la rertu . . . par le philosophe Lao-Tseu, Paris,
1842 ; H. A. Giles, Chuang-Tzu, London, 1889, China Review,
March-April, 1SS6, Confiiciani-sm and its Rivals (HL), London,
1914 ; E. H. Parker, Dublin Review, Oct. 1903, Jan. 1904,
Stiulies in Chinese Religion, London, 1910; R. Dvorak,
Chinas Religionen, Miinster, 1895-1903, ii., ' Lao-tsi und seine
Lehre'; R. K. Do\xg\a.s, Confucianism and Taoism, London,
1906. P. J. MACLAGAN.

TAPAS.— See Asceticism (Hindu).

TARGUMS.— Though the term 'Targum ' was
used by Jewish authorities to designate the trans-
lation of the Hebrew Scriptures into any language,
it was specifically restricted to the Aramaic render-
ings (cf. Ezr 4). Aramaic versions were used
liturgically ; the Hebrew text was read from a
scroll, and this was followed by the Aramaic, re-
cited without book by the ofHcial called metur-
geman. This custom continued to the 10th cent.,
and was in parts maintained beyond that date.
It is possible that the famous rescript of Justinian ^
was directed against the liturgical use of the
Targum.

The most widely read of the Targums was that
ascribed to Onqelos(i.e. Aquila), who lived in the
2nd century A.D. Aquila really rendered the
Scriptures into Greek, but his name became associ-
ated also with the Aramaic version. Onqelos is a
translation of the Pentateuch only, and it is known
as the ' Babylonian Targum,' not so much because
of its language, as because of its official adoption
in the Babylonian Jewish academies. Thus,
though edited in Babylonia, Onqelos is dialectic-
ally Palestinian. Onqelos probably includes ele-
ments of considerable antiquity, which were
derived from oral tradition ; some of it, on the
other hand, is obviously of literary origin. Onqelos
went through various re-editings, so that the
extant text is not usually referred to an earlier
period than the 4th or 5th century. The ' Pales-
tinian Targum' (known also as the 'Targum of
Jonathan'), though later than the earliest re-
cension of Onqelos, contains elements older than
the latter. The most remarkable theological
characteristic of the Targums is the avoidance of
anthropomorphisms. They are thus paraphrases
rather than translations, though in very large
part Onqelos is literal enough.

Similarly there were two Targums to the
Prophets -. the ' Babylonian ' (ascribed to Jonathan,
son of Uzziel), which originated (despite its Baby-
lonian use) in Palestine; and the 'Palestinian,'
which is fuller of homiletic elements. As selections
were read from the Prophets {haftdroth) in the
synagogues, these Targums also partook of an
official character.

On the other hand, there were no such official
Targums to those parts of the Bible from which no
haftarOth were derived. Hence these Targumim
to the Hagiographa form independent groups. On
the whole they are freer, and in some cases (as in
1 Sacred Edict Maxim, 7. - See art. Talmud.

the Second Targum to Esther) are of greater in-
terest for folk-lore than for exegesis. The Targum
to the Song of Songs is throughout allegorical.

Literature.— See full list of authorities in HDB iv. 083. Add
W. Bacher, Die dlteste Terminologie der jiidischen Schrift-
auslcgung, Leipzig, 1899, p. 204 S., and his art. in JE.

I. Abrahams.
TARTARS.— See Turko-Tatars.

TASMANIANS.— See Australasia, Poly-
nesia.

TATHAGATA.— Whatever it may have meant
originally, or from whatever source it may have
beeii derived, Tathagata is an epithet of Buddha
used to express his very personality. It is, first of
all, an appellation to specify his dignity as an
enlightened being and a teacher of men and gods.
He is the one who has realized the four truths
according to reality (yathdbhutam) and, conse-
quently, mastered the way to the realization of
the truths. Sensation, perception, and thoughts
are all under his own control. He is free from the
bondage of the six senses and attachment to their
objects, because they are not his masters, as they
are with the common people, but he is master over
them.i Thus he is beyond all the commotions and
disturbances arising from contact with the objects
of sense and thought. He was born a man, but
has become a superhuman being in respect of and
by virtue of these highest moral and intellectual
attainments. 2 In order to express these super-
human excellences of Buddha's personality, the
Buddhists from the earliest time used to call their
master the Tathagata with a special reverence.
In this use, tlieiefore, the appellation signifies
nearly the same thing as Sugata (' the one
who has gone blessed'). Here Tathagata means
the one who has gone (gata) from the realm of
attachment to the other beyond according to
reality {tatha, which means the same as yatha-
bhiitam).

But the virtue of a Buddha does not consist in
attaining this position for himself alone. He
teaches the people the Way to the same attain-
ment and guides them in its realization. He is
the Master who, having himself reached the castle
of fearlessness, invites and leads them to the same.
The Tathagata is not only sure that he is the
perfectly enlightened one and has thoroughly over-
come the miseries of existence, but also equally
sure that he is the master of the Truth and the
Law. With this confidence he turns the supreme
wheel of the Law and roars a lion's roar m the
assemblies of beings.^ Thus the Tathagata is the
enlightened one who knows the Way and reveals
that Way by treading which he himself has become
the 'thus-gone.'^ He practises as he preaches
{yatha-vddl tathd-kdrl) and vice versa.^ Though
this explanation of the term is, as etymology,
certainly far-fetched, it is quite natural that the
Buddhists saw in their Master a being without any
falseliood and self-deceit. The association of the
appellation with the very personality of an un-
erring Master of the way to final emancipation
is undeniable. A stanza which is said to have
been uttered by the disciples at the death of the
Master is another testimony to this association.
It reads :

iSee Majjhima, nos. 102 and 123 (tr. K.E Neumann iii.
33, 261 f.), and Satnyutta, xxii. 94, xxxv. 136 {PTS ed. m. 139 f.,

" '^^SeeSarpyutta, xxxv. 90, xliv. 2 (PTS ed. iv. 64, 380). _

"■ See Samyutta, xii. 21 {PTS ed. ii. 27), and Aivguttara, iv. 9
(PTS ed ii 9)

4 See Samyutta, viii. V {PTS ed. i. 191), xxii. 58 {PTS ed. iii
65); cf. Anguttara, vi. 64 {PTS ed. iii. ^1/) = J'«.y^''«f' n°- f
(PTS ed i 372) • Saddhanna-puvdarlka {SLE xxi. [18s>t] liO f.).

5 See Itivuttaka, m (PTS ed. p. 122); Anguttara \v. 23
(PTS ed ii 23 f). Cf. below, Lottu^, eh. ii. ; and Mahavastu
(ed. S6nart, Paris, 1890, ii. 260, 266, 362, etc.).

TATHAGATA

203

' The Master, such a Master as he is (yatha ctddiso), without
any parallel in the world, the Tathdyata ... is gone.'l
' Thus-gone ' is the Master who has seen the way
and revealed it to us, according to reality.

To the Buddhists their Master was the 'thus-
gone ' or ' thus-destined' (translation of Edmunds)
to tinal emancipation, the 'perfected' {dcr Voll-
cndete, Neumann) in wisdom and its realization, in
short, the ' truth-winner ' (Rhys Davids). The
appellation was certainly a self-designation of
Buddha, but it was more used by his disciples to
express their confidence in the Master.

So far the empirical aspect of the concept. We
must now take up the metaphysical side of the
idea conveyed by or attached to the term. The
Buddhists were, probably in Buddha's lifetime,
nearly realizing for themselves the truth that the
revealer of the Way must be at home in it, and
tlaat therefore he is the Way itself. They said :

' The laws (dhammd) are real and not otherwise as they are,
and these are perfectly known by the Tathagata.'2 Here 'the
laws ' mean not only Buddha's teaching:, but the things taught
in his teaching and their essence. Hence the saying : ' He, the
Blessed One, knows having known (the laws), sees having seen,
born of Light, born of Wisdom, born of Truth (dhavima-bhuto),
and born of Brhma ; He is the one who reveals and tells, the
One who gives immortality, the Lord of Truth, the Tathagata.'S
Here we have translated the dkamma by ' truth,' i.e. the truth
expressed in Buddha's laws.

The ideas here formulated cannot be called
metaphysical speculations ; still they show a
tendency to base the faith in the Master on the
transcendental entity of the Truth, not only
revealed to us by him, but also represented person-
ally by him. The foundation and elaboration of
these ideas must proceed to a further development
of Buddhological (so to speak, in analogy with
'Christological') speculations. The fact of the
faith has been laid down by the personal influence
of the Master; thought and clear conception
must follow it. And it is quite natural that
the Buddhological ideas were always closely
associated with the appellation Tathagata. These
thoughts may be studied from three aspects or
phases of their development. They are: (1) the
relation of the Tathagata to the Truth {dhxtmma)
whicli he revealed, (2) the communion of the
Tatliagata with the many other Tathagatas, and
(3) the eternity of the personality of the Tathagata.

(1) The term dhamma (in both singular and
plural) is a very flexible one. But the various
aspects of the concept have a necessary connexion,
when viewed as centring in the person of the
Master. The dhammd (plural) are qualities of
things, both physical and mental, which are
ti'ansicnt, but subject to the laws. These laws
make up existence,* and our attachment to and
thirst for them are the causes of the miseries of
life. Misery, its genesis, its extinction, and the
way of release from it — these truths have been
revealed by the Tathagata according to reality
(yathdbhutam). Thus our emancipation from the
miseries is possible only by realizing to ourselves
the laws according to reality. These are the laws
or teachings (dhmmnd) of the Tatliagata. There-
fore the laws have their root, light, and basis in
the Blessed One.^ Buddha is the king of the laws.
On the other hand, however, Buddhahood is
attainable only by the comprehension of the laws.
Hence it is true also that Buddha is the protector
of the laws, who, leaning upon the laws, reveres,
honours, and adores them.** The Law and its
revealer are mutual in their relations. He who

1 The Book of the Great Decease, vi. 15 (SBE xi. [1900] 116 f.,
and ed. E. C. Uhilders, London, 1878, p. 62).

2 Dlgha, no. 34 ; cf. below, ch. ii. of the Lotus.

3 See Majjhiina, no. IS {PTS ed. i. 182); Savfiyittta, rxxv.
IIG {PTS ed. iv. 94 f.) ; cf. below, ch. v. of the LoUu.

4 See Aiiquttara, v. 57 (PTS ed. il. 75), and passim.

5 See Sarpyutta, xxiv. {PTS ed. iii. 202-217), etc.

6 See Anguttara, iii. 14 {PTS ed. i. 109), v. 133 {PTS ed. iii.
150), etc.

sees the Law sees the Master, and vice versa.^ The
dhavima is not merely a phenomenon or an instruc-
tion ; it is in reality the Truth, according to and
by virtue of which the Master and his followers,
and consequently the Buddhas of the past and
future, have attained or shall attain Buddhahood.

(2) According to a commentator, as given by
Burnouf, Tathagata {tathd-dgata, 'thus-come )
means the one who has come thus, in tiie same
manner as his predecessors, the Buddhas of the
past ; it is, on the other side, tatful and gnta,
' thus-gone,' and means the one who has proceeded
or departed as they.'' The oneness of enlighten-
ment and Law among the Buddhas of the past and
of the present is an idea as old as the history of
Buddhism, and the development of its philosophy
has alwaj'S had a close relation with the idea.
'The Tathagata (plur.) lead men by the right law
[saddhamma)'^ — these are the words believed to
have been spoken by Buddha himself to his temj)-
tresses. This and similar passages, speaking of
the Tathagatas and the Law, indicate the com-
munion of the Tathagatas, or the unity of Buddiia-
hood in the same truth. Not only has the Law
been proclaimed by the Law-born Buddhas,* but
they all have one and the same road to tread.
This one road (ekaydna) ^ consists in nothing but
reverence towards and realization of the Law.
Herein lies the very essence of the teaching of all
the Tathagatas, or, speaking metaphysically, their
entity — dhanimatd^ or dhammassa sudhammatd.''
In this concept of the essence of Buddha's teaching
or Law, and consequently of his personality as the
Law-born, the Buddhist philosophers have found
a metaphysical basis for their faith in Buddha as
the dhamma-hoxn. They were to find, by the
help of this idea, a metaphysical unity in the com-
munion of all the Tathagatas. It is quite natural
that Nagarjuna,* the Mahayanist philosopher of
the 2nd cent. A.D., founded his theory of Buddha's
dharmakdya, or dharma-dtmd, upon this concept
of dhammatd and the authority of the verses
speaking of the ekaydna, above referred to.

(3) This point gives us a key to the consideration
of Buddhological speculation on the eternity of
the Tathagata's life. Whether the Tatliagata
exists after his bodily death or not is a question
that had been asked from very early times in
Buddhist history. Buddha is said to have neither
affirmed nor denied it.^ It is remarkable that
every time this question is asked Buddha is named
by the epithet Tathagata. Whatever this con-
nexion may have implied, we see tliat the
question is affirmed on a metaphysical basis in the
Mahay ana texts, and that here again the appella-
tion Tathagata comes most conspicuously to the
front. We have two most important texts, whicli
devote each a whole chapter to the question of the
duration of the Tathagata's life (Tathngata-dyu.-i-
2)raindnd)—i\\Q Lotus of tlic Law^^ and the Golden
Light .^^

1 Itimittaka, 92 {PTS ed. p. 91) ; SaioyiMa, xxii. 87 {PTS ed.
iii. 120).

2 Introd. d I'hiift. du bvxuhthisme indten. Pans, 1845, p. 7C ;
cf. Mahdvastu (ed. Stnart, ii. 266).

iSam/^Ma, iv. ;<, 5 {PTS e(\. i. 127).

4 Tlierar/athd, verse 491 {PTS ed. p. 51) ; tr. C. A. F. Khys
Davids, Psalms nf the Early Buddhists, London, 1913, p. 2:>7.

5 See Saipyutta, xlvii. 18, 43 (PTS ed. v. 168, 1S6), etc. ;
Afiguttara, vi. 26 (PTS ed. iii. 314) ; cf. the Lotw, esp. ch. ii.
{SBE xxi. 49, 54, etc.).

6 See Saifiy^tta, vi. i. 2, Ivi. 24 {PTS ed. i. 140, v. 484);
Afiguttara, iv. 21 {PTS ed. ii. 21) ; cf. Prajfid-pdramita in
8000 verses (ed. Mitra, Calcutta, 1SS8, p. 396).

7 Dhjha, no. 19.

8 In his Prajfia-para'mitd-Mstra (B. Nanjio, Catalogue of
Chinese Buddhist Literature, Oxford, 1883, no. 1169).

» A whole chapter called the A rydkata, ' Undefined,' Saifi-
yutta, xliv., is devoted to the question ; cf. Sarjiyutta, xxii. 85 f.,
xxiv. 15-18, xxiii. 1-10 ; ilajjhima, nos. 63, 72, etc.

10 Saddhantia-pundarika, SBE xxi. ch. xvi.

11 Suoarna-prabhhXed. Chandra Das, Calcutta, 1898), pp. S-9.

204

TATHAGATA

The first of these texts expounds at length the transcendental
side of the Buddhological speculation, and the chapter above
referred to may be taken as the conclusion of the exposition.
Though the whole text seems to be a composite one, made up
of heterogeneous elements, a definite line of argument maj' be
found from its opening up to ch. xv. Ch. ii., entitled ' Tactful-
ness,' gives a view of the Buddha's personality as a skilful and
tactful teacher of the Law, who, being versed himself in the
deepest truth, knows how to guide men to enlightenment and
how to carry out the one vehicle.!

The Tathilgata is a perfect bein^ who knows all and is
perfected in all virtues.^ 'The Tathagata only can proclaim
the Tathagata's Law, those laws which the Tathagata knows.
And the Tathagata knows all laws, i.e. what are {ye te) the laws,3
how (ya4Has) they are, of what characteristics (yallak^arids)
they are", of what essence (yat-svabhdvds) they are. In these
laws (i.e. truths) the Tathagata is versed face to face. . . .
Believe me, I speak what is real, I speak what is truthful, I
speak what is not otherwise (bhutavddi, tathdvddi, ananyathd-
vddi). . . . Having seized the one vehicle (ekaydna) I proclaim
to beings the Law, the Buddha-vehicle ; there is no second
vehicle, nor a third. This is the nature of the Law (dharmatd)
universally in the worlds in ten directions. All the Tathagatas
of the past, of the future, as well as of the present, proclaim
the same one vehicle.'

After elucidating this mastership of the one vehicle by two
parables, the text proceeds, in ch. v., entitled 'On Plants,'
to reveal the entity of the Tathagata's personality and his
onmipotent powers. The Tathagata who knows all dharmas is
identified here with the dharmas themselves, or rather all
the dharmas are concentrated in, and derived from, the
personality of the Tathagata. He is the king of the Law,
as is stated in the Nikaya texts. But the king is not a mere
legislator : he is the very entity of the laws.

' Whatever law for any case is laid down by the Tathagata it
becomes really so. The Tathagata aptly ordains and lays down
all laws. By" the Tathagata- wisdom he lays down the laws in
such a manner that they enter into the position of omniscience.'

The Tathagata is such a being because his omniscience, the
Tathdgata-jildna, is the very essence of all the laws, the real
metaphysical foundation of all their manifestations. The saying
that one who sees the Tathagata sees the Law finds here a meta-
physical interpretation, illustrated by a parable of rain which
nourishes all plants, each according to its capacity and nature.

The discourses and dialogues following this chapter try to
disclose the mysteries of Buddhahood. It is explained as of
remote origin and in communion with all the enlightened of
the past arid future. The person of the Buddha, who was born
among the Sakyas, and who has attained Buddhahood at Gaya,
is nothing but a personal revelation of the eternal dharmatd *
i.e. the "Talhagata.s This faith is illustrated and supported
figuratively by the issuing of innumerable saints out of the
earth. The idea is that these saints cannot be the Tathagata's
disciples, unless he is Buddha from an infinite past. The
argument reaches its climax in ch. xv., entitled 'The Duration
of the Tathagata's Life,' which brings to light the true measure
of the Tathagata's life. A corporal manifestation of the Tatha-
gata is for the benefit of those who need to be educated in that
way. In reality he was perfectly enlightened long ago (chira-
abhisambuddha), and he is everlasting (sadd sthita). Therefore
the Tathagata declares, at the close of the chapter, that he
knows eternity. Then he proclaims to all beings : ' I am the
Tathagata' {led. var. ' I am thus and thus,' tathd tathd 'ham).

In the Golden Light it is first asked why the life of Sakyamuni
lasted only eighty years. Buddha answers by affirming the
immeasurableness of his life. All the saints and celestial beings
utter verses praising and adoring the Buddha of an immeasur-
able life. Here we shall give an abstract of the verses, which
are indeed the statement of a metaphysics of the Tathagata.
They say :

Hearken, unimaginable is the entity of the Lord of the
world, the Tathagata, who proceeds according to reality
(yathd-dkrama). All the Buddhas are equal in their virtue,
having the same dharmatd. The Tathagata is unoriginated,
and our Master is not a conditioned being. The Perfectly
Enlightened has the Law as his body (dharma-kdya),'i the
Tathagata has the Law as his realm (dhanna-dhdtu). Neither
does the Buddha vanish nor does the Law perish, yet he shows
extinction, in order to bring the beings to perfection. Un-
imaginable is Buddha, the Blessed One ; the body of the
Tathagata is eternal ; for the sake of compassion towards all
beings he manifests himself in various appearances.

Here, as in the Lotus, remains a problem to be elaborated —
the question of the relations between the unchangeable entity
of the Tathagata and his manifestation. A Chinese version ■?
of the text, produced by I-tsing, adds a chapter after these
verses, and it treats of the tliree bodies (or personalities) of the
Tathagata. This may be the work of a commentator, but it
indicates how the Buddhological speculations have been closely
connected with the appellation Tathagata.

1 SEE xxi. 30-59.

a Cf. Mahdvastu (ed. Sinart, ii. 362).

3 Here and in the following passage dhammd means the
things, together with their qualities and laws.

4 Cf. tathatvam (Lotus, v. 20), and dharma-tathatd (Lalita-
vistara, ed. S. Lefmann, Halle, 1902, p. 351, 1. 8).

5 Cf. Lalita-vistara, ch. v. (Lefmann, p. 351).

6 Cf. Lalita-vistara, ed. Lefmann, p. 436 f. ; Divydvaddna,
ed. E. B. Cowell and R. A. Neil, Cambridge, 1886, p. 396 f.

"J Nanjio, no. 126.

In summing up these ideas we may see that
with the Buddhists the Tathagata has meant the
personal aspect of the dharma. To found meta-
physical ideas upon faith in the person of the
Tathagata has always been the task of Buddhist
orthodoxy, even in its phases of development in
the East. But, in addition to this, we should
consider two currents of thought which flowed
beside the central one. (a) One of them is the
theory that denies personality in the Tathagata
or anything else. It may be designated the
theoi'y of ' no-sign ' {alaksana) and is represented
by Tlie Diamond-cutter^ and other texts of the
so-called Prajua class. There the person of
Buddha remains as the preacher of the sermons,
and the epithet Tathagata remains also ; but
nothing is allowed to be defined, any definition
or qualification being thought to be a limitation,
which means the same thing as illusion. Thus
the texts which assert the omniscience of the
Tathagata deny to him any ascribable quality
(laksana). ' Tathagata means one who does not
go to anywhere, and does not come from any-
where.'^ Here we see that the very idea of
Tathagata is put away. Nevertheless, in the
midst of thorough negations, the identity of the
Tathagata and the Law is asserted.^ This is
indeed a testimony to the tenacity of the idea.

(b) Another current, oppo.site to the above, may
be called the theory of ' signs ' (dharma-lalcsana).
In its theoretical aspect this doctrine cannot be
distinguished from orthodoxy, being founded upon
the idea that all the dharmas are realities, which
are realized in the person of the Tathagata. But
in practical aspects it looks to a Tathagata beside
the historical Buddha. Amitabha, the lord of
the SukhavatI, or Vaisa-jya-guru, the lord of the
Eastern paradise, or Maitreya, the future Buddha
in the Tusita heaven, is the object of their
adoration and their hope of salvation. The cult
of the Tathagatas in various heavens is found
also in the Lotus* and it has proved to be useful
for propagandism. Buddhism of this kind, which-
ever may be its Tathagata and ideal heaven, is
founded upon the belief that any Buddha or saint
is the manifestation of the one Tathagata. This
philosophy of the dharma-laksaiia is a natural
outcome of the early Buddhist concept of dhamma
and is in conformity with the faith that every
dharma is the manifestation of Buddha's wisdom
(providence, so to speak). Moreover, the religion
of adoring this or that Buddha as the being of
compassion or as our saviour is not only in
accordance with the philosophy, but also has a
very sympathetic aspect of faith and piety. But
the defect of this system lies in its losing con-
centration of faith in the historical Tathagata
and therefore in its running sometimes to an
extreme pantheism.

To sum up the results : Buddhist philosophy
started with the ideal of release from the miseries
of life in conformity with the real nature of things
{dhamma). As the reality, so the existence (yatha
dhammd tathd sattd). This yathd tathd has been
revealed by the Tathagata, whose personality
consisted in yathd-vadi tathakdri. This Buddha's
personality is in.separable from the metaphysical
entity of dhamma, and vice versa. The idea of
the Tathagata has, in this way, become the pivot
around which both pliilosophical speculations and
religious faith have moved and developed.

LiTERATDRB.— Besides the works quoted, see J. H. Moore,
Sayings of Buddha, New York, 1908, p. 131; R. Chalmers, J HAS,
1898, p. 103 ; M. Anesaki, Hichiren, the Buddhist Prophet,
Cambridge, Mass., 1916, Appendix. M. ANESAKI.

1 SEE xlix. pt. ii. (1894) pp. xii-xix, 110-144.

2 lb. xlix. pt. ii. p. 142 ; cf. art. Docetism (Buddhist).

3 Sarva-dharmd Buddha-dharmd (SBE xlix. pt. ii. p. 134).
* Ch. XX.

TATI BUSHMEN

206

TATI BUSHMEN.— I. Race and distribu-
tion.— The Tati Bushmen, called by the Bechuana
Masarvva, and by the Matebele Amasile, are a
branch of the Bush people of S. Africa, with whom
they have many characteristics, both morpho-
logical and linguistic, in common.

The Bushmen in general were formerly spread
over a much larger area of the continent of Africa
than tliey occupy at present. Traces of their
occupation, such as paintings, weapons, and im-

f dements, have been found far beyond their present
imits. Indeed there is good reason for believing
that at one time they occupied practically the
whole continent and were driven by other peoples
into their present territory. They are considered
therefore by most anthropologists to be the true
aborigines of S. Africa. In their legends they
speak of a time when tliey were the only inhabit-
ants of S. Africa. Paintings in the W. Sudan, in
the caves of Algeria, and in Central France are
strangely reminiscent of the Bushman paintings
of Rhodesia or Cape Colony. The Grimaldi race,
who inhabited some of the European caves in
Aurignacian times, may have been either the
ancestors of the Bushmen or a portion of the
people who crossed over into Europe probably as
slaves of the Cro-Magnon race. The Bush people
are now confined to the country west of the
Drakensberg Mountains and south of the Zambesi
River to the Atlantic Ocean, but are principally
found in the northern parts of Cape Colony, the
Becliuanaland Protectorate, S.W. Protectorate,
and S. Rhodesia. There are few, if any, Bushmen
between the Drakensberg and the Indian Ocean,
and not many in the Transvaal. So far as is
known, there are none north of the Zambesi.
From the Bantu traditions they must be recently
extinct in N. Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

The Bushmen are divided into many different
tribes and clans, speaking languages differing
widely from one another, but all of the same
general type. According to Meinhof,^ the Bush-
man tongues are purely isolating and have their
closest relations among the isolating languages of
the W. Sudan. While this is true to a certain
degree so far as the language of the Tati Bushmen
is concerned, it is too sweeping a generalization in
the present state of our knowledge. The Tati
Bushmen inhabit the country between the Zambesi
and the Crocodile Rivers, from the Transvaal and
S. Rhodesia on the east to Lake Ngami on the
west. They are fairly tall, 5 ft. 3 in. being the
average stature of the men, while they are much
darker in colour as a whole than the southern
Bushmen. The Cape Bushmen seldom exceed
5 ft. in height, the average stature being 4 ft.
9 in., and are dirty yellow in colour. Among the
Tati Bushmen some individuals attain a height
of 6 ft., but they are rare. The face of the typical
Bushman is triangular in outline, flat in appear-
ance, with Aveak chin, depressed nose, and pro-
minent cheek-bones. The ears usually have no
lobes, the hair is thinly scattered over the skull
in small tufts, there is little or no beard, and the
whole appearance of the face is wild and foxy.
Most of these characteristics are shared by the
Tati Bushmen. Their bodies are small but
tightly built, and they are seldom fat. Steato-
pygy is common among them, as among the
southern Bushmen. The whole Bush population
of S. Africa probably does not exceed 10,000, of
which the Tati people may number 1000. They
are a fast vanishing race.

2. Culture and organization. — The Bushmen,

• C. Meinhof, ' The Language of the Hottentots,' Addresses aji(Z
Papers read at the Joint ileetinj of the British and South
African Associations for the Advancement <>f Science, South
Africa, 1905, iii. 193.

as their name (originally given to them by the
early Dutch settlers) implies, are a people of the
open country, a race of hunting savages living
largely in the Stone Age. Their love of freedom
amounts to a passion, and they are passionate,
irresponsible, courageous, and cruel. Conse-
quently they have practically no tribal organiza-
tion, and very little clan system, except in the
sense that a particular portion of country was the
possession of a certain clan, the families of which,
under the leadership of a man of known prowess,
would combine to defend it against intruders.
But usually all that obtained was that the various
families combined in the face of danger, under the
strongest and most capable leader, and, once that
passed, the combination came to an end. They do
not cultivate the soil and have no domesticated
animals except dogs. They therefore depend
entirely upon the chase. Their dwellings are
caves or holes in rocks, or shelters made of a few
branches stuck in the ground, with skins or mats
thrown over them, which they carry away with
them when they migrate from the district. Their
material civilization is thus very meagre, being
restricted to what is absolutely necessary for the
capture and cooking of game. A little coarse
pottery is or was made, while ostrich egg shells
are used to hold water. Beads of dried wild
berries and necklaces made from disks cut from
ostrich egg shells are worn by both men and
women. Ear-rings made from pieces of bone or
wood, or — since the white man came to the
country — of metal, usually brass, are common.
Leather arm- and leg-rings, together with fillets
of skin round the head, into which are stuck
ostrich and other feathers, are also worn. Cloth-
ing is scanty and generally consists of the skin
of an animal throAvn over the shoulders in cold
weather. The women wear a small piece of skin
with fringes in front, while the men are content
with a narrow piece of skin passed between the
legs and tied round the waist with sinew or cord.
Children of both sexes go naked. In warm
weather to prevent the sun from blistering the
skin, and in winter to keep out the cold, they
smear the body with fat, often rancid, so that
they smell very offensively. Weapons of war and
the chase are spears, bows and arrows, and tlirow-
ing-sticks. The tips of the arrows are smeared
with poison made from the Bushman's poison
bush [Acocanthera venenata) and the two-rowed
Amaryllis (Amaryllis distichia), mixed with snake
poison, and in some cases with poisonous ants.
The food of both sexes consists of the flesh of
animals, locusts, larvae of ants, called ' Bushman
rice,' gum, and various tubers and seeds. For
the collection of tubers an implement called
the Ikibi or Ikwe is employed. It is a stout
stick about 3 ft. long, upon which a round flat
stone with a hole in tne centre is fastened
about 9 ins. from the end. This is the well-
known digging stick, which is also used to ex-
cavate graves.

3. Mentality; artistic and morallife. — The Bush
people as a whole are low in the scale of mental
acquirements. They have an extensive knowledge
of the outdoor world, especially of the habits of
wild animals. They are wonderful as trackers
and have a remarkable sense of direction. Their
reflective faculties are not highly developed,
although some of tlieir paintings, and more es-
pecially their folk-tales and songs, are not wanting
in this respect. The most interesting thing about
the Bushmen is their artistic ability. They have
left paintings upon the walls of caves and rocks
and incised figures upon boulders all over the
country. Most of these paintings or chippings
indicate objects of the chase, the habits of animals,

206

TATI BUSHMEN

or more r.arely scenes of war and domestic life.
The drawings of the wild animals are in many
cases really well executed, though one can trace
in places tiie gradual evolution of the art of
painting. A fresco recently discovered in the
Matopo Hills near Bulawayo is remarkable for
its artistic merit. There is not much perspective
in most of the paintings, while the execution as a
whole reminds one of the paintings of the Old
Stone Age. Certain paintings of figures are
supposed to have a mythological signihcation, as
they cannot be connected with animals or circum-
stances of the present day. Some caves were
called after particular paintings — e.g., the Cave of
the Great Serpent, the Cave of tlie Lion — and
hence were held in a certain degree of reverence
by the people. To such caves they would pei'iodic-
ally return as to a rallying-point to talk over their
wild adventures. It has been suggested that the
art of the Bushman is due to sympathetic magic,
that this was the idea underlying it — in other
words, that the Bushman painted the animals on
the walls of his cave-dwelling to give him power
over them in the field. While this is possible,
and may be probable in some cases, there is not
any good evidence of it. It has been maintained
that paintings usually depict animals desirable
for footl, and that noxious animals are conspicuous
by tlieir absence. So far as Bushman paintings
are concerned, this is not true. If animals such
as lions, leopards, snakes, and rhinoceroses are to
be considered noxious animals, they occur often
enough on the paintings. But such animals are
not undesirable as food to the Bushmen, as they
eat practically everything, and certainly would
not refuse to eat the flesh of a lion, unless it
happened to be the totem of the hunter. On the
whole the paintings reflect no more than the
ordinary life of the people jylus the caprice of the
particular artist. At intervals of leisure — and
the Bushmen, when food was plenty, had much
of that — the scenes of the past would rise up in
their minds, and they would attempt to visualize
them by painting them on the rock, and by con-
stant practice the faculty of drawing improved.
The colours employed were yellow, brown, red,
and sometimes white, and blue. Some of these
paintings are ancient, and some are quite modern,
as certain of the artists are or were recently alive.
The faculty of drawing and painting was said to
be hereditary in certain families. The theory has
been advanced that the painters and sculptors
belonged to dillerent tribes, but there is no good
reason for accepting this.

The Bushmen are passionately fond of dancing,
more especially at full moon and at certain seasons
of the year. Fires are lit outside their caves, and
dancing is kept up all night, or until the per-
formers are exhausted. Some of these dances, in
which the performers paint their faces and bodies,
are of a religious nature. Some of them are more
or less coarse. Songs are sung by the leaders, and
the other performers join in the chorus. The
motions are not at all graceful. Some dances are
called after animals — e.g., the eland bull dance,
the baboon dance, the bee dance, and the frog
dance — and each has its own peculiar tune. The
dancers give very good imitations of the animal
in its different attitudes. The instruments used
to accompany these dances are stringed instru-
ments similar to an ordinary bow, with a tortoise-
shell as a sound-box variously called !kopo,
Iknngen, and Wgora, 'reed,' 'flutes,' and 'drums.'
The dancers have rattles round their ankles, made
of the skin of the inside of the springbok's ear,
with small pebbles inside to make as much sound
as possible. Circiuncision dances are performed
after the Iwjs Jjave undergone the ceremony.

These are of a distinctly religious character.
Bushman music is, as might be expected, of a
very primitive chai-acter — the melancholy and
monotonous repetition of a few notes. It does
not usually consist of more than six tones (which
do not belong to our scale), but the strangeness
and wildness of the melody give it a peculiar
charm. There are other tunes wliich show some
advance, especially one by the Natal Bushmen.
Harmony does not exist.

The Bushmen have an extensive range of terms
for family relationship.s, both male and female.
Some of these are connected with tabus; e.g., a
mother-in-law must not see her son-in-law or
mention his name ; he, on his part, must not
mention hers. The same rule applies to some
other relations also. A woman must avoid men-
tioning the name of her husband or any of his
near relatives. There are different terms for
these relationships, but the system among the
Bushmen is not nearly so perfect as that among
the Australians.

Marriage is usually a very simple matter among
the Bushmen, some of whom are monogamists and
some polygamists, according to their individual
worldly position. Two young people very often
simply go ofl" and live together, but usually tlio
young man has to prove his prowess by going into
the veld and slaying some wild animal — the
strongest and fiercest he can find — and presenting
the whole or a selected portion to the girl's father.
Among some tribes this is considered indispensable
before asking the hand of a girl in marriage. If
the present is accepted, the marriage is complete.
Sexual intercourse before marriage, while looked
upon as a crime, is very often practised. Divorce
too is simple. A man or woman leaves his or her
partner and goes ofl' with some one else. The
custody of the children does not cause much
trouble, as the young people are accustomed to
fend for themselves at an early age. Parental
control is thus exceedingly weak. Marriage
usually takes place within the clan, but a man
cannot marry a woman of the same family as
his own — i.e. bearing his own surname. So far
as we know, a man cannot take his OAvn sister to
wife, because of his totem, but he may take his
sister-in-law. Although there is much freedom
in the intercourse of the sexes, incest and adultery
are regarded as crimes and are punished by
death, usually by retaliation on the part of the
injured person. Murder, theft, abduction, and
especially witchcraft, are crimes against the Bush-
man moral code and are punished by fines, ex-
pulsion from the tribe, or even death in the case
of pensistent oftenders. The old people, when
too infirm to follow the family in its wanderings
or unable to procure food for themselves, are left
to die.

4. Totemism and religion. — As has been re-
marked, totemism exists among the Bushmen,
especially among those tribes that have had long
contact with the Bantu peoples, but they are too
much the children of the wild to have developed
it to any extent. Some call themselves the Zebra
clan, or the Eland clan, or the Duiker clan, and,
while they avoid killing and eating these animals
or certain portions of them, they are not at all
strict about the matter when pressed by hunger.
In the case of the Duiker clan, the members
may eat all of the animal except the heart.
Those clans whose totem was the buffalo did
not scruple to eat every portion of a domestic ox,
although they might not eat every portion of a
M'ild buffalo, even though they looked upon oxen
as tame buffaloes.

They believe in a spirit which tlie northern tribes
call Thora, and the southern ! Kang or UKaggen.

TATI BUSHMEN

207

W. H. I. Bleek,! J. M. Orpen,^ and others think
that ! Kang is simply the mantis insect, for Avhich
they have a gieat reverence, but there does not
seem to be j^reat force in this contention. While
it may be true of the Bushmen of Cape Colony,
it is certainly not true of the T.ati Bushmen.
These tribes say that Thora is a spirit, that he
sends the rain, the lightning (of which they are
very much afraid), good weather, bad luck, and
plenty. They are not very clear as to whether he
is a person or not, but he is usually spoken of with
dread, as a malevolent s])irit, with whom it is
advisable to keep on good terms. They also say
that he made the animals, but they are not sure
if he made the first men. The Tati Bushmen
reverence the mantis to a certain extent, and do
not like killing it if they can help it. All Bush-
men have a great dread of death, and in common
with many peoples believe that it is due to be-
witchment by an enemy. Arbousset,* speaking of
the Bushmen of Basutoland of his day, says that
they looked upon death as a sleep. It is difficult
to ascertain what they do really think on the
subject, as they are so unwilling to speak of it at
all. They also believe in some form of future life,
but do not know what it is really like. They
imagine that it does not difier much from the
present life. This is shown by the burial customs
of some tribes. They used to drag their dead into
the surrounding bush to be devoured by wild
animals, but generally they bury the bodies in a
hole or cleft in a rock, which they carefully wall
up, or they excavate a round hole about 3 or 4 ft.
deep and place the dead man at the bottom in
a sitting or lying position, with the legs doubled
up to the chin, and in each case place beside him
some food and his weapons of war. They generally
indulge in a funeral feast afterwards, desert the
locality, and never mention the dead man's name.
Why they keep silence regarding the departed they
cannot explain. Some tribes place the dead witla
his face to the rising sun ; others observe no such
custom.

The Tati Bushmen have no regular priests, but
they have certain individuals, whom they call
doctors, who possess a considerable knowledge
of the properties and uses of wild plants, and thus
exercise great influence over the people. This
knowledge is sometimes confined to certain families,
who jealously guard it. They have a considerable
knowledge of vegetable poisons and have antidotes
for them. Malicious poisoning does not often
occur among them. Bushman doctors profess to
cure malaria, typhoid, blackwater fever, dysentery,
and other diseases, and, according to reliable in-
formation, are often successful. Most of the
plants which they use are employed in religious
ceremonies or in ordeals and trials for Avitchcraft.
In fact, much, if not all, of the Bushman practice
of medicine has a religious signification.

The Tati Bushmen, in common with most other
Biishmen, practise circumcision. At present they
perform the rite according to the Bechuana custom.
Boys are operated upon at about the age of twelve
years, development being rapid with them. A stone
knife was formerly employed and still is by most
tribes — a matter of necessity at first, but now a
matter of custom, or of hygiene, as the knife is
thrown away and a new one made for each cere-
mony. A number of boys of approximately the
same age are operated upon at once. The method
is as follows. The foreskin is pulled forward over
the glans as far as it will stretch and then cut off

1 A Brief Accoxint of Bushman Folk Lore, p. 6 ff.

- ' A Glimpse into the Mythology of the Malute Buahmen,'
Cayic MonUily Magazine, July, 1874, pp. 1-13.

^ T. Arbousset and F. Daumas, Kelatio7i d'vn voyage d'ex-
plnralinn au nord-est de la Colonie. du Cap de Bonne-JEsiidrance,
p. .'itU.

with one slash of the knife. It quickly retracts
and so prevents excessive bleeding, and usually
heals rapidly. It is not known for certain whether
the girls underwent the rite or not. The southern
Bushmen cut off the last joint of the little finger
of the right hand in the case of boys, and of the
left hand in the case of girls. This was also a
religious ceremony, but whether it took the place
of circumcision or was additional thereto is still
uncertain. Cutting oti" the joints of one or more
fingers was also practised as a sign of mourning.
The Tati Bushmen, whatever they may have done
in the past, do not now practise finger-cutting.

5. Omens. — The great factor in the life of the
Bushmen is their divining bones, commonly but
erroneously called dice. The Bushmen would
undertake no expedition %vithout consulting them.
They are four and sometimes five in number, and
designated male and female. Tlie female bone is
usually longer than the male. They are made
from the hoofs of animals, bone, horn, wood, or
even the stones of wild fruits. Sometimes they
are ornamented with designs on back or front. To
consult them a man would clear a small space of
ground, rub the bones with various kinds of
medicine, blow upon them, and then cast them
upon the ground. Fi'om their positions and con-
junctions he divines what he wants to know,
according to certain laws. If the result is un-
favourable, it is useless for him to persevere in his
object. Divination is also practised by means of
the shoulder-blade of a springbok, and by certain
other animals, such as the mantis, lion, jackal,
and snake.

6. Spirits. — The Bushmen personify some animals
and look upon them as men in another state of
existence. They also believe that men, especially
witch-doctors, can assume animal shapes at will
and compel other people to do the same. This,
they say, is to ' have power ' over such victims. It
has been held to indicate a belief in the trans-
migration of souls, but the point is very doubtful.
They certainly believe in transformations of
animals. The Tati Bushmen thoroughly believe
in the existence of spirits, usually of a malevolent
character, and, when closely questioned, admit
that they can change their shapes at will, but they
do not seem to believe that these spirits can be
born again into other animal shapes. Lightning,
wind, eddies of dust, storms, and other natural
phenomena are looked upon as spirits. This is
probably a relic of primitive man's belief that the
animals and things about him were not ditterent
from himself— certainly to some extent the Bush-
man view. There are spirits of rivers, fountains,
and thermal springs known to the Bushmen and
much reverenced by them.

7. Mythology of the heavenly bodies. — Tlie
Bushmen have no regular .system of mythology in
the sense that the ancient Greeks or the modem
Hindus have, but they have the elements of such.
They are said to have worshipped the heavenly
bodies and are therefore to be included among
those people who attained to sidereal worship.
Among the Tati Bushmen no special ceremonies
are connected with these bodies, although it is
evident from numerous tales in which the sun and
moon appear that a considerable degree of reverence
is paid to them. The new moon figures in many
of their tales.

The moon is the shoe of the mantis. Her waxinic: and waning
is explained as her dying and coming to life again. The Tati
Bushmen have some of these tales in a more or less modiiied
form ; e.g., one speaks of the moon coming down to wash her
face in a pool of water. The Bushmen do not know why the
sun is hot, and why there is no heat in the moon. Among the
southern Bushmen the sun is spoken of a-s a little hoy by
the wayside ; sometimes he is said to have been thrown into
the sky by some children while he was sleeping. Again, the
moon is spoken of as being cut bv the sun and after death

208

TATUING

carries away the people who are dead. Some of the Tati
Bushmen say that the stars were once human beings and
animals, and the Cape Bushmen speak of girls as having been
turned into stars and flowers by the rain. Certain prominent
stars have particular names among the Bushmen ; e.g., Jupiter
is the Dawn's Heart ; the Magellanic Clouds the Male and
Female 8teinbok, the Southern Cross the Giraffe Star (Tati
Bushmen), Aldebaran the Male Hartebeest, Procyon the Male
Eland, Orion's Belt the Female Tortoises. The origin of the
stars is explained in the following manner. A girl of the early
race, being angry with her mother because the latter asked her
for a certain kind of food which she had put to roast in the fire,
threw it together with the wood ashes that were upon it into
the air. The food was changed into stars, and the ashes became
the Milky Way. The rising of particular stars at certain
seasons of the year was noted, as they were connected with the
return of the seasons. Shooting stars were considered unlucky
by the Tati Bushmen, and, if they appeared in great numbers,
inspired terror.

8. Folk literature. — The Bushmen have a great
body of folklore, mostly relating to animals and
natural objects, customs, and so on, but next to
none of a historical character, certainly none that
throws much light on their origin and migrations.
Not a tithe of those folk-tales have been garnered,
and, as the race is a fast vanishing one, they will
soon be completely lost. Bleek collected a large
number of tales, and a selection from his great
mass of materials was published in 1911 by his
niece, Miss Lloyd. Smaller collections by Schultze,
Theal, and Dornan have been issued. A study of
these tales throws much light on the mental and
moral outlook of the Bushmen.

Literature. — Peter Kolben, The Present State of the Cape
of Good Hope, Eng. tr., 2 vols., London, 1731; A. Sparrman,
A Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, Eng. tr., 2 vols., do. 1785 ;
J. Barrow, An Account of Travels into the Interior of Southern
Africa in the Years 1797 and 179S, 2 vols, do. 1801-04;
H. Lichtenstein, Travels in Southern Africa in the Years
1803-06, Eng. tr., 2 vols., do. 1812-15 ; W. J. Burchell, Travels
in the Interior of Southern Africa, 2 vols., do. 1822-24;
W. C. Harris, Narr. of an Expedition into Soxithern Africa
1S3G-7, Bombay, 1838 ; A. Sutherland, A Memoir respecting
the Kaffirs, Hottentots, and Bosjemans of S. Africa, 2 vols.,
Cape Town, 1845 ; R. Moffat, Missionary Labours aiid Scenes
in Southern Africa, London, 1842 ; T. Arbousset and F.
Daumas, Relation d'lin voyage d'exploration au nord-est de la
Colonic du Cap de Bonne- Espirance, Paris, 1842 ; D. Living--
stone. Missionary Travels and Researches in S. Africa,
London, 1857 ; G. Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Siid-Afrika's,
Breslau, 1872 ; W. H. 1. Bleek, A Brief Accoicnt of Bushman
Folk Lore and other Texts, London, 1875 ; L. C. Lloyd, A
Short Account of Bushman Material collected by L. C. Lloyd,
do. 1889 ; L. Schultze, Aus Namaland und Kalahari, Jena,
1907 ; G. W. Stow, Native Races of S. Africa, London, 1905 ;
S. Passargre, Die Buschmdnner dcr Kalahari, Berlin, 1907 ;
M. Helen Tongue, Bushman Paintings, Oxford, 1909 ; S. S.
Dornan, 'The Bushmen of Basutoland,' Transactions of the
South African Philosophical Society, xviii. [1909] 437 ff.;
G. M. Theal, The Yellow and Dark-Skinned People of Africa
Sotith of the Zambesi, London, 1910 ; W. H. I. Bleek and
L. C. Lloyd, Specimens of Bushman Folklore, do. 1911 ;
W. J. So\\a.s, Ancient Hunters and their Modern Representa-
tives, do. 1915 ; S. S. Dornan, ' The Tati Bushmen (Masarwas)
and their Language," JRAI xlvii. [1917] 37 ff.

S. S. Dornan.

TATUING.— The word ' tatu ' or ' tattoo,'
meaning to mark or puncture the skin, is derived
from the Tahitian word tatau, a reduplicated form
of the root ta, ' to strike.' It was used by Captain
Cook in the account of his visit to Tahiti :

' Both sexes paint their Bodys, Tattow as it is called in their
Language. This is done by inlaying the Colour of Black under
their skins in such a manner as to be indelible.' i
Cook was thus the first to introduce the word to
the civilized world of his day. Many writers since
his time have included in the general term ' tatu '
the practice of marking the skin with cicatrices ;
the two processes are, however, very different.
Tatu proper is the insertion of pigment under the
skin, whereby a practically permanent stain is
produced, while cicatrization is the marking of
the body, either by cutting or burning the skin in
such a way as to cause scai's forming small de-
pressions or by cutting into the skin and keeping
the wounds open, so that keloids, or raised scars,
are formed, which stand out prominently from the
surrounding tissue.

1 Journal during his First Voyage, 1768-71, ed. W. J.
Wharton, London, 1893, p. 93.

I. Antiquity and distribution. — Both these modes
of personal decoration are of considerable antiquity
and of wide distribution ; they have been found
among people of greatly varying culture, from the
aborigines of Australia, who adorn their bodies
with cicatrices, to the Polynesians and Japanese,
who have developed tatu proper into a fine art.
At a very early stage man no doubt felt a desire
for personal decoration and learnt to use pigment
for this purpose ; and it is possible that tatu was
resorted to as a means of giving a permanent
character to the designs thus made to beautify
the body at a stage prior to the use of clothes.
Archajological evidence can, unfortunately, give
us no direct proof of the existence of such a custom
as tatu in pre-historic times, but it is well known
that Aurignacian man was skilful in the use of
colour. Dechelette suggests that the finely pointed
implements found in Magdalenian deposits may
have been used for tatuing. Referring to the
practice among primitive peoples of cicatrization
and tatu, he says :

' Les premiers habitants de I'Europe pr^historique s'ornaient
le corps k I'aide des memes proc6d6s, mais en g6n6ral il nous est
impossible de distinguer nettement pour cette p^riode entre la
teinture corporelle simple et le tatouage. C'est \k un fait titabli
par des preuves indirectes mais d^cisives pour la fin des temps
quaternaires, pour I'^poque n^olithique et le commencement
tout au moins de I'age du bronze.' i

In the pre-dynastic tombs of the old Egyptians
excavated by Flinders Petrie, de Morgan, Ame-
lineau, and others, some rude human figures have
been found bearing marks that suggest the use of
tatu — e.g., the female figure discovered at Tukh.^
In the second Theban empire the Egyptians tatued
themselves on the breast or arms with the names
or symbols of deities, but decorative tatu marks
are rare on Egyptian remains of the classical
period.^ The prohibition in Lv 19^8, ' Ye shall not
make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor
print any marks upon you,' indicates that the Jews
had seen these practices carried on by the heathen
nations among whom their lot was cast, and
perhaps had themselves adopted them.

There are many classical allusions to tatu in
Europe. Herodotus writes of the Thracian women
being tatued as a sign of nobility.* Pliny* says
that the men of the Dacians and Sarmatians
marked their bodies ('corpora sua inscribunt').
That tatu was known to the Pictones and other
tribes of Gaul is shown by the evidence from coins.*
Chinese tradition says that the great Chinese
hero Tschaipe found tatu among the Ainus of
Japan, who indeed practise it to this day. In
China it ceased at a very early time to be a desir-
able mode of decoration and survives only as a
method of imposing a distinctive mark. A. T.
Sinclair says that ' among the ancient natives in
the West Indies, Mexico and Central America,
tattooing was general if not almost universal.'^
It was also practised by the early inhabitants of
S. America, as notably among the coastal tribes of
Ecuador and ancient Peru.* G. Elliot Smith finds
it along the coast-lines of a great part of the world
and includes it in the culture-complex of the
' heliolithic ' track.® Darwin, in drawing attention
to the universality of the custom among primitive
peoples, said : * Not one great country can be
named, from the Polar regions in the north to New
Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do

1 Manuel d'Archiologie, Paris, 1908-13, i. 203.

2 W. M. Flinders Petrie, Naqada, London, 1896, pi. 59. 6.

3 J. Capart, Les Dibuts de I'art en Egypte, Brussels, 1904,
p. 32 f .

4 V. 6. 5 HN xxii. 1.

6 T. Rice Holmes, Ancient Britain arid the Invasions of
Julim Ccesar, Oxford, 1907, p. 418 ff.

^ 'Tattooing of the American Indians,' American Anthropol-
ogist, new ser., xi. [1909] 399.

s T. A. Joyce, S. American Archaeology, London, 1912, p. 61 f.

9 The Migrations of Early Culture, London, 1915, p. 7.

TATUING

209

not tattoo themselves.' ^ W. Joest goes so far as
to say that no race or people exists that has not
had the custom of either painting or tatuing the
body. 2 On the other hand, some investigators
have failed to find traces of cicatrization or tatii
among certain primitive tribes, such as the Vedda
of Ceylon,* the Mafulu of British New Guinea,*
the Tati Bushmen,^ and others ; but this negative
evidence does not rule out the possibility that
such practices were once known to these people
and have become lost arts. Cicatrization is mainly
confined to dark-skinned races, while tatu proper
prevails with those of lighter colour. Thus we find
cicatrization in Australia, Tasmania, New Cale-
donia, Fiji, and other parts of Melanesia, in Torres
Straits islands, among the Papuans of New Guinea,
in the Malay Peninsula (Sakai), the Andaman
Islands, and in negro Africa. It has been super-
seded in S. America by tatu proper, but has been
observed among the Caribs of Guiana and in
Brazil. The light-coloured races who have prac-
tised tatu proper include the Maoris of New
Zealand and the inhabitants of the other islands
of Polynesia. It is also found in Melanesia,
Micronesia, the Malay Archipelago, the Malay
Peninsula, Burma, India, among the Tibeto-Burman
peoples in general (but rare in Tibet), and in
Japan. In Africa it is found in Algeria, in Egypt,
among the For, the Tushilang, the Namaqua
Hottentots, and other tribes, taut it is by no
means so widely distributed in this continent as
cicatrization. On the other hand, tatu proper
was very prevalent in the New World, especially
among the Indian tribes of N. America, such
as the Iroquois, the Pricked Pawnees, the Dela-
wares, and others. It is used extensively at the
present day by the Haida Indians of the N.W.
American coast, and also by the Eskimo, and
in S. America, notably among the Mundrucu and
Guaycura tribes.

Tatuing is said to be one of the chief occupations of the
Oriental gypsies. Sinclair found that most of the tatuing among
the lower orders in Syria, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt, and
some parts of Persia was done by tliem. They also tatu them-
selves, and in this they differ from European gypsies, for these
do not wear tatu marlcs. ' Hence their tattooing is an easy
mode of identifying Oriental gipsies, who are often seen in all
parts of Europe and America.' 8 At the present day tatuing
persists in Europe among the lower classes. Lombroso made a
comparative study of tatu among soldiers and criminals, and
concluded that it was especially prevalent among the latter.
He noted that the designs in criminal tatu are often extremely
complex and of a cynical and obscene character.' There was a
considerable revival o( tatu among the soldiers and sailors
serving with the British forces in the recent war. A revival,
too, has been evident in Japan since 1881, when tatu ceased to
be a penal offence and came once more into vogue, with the
result that it is now an elaborate art.8 Apart from these and
similar isolated revivals, tatu is, on the whole, rapidly declining,
especially in Polynesia, once the centre of a highly developed
system of tatu. This change is due, no doubt, in a great
measure to the action of the missionaries, who have discouraged
the practice, because of the orgies that often accompanied the
tatuing operations.

2. Methods and implements. — The methods and
implements used to produce these marks on the
body vary considerably in different parts of the
world and often reflect the cultural conditions of
the people among whom they have been found. It
is impossible here to do more than indicate briefly
some of the more striking variations of the
processes which have been recorded and add a few
examples by way of illustration.

1 Descent of Man, London, 1871, ii. 339.

2 Tdtowiren, Narbenzeicknen, und Kurperbevialen, Berlin,
1887, p. 45.

3 C. G. and B. Z. Seligmann, The Veddas, Cambridge, 1911,
p. 207.

■* R. W. Williamson, The Mafulu Mountain People of British
New Guinea, London, 1912, p. 36.

5 S. S. Dornan, ' The Tati Bushmen," JRAI xlvii. [1917] 44.

6 Aimr. Anth., new ser., x. [190S] 361.

7 C. Lombroso, ' Criminal Anthropology,' in SOth Century
Practice of Medicine, London, 1897, xii. 382 ff.

8 B. H. Chamberlain, Things Japanese"^, London, 1891,
p. 399 ff.

VOL. XII.— 14

(a) Cicatrization. — In Central Africa prominent
keloids are formed by detaching a piece of skin,
which is raised and held by a pellet of tow till the
wound is healed. A. L. Cureau alludes to ' dandies
of the Upper Ubangi and Equatorial Congo' who
undergo this operation as a means of obtaining
' the prominent crest which gives them a fierce
expression.' 1 Irritant substances are sometimes
rubbed into the incisions to prevent the wounds
from healing too rapidly. Among the Bageshu, a
Bantu people on the south and south-east slopes of
Mt. Elgon, the girls use a crescent-shaped flesh
hook sharpened to a needle point at one end. Scars
are formed on the forehead and stomach by pinch-
ing up the flesh between the thumb and finger and
running the hook through it ; fine dust from a
Avood fire is then rubbed into the wounds.* Natives
from the interior of Mozambique wear marked
rugce on the forehead.

These are formed ' by making rertical Incisions in the skin,
rubbing in a medicine, and then binding tightly with a cloth,
so that wrinkles are formed in the line of the incision.' 3

Cicatrization begins with the Andamanese at the
age of eight and continues at intervals until the
sixteenth or eighteenth year is reached. It is
usually done by women, who use a flake of quartz
or glass held between the forefinger and thumb.
The arms and back are marked first, while fasting,
and afterwards the chest, abdomen, and legs, but
never the face ; the special tribal marks are, in
some tribes, made by men with a pig arrow. Pork
is not eaten while the wounds are healing ; and
the northern tribes have certain ceremonies con-
nected with the operation.* The aborigines of
Central Australia cut the skin with flakes of flint
or glass and rub in ashes or the down of the eagle-
hawk." At Port Essington (N. Territory of
Australia) scars are formed by burning the flesh
with a red-hot stick.^ In N. W. Queensland they
are made by lighting charcoal on the flesh and
allowing it to burn there. The implements used
in Melanesia differ in different islands ; e.g., in the
Solomons the circular or chevron-shaped cicatrices
worn by both sexes on the face are made with the
claw of the flying fox,^ while in Florida Island the
pattern is ' marked out in circles with a bamboo,
and the skin is cut with the bone of a bat's wing.'*
The keloids and scars called kotto, which are
customary in New Britain, are made with obsidian
flakes.'

[b] Tat%h proper. — A method which seems to
suggest a combination of cicatrization and tatu
proper is that of cutting the flesh and rubbing
pigment into the wounds. Livingstone says of
the Makoa (Makua) of Central Africa, who have
double lines of keloids on the face: 'After the
incisions are made, charcoal is rubbed in and the
flesh pressed out, so that all the cuts are raised above
the level of the surface.' '" The charcoal gives a
bluish tinge to the skin, ' and the ornament shows
brightly in persons of light complexion, who by
the by are common.' '' The Ainu women of Yezo
(Japan) cut gashes on the face with a sharp knife
and rub in soot from burnt birch-bark, which

1 Savage Man i7i Central Africa, tr. E. Andrews, London,
1915, p. 169.

2 J. Roscoe, ' Notes on the Bageshu,' JRAI xxxix. [1909] 186.

3 G. A. Tunier, ' Tribal Marks of S. African Natives,' Transvaal
Medical Journal, Feb. 1911, p. 13.

4 E. H. Man, Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,
London, 1883, p. 112.

5 Spencer-Gillen", p. 41 f.

8 B. Spencer, Native Tribes of the N. Territory of Australia,
London, 1914, p. 9.

7 C. M. Woodford, A Naturalist among the Head-Hunters,
London, 1890, p. 31.

8 R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, Oxford, 1891, p. 237.

9 R. Parkinson, Dreissig Jahre in der Siidsee, Stuttgart, 1907,
p. 148.

10 D. Livingstone, La»t Journals in Central Africa, London,
1874, i. 33.

n lb. i.iOt.

210

TATUING

produces a bluish-black effect.^ This method
has also been observed in some of the islands of
Micronesia.

The implements used for pricking the skin range
in complexity from such simple natural objects as
thorns, lish spines, cactus spikes, shells, and bones,
to the elaborate metal appliance of the Burmese
and the steel and electric needles of Japan and
Europe in use at the present day. The Roro-
speaking tribes of British New Guinea obtain the
desired effect by very simple means. The operator,
who is generally an old woman, applies colouring
matter — soot mixed with water — with a fragment
of wood frayed out at one end to form a coarse
brush. The colour is pricked in by means of a
pricker having one or more thorns set at right
angles to its long axis ; these thorns are driven
into the skin by tapping the pricker gently with a
small wooden mallet. The Avonien of these tribes
are tatued from head to foot, but the operation
takes place at intervals, and there is a regular
order in ■which the different parts of the body must
be tatued ; thus the hands and arms are done in
childhood, and later the tatu is gradually increased
until at marriageable age it is applied to tlie
buttocks, legs, and last of all to the face.^ The
Polynesian method of tatuing is generally to trace
the design on the skin first with charcoal and then
to follow the pattern -.vith a small adze-shaped
implement furnished M'ith a serrated bone edge.
The skin is perforated bj' hammering or tapping
this implement with anotlier made of wood and
shaped like a paddle. But the ways and means
employed vary a good deal in the South Sea Islands,
and the operation is often accompanied by much
ceremonial and feasting, and the keeping of certain
tabus; e.g., brides in the Fiji, while being tatued,
are tabic siga, and are kept in seclusion, for they
must not see the sun.^ In New Zealand a very strict
tabu has to be observed by the person undergoing
the ordeal ; he may not communicate with any one
not in the same condition, nor may he touch his
food. The Maori chief had to be fed through a
special funnel during the process, which entailed a
good deal of ceremonial of a somewhat religious
character. The Maori tatu, or inoko, was of two
kinds, of which the older method was a cutting
into the skin with a small chisel-like tool made of
sea-bird's wing-bones, shark's teeth, stones, or hard
wood, and of different sizes and shapes. The edge
of the chisel was applied to the skin and tapped
by a small mallet, which sometimes had a broad
flattened surface at one end used to wipe away
the blood. This cliiselling process was superseded
by prick tatu, which was done with small-toothed
or serrated implements dipped in colouring matter
obtained either from charcoal mixed with oil or
dog's fat or burnt and powdered resin.^ In Borneo
the design is pressed on to the skin with a tatu
block dipped in pigment made from a mixture of
soot and .sugar-cane juice. The needle points of
the pricker, which are also charged with pigment,
are then driven into the skin by taps from a striker.
Among the Kayans the men carve the designs on
the blocks, but the tatu is done by women. The
artists are under the protection of a tutelary spirit
to whom sacrifices must be made, and the operator
has to avoid certain foods. The women are tatued
in a hut built for the purpose ; their male relatives
are dressed in bark-cloth and must remain indoors
until the operation is completed ; in fact it cannot
be commenced unless their men-folk are at home.

1 J. Batchelor, The Ainu and their Folk-lore, London, 1901,
p. 24.

2 C. G. Seliumann, The Melanesians of British New Guinea,
Cambrid^'e, 1910, p. 205.

8T. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians^, London, 1870, p. 146.
4Major-0(:n. Robley, Moko : Maori Tattcoinq, London, 1896,
pp. 47, 62,

It is prohibited to tatu women at seed-time, or if a
dead body lies unbnried in the house, and bad
dreams, such as ' a dream of floods, foretelling
much blood-letting, will also interrupt the work.' *
In Burma the outline of the desired pattern is
roughly sketched on the skin with a camel's hair
brush and is then pricked in by a series of i)uncture3
close together, which merge into a rough line.
The pricker is of an unusual kind, being two feet
long and Aveighted at the top with a brass or lead
figure ; the pigment is contained in a style four
inches long, which fits into a hollow pipe and is
thus joined to the weighted end.^ In Japan steel
needles of four different sizes are used ; the ellect
of shading is procured by tying rows of needles
together. Sepia, vermilion, and Prussian blue are
used in the designs, which are very ornate.* In
some parts of N. America the pigmented efi'ect is
obtained by running a needle-like implement
through the skin threaded with some material
coated in pigment.

This method was followed by the Salish tribes, who used a
' needle of fish-bone or a cactus spike, which passed a fine thread
coated with charcoal under the skin,' or sometimes the charcoal
was carried on an unthreaded needle, ' which was thrust under
the skin in a horizontal direction.' •*

The Eskimo use a needle and thread smeared with
soot or gun-powder. Thus, speaking of the personal
appearance of the Greenlanders, D. Crantz says :

' No one ... is a finished beauty till the skin of her cheeks,
chin, hands and feet, has been threaded by a string smeared
with soot, which when drawn out leaves a black mark. The
mother performs this painful operation on her dau^rhter in
childhood, fearful that she will else attract no husband. This
custom obtains among the Indians of North America, and various
Tartar tribes, where both sexes practise it ; the one to heighten
their charms, the other to inspire terror.' B

3. Patterns. — A detailed study of the patterns
Avould doubtless yield results of considerable ethno-
logical interest as pointing to the migrations and
culture-contact of peoples. Flinders Petrie" has
drawn attention to the resemblance between the
Algerian patterns described by Lucien Jacquof
and those on the female figure found at Tukh and on
the Libyans in the tomb of Seti I. (XlXth dynasty,
1300 B.C.). The dominating designs in Algeria
are a cross and a figure resembling a fly, which are
thought to be degenerate forms of the swastika — a
device widely distributed in Africa and elsewhere,
and of great antiquity, as is shown by its appearance
on a leaden figure"* in the second citj^ of Troy
(about 2500-2000 B.C.) and by its prevalence in
ancient Crete. The designs in favour among the
Haida tribes on the north-west coast of America
are similar to those on their boats, house-fronts,
pillars, and monuments, and include family crests
and totemic symbols such as the thunder-bird,
wolf, bear, codfish, and so on. There is a great
variation in the patterns of the Poljmesian tatu,
for almost every island has some distinctive char-
acteristic of its own. The Marquesans, e.g., tatu
in broad straight lines. Many of their signs
suggest a hieroglyphic system which can be inter-
preted only by their priests ; in Anaa, however,
sea-urchins and quaint zoophytes are well repre-
sented on the leg and thigh. The Marquesan
women have a design somewhat resembling a
gridiron tatued on their lips.* In Tahiti the
patterns are simpler, but of greater taste and
elegance than those of the Marquesas Islands.

1 C. Hose and W. McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Doi-neo,
London, 1912, i. 245-277.

2 Shway Yoe (J. G. Scott), The Burman'i, London, 1896, pp.
39, 41.

3 Chamberlain^, p. 401.

4 C. Hill-Tout, British N. America, 1., 'The Far West," Lon-
don, 1907, p. 74.

0 Hist, of Greenland, Eng. tr., London, 1820, i. 129.
8 L'Anfhropoloijie, xi. [1900] 485.

7 ' Les Tatouages des indigenes de TAlgd-rie,' L' Anthropologie,
X. [lhi;9] 434.

8 If. Sfihliemann, Ilion, London, 1880, p. 337 f.

9 F. W. Christian, E. Pacific Lands, London, 1910, jip. 197, 199.

TATUING

211

The coco-nut tree is a fa%'oiirite object, and figures
of men, animals, and flowers also occur, as Avell
as stars, circles, and lozenges. ^ The Maori tatu
st<ands out in striking contrast to that of the rest
of Polynesia, its chief feature being tlie blending
of spirals and sweeping curves, •which follow the
conformation of the human form, the face being
generally completely covered. This prevalence of
curved lines suggests Melanesian influence ; for
Polynesian tatu is generally rectilinear in char-
acter. Melanesian tatu is often asymmetrical,
perhaps because it is done at difl'erent times and
by diflerent artists. Here again the patterns are
very diverse and suggest, as regards some islands,
Polynesian influence. Each of the three principal
centres of tatu proper in New Guinea has peculiar-
ities of desig-n and execution ; thus, curved lines
prevail in Humboldt Bay instead of the broader
stripes of the south coast, and in the central district
the designs used in tatu resemble those on the pipes
and gourds, which show a preponderance of straight
lines over curves and an absence of human or animal
forms. Tiie Motu (Port Moresby) and kindred
tribes are said to have a geometrical art, and their
tatu is angular in character, but there seems to
be good evidence that many of their designs were
naturalistic in origin and became conventionalized
later. ^ In the Admiralty Islands the men wear
cicatrices on chest and shoulders in the form of
circular spots of the size of half-a-croAvn. Tatu
proper is mainly confined to the women, who have
rings round the eyes and all over the face, and
diagonal lines on the upper part of the front of the
hotly crossing one another so as to form lozenge-
shaped spaces.*

Complicated serial designs are worn by the
women in Borneo. The fingers and feet are done
at the age of ten, the forearm at eleven, the thighs
partly at twelve, being finished at pulaerty ; it is
thouglit immodest to be tatued after motherhood.
The men have isolated designs, such as the dog
design, in elongated or rosette form — a device
prominent in Kayan art and one that can be traced
in the shoulder tatu of many of the tribes includ-
ing the Barawans (Sarawak). The most primitive
tatu in Borneo is that of the Uma Long women of
Batang Kayan ; it is stippled in — on the forearm
only — in irregular dots. Indigenous patterns are
done by freehand, no blocks being used for them.
The thigh tatu in Borneo produces the efiect of
tight-fitting breeches, and resembles that found
among the Burmese and some of the Naga tribes.
The latter have an elaborate face tatu called ak,
formed of continuous lines across the forehead,
round and underneath the eyes, over the cheeks,
to the corners of the mouth and the chin. ' Rows
of spots follow the outside lines, and two fine lines
mark out the nose in a large diamond space.'
With the Nagas both sexes tatu, but some tribes
do not mark the face, and have the tatu placed
on the breast, shoulders, back, wrists, and thighs.^
The Burmese tatu generally from the waist to the
knees, but among the Shans it extends from the
neck to the feet. The designs include mystic
squares, triangles, and a great variety of animals.
The old or jungle style was to cover the skin with
tracery producing an indefinite effect ; the new
style is distinct in outline." Perhaps the most
highly developed tatu is that of the Japanese, who
cover the body with fantastic figures of dragons,
birds, flowers, and landscapes, in a manner that
recalls the patterns on their silks.

1 W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches^, London, 1831, i. 265 f.

2 Seligmann, Melanesians, p. 3S.

3 H. N. Moseley, ' On the Inhabitants of tlie Admiralty
Islands,' JA I vi. [1S76] 401.

•« R. G. Woodthorpe, ' Notes on the Wild Tribes inhabitinj^
the ao-oalled Naga Hills,' JAI xi. [tSSl] 208.
•'' Shwav Yoo2, p. 41 f.

4. Use and significance. — (a) BTagico-rcligious. —
The use and significance of these marks were mani-
fold, and they liave played an important part in
the life of primitive man, since they had <a magico-
religious as well as a social aspect. Their wide-
spread use, even at the present day, as a magical
protection against sickness and other misfortunes
shows a very general belief in their supernatural
efficacy. The Yuin tribe of S.E. Australia wear
vertical cicatrizations round the upper arm to make
boomerangs glance off.^ In Timorlaut scars are
inade with red-hot stones on the arms and shoulders
in imitation of smallpox marks to ward off' that
disease." The Andamanese believe that cicatriza-
tion is good for rheumatism, toothache, headache,
paralysis, epUepsy, and phthisis ; it is resorted to
for these and other ailments when all else fails.
The Todas use it to cure the pains caused by
milking buffaloes. Tatu proper is a remedy for
rheumatism much in favour with the men of the
Halba caste, who work on the lands in the soutli
of the Raipur District and the Ranker and Bastar
States in India ; its action is probably that of a
counter-irritant.* The Gonds and Baigas have a
number of designs for the protection of diflerent
parts of the body, including a figure of the monkey-
god Hanuman to give strength, of Bhimsen's club
to assist digestion, of the foot-god to cure pain,
and so on.* The Burman has similar safeguards
worn on all parts of the body ; they are a protec-
tion against wounds and secure freedom from pain,
and are sufficiently potent to procure even the
favour of princes. The only tatu worn by the
Burmese women is a love-charm in the form of a
triangle between the eyes or on the lips or tongue ;
it is done with the ' drug of tenderness ' — a mixture
of vermilion with herbs and other ingredients
such as the skin of trout-spotted lizards.^ The
Shans tatu boys as a test of courage, but special
designs are added to prevent injuries or other
mishaps. In Borneo the Kayan men wear a
special tatu on the wrist called lukut, which
keeps away illness. The lukut is a much -valued
bead, which was formerly fastened on the wrist
of the sick man to * tie in ' the soul ; but, as
the bead was liable to be lost, a tatued repre-
sentation of it came to be worn instead. The
Ainu women are tatued on the lips and arms to
keep away the demons of disease, who are thus
led to believe they are the wives of the gods,
since these are all tatued in this manner. If
an epidemic occurs in a village, the women must
tatu each other ; they also use tatuing as a remedy
for failing eyesight.^

Many races believe that the efficacy of tatu
marks extends beyond the present life to that of
the next world, where they serve as marks of
identification — e.g., Nagas of Manipur, Kayans of
Borneo, N. American Indians, and many others —
or as a guide, or as currency enabling the traveller
to accomplish his journey.

The Dhanwar, who inhabit the wild hilly country adjoining
Chota Nacpur, say that tatu marks 'remain on the soul after
death, and that she shows them to God, probably for purposes
of identification.' 7

Women of the Braliman caste believe that after
death they will be able to sell the ornaments tatued
on their bodies and to subsist on the proceeds. In
Africa a similar belief is found among the Ekoi
women, who think that in the next world they
can exchange their scars for food, and that (lie
ghost is able to remove them one by one for tliis

1 Howitt, p. 746.

a H. O. Forbes, ' On the Ethnology of Timorlaut,' JAI x\\\.
[1883] 10.

3 R. V. Russell, The Tnhes and Castf^ nf the Central
Prnvinces of India, London, 1916, iii. 200.

1 Ih. iii. 124-127. 5 Shwav Yoe2, p. i5.

« Itatrbclor, p. 28 f.

~ Unssell, ii. 386.

212

TATUING

purpose.^ The Eskimo and the Fijians believe in
Elysium only for the tatued ; the Fijian women
who have not these marks are said to be served up
as food for the gods. Some investigators have in-
sisted upon a considerable religious element in
tatu, since the operation is often accompanied by
sacrifice, prayer, and other religious ceremonies,
and the designs frequently represent sacred
animals, or other objects that may be regarded as
symbols of gods. These serve to express a close
union between the god and his disciple ; hence the
need for certain tabus to avoid the dread conse-
quences of contact with persons in this dangerous
state. The priest of tlie Ewe-speaking people of
W. Africa has special tatu marks indicating the
deity whom he serves and the rank that he holds
in the priestly order ; the shoulder marks in this
case are so sacred that they must not be touched
by the laity.^ In San Domingo the priests did not
wear a distinctive dress, but had a figure of a zemi
(idol) tatued or painted on their bodies.^ Tatuing
was regarded by many people as a sacred pro-
fession, and the artists were under the special
protection of deities of the craft. In Tahiti these
were the children of Taaroa, the principal deity ;
their images were kept in the temples of those
who practised the art professionally, prayers being
addressed to tiiem by the operator before he began
his work. The Tahitians say that tatuing origin-
ated among the gods, and there are legends in
Samoa and elsewhere telling of its sacred origin.

{b) Informatory . — To people who do not possess
a system of writing the wearing of permanent and
distinctive body-marks is not merely an aesthetic
advantage, but in many cases a real necessity.
Used extensively by uncultured peoples, these
marks became a convenient means of conveying to
their fellow-men all kinds of information concern-
ing their activities and environment. They serve
as a record of achievement and a means of identi-
fying a man's tribe, clan, totem, social status,
age-grade, and so on ; and they have been regarded
by some authors as a primitive form of writing.^
Thus, in Africa cicatrization is a common form of
tribal mark, the scars being worn on the face or on
other parts of the body and arranged in a certain
pattern. The Shilluk, Dinka, Dahoman, Mxosa,
Mtyopi, and Hausa tribes are among those who
follow this practice. Scars are used for the same
purpose in the Andaman Islands, and in Melville
and Bathurst Islands of N. Australia. Ellis,
writing of the Maoris of New Zealand, says that
their faces were much tatued :

' Each chief had thus imprinted on his face the marks and
involutions peculiar to his family or tribe ; while the figfures
tatued on the faces of the dependants or retainers, though
fewer in number, were the same in form as those by which the
chief was distinguished.' s

Even individual Maoris could be identified by
special marks which were tatued on the face —
usually near the ear — in addition to the general
pattern. These came to be used as the signature
of the wearer and have been accepted as such
on documents relating to transactions carried on
between the Maoris and white men.

The Salish and Dene tribes of N. America have
markings — generally on the breast — symbolic of
the totem or manitu of the individual wearing
them. The Haida Indians of Queen Charlotte
Islands have their family totems or crests tatued
on their bodies with great skill. The designs are

1 P. Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush, London,
1912, p. 203.

2 A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast,
London, 1890, p. 146.

3 T. A. Joyce, Central American and West Indian Arehce-
ology, London, 1916, p. 195.

4 H. Wuttke, Gesch. der Schrift und des Schri/ttuins, i., ' Die
Entstehung der Schrift,' Leijizig, 1872, p. 101.

5 Polynesian Researches^, iii. 354.

often very elaborate and resemble those on the
totem-posts that stand outside their houses.
A. C. Haddon records an instance of the use of
cicatrization to represent the totemic device in the
Torres Straits, where he saw some women wearing
it cut into their backs. He was told that the men
wore it cut into the shoulder or calf of the leg.^

The Kavuya Indians of California formerly used
the tatu designs worn by a landowner as a
property mark by cutting or painting them upon
trees and posts selected to indicate the boundaries.
It was customary for the Maidu women to have a
red spot tatued on the forehead by which, if taken
prisoners in war, they could be identified by friends
and so ransomed. ^

A curious use of tatu occurs in the well-known story in
Herodotus of the slave who was sent from Susa to Aristagoras
of Miletus by Histiseus with instructions that he was to be
shaved, and that Aristagoras should look at his head ; this
being done, it was found that a message had been tatued on
the man's head, urging Aristagoras to revolt against the
Persians. 3

Cicatrization and tatu proper are included in
the puberty rites and initiation ceremonies of many
primitive peoples. In an account of one of these
ceremonies in Australia Spencer and Gillen report :

'The final ceremony of initiation to manhood in the Urabunna
tribe is called Wilyaru, and the same name is given to men who
have passed through it. The most important part of the
ceremony consists in making cuts on the back, one in the
middle line of the neck and four or six others down each side of
the backbone.' 4

In the Marcjuesas Islands tatu proper was the
principal initiatory rite.

In Samoa ' until a young man was tattooed, he was con-
sidered in his minority. He could not think of marriage, and
he was constantly exposed to taunts and ridicule, as being poor
and of low birth, and having no right to speak in the society of
men. But as soon as he was tattooed he passed into his majority
and considered himself entitled to the respect and privileges of
mature years.' 8

It sometimes marked the admission to secret
societies, as in the Banks Islands (Melanesia),
where at the performance of the kole-kole cere-
monies the head of the tamate design adopted by
members of the society is tatued on the wrist, a
part of the body highly valued.* Mary H, Kingsley
says of the initiation of boys in Africa :

' The boy, if he belongs to a tribe that goes in for tattooing,
is tattooed, and handed over to instructors in the societies'
secrets and formulae.'''

In New Zealand tatuing began with both sexes at
puberty, the women being tatued chiefly on the
lips and chin.^ Chin tatu on women signifies
marriage, not only in New Zealand, but also
among the Eskimo, the Chukchi, the Indians of
the Pacific Coast, and in Syria, Egypt, and Tunis.
Women are usually tatued at puberty. This is
not, however, always the case, for in some of the
islands of Fiji and among the Todas of the Nilghiris
it is deferred until they have borne children, while
with some races it is begun in infancy and com-
pleted at marriage. Only women are tatued
among the Chukchi, most Californian tribes, the
Ainus of Japan, and in many parts of India. In
the Omaha tribe of N, America tatu marks on
women signified great honour and a rank equal to
that of a chief, Bachofen saw in the limitation of
tatu to women among the Thracians an expression
of their distinction and good social position.'' This
is contrary to the view taken by Plutarch, who
said that the Thracians tatued their wives as a
punishment to avenge the murder of Orpheus. In

1 Evolution in Art, London, 1895, p. 252.

2 W. J. Hoffman, The Beginnings of Writing, London, 1895,
pp. 37, 39.

3 V. 35.

4 Across Australia, London, 1912, i. 24.

5 G. Turner, Samoa, London, 1884, p. 88.

6 W. H. E. Rivers, The Hist, of Melanesian Society, Cam-
bridge, 1914, i. 134.

"^ Travels in W. Africa, London, 1897, p. 530.

8 Roblev, p. 33.

9 Das Mutterrecht, Stuttgart, 1861, p. 330.

TATUING

213

Melanesia, where tatu is mainly confined to women,
their social position is very inferior, whereas in
Polynesia it is comparatively ^^ood, and they are
seldom tatued. But it is questionable whether
there is any necessary correlation between tlie
tatuing of women and their position in the social
scale. The limitation of tatu to one sex or the
other may be due to other causes; e.g., it is
possible that in the South Seas it may be connected
with the migrations of different peoples.^

The social rank and profession of men are often
indicated by their tatu marks, as in the case of
the Maori chief who wore a complicated face tatu,
and the Creek Town king who was marked in
blue with figures of the sun, moon, and stars,
animals, landscapes, and even battle-scenes. It
has already been noted that priests sometimes
had distinctive tatu marks. In some parts of
India they serve as an indication of caste. All
Gowari men — a herdsman caste of the Maratha
country— are tatued with a vertical line on the
forehead, the possession of this mark securing
admission to the caste feasts.

Among some Indiana of Brazil the executioner, or matador,
was scarified above the elbows by the chief of the clan ' so as
to leave a permanent mark there ; and this was the star and
g-arter of their ambition, . . . the hijfhest badge of honour.
There vyere some who cut gashes in their breast, arms and
thighs, on these occasions, and rubbed a black powder in, which
left an indelible stain.' 2

The wearing of tatu marks proved a convenient
method of recording, among other things, great
achievements demanding personal valour and skill.
The Koita tribes of British New Guinea have a
special tatu for homicides.* Those of the Baronga
(Bantu) who have slain an enemy used to be
decorated with special marks from one eyebrow
to the other :

' Dreadful medicines were inoculated in the incisions and
there remained pimples " which gave them the appearance of
a buffalo when it frowns." '■*

On the Mendalam river in Borneo, the Kayans
reserve thigh tatu for head-taking braves. With
the Western Eskimo the men are tatued as a sign
of distinction. Those who have captured whales
have marks to show this, so that their tatu be-
comes a kind of whale tally. ^

In many countries it is not only a record of
great events, but also a memorial of the dead.
In the Saibai and Dauan Islands (Torres Straits)
the women wear a shoulder scar for a brother's
death ; it represents his nose, and the longer the
nose, the longer the scar.*

In New Zealand ' the women were the chief mourners at
funerals. . . . The custom was, in days gone by, that they
should gash their faces, nec^k, arms, and bodies with sharp
shells until they streamed with blood ; the narahu or moko-
dye was sometimes applied to the wounds, and the stains
commemorated the scenes at which the women assisted.' 7

In Polynesia the tongue was tatued as a sign of
mourning. Ellis saw this operation performed in
a house where a number of chiefs had assembled
for the purpose, and has described the tatuing of
Queen Rihoriho's tongue after the death of her
mother-in-law,

(c) Decorative. — Perhaps the most general use
to which tatu has been put is that of personal
adornment. Ellis, after noting that tatu was
used in Polynesia as a badge of mourning and a
kind of historical record, adds : ' But it was
adopted by the greater number of people merely
as a personal ornament ; and tradition informs
us that to this it owes its existence.' ^ Among the

1 Rivers, ii. 43(>-43S.

2 R. Southey, The Hist, o/ Brazil^, Ijondon, 1S22, i. 232.
S Seligniann, Melanesians, p. 130.

•*H. A. Junod, The Lije of a S. African Tribe, London,
1912-13, i. 4.51.

5 J. Murdoch, 9 Rr.HW [1HS7-SS], p. 139.

''Reports of the Cambriiiije Anlhropolvgical Expedition to
Torres Straits, Cambridge, 1901-12, iv. 2C.

7 Robley, p. 4.5.

» Polynesian Itesearches^, i. 262.

Kayans of Borneo, who have a very artistic style
of tatu, the men all'ect it chiefly for ornament :
so do the women in Greenland, New Zealand, and
elsewhere. In fact both sexes in many parts of
the world attach to it considerable aesthetic value.
In regard to cicatrization among the Andamanese,
Man says that it is primarily for ornament and
secondarily to prove courage in enduring pain.
It seems evident that in the Torres Straits islands
it was adopted as a means of acquiring a certain
accepted standard of beauty, for Haddon says
that the women had a A-shaped scar to prevent
the breasts from becoming too pendulous. ^ This
fashion is also found on the neighbouring coasts
of New Guinea and was observed by Seligman
among the Otati, an Australian tribe on the east
coast of Cape York.

In contrast with the opinions expressed in the writings of
Waitz-Gerland 2 and others in reference to the religious signifi-
cance of tatu, Joest and Westennarck see in it only an expres-
sion of man's vanity and love of adornment : ' At present
tattooing is everywhere regarded exclusivelj', or almost ex-
clusively, as a means of decoration, and Cook states expressly
that, in the South Sea Islands, at the time of their discovery,
it was in no way connected with religion.' 3 Westermarck
admits, however, that it has been made to subserve many
purposes, but adds : ' Nevertheless, it seems to be beyond
doubt that men and women began to ornament, mutilate,
paint, and tattoo themselves chiefly in order to make themselves
attractive to the opposite sex, — that they might court success-
fully, or be courted.' •* Wundt suggests that the marks at first
gave magical protection against evil powers, but gradually
became mei-ely decorative, and were used to make the person-
ality of the wearer more striking, as in the case of warriors,
who wore them to increase their terrifying aspect.* On the
other hand, E. Grosse thinks the priority should be given to
the taste for embellishment, and that the marks only later
came to have a tribal or social significance : ' Summarizing
the results of our investigations of the significance of primitive
scarification and tattooing, we find that the marks serve partly
as tribal tokens and have perhaps as such sometimes a religious
meaning, although this cannot be proved for a single instance.
But in other and the largest number of cases the scars and tattoo
marks are for ornament.' 6

5. Origin and development. — Many theories
have been put forward to account for the origin
and development of the practice of thus marking
the human body : as regards the origin, however,
they must remain, for lack of evidence, little more
than mere speculations. Instances have been
known of involuntary tatu occurring among
mechanics and other workmen, who have accident-
ally grazed or cut themselves while handling
charcoal or other colouring matter. Primitive
man may have arrived at the notion of tatu by
accident, such as the pricking of a finger by a
half -burnt splinter or thorn while kindling a fire.
The unusual mark thus made might well excite
his interest and so lead to an attempt at imitation
and to elaboration and invention. Herbert Spencer
thought that the practice arose from the custom
of making blood-offerings to departed spirits, and
that the marks thus made expressed subordination
to or close union with them, and became in many
instances tribal marks, ' as they would of course
become if they were originally made when men
bound themselves by blood to the dead founder of
the tribe.''' In this connexion F. B. Jevons writes :

' The marks or scars left on legs or arms from which blood
had iieen drawn were probably the origin of tattooing, as h.os
occurred to various anthropologists. Like most other ideas,
we may add, that of tattooing nmst have been forced on man ;
it was not his own invention, and, being a decorative idea, it
must have followed the laws which regulate the development of
all decorative art. ... So the scars from ceremonial blood-
letting may have suggested a figure ; the resemblance was
deliberately completed ; and next time the scars were from
the beginning designedly arranged to form a pattern.' 8

1 Hep. Camb. Anthrop. Expcd. to Torres Straits, iv. ICf.
" Anthropoloijie der Naturviilker, Leipzig, 1859-72, iv. 33-38.
'■' K. Westermarck, The Hist, of Human Marriage, London,
1^'J4, p. 171 f.
1 /b. p. 172.

•'"' Viilkcrpsychologie, Leipzig, 1900-09, v. 174.
6 lieijinnings of Art, Eng. tr.. New York, 1897, j). 80.
"i Tlie Principles nf Sociology, London, 1S93-9G, ii.-* 71 f.
8 An Introd. to the Hist, of Religion, London, 1S9G, p. 172.

214

TAUROBOLIUM

M. Neuberger regards tatu as one of the popular customs
that have sprung from primitive therapeutics : ' Smearing the
skin with earth led to painting the body, and scarification of
wounds and rubbing in the earth or rust (according to whether
the pain was to be lessened or increased) developed into
tattooing.' i Wundt, Joest, and others see a possible causal
connexion between body-painting and tatuing and suggest
that the latter was a crude attempt to fix the designs once
painted on the body. Wundt regards both these practices as
specific stages in primitive art ; and in tatu he recognizes two
types, the one being a crude S3'steiii of simple marks often
intensifying the natural lines of the body, and the other a stage
in wliich the skin is treated as a material to work on— just as
sand or rock is used for drawing upon— when the simpler marks
are replaced by fantastic symbols. Capart points out the
practical importance of replacing temporary marks by per-
manent ones, if they have a special meaning attached to them :
' Les dessins que le primitif se peint sur la peau n'ont aucun
caract^re de persistence et Ton peut h. volenti les faiie dis-
paraitre et les remplaeer par d'autres. II peut y avoir parfois
Interet .'i les rendre ind(?lebiles, lorsqu'ils sent, par exem})le, des
marques de tribus ou des marques religieuses. De li nait la
coutume de tatouage.' 2

Concerning the origin of moko, or Maori tatu,
native tradition says that the first settlers marked
their faces for battle with charcoal, and later these
warlike decorations were made permanent to save
trouble. ' Hence arose the practice of carving the
face and the body with dyed incisions.'*

How difficult and well-nigh impossible it is to
arrive at an accurate knowledge of the early
history of such a custom may be gathered from
the admission of W. Ellis, who, after many years
of personal contact with, and careful observation
of, the natives of the Polynesian islands, said in
reference to their tatu : •' Although practised by
all classes 1 have not been able to trace its origin.' ^

Literature.— This is indicated in the footnotes. In addition
to the works there mentioned the following may l>e consulted :
C. Hose and R. Shelford, 'Materials for a Study of Tatu in
Rorneo,' JAI xxxvi. [1906] 6iitf. ; A. W. Buckland, 'On
Tattooing,' ib. xvii. [18S7] SlSfif. ; A. Lacassagne, Les
Tatouatjcs, Paris, 1882; C. Marquardt, Die TMuioierumj
heider 'Geschlcchter in Samoa, Berlin, 1899; Otto Finsch,
' Ueber Bekleidung, Schmuck und Tatowirung der Papuas der
Sud-Ost Kiiste von Neu-Guinea,' Mittheilunpen der Anthrop.
Gesellsch.in ]Vien, xv. 12 [1885]; M. Haberlandt, 'Ueber die
Verbreitung und den Sinn der Tatowirung,' ih. xv. [1S85] 53 ;
G. veil Diiben, Om Tatuering, Ymer, 1886 ; A. Kramer, ' Die
Ornamentik der Kleidmatten und der Tatauierung auf den
Marshallinselu,' AA, new ser., ii. 1 [1904]. Valuable information
has also been obtained from an unpublished essay by W. O.
Hambly on 'Tatooing as a Means of Emotional Expression.'

Constance Jenkinson.

TAUROBOLIUM. — The taurobolium, a sacri-
fice performed in connexion with the cult of the
Great Mother of the Gods, but not lunited to it,
was one of the most peculiar and most celebrated
rites of the last two centuries of paganism. A
striking description of it is put by the Christian
poet Prudentius, of the 4th cent., into the mouth
of one of his characters, Romanus the Martyr
{Peristephanon, x. 1006 ft".). The high priest of the
Great Mother, a golden crown on his head, his
temples richly bound with fillets, his toga worn
cinctu Gahino, descends into a deep foss which is
completely covered by a platform of planks pierced
by a great number of fine holes. On to this
platform is led a huge bull, bedecked with garlands
of flowers, his front gleaming with gold. His
breast is pierced by the consecrated spear, and the
torrent of hot, steaming blood floods the covering
of the trench, and rains through the thousand
chinks and perforations on the expectant priest
below, who throws back his head the better to
present cheeks, ears, lips, nosti'ils, and even tongue
and palate, to the purifying bajitism. Wiien life
has (led and left <-old th(- body of Uie si;i,in bullock,
•and tlie ll;xmcns liav(! removed it, the priest emerges
and, with ii.iir, IxMird, and vestments dripi»ing wi(1i
blood, presents himself to the (ixjiectaut throng ol'
worshippers, who salute and do obeisance to him
as to one who has been purified.

There were two principal motives which prompted

1 Hist, of Medicine, tr. E. Playfair, London, 1010, i. 2.

2 Capart, p. 30. =* Robley, p. 2.
■1 Pulyncsian Researches-, i. 'ZGi.

the ceremony of the taurobolium. In the earlier
period, the 2nd and 3rd cent. A.D., it was usually
a sacrifice whose object was the welfare of the
Empire, Emperor, or community. An entire col-
lege, community, or even province could give it,
and a frequent date for it was March 24, the Dies
Sanguinis of the annual festival of the Mother and
Attis. The more frequent motive of the rite in the
late 3rd and 4th cent, was the purification and
regeneration of an individual. Its efficacy lasted
for twenty years, or was even eternal, the baptized
person being spoken of as 'renatus in a^ternum'
{GIL vi. 510, 512). It was performed by laymen
as well as priests, and by persons of all ranks and
both sexes. A special altar was erected for the
occasion, the time occupied by the ceremony varied
from one to five days, and the expense was borne
by the individual or association that inaugurated it.
Besides the personal and the patriotic motive, it
was performed as a fulfilment of vows, or at the
command of the Mother herself. In Rome it
usually took place near a shrine which existed
where the present church of St. Peter stands.
The criobolium — the sacrifice of a ram— was insti-
tuted later in honour of Attis on the analogy of
the taurobolium, in order to give him due promin-
ence in the rites of the cult. See art. Criobolium.

As the taurobolium was celebrated in honour of
both the Great Mother and Attis, it probably pos-
sessed a significance regarding that part of the
legend which concerned them both (see MOTHER OF
THE Gods). The priest descends into the dark pit
and leaves the light of day ; Attis dies ; the vegeta-
tion of the earth withers ; the priest is bathed in
blood, and rises from the pit purified; Attis is
restored ; the vegetation returns.

The similarity between Christian doctrine and
the phrase renatus in ceternuvi ('born again for
eternity ') is startling, and has suggested belief in
some connexion between the two religions in the
way of borrowing, especially as paganism vied with
Christianity in later days in promising such benefits
as the latter conferred. The taurobolium, how-
ever, is better explained as the survival of a primi-
tive Oriental practice based upon the belief, not
uncommon among rude peoples, that the strength
of brute creation can be acquired by consumption
of its actual substance or by contact with its
blood. The spiritual meaning of the practice first
came with the advance of culture and the discard-
ing of the primitive, literal belief (see Cumont,
op. cit. below).

Though the taurobolium might with reason be
supposed to have come, with the cult of the Great
Mother, from Asia Minor, there is no positive
evidence that it was originally connected Avith it
either in the East or in Italy. Cumont thinks that
it was a rite in honour of the eastern Artemis
Tauropolos, deriving from her its name tauropolion,
which was corrupted to taurobolium ; and that the
rite, having become wide-spread in Cappadocia and
the neighbouring provinces in connexion with the
worship of Artemis Tauropolos and other deities
closely allied or identified with her— principally
Anaitis and Bellona— naturally found its way with
them into Italy early in the 2nd cent. A.D., after
the annexation of that part of Asia to the Roman
Empire, and was soon afterwards adopted and
]iopiilarized by the pvi(!stlii)od of the (ireat Mother.
Its first known celeliiation took place at Pozzuoli
in A.D. 134, in honour of Venus C;plestis, Avho,
Cumont tliinks, Avas Anaitis under a ll<mian name.
His conclusion that it was celebrated in connexion
with the worship of P>e]lona rests on slender evi-
dence. Others believe it to have been a part of the
Great Mother's worship in Asia Minor (Hepding,
op. cit. below). Whatever its origin, its popularity
was attained through the cult of the Great Mother.

TEETH— TELEOLOGY

^211

lb sijread throughout the Empire, and maintained
its importance up to the fall of paganism, the last
celebration known occurring at Rome in 394.

Literature.— E. Esparandieu, Inscriptions de Lectoure, 1892,
p. 94 ff. ; Zippel, Festschrift zum Doctorjubilceu7n Ludw.
Friedldnder, 1895, p. 489 f. ; G. Showerman, ' The Great Mother
of the Gods' in DuUctin of the University of Wisconsin, no.
xliii. , Madison, 1901 ; F. Cumont, ' Le Taurobole et le Culte de
Bellone,' in RHLlt, vi. no. 2, 1901 ; H. Hepding-, Attis, seme
My then und sein Kult, 1903, pp. IGSff., 201.

Grant Showerman.

TEETH.— I. Ornament and trophy.— Among
both pre-historic and savage races teeth of animals
and human beings are used as an ornament,
usually strung together as a necklace, headband,
or girdle. Such ornaments are already found
among burial remains of Solutrean, Magdalenian,
and Azilian horizons, the corpses having been
buried wearing them. In a ceremonial burial of
thirty-three skulls in the grotto at Ofnet, on the
upper Danube, the skulls were ornamented with
stag's teeth and shells.^ Amon^^ savages the
custom of wearing teeth is well-nigh universal,"
and, while it may simply serve an ornamental
purpose, the intention often goes farther. The
teeth are worn as a trophy. Thus, among the
tribes of the N.W. Amazon, necklaces are made
of the teeth of the tiger and other animals,
bored and threaded, or of human teeth bound
into a necklace with fibre string. These denote
the skill of the wearer as a hunter, or his bravery
in war, and the human teeth, which are those of
an enemy, are *a visible and abiding token of
completed revenge,' and are buried with the
owner. Sometimes the larger animal teeth are
ornamented with lines or carved.^ Analogous
to the practice of wearing teeth as a trophy is
the curse used by savages, 'Let their teeth be
broken,' and the Psalmist's words, ' Break their
teeth' (58«), 'Thou hast broken the teeth of the
ungodly ' (3^). The suggestion is that of enemies
as ferocious beasts deprived of their power to
tear and rend.* Men doubtless used their teetii
in early times as a weapon, as savage men and
maniacs still do. Divine images are known to
have actual teeth set in their mouths, possibly
as a trophy or ottering.'

Possibly teeth worn by men also served the
purpose of an amulet, as having a connexion with
the qualities of the animal or person from whom
they were taken," or as protecting the wearer
from similar animals in time to come.' On the
other hand, a person's own tooth might serve as
an amulet. Pliny says that the first tooth shed
by a child was so u.sed and protected him from
pain. 8 Where teeth are knocked out at initiation,
they are sometimes carefully preserved, or regarded
as sacred, or used for magical purposes.**

Teeth taken from a corpse were used to cure
toothaclie or for magic, and those of an old
woman were used as a fertility charm in the yam
garden by tlie New Caledonians.'"

2. Mutilation of the teeth.— Filing the teeth
to a point eitlier singly or in pairs, and knocking
out certain teetli as a ceremonial act, usually at

1 II. F. Osborn, Men of the Old Stone Age"^, London, 1910,
pp. 327, 378, 472, 477.

2 O. StoU, Das Gesehlcchtslehen in der Volkerpsychologie,
Leipzig, 1908, p. 264 ff. ; E. Grosse, Lcs Debuts da I'art, tr.
E. Dirr, I'aris, 19<I2, |>. (57 ff.

3T. Whifl'uii, The North-West Amaztins, London, lOlfi, pp.
80, 82, 124.

4 Of. Fr 30", .loll 4'i» 29'7, .)! 18.

5 Stoll, p. 20.''..

li See art. Charms ano Amiii,rt« (liiliodiu'lory and I'riniitivc),
\o\. iii. p. 390''.

■7M. l)ol>ri/,ho(T.r, An Accimnt of the A}apir.us, tr. S.
Coleridge, London, 1«22, i. 208.

8 Plinv, HN xxviii. 7.

9 Spencer-Gillen'', p. 593 f. ; A. W. Howitt, The. Native Tribes
nfS.E. Australia, London, 1904, pp. 542, 562 ff.

' 10 Pliny, FfN xxviii. 11; Stoll, p. 263; O. Turner, Samoa,
a Hundred Years A'jo and Lonrj Before, lAindoii, 1884, p. 342.

initiation, and the purposes which these practices
serve, have been already discussed.'

Staining the teeth is practised by several lower
tribes— c.i;. in S. America and Indonesia— as well
as at higher levels— e.g'. in China (applying lac
to the teeth).^

3. Teeth as relics. — Teeth of Christian saints
have often formed relics, and in early Uuddhism
the four canine teeth of Gautama were among
his 'seven great relics.' One of these has been
famous in Ceylonese Buddhism as the Dalacki.
Its miraculous preservation from every means
taken to destroy it by a hostile Indian king, and
its ultimate arrival in Ceylon in A.D. 312, are the
subjects of a long narrative, and the Chinese
traveller Fa-hian describes the procession of the
relic as he saw it in 405. At a later time the
Portuguese are believed to have destroyed it,
though the Ceylonese allege that they only
destroyed a counterfeit and that the real tooth
is the one still preserved at Kandy in a shrine.
It is probably not genuine.^

4. Teeth in myth and legend.— Greek myth
told how Kadmos, having slain the dragon guardian
of the spring Areia, at the suggestion of Athene
scattered its teeth on the earth like grain. From
the teeth sprang armed men called Spartoi
('scattered') from the manner of their birth. A
similar myth was told of Jason.*

In the 16th cent, a report that a child had
been born with a golden tooth in Silesia caused
much anxiety in Germany, being regarded as a
portent. The physician Horst in 1595 ])ublished
the result of his astrological researches on the
subject, and declared that the tooth symbolized
a golden age, preceded by the expulsion of the
Turks from Christendom.''

LiTERATUBK. — This 13 referred to in the notes.

J. A. MacCulloch.
TEETOTALISM.— See Alcohol, Drunken-
ness.

TEINDS.— See Tithes.

TELEOLOGY.— I. Introductory.— i. The
term.— The word 'teleology' (Mod. Lat. telcolofjm.
Germ. Teleologie, Fr. Uleologie) appears to have
been devised by Christian Wolfi' in 1728. He felt
the need of a term to designate the branch of
iratural philosophy which had to do with ends
(Aristotle's rAos or ov eVem) or final causes (the
causa Jinalis of the schoolmen) as distinguished
from efiicient causes [i^ ov yiyvercu, carisa efficient).
For Wolff, accordingly, tejeology signified the study
of ends or final causes m nature, and more pre-
cisely the explanation or interpretation of natural
phenomena in the light of the concept of end or
final cause. In popularizing Leibniz's philosophy,
he set explanation based on final cause side by
side with explanation by efficient cause. Presum-
ably WoUf derived teleology directly from riXos,
'an end,' but, as J. Burnet has remarked," the
word is projierly derived in the first instance
from rAetov, 'complete.' Thus, etymologicallv
regarded, it does not bear the implication, Avhich
it has historically, of an external end ; and the

1 See art. Aitstkritiks, vol. ii. p. 233 f.

2 VVhilfen, p. 88 ; Stoll, p. 3GC ; J. Denikcr, The Rafes of Man,
Lnniloii, lilOO, i>. 174.

:i ,L l'"ergusson, Tree, and Serpent Worship, London, 1808,
pp. S2, lf.8f.

4 h'or a connexion of tlioiie ui.vthA with the prcsprvatioii of the
teeth knocrked out at initiation rites ius a pos.sil)le vehicle of
reincarnation, being practically inijurisli-dile, ami alsobecan.se
they look like 'sieed-corn,' see Jane E. Harrison, Themis,
Cambridge, 1912, pp. 272, 435.

5 H. T. Buckle, Hist, of Cioilization jji England*, I.rf)ndon,
1864 i. 304 ; K. Sprengel, Hist, de la midecine, tr. A. J. L.
Jourdain, Paris, 1815-20, iii. 247 f.

6 Greek Philosophy, pt. i., Thcdcs to Plato, London, 1014,
p. 340, note 1.

216

TELEOLOGY

prevalent ' organic ' use of it in modern thought
IS justitied.

2. The concept. — As already indicated, the con-
cept is much older than the term. It attaches
itself ijrimarily to that organic view of nature
which was developed in the ancient Greek philo-
sophy as against the mechanical view, ^cording
to the mechanical view, the whole is the product
of the parts by their mutual interaction. Accord-
ing to the organic doctrine, the whole is ideally
prior to the parts and constitutes the explanation
of their mechanical actions and xeacllbns. "TIiTs
last was a doctrine influential not only in the
sphere of natural philosophy but in the spheres of
political and social philosophy as well, and it led
to the teleological interpretation of nature as a
realm of ends or final causes. As the whole was
an unchangeable form, it gave to all movement a
purpose and goal ; and in the light of its purpose
and goal the movement itself was most deeply
interpreted. This ancient opposition between the
mechanica.1 and'^feleological standpoints, as repre-
sented by Democritus and Aristotle respectively,
set a problem which runs through the whole
history of philosophy. The fundamental question
at issue is. Are natural processes subordinate to
qonscious rational purpose, or is the world to be
explained and interpreted by^mechanical principles
alone ? That is the deeper philosophical issue in
its most clear-cut form. There is a narrower issue
which has assumed increasing definiteness in
modern times. The fundamental question here
belongs to scientific method rather than to meta-
physics, and is most prominent at the present time
in the dispute between mechanism and teleology
in biological theory. Are the characteristic prob-
lems of biology iq.v.) capable of solution by means
of mechanistic categories, or must teleological
factors also be postulated ?

II. Historical. —A. Ancient period. — i.
Anaxagoras (c. 500-428 B.C.) has been hailed as
the father of teleology, but he is so only in a
qualified sense. ^ His explanation of nature — to
judge from the fragments of his Hepi (pvcreus pre-
served by Simplicius and from the references in
Plato and Aristotle — appears to have been virtually
a mechanical explanation on the basis of a quali-
tative atomism, nor is it even certain that his First
Cause of motion was an immaterial or incorporeal
essence. The movement and order of the universe
he ascribes analogically to Nous (mind, intelligence,
reason), which by an initial impulse imparted a
rotatory motion to the pre-existent chaos in which
' all things were together.' But, once the rotatory
motion was set up. Nous apparently had little else
to do. It may be that a thoroughgoing teleo-
logical view of nature is logically involved in the
Anaxagorean doctrine of Nous, whether Nous (which
is represented as omniscient and omnipotent) be
regarded as a spiritual or a corporeal essence, as
mind or mind-stuff. On the other hand, it is
altogether probable that Anaxagoras did not
carry out the full implications of his doctrine.
Socrates in the Phcedo - complains that in actual
explanations he called in only mechanical causes —
' airs, aethers, waters, and such like absurdities ' ;
and Aristotle in his Metaphysics'^ (in a passage
reminiscent, as Burnet^ allows, of the passage
from the Phcedo) charges him with making use of
Nous merely as a deus ex machina, to account for
the formation of the cosmos or for phenomena that
he could not explain on mechanical grounds.
Similar objections, as J. Adam ^reminds us, were

1 See art. Anaxagoras and also art. PHn,osopnT (Greek), vol.
ix. p. seob.

2 97B, 8. Si. 4 (985a 18 ff.).
J Early Greek Philosophy'^, London, 1908, p. 310.

5 The Religious Teachers of Greece {Gifford Lectures), Edin-
burgh, 1908, p. 263.

afterwards urged against Descartes and Newton.
But, however we may interpret the Anaxagorean
concept, we cannot but recognize its significance
in the history of thought.^

2. Diogenes of Apollonia. — The teaching of
Anaxagoras was apparently influential upon his
contemporary Diogenes, who attributes Nous to
his primary substance, air, inasmuch as all things
are ' disposed in the best possible manner ' — a
phrase which sends one's mind on to Leibniz
and his theological optimism. It is, however, im-
possible to say whether Diogenes followed up his
affirmation of purpose or design in nature any
farther than Anaxagoras appears to have done ;
and this difference between them remains, that,
whereas with Anaxagoras the teleological inference
is in the direction of theism, with Diogenes it is
definitely iiantheistic.^

3. Socrates. — The teleology of Socrates (j. v.) is
to be found in the Phcedo and the Memorahilia.
(«) The Socrates of the Phcedo expresses himself as
mightily pleased with the book of Anaxagoras in
which Nous is affirmed to be the cause of all things,
but as disappointed with the failure of Anaxagoras
to transcend the mechanical view. He is dis-
satisfied with a philosophy that cannot show how
everything finds itself as it is because it is best for
it so to be. He has grasped the distinction between
mechanical and final causes in nature, and dis-
covers only in the latter a true ground of explana-
tion. To rely upon mechanical causes alone would
be as absurd as to say that the real reason or final
cause of his sitting in prison was certain bodily
dispositions, and not his mental resolve to abide
by his sentence, as the best thing to do. Had this
not seemed the best, then ' by the dog these muscles
and bones would have been off' to Megara or the
Boeotian frontier long ago.' ^ (b) Consistently with
this representation in the Phcedo the Socrates of
the Memorabilia ^ is found affirming an immanent
Reason in the world, and consistently too with the
general doctrine of the Platonic Socrates concern-
ing the individual and the State (which Adam
would sum up as ' noocracy,' or the supremacy of
Nous or Reason).^ At the same time the Anaxa-
gorean concept receives in the Memorabilia a
development so one-sided that it becomes difficult,
if on no other ground than this, to believe in the
representations of Socrates in Plato and Xenophon
respectively as both even essentially historical.
W. Windelband ^ su.spects the influence of Cynicism
and Stoicism upon the representation in Xenophon,
In any case it is an exclusively anthropocentric
teleology that is here formulated. The whole
world of nature is said to yield traces of design, as
appears in ]iarticular from the wonderful adapta-
tions of means to end in the structure of the human
body, in man's psychical constitution, and in the
phenomena of external nature ; and, furthermore,
all is designed towards the one end of the advantage
and well-being of men. (c) The Socrates of the
Meviorabilia gave perhaps the first formal exposi-
tion of the 'argument from design.' Formally,
and often naively, he argues from the evidences
of design in nature to the existence of an intelligent
and beneficent Deity {<To<l)od rivbs drjfiiovpyoD Kal
(pcXo^diov).'' This anthropocentric teleology, with
the theistic inference associated with it, impressed
itself strongly upon subsequent religious thought.

4. Plato.— (a) The teleology of Plato iq.v.) is so
far indicated in what has been said regarding the
Socrates of the Phwdo, but it has a deeper philo-
sophical setting than can actually be found in

1 See art. Anaxagoras, vol. i. p. 424.

2 See art. Pantheism (Greek and Roman), vol. ix. p. 614^.

3 Phcedo, 99 A. * I. iv., iv. iii.

5 Religious 2'cachers ojf Greece, p. 342.

6 IHst. of Ancient Philosophy''^, Eng. tr., London, 1900, p. 124.
' Mem. I. iv.

TELEOLOGY

217

f Derates. In keeping with his ethical and social
IfflSfeophy, P|atp seeks in his metaphysics to
interpret the real in terms of the end or ideal^of
J,.' the .GocxE. Ethics is for hiiii "'flTMe"7oundation of
meta'physics, as it came to be for Lotze, and reality
yields up its secrets according as its ethical mean-
ing is apprehended. His conception, already
adumbrated in the Phcedo, of a 'Jacob's ladder of
science' (as E. Caird calls it^), beginning with the
lower principles of explanation and reaching to
the highest principle of unity or the idea of the
Good, by which all the others are explained, is
developed more fnlly in the Republic.^ The Good
or Universal Reason (NoOs) is_tl.ie,_ final cause of
every event and change, and to the idea of the
Good all the other ideas are teleologically sub-
ordinate. The. Good, as we may learn from a
famous passage of the Laus,^ is the perfection of
the Khole ; and in the preservation and perfection
of the whole every creature has its own proper end
*?!)> t ^ ^^ fulfil. Thus it was that Plato sought by means
'^'"'-"' ^ of his theory of ideas to interpret the rational
^ V'v*"''^' principle of Anaxagoras more adequately. He
y looks upon the world, says J. Hutchison Stirling,

as 'a single teleological system with the Good
alone as its heart.'*

(6) In applying his metaphysical principles to the interpreta-
tion of nature, Plato is hardly liable like the Socrates of the
Memorahilia to the charges of externality and anthropo-
centrism. For the Tim-cexis, in which such a teleology may be
found, is, in its details at least, ' mythical.' In consistency with
his theory of ideas, Plato could not have claimed more for his
accounts of the phenomenal world than that they were ' likely
tales' (eiKores koyoi). In any case he does not, even in the
Tim-cetis, lay much stress upon particular instances of adapta-
tion in nature, nor does he encourage the notion of adaptations
as designed exclusively for human needs, (c) In the TUnceus,
as indeed in the Philelnis in non-mythical form, a theological
interpretation is offered of the teleological constitution of the
world. In offering it, Plato would apparently overcome the
dualism between the ideal and the phenomenal which is inherent
in his theory of knowledge and realitj*. God, the Demiurge, is
represented as bringing order and harmony out of the moving
chaos of not-being (/uij hv), in accordance with the pattern of
the Good, and in so far as natural necessity (17 avdyKr)) allows.
Thus natural necessity comes in when divine activity according
to ends fails as a principle of explanation, and something is
yielded to Deniocritus. But, while the teleological explanation
involves a recognition of divine activity, and is so far on the
lines of the theistic argument, the Demiurge of the Timceus —
the self-moved mover who fashions the world— is not identified
with the Good, nor is he to be equated with the God of modern
theism.

5. Aristotle. — (a) While it may be allowed to
Plato that no ultimate explanation of anything is
possible apart from the discovery of its final cause,
we have to turn to Aristotle (q.v.) for a more
adequate recognition of mechanical causes as
principles of explanation, and this although
Aristotle is the protagonist of the organic and
teleological view of the universe. In the endeavour
_-' to overcome the Platonic dualism of ideas and

things, Aristotle gives an. even more thorough-
going interpretation of the Anaxagorean NoiJs than
is to be found in Plato. With Plato he believes in
the real existence of the form or idea, but he cannot
think of it as separate from the world. It exists
in the world and in things. Reality is a process
91 development, in which the cha.n^e from more
imperfect to less imperfect being is to be interpreted
in the light of the tAos, wjiich, in things that are
not eternal is the moving form or final state of
actuality {^vepyela). The moved matter, -which is
.'•. . :>, ' the primal state of potentiality (5iVa/xis), exists Jor
the sake of the form.' The individual is \0^i
form and matter, being form in relation to wlTatis
lower in the scale of tilings, and mattes^ in relation
to what is higher. Tlie niaiblc is forn^'in rjelation

1 The. Evolution of Theolony in the Gretk Philimophcrs {Gifford
Lectures), Glasgow, 1904, i. r29.

2 Bk. vi. 3 X. 903.

* Philosophy and Theology {Gifford Lectures), Edinburgh,
1890, p. 113.

5 Cf. also R. Adamson, The Denelopmant 0/ Greek Philosophy,
Edinburgh, 1908, p. 155.

to the materials composing its substance, and
nratter' in relatioii to tl>e statue_j»vhicli is made
from it. The tree is form in relation to the
elements of tlTe soil that enter into the process of
its gro^\■th, and jiwtHer in relation to the house
built of it. The '.^00^' is the highest form of all,
being pure form without matter, and is thailltimate
end or final cause of all existence and all move-
ment. It is not actually generated in the world -
process, but is eternally implied in it, as the goal
of the creation.

(6) With this peculiar speculative idea of development which
fills the central place in the Metaphysics Aristotle opposes
Democritus (q.v.) and the atoniists, who appeared to him as
mere ' drunken stutterers ' in comparison with Anaxagoras.
Even in inorganic nature he finds purpose or final cause
operative. Just as an army moving on the field, or a ship
cleaving the sea under full sail, offers an instance of effort
directed towards an end, so, wherever we observe in natural
processes the regular achievement of results, we may similarly
discern the presence of purpose. But it is principally the
realm of organic nature that is viewed thus teleologically.
How absurd, he urges, to ascribe the forms and activities of
living beings to the operation merely of accident (to ainotiarov)
or chance (li tvx')) ! Empedocles (g.t).) was emphatically wrong
in his theory of the origin of species, in which he avers that
nature produces in her prodigality every possible type of
animal form, and that only those forms survive which are
coherently and consistently constructed. If, as Empedocles
believed, nature once produced ' man-faced cattle ' (/SouyeiTJ
avSpoTTpifipa), presumably she also produced at one time or other
' oiive-faced grapes ' ! Nature is a cause which acts purposively,
and if her end is sometimes unattained, it is due to the
mechanical necessity to which matter (vKjf) — Plato's 'not-
being' — is subject.

(c) Much more clearly than in Plato we find in Aristotle,
especially in the de Partibtis Animalium and other biological
works, the recognition of the double pla\' of mechanism and
teleology in hature, especially in organic nature, which does
tiot operate with the refractory medium of matter. As a
naturalist he is content to lai: stress upon only two forms of
causation — material or mechanical (ef ava.yKr]i) and formal or
final (ou eVexa), and the formal or final cause .comes first, being
the reason which determines the whole process. The mechani-
cal causes are the servants and instruments of the final" causes.
Thus in Aristotle both mechanism and teleology are accepted ajs
factors in the explanation of nature, though the Platonic
principle preponderates. It is not quite true, however, to say
that Aristotle has succeeded in reconciling Plato and Demo-
critus, that by his cosmo-teleologj- he mediates between the
ontoteleology of the theory of ideas and the mechanism
associated with the atomistic hypothesis. Owing to his
scientific Umitations, notably in connexion with the mechanics
of the heavens, Aristotle pushed explanation by final causes
farther than his general principles warranted. Frequently
resting upon final causes alone, he at once hindered the pro-
gress of his own scientific thought and lent his authoritj- to
the narrow and one-sided finalism of the scholastic interpreta-
tion.

(d) Aristotle's organic or teleological doctrine, based on the
metaphysical concepts of matter and form, strikingly anticii)ates
certain modern positions in biological and psychological science.
Applied, e.g., to the conception of the organism, it offers, as
L. J. Henderson assures us,i a complete formulation of the
biological principle of organization. Aristotle conceives of the
living thing as an autonomous unit, having the teleological
principle within, and with every part functionally related to
every other and existing as the servant of the whole. That
is the implication, we are told, of his comparison of the organism
to a well-governed commonwealth, in which, once order is
established, the indi\ iduals duly play their parts and a separate
monarch is no more needed.

6. The Stoics. — (a) Among the so-called sects that
came after Plato and Aristotle the Sceptics {q.v.)
had no contribution to make in teleology. If
causality was suspect with them, as with Hume
in a later age, so also was finality. The contri-
bution of the Epicureans (q.v.) was distinctly
negative. Epicurus is to be classed with Leucippus
and Democritus, of whom Aristotle said that tliey
'rejected design and referred all to necessity.'^
But the Stoics (q.v.) recognize the principle of
teleology. There was one philosopher indeed, an
Aristotelian, who came near to Stoicism in his
opposition to the mechanical explanations of the
atoniists ; but, on the other hand, as Windelband
puts it,^ he ' threw away the keystone of the
Aristotelian teleology.' This was Stratoof Lamp-
sacus, who denied the existence of pure form as of

1 The Order of Nature, Cambridge, U.S.A., 1917, p. 21.

2 De Generatione Animalium, v. 18.

3 llint. of Ancient Philosophy, p. 301.

218

TELEOLOGY

pure matter, declaring form to be always immanent
in matter, and so converting the Aristotelian
system into a consistent naturalism. Stoicism
may also be described as naturalism, but it was
at the same time a pantheistic system. The old
dualism of form and matter which Plato and Aris-
totle liad inherited from Ana.xagoras, and had
failed to throw off', gave place to an eclectic and
somewliat facile monism, in which one eternal sub-
stance manifested itself as spirit (\670s (TirepnaTiKbs)
and matter {Trvev/ia didirvpov). It was essentially
a teleological explanation of the world that was
given by Stoicism, because, although every par-
ticular phenomenon was said to be determined by
natural necessity, as Democritus had maintained,
natural necessity was not based, as with the
atomists, on quantitative difFerences and initial
movements, but depended on the vital activity
, of the whole.

(6) In carrying out its teleology, Stoicism made much of the
beauty, order, and harmony of the world and the adaptations
of means to end, especially in organic nature, as manifestations
of the rational unity and ideal meaning of things. The
evils of the world, which offered even more difficulty on the
monistic hypothesis than in the Platonic and Aristotelian
systems, were optimisticallj' explained as instruments or con-
comitants of the great cosmic movement, and it was said that
they would be recognized as such, if the individual could take
the point of view of the whole. But the Stoic appeal to order
and adaptation often descended to externality and anthropo-
centrism, as in the teaching attributed to Socrates in the
Memorabilia. Thus it was said that the peacock was made for
the sake of its beautiful tail, and the ass to carry man's burdens.
Yet an immanent or intrinsic teleology such as is characteristic
of Plato and Aristotle would have been altogether congruous
with Stoic principles.

(c) If the Memorabilia is possibly influenced by Stoicism,
Cicero's de Natttra Deortnn indubitably is. There the inference
to God from the order and beauty of the universe is eloquently
set forth in a well-known passage i— reminiscent perhaps of
Plato's story of the Cave — attributed to Aristotle, where is
depicted the impression that would be made on men whose
dwellings had been underground, on their first beholding the
glorious spectacle of earth and sea and sky. It has been
suggested ^ that in the argument for the being of God contained
in the de Natura Deorum it is Aristotle we have chiefly before
us; e.g., the comparison, in several passages, of the world to a
furnished or inhabited house or an adorned and decorated
temple of the gods (a comparison which is to be found also in
writers like Philo the Jew and Minucius Felix the Christian
ajjologist) is said to have come from Aristotle. This suggestion
is odious to philosophers who are jealous for the purity of the
Aristotehan doctrine of the end, especially as Cicero in the de
Natura Deorum furnishes the prototype, in the ancient world,
of Paley's Natural Theology and the Bridgewater Treatises.

7. Teleology of history.— While in the ancient
Greek philosophy a teleology of nature was ex-
pounded, in the religious period of the ancient
world and within tlie early Christian Church the
idea of a teleology of history gained ground. The
opposition in the Gnostic view of history to the
OT religion as the revelation of an inferior Deity
led to the view of history which has established
itself as the truly Christian. It fastened upon the
Pauline doctrine of the pajdagogic function of the
Law, which gave to the Law a distinctive place in
a teleological series of divine processes ; and the
whole course of the ages was interpreted in the
light of the great divine plan of redemption
culminating in Jesus Christ. With Irenaius the
teleology of nature is ancillary to the teleology
of history as thus expounded from the Christian
.standpoint. At the hands of Augustine the whole
conception receives an impressive treatment, and
the human race is regarded as a teleological unity,
as being destined to receive entrance into the
catholic or universal Clnircli (rivitas Dei). This
antiiropocentric view of tiie world as the scene of
the divine redemption in .Josiis CUuist still prevails
in Christian tiieology, in which the teleological
principle of history is .sometimes ilescribed as
Ohristological or Christocentric.

B. Medieval period.— Thomas Aquinas.—
All through the Middle Ages, in Christian and
1 Bk. ii.
- See Hutchison Stirling, Philosojjhy and Thcolo(jjj, p. 170 fl.

Muliammadan countries alike, the Aristotelian
teleology dominated philosophical and scientific
thought. Unfortunately it was the Aristotelian
teleology in its defective form of explanation by
hnal causes alone [i.e. apart from mechanical
causes), and it laid an arrest upon the movement
of natural philosophy. Yet Archimedes and others
who came after Aristotle had shown that mechanics
at any rate could altogether dispen.se with the
hypothesis of final cause. Aquinas (q.v.) makes
use of the so-called teleological proof, which was
the favourite proof in the patristic ami .scholastic
ages, and he quotes as exponents of it John of
Damascus and Averroes on Aristotle's Physics.
There is an intelligent ' somewhat,' says Aquinas,
by which all natural objects are ordered in relation
to an end, and this ' somewhat ' we call God — -which,
indeed, is the gist of the teleological argument,
whether in its popiilar or in its more philosophical
form. Aquinas also catches up the patristic idea
of the teleological unity of nature and history,
and through his doctrine of the State gives it a
more systematic expression. The State was not
with him, as with Augustine, the devil's province
{civitas huius sceculi), but was based on natural
law or right [lex nattiralis), which has its source
in God ; and the life of virtue, wiiich Aristotle said
was to be realized in the political society, was the
preparation for the higher life of grace in the
society or community of the Church. ' Gratia
naturam non tollit sed perficit.'

C. Modern period.— i. Bruno.— The transition
from ancient and mediteval to modern thought is
well illustrated, in this matter of teleology, as in
others, in tlie views of Giordano Bruno (q.v.). His
whole philosophy represents an attempt to combine
in a unitary system the Platonic and Aristotelian
idealism and the modem mechanical view of nature,
of which Democritus was the precursor. Like the
atomists, he affirmed that onlj^ as it were, after
repeated experiments on nature's part did combina-
tions of elements arise which, as being adapted to
ends, conserved their stability. At the same time
he affirmed — and here the idealistic strain ajipears
— that there is a world-soul, or inner principle of
motion in nature, which is purposive in its working,
and so orders all things as to secure the world's
progress. Thus the mechanical and teleological
views are united in this thinker.

2. Bacon, — Though Francis Bacon [q.v.) may also
be said to belong to the age of transition, he was
more deffnitely on the side of the modern scientific
movement. It would appear that he looked upon
the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle as 'planks
of lighter and less .solid wood ' than the physical
pliilosophies of ancient Greece lost in the wrecknge
of the Roman Empire. P'or him philosopliy was
restricted to the investigation of nature, and there
were certain 'idols of the tribe,' or common pre-
judices, to be dismissed from the mind if nature
was to be explained aright. Among these was
interpretation by final causes. Under the illusion
that man is the measure of things (which Prota-
gorean utterance, curiously enough, is actually
become the watchword of a recent philosophical
movement) we interpret things in reference to our-
selves (ex analogia hoiiiinl'i) instead of universally
(I'X analogia universi). Yet Bacon does not reject
I he reality of final causes.

' For the cause rendered, that the hairs about the eyelids are
li)r the safeguard of the sight, doth not impugn the cause ron
ilered, that pilosity is incident to orifices of moisture.' Final
lauses in physics are, however, sterile like Vestal virgins, and,
worse than that, they are ' impertinent,' being indeed ' but
renioras and hindrances to stay and slug the ship from further
sailing.' But final causes have their place in metaph3'sic anil
religion. The divine wisdom even appears more admirable
when nature ' intendeth ' one thing and providence ' drawetli
forth ' another.!

1 De Auymeiitis, iii. 5.

TELEOLOGY

219

Thus Bacon throws oil' the two thoiisuiul years'
yoke and toiiclies hands with Democritus and
Leucippus across the centuries. But, while vindi-
cating physical causation as tlie one form of
causation of which physical science need take
^cognizance, he conserves the metajihysical and
religious interests which were bound up with the
Platonic and Aristotelian teleology. It were incred-
ible to him that this 'universal frame' should be
'without a Mind.' i He failed, however, to appre-
ciate the scientilic importance of the Aristotelian
concept of organization in biology, as also— but
this was the legacy of the schools — the philosophical
depth of the essential Aristotelian doctrine of the
end.

3. Hobbes and Descartes.— (a) Hobbes (q.v.),
following Bacon and Galileo, tried to liberate
philosophy from the Platonic and Aristotelian ideas
and forms and to substantiate the mechanical view
not only in the realm of nature but in the realms
also of mind and society. He reduced all cause to
motion, and philosophy to a doctrine of motion.

(b) Though Descartes {q.v.) also dispensed with
final causes in nature, he did not fall like Hobbes
into materialism. He explained natural phenom-
ena by the mechanical principles of matter and
motion, so founding the now orthodox systematic
view of mechanics, but he dissociated himself from
the ultimate positions of the ancient atomistic
philosophy. Mechanical explanation was not ulti-
mate explanation. But his rejection of final causes
in nature was on theological rather than epistemo-
logical grounds. We may legitimately enough, he
thought, attribute ends or purposes to God, but we
cannot hope to discover these, as they are hidden
' in the inscrutable abyss of His wisdom.' Here, as
in Bacon, there is a clear distinction between the
scientific and the metaphysical and religious interest
in final causes — a distinction which became clear
onlj' in the modern period of thought.

(c) For the issue between mechanism and teleology in scientific
explanation Descartes possesses considerable sipfniflcance, not
merely because of his peculiar vitalistic theory that the vis viva
might alter the direction of motion if unable" according to the
law of conservation to change its quantity, but chiefly because
of his law of conservation itself. In the ellort to reach the true
principle of mechanical causation, he arrived at the belief that
God conserved in things as a whole all the movement which He
introduced into them at the creation ; so that in virtue of this
initial disposition the necessary world-process was at every stage
teleologioal. His vitalism was a short-lived theory, but his
/principle of conservation marks a notable advance in the tele-
^ ology of nature.

4. Spinoza. — (a) The most vigorous, as it was
the most uncompromising, attack upon final causes
in nature came from Spinoza (q.v.). In explaining
a particular phenomenon we cannot, he said, go
beyond the particular attribute of the one divine
substance, be it the attribute of thought or of
extension, under which the phenomenon appears to
us. For, while the attributes are parallel to each
other, there is no interaction between them. Thus
material phenomena, including the movements of
the human body, are only explainable in physical
terms. Matter cannot be grounded in mind.

^ There can be no ends or purposes in nature.

(6) Apart from the incompatibility of the doctrine with his
fundamental philosophy, two main objections are urged by
Spinoza against final causes. The first is liacon's objection —
that acceptance of final causes hinders the investigation of
nature : recourse to the will of God in the txplanalion of ii.atural
phenomena, and in particular i>f iinlowuid phenomena like
tempests, earlh(|uakes, and diseases, is a refuge of ignorani{>
{aaylutn iijiunanU'd'). The secrels ol iiatun; are with l.iuise who
abandon linal causes and plai-i> their trust in maUiematics,
which, as dealing with the essences and properties of things,
leads to rational knowledge. The other olijection is that the
method of ex]ilanation by final causes emourages false anthro-
pomorphic coMGeiitions of God. A God wlio works puvjiosively,
or towards ends, is subject to fate or necessity and lacks perfec-
tion of being. It implies defect in God that He should be in
need of anything. Nor have we any right to infer distinctions

1 Essays, xvi., 'Of Atheism.'

in the divine nature analogous to the elements of the human
mind. The intellect and will wc may ascribe to God are no
niore analogous to our intellects and wills than the constellation
of the Uog to the animal that barks.

(c) Undoubtedly Spinoza did good service in exposing the
weakness and superficiality of the traditional teleology, but it
should be observed that, while the denial of teleology is already
involved in the doctrines of substance and parallelism with
which he sets out, at the close of his thought a certain light
breaks in upon his sjstem. The amor inteUectualis Dei with
which he concludes is part of the infinite love wherewith God
loves Himself, and we may learn from it that with His universe
God is well pleased. The ideas of satisfaction and value which
are essential to a teleologioal interpretation of the universe
appear to be here conserved.!

5. Leibniz. — (a) Despite the able elforts of the
Cambridge Platonists (q.v.), such as Cudworth and
More, to vindicate for final causes a place in physics,
the mechanical view found increasing supjiort,
being applied also as against Platonists and vitalists
to the phenomena of life, and it was left to Leibniz
(q.v.) to attempt a reconciliation of the opposing
principles. Leibniz's essential position still meets
with great acceptance among scientists, philo-
sophers, and theologians. In the phenomena of \
nature, he says, everything happens muchanically 1
and at the same time metaphysically, and the source j
of the mechanical is the metaphysical. This !
position finds clear expression in two sayings that
may be placed side by side — one from a recently
discovered fragment, and the other quite familiar :
' Omnia in tota natura demonstrari possunt turn
per causas finales, tum per causas efficientes.'
' Causae efficientes pendent a finalibus.'

(6) While Leibniz was as ' corpuscular ' as Descartes or Sjiinoza
in the explanation of particular phenomena, he could not, for
two reasons, rest in the mechanical explanation. One reason
appears in his metaphysical construction of the concept of
substance. Rejecting the Cartesian and Spinozan opposition
of extension and thought, and affirming substance to be force
(m/i Stre capable d'action) and force substance, he i)assed
from an abstract to a more concrete monism. Matter was no
longer to be defined as extension but as a form of force, more
specifically as power of resistance ; and mind was no longer to
be restricted to the sphere of consciousness, and was represented
as comprising subconscious states {petites perceptions). With
this view of substance, and with the aid of the Aristotelian
principle of continuity and development, Leibniz at length
reached the speculative position that the real world consists of
an infinite host of independent monads or individuals, at count-
less different stages of development, whose activity is funda-
mentally spiritual or perceptuaL Now it is the very nature of
the monad to strive after the realization of all its latent
possibilities. It has to rid itself of confused perceptions and
attain true ideas, and so to enter into the mind of God the
Supreme Monad — an end which ma.\' only be achieved on the
plane of self-consciousness and spiritual freedom. So it is,
according to Leibniz, tliat the forces active in mechanism may
be interpreted from the standpoint of teleology. Everywhere
in nature purposive activity may be discerned. Take imt the
inward view, or, rather, Uike but the unixersal view, and the
world of physical causes and effects becomes a world of means
and ends.

(c) The second reason that led Leibniz to uphold the teleo-
logioal interpretation of the world starts from his postulate of
' pre-estal)lished harmony,' which is intimately connected with
his monadology. Though independent or ' wiridowless,' each
monad 'mirrors' the rest of the universe. Though subject to
its own laws, each monad is in harmony with the universal
deielopment. Geulincx and Spinoza had already applied the
principle of harmony or corresjioiidence to the two Cartesian
attributes, but Leibniz applies it to the totality of substance.
He compares the correspondence which he has in view to differ-
ent bands of musicians who may keep perfectly together without
seeing or even hearing one another. He compares it also, using
a frequent analogy of the time (and with the relation of body
and mind chiefly in view), to two clocks so skilfully made nn
never to get out of time. The pre-established harmony is not
imposed ujion the world from without, but belongs to the inner
life of the nion.ads ; none the less it needs to be cv|)laiiKd. The
only possible explanation is to be found in the will and purpose
of God. It is God alone who brings to pass the union or inter-
connexion of sul)stani-es whereby the world is onierly and
ration.d. Thus the order of the world, interpret id .as a pre-
cslalilished liarmon\, nece.ssit.atPS the teleo|c.Mii:il inference l.o

(iod.

((/) The priin"ii)le involved in the ^ele.>^l^i(■al inference is
luimi'd liy Leiliiiiz the principle of determinant or sufficient
reason, viz. that nothing can exist or be true without a sufficient
reason why it should be so and not otherwise. Without such a

» A. S. Pringle-Patttson, The Idea 0/ God in the Light 0/
Recent Philosophy {Gifl'urd Lectures), Oxford, 1917, p. 333 ; ct
also below, gill. C, 7 (fc), 8.

220

TELEOLOGY

principle, implying the complete rationality of existence,
philosophy would for Leibniz have ceased to be, as indeed for
Descartes or Spinoza. But Leibniz gave the principle a
characteristic application. He regarded it as the foundation of
the contingent truths of natural science, just as the principle
of identity and contradiction was the foundation of the neces-
sary truths of mathematics and logic. So that the conservation
of force or energy and the equivalence of cause and effect in the
world must be teleologically explained as dependent upon the
divine wisdom and order.

(e) In biology, as in physics, Leibniz advanced the teleological
problem. He is said to have established the truth that biologi-
cal organization is compatible with the mechanistic theory, but
in comparing the organism to a kind of 'divine machine' or
'natural automaton' he still comes short of the Aristotelian
teleology.

6. Rationalistic theism. — (a) In the 18th cent.
Leibniz's theology was more influential than his
monadology. Tnere appears to be a certain
looseness of connexion between the two, and it
was accentuated by Wolt{''s effort to systematize
and popularize the master's doctrines. In Wolff
the harmony of the world is no longer an immanent
order, but an order externally imposed by God ;
and the world's chief end is utility and advantage
for man and beast — especially utility for man.
This externalism impressed itself upon the ' popular
philosophy' that arose in Germany about the
middle of the 18th cent., and it promoted a re-
markable and many-sided growth of natural theo-
logy or teleological physics and organics, the aim
of which was to multiply the evidences of design
in nature in the interests of the teleological
inference to creative wisdom and benevolence.
There were astro - theologies, litho - theologies,
phyto - theologies, insecto - theologies, ichthyo-
theologies, and numerous others. As among the
Stoics, the ideas of advantage and utility were
often beaten out into petty trivialities {Niitz-
lichkeitskrdmerei).

{b) In France Fenelon had already written
eloquently on natural tlieology on similar lines,
although later the materialism of d'Holbach and
the scepticism of Bayle were to cut at the root of
the popular teleology, and Voltaire was to pour
contempt upon its anthropocentrism and shallow
optimism.

(c) In England, too, natural theology was early
developed on the lines of a superficial utilitarian-
ism, beginning in the 17th cent, with the works
of the naturalist Ray (on whom Milton drew in
Paradise Lost), and of Boyle, Barrow, and Parker,
continuing with Derham and many others through
the 18th cent., and receiving classical exposition
in Paley's Natural Theology ^ So exhaustively
had the teleology of nature been discussed that
the Scottish divine Thomas Chalmers, in the first
Bridgewater Treatise,^ turned to mental as dis-
tinguished from physical teleology, discoursing on
the adaptation of nature to mind and on adapta-
tions within the mind ; while McCosh ^ laid the
emphasis upon moral teleology, inferring from
the moral order a moral Governor.

(d) Notice should here be taken of a universal
view of teleology held by the English deist
Shaftesbury,* who rose above the particular views
that so largely prevailed in the deistic as in the
orthodox circles of his time. His was an aesthetic
teleology, and in the beauty and perfection of the
world he found a proof of the existence of God.
Not only does the unity of the world point to a
universal Spirit ; but beauty lies not in matter
but in form or formative power, which must work
with design.

7. Hume. — ( a) The speculative sincerity of
David Hume (q.v.) was probably not so great as

1 London, 1802.

2 On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as mant'/estcd
in the adaptation of external Nature to the Moral and
Intellectual Constitution of Man, 2 vols., London, 1833.

3 The Method of Divine Government, Physical a»id Moral,
Edinburgh, 1850.

■1 See art. Delsm, 5 3-

his speculative genius. In the Treatise of Tliimnn
Nature ^ he reduced the world to a mere complex
of sensations — not an ordered complex, which could
be ascribed to a divine Author ; and yet in his
theological writings, notably in the Dialogues
concerning Natural Religion,^ we find him
apparently assuming order and purposiveness in
the universe. If the tendency of recent inter-
pretations of the Dialogues is to be trusted, we
may even regard Hume as sincerely adhering to
what is there called a 'genuine theism,' and as
accepting the essential core of the argument from
design as its rational basis. We may hear Hume
himself speaking through Cleanthes, the rational-
istic theist, when it is maintained that at every
turn we are obliged to have recourse to the
hypothesis of design in the universe ; or through
Philo, who is sceptical and naturalistic in tendency,
when he admits that all objections to the hypothesis
of design appear mere ' cavils and sophisms ' to
those who realize the beauty and fitness of final
causes.

(6) None the less the criticisms of the teleolo!,'ieal inference
which are put in the mouth of Philo are of great historical
interest and importance. Cleanthes, who states the theistic
argument from design (round which the discussion of natural
religion mainly turns), compares the world of order to a great
machine, subdiivided into an infinite number of lesser machines,
which, even in their most minute parts, are all adjusted to
each other vrith marvellous accuracy. This universal adapta-
tion of means to ends so resembles the products of human
contrivance that we are led by all the rules of analogy to
infer that the Author of nature is somewhat similar to the
mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties.
Philo replies, in Hume's own sceptical vein, that the principle
of analogy is not a sure basis of argument, especially as we
depart the more from the similarity of the cases. Can we
really speak, e.g., of analogy between the fabric of a house
and the generation of the universe? And why should thought,
design, intelligence, be made the model of the whole? If it
is valid to say that, because the world resembles a machine,
it arose from design, is it not at least equally valid to say that,
because the world resembles an animal, it arose from genera-
tion ? And why go beyond nature in search of a transcendent
cause? To take one step beyond the mundane system is to
be forced to go on in an infinite progression. For the ideal
world, into which the material world is traced, is itself to be
traced into another ideal world, and so on. May it not be
that there are forces in nature by means of which, even after
a botching and bungling of many worlds throughout an
eternity, this orderly and harmonious system was struck out?
At most the argument from design can only prove the existence
of a being in time and space, fashioning a given material, and
all pretension to ascribe infinity to the Deity or even perfection
in His finite capacity must be renounced. Can we even pretend
to decide from the phenomena of nature as to whether the
Deity is one or many? (A similar reference to the limitations
of the argument is found in the Enquiry concerning Human
Understanding,^ in which the criticism is in the form adopted
and made famous by Kant.)

(c) By the objections thus urged by Philo a strong impression
is made upon Cleanthes, who is also led to admit, in view of
the problem of evil, that the Deity might be described in the
terms of ' benevolence, regulated by wisdom, and limited by
necessity '—an old position of the Greek theology with which
we have been familiarized in recent thought. The carefully
formulated conclusion of the Dialogues, that (as Philo says)
'the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear
some remote analogy to human intelligence,' may not have
represented in Hume's mind the whole of 'genuine theism,'
but it dealt a destructive blow to the rationalistic theology
of his time, with its deistic implications, its petty teleology,
and its hedonistic view of life.

(d) On the scientific or philosophical side, how-
ever, Hume made a positive contribution to the
problem of natural teleology. The idea goes back
as far as Empedocles, and is expounded in Lucretius,
that in nature the principle holds of the survival
of the fit. In the Dialogues, as we have seen,
Hume gives expression to this principle, and he
does .so in respect of both inorganic and organic
nature. Described as the tendency towards
equilibrium or equilibration, it is recognized in
modern physics and biology as teleological in
character ; but, when Hume speaks of it further
as perhaps originally contained iu matter, he at
least suggests tlie idea that tiiere is a deeper and

1 3 vols., London, 1739-40.
3 London, 1748.

2 London, 1779.

TELEOLOGY

221

more original teleology in nature than ordinary
mechanistic theory suspects. So that with Hume
the teleological appearance of nature is perhaps
more than a postulate of the reflective or subjective
judgment, as it is with Kant.

8. Kant. — {a) In his early work on Universal
Natural History and Theory of the Heavens^
Kant acknowledged the great value of the argu-
ments drawn from the beauties, harmonies, and
perfections of the universe, and more particularly
of the starry heavens, to establish the existence
of a supremely wise and powerful Creator. At
the same time he rises above the popular teleology.
In a later pre-critical work on The Only Possible,
Proof of the Being of God"^ he declares himself
impressed with the physico-theological argument,
but, like Hume's Philo, he doubts the validity of
the inference to a Creator who is perfectly wise
and good. In the Critique of Pure Reason^ a
similar criticism appears, with a famous tribute
to the physico-theological argument as ' the oldest,
the clearest, and that most in conformity with
the common reason of humanity.'* The argument
at the best, however, cannot take us beyond the
great power and wisdom of the Author of the
universe ; and it can prove, not a Creator, but
no more than an Architect, who is necessarily
limited by the character of His material. Con-
tingency belongs not to the matter but to the form
of the world. The attempt to show that matter
is contingent and dependent upon a principle of
intelligence is to fall back upon the cosraological
proof, which in its turn rests upon the ontological,
with the consequence that the claim of the physico-
theological to be a pure induction from experience
is invalidated. This argument in fact originates
in the propensity of the human mind to view the
order and purposiveness of nature as though tliey
were the products of intelligence and design — a
propensity for which on the principles of the
critical philosophy there can be no real basis.

(b) We need not dwell on Kant's views in his
pre-critical writings of the teleological principle.
It is sufficient to note that they were on the lines
afterwards developed in the Critiques. In the
Critique of Pure Reason he justifies, as against
Hume's scepticism, the mechanical or scientific
view of nature as subject to causal determination.
In the Critique of Practical Reason^ he vindicates
the teleological view of the spiritual life as a realm
of moral freedom and independence. From the
critical standpoint therefore the doctrine of nature
and the doctrine of morality may each be true in
its own sphere, and mechanism and teleology be
so far reconciled. In the Critique of Judgment^
he seeks to overcome the dualism — in his own
phrase, to bridge the gulf — between nature and
the moral order, which he had regarded to begin
with as closed systems, independent and separate.
He realized that the sensible world of things and
persons is but one aspect of reality, and the
supersensible world of moral values but another,
and that the two must be interrelated. Accord-
ingly he draws attention to certain things belonging
to the sensible world of nature which we cannot
describe adequately without that notion of purpose
or end which has its proper sphere in the super-
sensible world of spirit. One of these is the
phenomenon of beauty, the other that of organic
being.

(c) The first section of the Critique treats of the aesthetic
jud!,'ment. In the assthetic experience the beauty of nature,
as of art, is felt to be purposive, in the sense that, while it
arises out of the sensible, it is in harmony with our ' undefined
idea ' of the supersensible. The second section has to do with

1 Konigsberg, 1755. 2 Konigsberg, 1762. s Uiga, 1781.
* Critique of Pure Reason, tr. J. M. D. Meiklejohn, London,
1S60, p. 383.
5 Kiga, 1788. 6 Berlin and Libau, 1790.

the teleological judgment, in which nature is Begarded as
purposive in itself, and not merely, as in the aesthetic
judgment, in relation to the subject of experience.

((i) The purposive character of living beings raises for Kant
anew the whole problem of the world as a teleological or
organic system, and he now gives the notion of judgment a wider
meaning tlian before. In its use of the principles of the
understanding for the subsumption of the particular under
the general (in which the faculty of judgment consists)
judgment had been shown in the first Critique to be determin-
ant or, as we might say, mechanical ; i.e., its function is to
determine or specify the phenomenal world of experience as
a mechanical system under inviolable principles. But judgment
is also of another kind, viz. reflective. In subsuming the
particular under the universal, reflective judgment makes use
of the idea of subordination to purpose or end as the guide
to its operations. The determinant judgment is analytical,
and simply brings particular facts under the universal principles
of the understanding. The reflective judgment is synthetical,
and, loperating with the idea of nature as a teleological or
organic unity, discovers its specific laws. As Windelbandi
remarks, in this application of the category of the practical
reason to the object of the theoretical, we have evidently the
highest synthesis of the critical philosophy.

(e) But still there is no real transcendence of the dualism
between the realms of nature and ends, between the factual
world of experience and the ideal world of purpose and meaning.
For the principle on which reflective judgment proceeds — that
the form of nature implies purpose, that the specific laws of
nature are to be regarded as though determined by purposive
intelligence — is not constitutive of objects. Transcendental
though it be, as involving an a priori synthetic judgment, it
remains a subjective or regulative principle, serving as a rule
or guide for the organization of experience and the further
extension of knowledge. Yet without the conception of end or
a purpose of reason, as realized in the form of organized beings,
we could not make such beings intelligible to ourselves. Even
a simple blade of grass is inexplicable unless we look upon it as
purposive.

(/) The conception of the organism as purposive leads,
moreover, to the view of collective nature as an organic whole
or teleological unity. But it should be reiterated that we
cannot affirm the principle of end or final cause as belonging
to the essential constitution of nature. Could we penetrate
to the hidden ground of nature, we should possibly discover
that the principles of mechanical and teleological causation
are assimilated in one single principle. The very limitation of
our knowledge suggests to us the idea of a higher intelligence,
possessed of knowledge which is direct and not mediated by
a subjective principle. For such an intuitive or perceptive
understanding there would be no such separation as our
discursive understanding makes between means and end. As
it is, the mechanical and teleological principles are at once
complementary and heterogeneous, though the teleological is
the final or inclusive principle.^

9. Hegel. — (a) In the course of his examination
of the critical philosophy Hegel (q.v.) dealt with
Kant's view of the physico-theological proof. He
agrees with Kant as to its inadequacy as a rational
or logical argument. The conception of design,
like that of cause in the cosmological proof, cannot
express the true nature of the relation of the world
to God. At the same time the argument repre-
sents a further stage, the first stage being repre-
sented by the cosmological argument, in the
process whereby in the hidden or implicit logic of
religion thought reaches the full apprehension of
God as spirit or self-conscious intelligence. Kant
might have allowed this, but for the rigidity of
the distinction he drew between the phenomenal
and noumenal worlds, which made it impossible for
thought to pass from the one to the other. But
the distinction is only relative, and from the
ultimate standpoint the two worlds are one. (6)
As for the critique of the teleological judgment,
here again Kant's doctrine is vitiated by the view
of the phenomenal and the noumenal as abstract
opposites. Yet Kant indicates, if indirectly, the
right principle of cosmic interpretation. For it is
impossible to distinguish the categories of mechani-
cal and teleological causation as being constitutive
and regulative, objective and subjective respec-
tively. With his true apprehension of the idea of
purpose as internal and immanent, Kant, but for
his rationalistic prejudices, might have advanced
to the recognition of the constitutive character of
the organic or teleological principle. Internal

1 A Hist, of Philosophy, Eng. tr., New York and Ix)ndon,
1893, p. 561.
■i Cf. Pringle-Pattison, The Idea of God, p. 330.

TELEOLOGY

adaptation or design is no less constitutive than
tlie princiiile of mechanical causation. To over-
come, says Hegel, the opposition of phenomena
and nouniena, we must follow the development of
the world from the realm of nature to the realm
of mind and thence to the unity of nature and
mind in the idea of God, in whom the world is seen
to be a rational system.

10. Schelling : the philosophy of nature. — (a) If
Kant promoted the movement of German idealism,
he also promoted — perhaps indirectly rather than
directly — the new German humanism. We shall
take occasion later to speak of the teleological or
organic view of history associated with the names
of Sclielling and Hegel, who carried forward the
work of Bossuet and Montesquieu, of Herder {q.v.)
and Lessing {q.v.). Meantime we refer to another
aspect of the humanistic movement, viz. the teleo-
logical or organic view of nature which was upheld
under the leadership of Schelling by the so-called
philosophers of nature. For Schelling, as for
Plato and others among the ancients, there was
a world-soul which as an inner principle of life
united all differences in nature in a single organic
system. It was felt by the new humanists, as
J. T. Merz ^ puts it, that in the Kantian and more
particularly the Fichtean philosophy the details
of the scenery of nature were forgotten in the
interest of studying the attitude and the emotions
of the beholder. (b) Under the shelter of the
humanistic movement, it should be noticed, there
was a recrudescence of vitalistic theories in biology
(which term was first used in this period by
Treviranus to cover the whole of the science of
life). Though the biological implications of the
Critique of Judgment are ditficult to grasp, vital-
ism could readily appeal to Kant's philosophical
authority against the mechanical theory of life.
For, while Kant handed over the inorganic realm
to tiie mechanical theory (in this only sanctioning
&fait accompli), he had maintained along with the
teleological unity of nature as a whole the Aris-
totelian concept of biological organization. So at
least it was generally thought, desi)ite the meta-
physical distinction he drew between the determin-
ant and the reflective or teleological judgment as
constitutive and regulative respectively. It is a
distinction indeed which science cannot but ignore.
When science employs teleological concepts such
as function or adaptation, it gives them the same
validity as the concept of mechanical causation.^

11. Lotze. — (a) The humanistic movement soon
lost its force. The vitalistic theories which had
received their impulse from it, and which culmin-
ated in Joiiannes Miiller, fell into comparative
neglect, and the mechanical view of life was once
more dominant. The most solid, according to H.
Driesch,^ of all the attacks upon the older vitalism
was made by Lotze (q.v.), whom he describes as a
static teleologist in physiology in that he believed
in the irreducibility of the category of the organ-
ism, but a dynamic teleologist or vitalist in
psychology in that he believed the soul to be
productive of absolutely new naechanical move-
ment, (b) But the significance of Lotze for tele-
ology lies not so much in his work in the domain
of biology as in his philosophical system. In him
science and philosophy, winch since Leibniz and
Kant had been going separate ways, meet once
more. For he combines tlie mechanical view of
nature with a teleological metaphysics (which he
holds Schelling also did). It is his aim to show,
as he says in the Introduction to the Microcosmus,
' how absolutelj' universal is tlie extent and at the

1 Hist, o/ European Thought in the. lOUi Century, i vols.,
KfliiiburfTh, 1896-1914, iii. 352.

2 Henderson, The Order of A'aturc, p. G7.

3 The Ifisl. and Theory of Vitalism, London, 1914, pp. 127-
132.

same time how completely subordinate the signifi-
cance, of the mission which mechanism has to
fulhl in the structure of the world.' ^ In his
scientific materialism he was at one with the
great body of the scientific thinkers of his age.
In his speculative teleology he had affinities with
Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, and Herbart. Following
Leibniz, he was led to conceive of the world as a
plurality of real spiritual elements, but in mutual
interaction according to the principle of immanent
as distinguished from transeunt causality. In his
endeavour to account for the causal relation and
the reciprocal interaction of the elements, he was
led, by a similar process of thought to tiiat whicii
Spinoza went through, to the idea of a universal
all-embracing principle, which for religion has the
value of God. Under the influence of Herbart
and the Kantian criticism, he utilizes the principle
of human analogy in interpreting the inner reality
of nature, which he regards as the instrument of a
purpose, viz. the purpose of supreme good, though
it is by a practical conviction rather than a logical
or rational process that we pass from the world of
tilings and forms to the world of values. So it is
that Lotze reaches his teleological interpretation
of nature.

12. Darwin. — {a) At first sight it would appear
that the theory of biological evolution associated
with the name of Charles Darwin so strikingly vin-
dicates the mechanical view of nature as to banish
the idea of teleology altogether, not only from
scientific explanation but also from philosophical
interpretation. Certainly, as Darwin himself
realized, the doctrine of descent by natural selec-
tion gave a fatal blow to the old argument from
design as expounded by Paley.

'We can no longer argue,' he says, 'that the beautiful hinge
of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being,
like the hinge of a door by a man.' 2

Paley had not appreciated the metaphysical diffi-
culties involved in the notions of an external
designer or contriver and of special e.xternal
adaptations, and he laboured under the further
limitation that he believed with the orthodox
science of his time in the fixity or immutability of
species. If species were not fixed and permanent
forms but the results of long evolutionary pro-
cesses determined by necessity or cliance, then
Paley's argument was still further discredited.
There appeared to be no more design in the prin-
ciple of natural selection than ' in the cour.se which
the wind blows. ' *

(b) But, while the Darwinian theory was .sub-
versive of the teleological argument in its popular
form, which wasdeisticor rationalistically theistic,
it was not really anti-teleological in the Aristotelian
and post-Kantian sense. No doubt the principle
of natural selection is in itself fortuitous or non-
teleological, and that despite the teleological
flavour of the terms ' selection,' ' fitness,' by which
it is expressed ; so that J, Ward, borrowing a
' plain ' term from Herbert Spencer, would describe
the principle in mechanistic language as one of
' equilibration.'* Moreover, in the hands of ultra-
Darwinians natural selection of random variations
has been employed as an exclusive explanation of
the modification and transformation of species,
and, so employed, may be properly described as
anti-teleological. But Darwin himself did not
urge natural selection as an exclusive principle.
He recognized in evolution other factors besides,
both non -teleological and teleological; e.g., in tiie
last edition of the Origin of Specie.^ he makes a

1 Microcosinus, Eng. tr."*, Edinburgh, 1894, vol. i. p. xvi.

2 The Ldfe and Letters of Charles Darwin'^, 3 vols., London,
1S87, i. 309.

3 lb. i. 309.

■* The Realm, nf Ends (Giford Lecture.^), Canil»ridge, 1911, p.
101.

TELEOLOGY

223

point of saying tli.at natural selection is ' aided in
an important manner by the inlierited efl'ects of
the use and disuse of parts. ' ^ Ward contends
that this, the Lamarckian factor, like the factors
of sexual and human selection, is strictly teleo-
logical in the sense that it presupposes psychical
activity, conscious or at least sentient, directed to
the end of the satisfaction of needs or desires.
Whether the Lamarckian is a real or supposititious
factor in evolution is a point with which we are
not here concerned. It might be added, however,
that the anti-Darwinian theories of evolution are
more favourable to the teleological idea than tlie
Darwinian and ultra-Darwinian theories ; also
that Darwin's general theory of organic evolution,
like tlie general cosniogonic theory of Kant and
Lfiplace, is being increasingly recognized as not
inconsistent with an ultimate teleology, profounder,
Bubtler, and less rationalistic than Paley's.

'Unless the cosmos itself,' says Ward, 'is to be regarded as a
finite and fortuitous variation persistitiff in an illimitable chaos,
we must refer its orderliness and meaning to an indwelling,
Informing Life and Mind.' 2

13. Lachelier. — In Merz's opinion Lachelier's
short tract, Dii Fondcment da Vinduction,^ is 'a
corner-stone in the edifice of modern thought.'''
Lachelier faces the problem of the contingent (or
the collocation of things in space) which, along
with that of the discontinuous, is involved in the
Lotzean formula, that ' the things v/hich surround
us are the material in which, the laws of nature
the forms through which, the world of values, or
the Ideals, are, or have to be, realized.'^ Follow-
ing Cournot, he took up into his philosophy the
old distinction between nature passively conceived
and nature liypostatized or taken actively {natura
naturata, natura naturans). The possibility of
inductive reasoning rests, he says, on the recogni-
tion of both these aspects of nature, which are
coniplementaiy. From the one standpoint nature
is a mechanical or serial unity in which the ante-
cedent determines the consequent ; from the other
it is a teleological, systematic, or harmonious
unity in which the whole determines the existence
of the parts. Etiicient causes and final causes are
both needed in the inductive process. Nature is
at once a science, for ever producing ettects from
causes, and an art, for ever setting about new
inventions. As there is a principle of regularity
in nature, so there is a principle also of harmony
or order. The contrast of mechanism Avith tele-
ology, as Bosanquet has put it, 'is rooted in the
very nature of totality.'" We shall see that this
I)hilosophical i)osition of Lachelier has been fruit-
ful in the scientilic investigation of the problem of
universal teleology.

III. Systematic. — A. Tkleology in em-
pirical DESCKIPTION.— I. Description, explana-
tion, interpretation. — [a) In proceeding from the
historical to the systematic discussion, it will
make for convenience of treatment to distinguish
three aspects qf teleology. Historically they have
been closely associated, and it is impossible to
separate them in any rigid fashion. They may be
named, however, the descriptive, the explanatory,
and the interpretative. If one hesitates to set up
the distinctions here implied, one hesitates more
as to the terms by which to designate them. For
description, explanation, and interpretation are
ill-defined terms in current usage, altliough —
perhaps because— they circulate so freely in discus-
sions of the world an(i its meaning. By descriptive

1 p. 461, quoted by J. Ward, Naturalism and A(tnoslif:isin''i
(ai;;hrd Lectures), 2 vols., London, 1906, i. 280.

- Saturalism and Agnosticimn, i. 302.

3 Paris, 1871.

•* Hist, of European Thought, iii. 620.

5 lb. iii. 616.

C I'he Priiieiple of Individuality and. Valvf{(Ti,^ord Lecturrx),
London, 1912, \\ IfiS.

teleology we mean the teleology Avhich answers
at once to the definition of the concept of end or
purpose and is immediately recognizable. It might
lie otherwise named as formal, empirical, or dc
facto teleology. By explanatory teleology we
mean the teleology which is postulated in scientific
theory in explanation of things, processes, and
events. It might be otherwise named as metluidical
or logical teleology. By interpretative teleology
we mean the teleology which offers in philosophy
and religion a spiritual interpretation of the world
as a whole. it might be otherwise named as
speculative, ideal, or spiritual teleology.

(b) It might be objected in particular to this
scheme that modern physical science leaves ex-
planation to metaphysical philosophy and claims
for its formulas no more than descriptive validity.
It concerns itself only with the question, ' What is
it ? ', and hands over to metaphysics and religious
philosophy the questions, ' How came it to be ? ',
and ' Why came it to be ? ' But it appears to us
that physical science has been suffering in the last
generation from an excess of reactionary modesty.
Behind its so-called descriptive formulations, which
are broad generalizations, lie worlds of jiatient
observation and experiment and a host of flashing
inspirations ; and, if it does not tell us all about
the ' How,' it tells us a great deal about it, and is
richly entitled to the larger claim involved in the
term ' explanation.'

'It is an interesting point,' remarks J. Arthur Thomson,
'that just about the time when physics began to proclaim em-
phatically that its office was to describe and not to explain,
natural history in Darwin's hands passed emphatically from
description to historical explanation.' 1

For the rest, there is in any case august and
already classical authority for a certain individual-
ism in matters of terminology.^

2. Descriptive teleology. — (a) Teleology, in the
sense of purposiveness or activity directed towards
an end, is immediately recognizable in the ordinary
work-a-day world. Conscious striving after ends,
with adaptation of means to ends, is characteristic
of human life. The concept of end or purpose is
itself derived from observation of the human mind,
and conative activity involving ends is central in
human experience. But the idea of teleology is
readily extended beyond the reference to conscious-
ness. There is a teleology below consciousness,
just as there is a teleology above consciousness.

'Neither Christianity nor the coral reef,' says Bo.sanquet,
' were ever any design of the men or the insects who constructe<l
them ; thej' lay altogether deeper in the roots of things.' •<

(h) As in human history teleology or purjiosive-
ness appears to be present in the proc'css, though
the individual goes forth, like Abraham, not
knowing whither he goes, so it is also in the
spheres of suljconscious and unconscious life.
Many biological processes show the appearance at
least of purposiveness, and Kant was right in
saying that we could not attain to the knowledge
of living things except under the form of the teleo-
logical judgment. The structure of the organism,
the reciprocal relation of its parts as both means
and ends for each other, and its growth, in which
it is at once continually self-produced .and self-
producing, all appeared to him to demand a teleo-
logical ex]ilanation. It may be that, as Kant's
critical ])hilt)sophy forced him to admit, the teleo-
logical principle is subjective and only regulative
of knowledge. All we have to say here is that
the phenomena of organismal life iiave been ex-
plained both mechanistically and tcleologically,
hnt pr 171} a facie they are susceptible to description
in teleological terms.

1 7'he Sjistein of Animate Nature (Gifford Lectures), 2 vols.,
London, 1'.I20, i. la.

a Cf. C. O. J. Welili, Studuis in the History nf Natural
T/iei>lo;i!/, Oxford, V.l\r,, p. 6.

■• I'he J'rineiple nf hulimdiiality and Value, p. l.Vi.

224

TELEOLOGY

(c) When we pass from organic to inorganic
nature, we meet no longer with the appearance of
purposiveness, because in inorganic nature there
are, to the eyes of sight at least, no individual
beings. Yet, if we were to indulge the ' pathetic
fallacy,' we should look even upon inorganic
nature, the air, the sea, a rock, as responsive to
our varying moods and thus as so far teleologically
constituted.

(d) But, if purposiveness may not be discerned
in the inorganic world, it is recognizable in pro-
ducts of art and man's device that are composed
of inorganic elements. To our fancy a piece of
machinery is often informed with life and purpose,
like the machines in Samuel Butler's satire of
Erewhon, but the purposiveness resides not in the
parts but in the processes they subserve. A
machine, as Driesch ^ says, is distinguished from
other human ' artefacts ' as being made for pro-
cesses. It is, as it were, the depository of a
purpose. That is why the comparison of the world
to a machine in the old natural theology, as by
Cleanthes in Hume's Dialogues, is apt enough,
especially when the Deity is deistically conceived
as purely transcendent. On the other hand, it is
also the reason why the comparison is inept from
the standpoint of materialism or naturalism, and
why from such a standpoint mechanism as applied
to the world is not a particularly happy term.

(e) Nor should it be forgotten that under
descriptive teleology may be included the
recognition of order, beauty, and adaptations in
nature as a whole. These things are upon that
empirical level of reality which has been attained
by the unreflective processes of common sense, and
are consequently appreciated by all ; and they
form the sufficient basis of the traditional argu-
ment from design. For order, beauty, adaptation,
all speak the language of teleology.

3. The argument from design. — The argument
classically expounded in the ancient world by the
Stoic Lucilius Balbus in Cicero's de Natura Deonim,
and in the modem world by Paley in his Natural
Theology, is doubtless made more impressive, but
is not essentially strengthened, by the multiplica-
tion of curious instances of extrinsic and intrinsic
adaptation derived from the scientific order of
nature. It is sufficiently based, as already said, on
the fact of the empirical order. As an integral part,
nay the very marrow and substance, of the old
natural theology of Paley and the Bridgewater
Treatises, the argument is liable to criticism for
its deistic flavour, its hedonism, its antiquated pre-
evolutionary science, its old-fashioned teleology ;
and apart from its limiting historical associations
it is liable, as Hume and Kant made it abundantly
clear, to the charge of being essentially fallacious.
In inferring divine purposeful agency from the
teleological appearance of nature, it is guilty, as
the logicians would say, of the fallacy of tran-
scendent inference. Obviously it must be restated
in a profounder way, if it is to retain validity.
The essence of the argument, says R. Flint,'^ is
that order implies intelligence. It is an argument
not from but to design, and it is only to be re-
garded as part of a great cumulative argument.
G. T. Ladd ^ admits that the argument is properly
an argument from universal order, and he is careful
to say that it implies the validity of the ontological
argument. From the 'orderly totality' of the
universe he would postulate a world -ground con-
ceived of as absolute will and intelligence. But
the ' plain man,' with his eye only upon the
empirical order, uses the argument without hesita-
tion or logical scruple. When his mind beholds

1 The Hist, and Theory of Vitalism, p. 4.

2 Theism'-, p. 131 ff. ; cf. also Agnosticism (Croall Lecture),
Edinburifh, 1903, pp. 182-184.

3 The Philosophy of lieligion, 2 vols., London, 190C, ii. 59 ff.

the chain of causes 'confederate and linked
together, it must needs fly to Providence and
Deity.' ^ Nor need the man of science, with his
deeper appreciation of nature's order, be hesitant
to follow the 'plain man.'

'The Log-OS,' says J. Arthur Thomson, 'is at the core of our
system, implicit in the nebula, as now in the dewdrop. It
slept for the most part through the evolution of plants and
coral-like animals, whose dream-smiles are a joy for ever. It
slept as the child sleeps before birth. It became more and
more awake among higlier animals, — feeling and knowing and
willinsr. It became articulate in self-conscious Man, — and not
least in his science.' 2

'There is . . . something,' says D'Arcy W. Thompson, 'that
is the order of the cosmos and the beauty of the world, that
lives in all things living, and dwells in the mind and soul of
man. . . . You may call it Entelechy, you may call it the
Harmony of the World; you may call it the Elan vital, you
may call it the Breath of Life. Or you may call it, as it is called
in the Story-book of Creation, and in the hearts of men — you
may call it the Spirit of God.' 3

B. Teleology in scientific explanation.—
I. Cosmology. — (1) Mechanical explanation. — The
teleological appearance of nature and the forms of
life, considered above, has set a problem which
science no more than philosophy can afford to
ignore. In cosmology, however, narrowly inter-
preted as the science of inorganic nature, teleology
is not required as a principle of explanation,
whether the cosmos be considered in the spatial or
in the temporal reference, i.e. from the standpoint
of cosmography or from that of cosmogony. The
inorganic world is not teleological, for physical
science at least, in the sense of exhibiting im-
manent purposiveness. In its formulations of the
things and processes of the inorganic world science
employs only the mechanistic terms of kinematics,
mechanics, phy.sics, and chemistry ; and it has
amply vindicated its right to employ mechanistic
terms exclusively in this sphere. Whether it may
also do so in the spheres of biology, psychology,
and sociology is another question. But in cosmo-
logy it has no use for the category of end or
purpose, or for that matter for the categories of
cause and substance, but assumes the working
only of the non-spontaneous, the automatic, the
mechanistic. It may possibly be that such real
categories as substance and cause (whether efficient
or final) are, in Mach's phrase, tinctured with
' fetishism,' but the exact sciences as such are by
no means committed to a materialistic or natural-
istic standpoint. Materialism and naturalism are
ultimate positions, and scientific explanation is
not necessarily that ultimate explanation which
we would include under the term 'interpretation.'
In point of fact, exact science increasingly recog-
nizes the abstract and artificial quality of its
explanations, as it realizes increasingly the dis-
tinction between conceptual formulation and per-
ceptual reality. Its formulas have been variously
characterized as symbols or counterfoils of reality,
as a kind of conceptual shorthand, as economics of
thought, as convenient hypothetical summations,
or, in J. Royce's favourite metaphor, as the ledger
entries and balances of a particular method of
book-keeping. It is open to science, as he truly
remarks, to enter its accounts by other methods
of book-keeping.* Gravitation, e.g., may yet be
explained as a mere appearance of some more
genuine process of nature.

(2) Collocations. — In view of the foregoing, we
may allow that mechanical explanation, if abstract
and hypothetical, reigns supreme and alone in the
physical domain. While therefore Chalmers
strengthened the case for physico-theology by
reviving the Cartesian distinction between the

1 Bacon, Essays, xvi., 'Of Atheism.'

2 'The System of Animate Mature, ii. 637.

3 Life and Finite Individuality (two symposia of the Aristo-
telian Society), London, 1918, p. 54.

^ The World and the Individual {Gifford Lectures), 2nd ser.,
New York, 1901, p. 216.

TELEOLOGY

225

laws and the dispositions or collocations of matter,
he placed his argument in jeopardy when he said
that ' the main evidence for a Divinity lies, not
in the laws of matter, but in the collocations.'^
' i)Ut what would become of this main evidence
for a Divinity,' remarks J. Ward, ^ 'if the laws
of matter themselves explained its collocations?'
Yet, although science has been gathering the col-
locations within the mechanism of nature, the
{)roblem of order still remains. As in the bio-
ogical sphere, so in the cosmological there is an
ultimate collocation or coniiguration to be acknow-
ledged which natural laws cannot explain. Says
L. J. Henderson :

'The forms and states and quantities of matter and energy
in the nebula determine the resulting solar system.' 3
So that we may affirm that the universe possesses
an original teleological character.

(3) Fitness of the environment. — (a) But is it possible to
discover an explanation of the order of nature beyond the laws
of nature's uniformity? Henderson thinks positive thought
has found a clue. He points out that, if the scientific or
mechanistic origin of the natural order is to be explained, it
must be through principles that account not merely for the
general character of orderliness in the phenomena of nature
and the products of evolution, but also for that radical or
fundamental diversity which Herbert Spencer declared neces-
sary to the evolutionary process. Such principles, clearly, are
to be sought not so much in the laws of nature as in the
properties of matter. Accordingly Henderson has investigated
the properties of the elements hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen,
and of their compounds water and carbon dioxide, which have
been the chief factors in both geological and organic evolution.
These properties are found to constitute a unique group of
singular physical and chemical characteristics, so that thej'
are maxima or the fittest possible for organic life; e.g. — to
take the compounds, which are the primary constituents of
the environment — the solvent action of water is greater than
the solvent action of any other liquid, and the soIubUity of
carbon dioxide in water is such that it must always be evenly
distributed between the atmosphere and aqueous liquids. Or—
to take the elements themselves — hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen
possess the greatest number of compounds and enter into the
greatest number of reactions, involving the greatest trans-
formations of energy known to the chemist. Further (and
here a teleological consideration appears), the aforesaid unique
ensemble of properties is uniquely favourable to the existence
of systems — of which the world of physics and chemistry con-
sists—of numerous, diverse, stable systems. In fitness for
systems no other elements and compounds even approach
hydrogen, carbon and oxygen, water and carbon dioxide. In
Bhort, the arrangement of the properties of matter among the
elements makes the diversity of the evolutionary process
possible.

(6) It is Henderson's opinion, following up these results of
physico-chemical research, that, as accordmg to the law of pro-
Dabihties the connexion between the properties and the process
cannot be due to mere contingency, the properties can only
be regarded as a preparation for the process, or, in other words,
as resembling adaptation. There must be a functional relation-
ship between them — something like that known to physiology —
which must be described as teleological. How otherwise can
we express the fact that the collocation of properties unac-
countably precedes that to which they are unquestionably
related? Just as biological organization is teleological and
non-mechanical, so with the connexion between the properties
of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen and the process of evolution.
This is the positive contribution Henderson has to offer towards
the vast problem of the contingent set for natural science by
Lotze and Lachelier, and it goes to strengthen the philosopl^cal
position that mechanism and teleology are both at the founda-
uon of the natural order.*

2. Biology. — (1) Evolution, — {a) The term
' evolution ' (q.v. ) is itself teleological in its primary
meaning, and denotes more than mechanistic pro-
cess ; but it is possible that the mechanistic {i.e.
physico-chemical) explanation of biological descent
may be found sufficient in natural science. Pos-
sibly the evolutionary process is meolianistically
determined through and through by natural selec-
tion interpreted as non - teleological (whetlier
working upon .so-called fortuitous variations or
upon variations themselves subject to the law of

probability), or by natural selection supplemented
by other non-teleological factors, perhaps by some

1 On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodmss of God, i. 20, note.

^ Naturalism and Annosticimn, i. 47.

3 Fitness of the Environment, p. 301.

* CI. Fitness of the Environment, Ordt^r of Nature, Philo-
sophical Review, vol. xxv. no. 3 [1910], Journal of Philostrphi!,
Psychology and Scientific Methods, vol. xiii. no. 1- [1010].
VOL. XII. — 15

non-teleological factor yet to be discovered. On
the other hand, we have seen that Darwin did not
regard natural selection as exclusive of teleological
factors, and it may well be that the psychical
principles of self -conservation and subjective
selection, on which J. Ward would lay stress, are
required to give natural selection a point cl'appui. ^

(b) It is a searching test of the suflBciency of mechanistic
explanation that H. Bergson in the r6Ie of biologist proposes.
If it could be proved, he says, that life may manufacture the
like apparatus, by unlike means, on divergent lines of evolution,
then pure mechanism would be refutable and finality in a
certain sense so far demonstrable. Accordingly he examines
the evolutionary hypothesis in the two forms of it that have
emerged from ' the welter of biological controversy since
Darwin's time. He puts it to neo-Darwinism and neo-Lamarck-
ism alike, What is the explanation of the structural analogy
between the eye of a vertebrate and that of a mollusc like the
common pecten?2 It appears impossible on neo-Darwinian
principles, which enter readily into a mechanistic philosophy
of life, to account for the production of the same effect by two
different accumulations of an enormous number of small causes,
whether the possibility be urged, as by the stricter Darwinists,
on the theory of insensible accidental variations or, as by de
Vries, on the theory of sudden and simultaneous variations or,
as by Eimer, on the theory that assigns a direct rather than an
indirect influence to the environment, explaining the evolution
of the various organs by a kind of mechanical composition of
the external with the internal forces. To account for the con-
vergence of effects we must appeal, continues Bergson, to some
inner directing principle. Here Bergson's sympathy with the
neo-vitalism of Driesch and Reinke appears, though he is more
interested in their critical work than in their constructions.
Turning to neo-Lamarckism, wliich explains variations not as
accidental or determined but as springing from the effort of the
Uving being to adapt itself to the environment, he declares it to
be the only form of the later evolutionism capable of admitting,
as it actually does with Cope, 'an internal and psychological
principle of development.'-* Weisman7i has shown, however,
that the Lamarckian hereditary transmission of acquired char-
acteristics is at most the exception and not the rule. How
then may an organ such as the eye be developed? Is not the
organic effort a deeper and more psychological thing than any
neo-Lamarckian supposes? So Bergson returns to his specula-
tive theory of life. He finds the fundamental cause of varia-
tions that accumulate and create new species, in the trans-
mission of the elan vital from one generation of germs to the
next through the developed organisms which bridge the interval
between the generations. Life does not proceed by the associa-
tion and addition of elements, which is the false anthropo-
morphic view both of mechanism and of finahsm. Life proceeds
by dissociation and division. It starts with a direction or
tendency no doubt, and is in this sense finalistic, but we cannot
foretell how and where it will end,

(2) Mechanism and vitalism, — (a) Leaving gene-
tic considerations, we find ourselves still pursued
by the mechanistic hypothesis, which affirms
' living matter ' to be completely describable as a
physico-chemical system, and organization and
regulation — those distinguishing marks of living
bodies — to be conceivable in physico-chemical
terms. But it is also maintained as against this
that the way of physico-chemical analysis and
synthesis yields but an abstract product falling
short of what answers to that vuc d'enscnible which
Comte advocated in the study of the living.

(b) Mechanistic theory in biology may be said
to follow two main types, so far as regards the
relation to teleology. Sometimes it has no traffic
with teleology at all, and is still afflicted with
what von Baer called ' teleophobia,' in its jealousy
for the mechanical explanation. Sometimes again
— and this rejiresents the predominant tendency-
it finds room for the teleological view, re-affirminjj
in fact the Aristotelian doctrine of the internal
teleology of the living thing, which is its self-
regulation.

(c) But, with the more synthetic method in-
volved in this type of mechanistic theory, vitalism
has appeared once again in the history of biological
theory, if in subtler and more elusive forms. The
(lilference between the prevalent mechanistic theory
and the vitalistic hypothesis may be expressed in
the distinction due to Driesch between statical

1 Naturalism and Agnosticism, i. 200.

- L'J'J volution criatrice, Paris, 1907, Eng. tr., London, 1911,
p. 60 ff.
3 lb. p. 81.

226

TELEOLOGY

and dynamical teleology.^ Whereas in statical
teleology tlie processes of life are judged to be
purposive in virtue of a given machine-like order
or form underlying them, in dynamical teleology
it is in virtue of their possession of a peculiar
autonomy ; and dynamical teleology leads, as
Driesch thinks, to some form of vitalism. We
suppose L. J. Hentlerson, who is a mechanist,
might then be also named a statical teleologist ;
for, while on the whole persuaded that organiza-
tion (the central issue between tlie mechanism
and vitalism of to-day) is capable of explanation —
though not as yet explained — in physico-chemical
terms, he is also persuaded that the teleological
concept of organization, if to be found also in
sociology and in the meteorological cycle, is a
necessary biological category, and that a mech-
anistic physiology is at fault in not recognizing
this.^ But, though he thus believes with Driesch
in teleology as an ' irreducible peculiarity ' of
vital phenomena, he is not a dynamical teleologist
in the neo-vitalist sense. He might allow that
organisms, like machines, are inert embodiments
of purposiveness ; he would not allow that they
are actuated by purposiveness.

(d) The anti-mechanists also fall into two main
groups. In the first are the neo-vitalists, of wliom
Driesch is the most prominent representative.
They contend that biological processes are not
properly explicable as physico-cheiuical processes
within the living matter of the organism, but that
some non-physical principle (like Driesch's en-
telechy or unifying causality) impresses itself
upon those processes, to suspend, regulate, or
control the physical and chemical reactions.
With such a princi|)le at work, the outcome of
events, experimentally considered at least, is no
longer determinate and unequivocal. Bergson's
4lan vital is such another non- perceptual deter-
miner. Now, as Bergson realizes,* the contention
of neo-vitalism is relevant and weighty on the
critical side, but on its positive side is beset with
difficulties. Even granted the existence of the
mysterious non-mechanical semi-psychical entity
postulated in the theory, it is impossible to say
where and how it works in the biological processes.
In recent constructions, no doubt, there is none of
the crudity ridiculed by Molifere in the older
vitalism when he declared the cause of sleep to be
the 'dormitive virtue' (which reminds one of the
Johnsonian legend that the noise of wheels was
once attributed by the learned doctor to the
strepituosity of circumrotatory motion). All the
same the conception of neo-vitalism remains
mystical in quality, and biological science is re-
luctant to entertain it. An entity such as Driesch
formulates, which is neither an energy nor a
material substance but an agent stii generis, non-
spatial, albeit acting into space, non-material, but
logically belonging to nature, may have a strange
fascination for the metaphysician, but will hardly
retain a place for itself in the world of scientilic
explanation. We are assured, moreover, that the
second law of thermo-dynamics, which entelechy
is said to be capable of suspending, will hold even
in the obscure cases in morphology on which
Driesch founds his theory.'* We are also assured
that the non-physical something which is supposed
to intervene in physical and cliomical processes
is invariably dependent upon the existence of
physical ami cliemical conditions, yet it is not
explained what ])art these conditions play in

1 The nintoni and Theory of VitaUam, p. 5 ; cf. also Thi'
Science and i'hUosoiihy of the Organism (Gifford Lectures),
Edinburgh, 1908, ii. 135 f.

2 PhiluKuphical Review, vol. xxvii. no. 6 [1918], p. 575 f.

3 Creative Eoolution, p. 44, note.

4 li. J. Henderson, in I'fiilonophical Tter.ieir, xxvii. no. 0,
p. 574.

bringing about the actual results.' Vitalism sets
itself a hard task indeed in seeking to steer be-
tween the Scylla and Cliarybdis of the mechanical
and metaphysical explanations.^

(3) Biologism. — [a) Even as a scientific hypo-
thesis neo-vitalism appears already on the way to
occupy an intermediate position. Tlie issue now
seems to lie between some kind of mechanism and
a form of teleological theory even more anti-
mechanistic tiian neo-vitalism. For want of a
better name, the theory may be called ' biologism.'
It is the biological as distinguished from the
mechanical theory of life. It is vitalistic in a sense,
for it regards it as impossible to conceive distinct-
ively biological phenomena in physical and chemi-
cal terms. For it the autonomy of life is more
than a statical conception involving a teleological
and non-mechanical relationship between mechani-
cal things and processes. The autonomy of life is
a dynamical conception, involving a dynamical
teleology. But it is the living organism itself, and
not some directive force within it, as in properly
vitalistic theory, that is dominant in organic
activity. The organism exists as such, and its
structure and activities are the expression of its
existence.

(6) Here, as is claimed by J. 8. Haldane,3 a protagonist of the
biological theory of life, we have a good working hypothesis,
necessary to biologists, and capable of overcoming the failures
of the physico-chemical conception. Biology, he urges, is
something very different from physico-chemistry applied to
life. Its phenomena differ, not merely in complexity but also
in kind, from physico-chemical phenomena. Although phj'sico-
chemistry has much to teach us concerning the origin and
destiny of the material and energy in the body, it fails to
throw light upon the apparently teleological ordering of that
material and energy. The inadequacy of the physico-chemical
explanation appears when we enter into the deeper problems
of the organism's activity, not to say fundamental problems,
such as reproduction and heredity. Animal heat, respiration,
circulation — to take these examples from physiology — all con-
tain teleological (i.e. physiological) elements that do not yield
to physico-chemical analysis. Life is a unity of structure, en-
vironment, and activity, and is not resolvable into mechanism.
Separate a living part from its environment, or suspend its
activity, and you alter it completely. What therefore matter
and energy are to physics, or the atom to chemistry, the li\'ing
organism is to biology.

(c) Haldane is further of opinion that, inconsistent with each
other as are the biological and ordinary phj'sico-chemical
theories of life (so that personally he would as soon go back to
the mythology of his Saxon forefathers as to the mechanistic
physiology), a common meeting-ground between biology and
physico-chemistry will yet be discovered. That will mean,
however, not a reduction of the organic to the inorganic, but
the inclusion of the inorganic within the <lomain of biology. 4
In such an opinion the contrast between the principles of
mechanism and biologism is sharply revealed, but with it we
seem to be carried beyond the universe of discourse of natural
science.

(d) It appears to us that in their bearing upon
scientific explanation the difl'erences between tlie
mechanist or statical teleologist and the biologist
or dynamical teleologist (if we may wrest Driesch's
terms to our own use) is not so very radical after
all. It is significant that Henderson accepts the
mechanistic hj'pothesis as iqion the whole most con-
sistent with the evidence,^ and that Haldane
advocates the biological hypothesis on account of
the unsatisfactoriness of the ordinary mechanistic
[i.e. physico-chemical) ex[)lanation.'' They both
accept the jirinciple of organic autonomy, and are
good Aristotelians (as indeed Driesch is also), and
possibly they would unite upon the formula :
'Not mechanism or vitalism, but mechanism and
t(^leology.' This is a thesis admirably supported

' .). S. Haldane, The New Phyxioloiji/, London, 1019, p. i;!7.

" (U. 11. Encken, iWam Currents of Modern Thought, Eng.
tr., London, V.iVl, p. 181.

'•'The New Physiology, p. 48; ('f. also Mec/ianism, Life, and
Personality, London, lOl.'i, Orijanism and Environment, New
Haven, London and Oxford, 1917, Life and Finite Individu-
ality (Two Symposia), Loudon, 1918.

4 The New Physiology, p. 19 ; Mechanism, Life, and Per-
sonality, p. 100.

5 Philosophical Revieiv, vol. xxvii. no. 0, p. 576.
'i The New Physiology, p. 19.

TELEOLOGY

227

by K. F. Alfred Hoeinl6/ who would make the
particular point that in biology teleology not only
is compatible with mechanism but is ' logically
dominant ' over it. Teleological terms are requireti,
he says, not as substitutes for physico-chemical
terms but to express the dominancy of the struc-
tures and processes of life, which — as he goes on
to say — cannot be reduced to exclusively physico-
chemical terms without disregard of the difference,
on which Bergson insists so strikingly, between
the living and the dead.

(«) In an intimate and eloquent discussion of mechanism and
vitalism J. Arthur Thomson 2 makes it abundantly clear tliat
bioloyisra is at present no more than a descriptive or methodo-
logical theor3'. It distinguishes itself from mechanism in
demanding ultra-mechanical categories, but what these cate-
gories should be is not as yet determinate. He himself de-
scribes the organism in Bergsonian language as 'a historic
being which has traded with time, and has enregistered within
itself past experiences and experiments, and which has ever its
conative bow bent towards the future.''* Hesitating to inter-
polate with Driesch and the positive vitalists a new agency or
directive activity, he is content to say that the organism reveals
new aspects of reality, transcending theoretically mechanical
formulation.

3. Psychology. — (1) Body and mind. — (a) If the
teleological standpoint is required in the scientitic
explanation of the world of organic nature, it is
also required '.n respect of the world of mind or
consciousness. The world of mind is the native
sphere of purposive ac ti vity, and only a very abstract
view of it can dispense with teleological categories.
According to W. K. Sorley's •* analysis, the contrast
between a purely mechanical and a purposive system
lies in this, that, although purpose is consistent
with the law of causation and the principle of the
conservation of energy, yet as the result of a pur-
pose or mental idea there is a liberation of energy
passing from the potential to the kinetic form, and
the same purpose may also control, non-mechani-
cally, the direction of the movement. Therefore
it is not to account completely for the activity of a
purposive system to describe it in merely mechan-
istic terms. When this position is challenged {as
it is in psychology as well as in biology), as not
fitting into the mechanistic hypothesis, the discus-
sion passes inevitably into the speculative sphere.

(6) In psychology the mechanistic position founds upon the
Cartesian law of psycho-phjsical paralleUsm, which represents
the relation between brain-processes and psychical changes as
one not of interaction but of concomitance, and it usually takes
the form of the parallelistic hypothesis known as conscious
automatism or psychical eiiiphenomenalisni {Begleiterschein-
un(j), in which inner or conscious states are accounted for as
collateral products of tlie physical phenomena. On such prin-
ciples as are embodied in this form of psycho-physical parallel-
ism, the appearance of purpose or ideal direction is an illusion,
and the consciousness of purpose either belongs to a different
order or level of reality or is simply a result or effect, however
vague, shadowy, impalpable, of the neural organization. On
the first alternative, every neurosis has its psychosis, but they
cannot affect each other. On the second alternative, every
neurosis has its psychosis, but the neurosis cannot react even
a very little upon the psychosis. Either, then, the mechanical
theory does not apply to consciousness or the principle of the
conseiTation of energy breaks down. The mechanist must
eitlier give up his case or overthrow the foundations of his
faith. If this line of argument laid down by J. WardO be valid,
then we are free to turn from the mechanistic hypothesis to one
that allows full value to the teleologi(;al appearance of conscious
life, say, the animistic theory which has so long persisted in
human thought and for which W. McDougall b has made out
so strong a case in recent times, or the double-aspect theory
with which the name of C. Lloyd Morgan ^ may he associated,
and which .J. Arthur Thomson favours as in line with his bio-
logical contention, largely liased on a sLudj' of behaviour, that
the organism is a p.sycho-physic'al unity."*

(2) Psychulu(ji.s)n. —(d) I'ut tiie working .scientist
need not commit himself to any speculative position
on the problem of flie rel.ation between what we

' Fhiliisopkiral Jit-vleu', vol. xxvii. no. ti, p. (i29 IT.

~ The Si/.stcin nf Animate. Nature., vol. i. lect. v.

3 /6. i. id).

■* Procccdiwjs of the Aristotelian Society, 33rd session, 1!)U-
12, p. 216 ff.

5 Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. ii. pt. iii.

6 Body and Mind, London, 1911.
^ Scientia, xviii. [1915] 1-15.

** The System 0/ Animate Nature, lect. vii., esp. p. 'ilTlT.

call body and what we call mind. If he is of
opinion that psychology is more than physiology,
as biology is more than physico-chemistry, he can
at least affirm a descriptive or methodological
' psychologism,' transcending merely biological
concepts and claiming teleological categories of its
own, exclusive and irreducible. A merely physio-
logical psychology, avers J. S. Haldane, is as
inadequate as a mechanical physiology. A con-
scious oi'ganism, which reacts nut only in space but
also in time, and in its temporal reactions joins
itself at once to the actual past and the poten-
tial future, shows itself to be more than a mere
organism, such as we commonly regard a plant as
being. The relation to its environment, which is
establislied through percei^tion and volition, is no
mere external relation, as in the case of a mere
organism. There is a real connexion between the
external world and the internal organic world.
The environment is ' teleologically determined '
by our organic needs, and but for this ' teleologi-
cal determinism ' the world of our conscious experi-
ence would lack unity and coherence. To disre-
gard therefore the psychological aspect of living
things, especially human beings, and to describe
their behaviour in other than p.sychological terms
is to deal unduly in abstractions. ^

(&) If we may extend a remark of J. Arthur Thorason,2 in
which this idea of the autonomy both of biology and of psycho-
logy is sununed up, there is not one science of nature but
several. There is the physical order of nature — the inorganic
world — where mechanism is dominant (always on the assump-
tion, as \V. R. SorleyS reminds us, that qualitative differences
are really reducible to ([uantitative differences of molecular and
infra-molecular structure). There is the vital order of nature
— the world of organisms— where mechanism is in logical sub-
ordination to teleology ; and there is the psj-chical order of
nature — the world of mind — where purpose is dominant. In
biology the primacy of the biological standpoint, and in psy-
chology tlie primacy of the psychological standpoint, is to be
maintained.

(3) Discontinuity. — It may be thought that dis-
continuity of the categories makes against a unified
theory of nature, such as mechanism offers. But
a unified theory of nature does not require, says
Hoernl6, ' the reduction of all universals to one
kind, or the restriction of all variables to one type
of values,' but may be achieved by ' the correlation
of different types or groups or levels of phenomena. ' *
It is such a correlation, or cumulative integration,
that is here supported. Nor need exception to it
be taken in the name of ultimate or metaphysical
unity. The categories of mechanism, life, and
mind, which are fundamental hypotheses of natural
science, are, in the wider view of philosophy, only
provisional. It is possible, as J. S. Haldane has
hinted, that the principle of continuity may yet be
amply vindi(%'ited even in the .scientilic order of
nature, and that without surrender to the meclian-
istic hypi)thesis. From his own standpoint of
philosophical idealism he can say that the cate-
gories are the forms which the riches of the spiritual
world a.ssume in their progress towards the truly
real.**

4. Sociology. — (1) Ttvo functions of psychology.
— A. E. Taylor" speaks of two functions of psycho-
logy. The first, which is not its jiroper function
biit which it exercises ' pending tlie majority of
cerebral physiology,' is to set forth mental pro-
cesses as mechanical uniformities of setjuence.
The other function is to treat of purposive activi-
ties and adjustments, and thereby to afl'ord a
.suitable terminology for the sociological sciences,
and in p.irticular ethics and history. Ap.irt from

1 Mechanism, Life, and Personality, p. Ill ff.

- Intnid. to Science, London, 1911, p. 1C.J ; cf. also IJ./ i\.
[lOll], X. [1912].

3 Moral Vnhics a»id the Idea of God (Gifford lectures),
Cambridge, IDIS, p. 407.

■* Philosophical Review, voL xxvii. no. 6, p. 641.

6 The New Physiology, p. 15G.

K Eli'^nenls of Mctaj'hysics, London, 190;', i>. 300.

TELEOLOGY

the teleological symbols supplied by psychology,
ethical appreciation and historical interpretation
would be impossible. With this remark let us
pass to the consideration of the teleological method
in ethics and history.

(2) Ethics. — The teleological standpoint has its
place in ethical theory, just as teleological symbol-
ism necessarily enters into the appreciation of
conduct. Among the possible divisions of ethical
theories a fundamental one is into the teleological
and the formal or jural. In the first case the
moral standard is represented by the idea of good
or value, in the second by that of duty or right.
The teleological theory, vi'hich is found in Greek
philosophy, takes the form either of hedonism or,
as F. Paulsen,^ borrowing an Aristotelian term,
phrases it, of ' energism.' With Aristotle as with
Plato the ethical end or ideal was the good person-
ally realized in social relations as the actualization
or full fruition of human powers and capacities.
In modern ethical theory both the hedonistic and
energistic forms of the teleological method have
been revived. The formal or jural method is older
than the other, as attaching itself to the legalistic
stage of religion. Through Judaism it entered
into theological ethics, and it received classical
exposition at the hands of Kant, the fundamental
idea of whose ethics is the original mental principle
of the good will. As against a Kantian formalism
and in favour of the teleological standpoint in
ethical theory, it has often been urged that norms
and motives of action are not abstract and tran-
scendental principles but, as psychology and history
teach us, generalized rules of the will which grow
out of individual and social experience, and their
value consists not in defining but in their power of
l^romoting the ethical end.^

(3) History. — (a) The teleological principle has
also been applied to the interpretation of the pro-
cess of history. As we have already noticed, a
teleological view of history took shape under the
influence of Christianity, receiving various ex-
pression in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. But
it was not until Lessing and Herder, or rather not
until Hegel, that history was reflectively and
intimately treated in the light of the Aristotelian
principles of continuity and development.

(6) We may distinguish in this connexion three tj'pes of
historical theory. J. S. Mill recognized the principle of con-
tinuity, but in his 'inverse deductive' method he applied to
historical development the atomizing, mechanizing principles
of Democritus and Descartes, treating history as a Itind of
social dynamics, human motives and actions as causes and
effects, and the course of events as a rigorously determined
sequence. Against this view it may be maintained that the
hypothesis of mechanical causation is irrelevant in the sphere
of history and of sociologi' in general, as in the sphere of
psychology in its most characteristic aspect. Psj'chical events
are not duly appreciated by means of subpersonal categories.
A similar criticism is applicable to Herbert Spencer's theory of
history. Although Spencer, here following Comte, applies the
idea of organic or super-organic evolution to the interpretation
of the historical process, he never really breaks with the convic-
tion— ' fixed probably in his mind,' says J. T. Merz, 'through his
engineering education ' 3 — that change and progress in society,
as in nature and mind, are explicable on mechanical principles.

(c) The second type of historical theory is represented by
Hegel himself, for whom the course of events is a continuity,
not of mechanical causation but of evolutionary development.
It is still a rigidly detei-mined movement, but it is teleologically
conceived, the end dominating the process. ' As the germ
carries within itself the whole nature of the tree, the flavour
and the form of the fruits, so the first vestiges of mind virtually
contain the whole history.' 'l The history of society is for
Hegel the necessary evolution of the immanent Idea, and the
process is fixed in all its stages. Through human interests and
actions the final purpose of history is carried out, but the
puqiose itself — such is the absolute cunning of reason— is
beyond and external to human interests and actions.'*

1 Introd. to Philosophy, Eiig. tr., London, 18'.).'), p. 421.

- Of. G. Galloway, The rrinciples of Jielijious Developmi'iU,
London, 1909, p. 235 ff.

^ Hist, of European Thought, iv. 519, note.

* Philosophie der Gescldchte, ed. 1848, p. 21, (juoted by
Galloway, p. 5.

5 Cf. j". Ward, Realm of Ends, p. 149.

(d) It may be objected to this organic view that, in so
generalizing the conception of historical development, it does
not bring out its true nature as a process of interaction between
conscious and self-conscious minds. Nor does it appear to offer
a true rationale of human progress. A better explanation of
the historical process, in our jud'.;ment, is implied in the words
of G. Galloway, who, following Siebeck, says : 'Progress is the
spiritual vocation of humanit}' : it is a task which it sets to
itself, not an inherent necessity of its constitution. The . . .
ideal is freely pursued, and what ought to be is never that
whicli perforce must be.' i In other words, the organic view is
to be replaced by the historical or spiritual view, in which the
freedom of human personality is more clearly acknowledged.^

(e) The fuller justification of such a position must lie in the
metaphysical sphere. It may be here observed that the third
type of historical theory might be distinguished from the others
as teleological indeterminism. In it development is acknow-
ledged to be epigenetic or, in Wundt's phrase, creatively
synthetic, whereas in the teleological and mechanical determin-
isms above named development is the necessary effect, as it
were, of an attraction from before or an impulsion from behind,
of a vis a f route or a vis a tergo.

(/) It may be also observed that teleological in-
determinism in the theory of historical science
naturally leads in metaphysics to a form of spiritual
pluralism (q.v.), that teleological determinism
makes a ready alliance with pantheism, and that
mechanical determinism is at home in a natural-
istic or positivistic setting. Yet it is not without
significance that in J. S. Mill a survival of the
deistic tendency of thought is to be found. For it
may be not unjustly said that deism, as a dogmatic
or theological position, with its shallow rational-
izing of religion and its mechanical conception
of the relation of God to the world, largely pro-
moted what J. Koyce calls the ' mechanistic dogma '
of our time. An 'absentee God' may be done
without, so long as the mechanism of the universe
keeps going. At any rate naturalism, deism,
pantheism, and pluralism will meet us as we pass
from the Avorld of scientific explanation into that
of philosophical and religious interpretation.

C. Teleology in spiritual interpretation.
— I. Universal teleologfy. — As we view the world
in its totality and seek to discover its meaning, we
pass from empirical description and scientific or
logical explanation to spiritual, i.e. philosophical
and religious, interpretation. Here we are face to
face with the metaphysical aspect of teleology,
which is the aspect it has chiefly presented in
history. The need of a philosophical interpreta-
tion of the world has always been more or less
consciously realized, and in recent years there has
been a renewal of interest in the deeper problems
of nature, mind, and spirit. Philosophy and
religion alike welcome the tendency among natural
scientists to make incursions into what science
has for long regarded as the ' foreign field ' of
metaphysics — a tendency begotten of the increasing
recognition that no more than materialism does
naturalism speak the last word on the perennial
metaphysical problems. This has been largely due to
' the liberating influence of biology,' ^ and is marked
among biologists. We have already noticed the
idealistic position of J. S. Haldane, and Driesch
has advanced beyond a conceptual phenomenalism,
having even formulated a critical metaphysic
which leans to theism.'* The new and wider
scientific outlook is well reflected in the significant
postscript to T. C. Chamberlin's discussion of the
geogonic, geological, and biological processes in
his remarkable book. The Origin of the Earth : ^

' It is our personal view that what we conveniently regard as
merely material is at the same time spiritual, that what we try
to reduce to the mechanistic is at the same time volitional ; but
whether this be so or not, the emergence of what we call the
living from the inorganic and the emergence of what we call the
psychic from the physiologic, were at once the transcendent and
the transcendental features of tlie earth's evolution.'

1 Realm of Ends, \>. 43.

2 Cf. W. James. The Will to Believe, New York and London,
1S97, p. 245.

3 Pringle-Pattison, 7'he Idea of God, p. 6C.

4 The Hist, and Theon/ of Vitalism, pt. ii., esp. p. 232ff.

5 Chicago and London, 1916.

TELEOLOGY

2. Teleology and naturalism. — (a) It is the

essence of naturalism to construe the phenomena
of life, mind, and society in terms of the mechani-
cal and non-teleological conceptions which serve in
pliysical science. But we are persuaded that thus
to reduce the world to a mechanism is to fail to
account for lar^e tracts of experience. Mechanism
is an undeniably excellent methodical principle,
but is inadequate as an ontological dogma. More-
over, with the mechanistic dogma teleology cannot
live, i.e. teleology as philosophical interpretation.
It has ever been the contention of teleologists
from Aristotle onwards that meaning and purpose
underlie all material and mechanical processes,
that mind or spirit is ideally prior to matter and
more fundamental to reality. Naturalism, it may
be said, ignores the distinction implied in Lotze's
remark that ' the machinery which produces the
image of a phenomenon is not identical with the
meaning of this image.' ^

(b) The counter-contention of spiritual philo-
sophy is to be justified on epistemological grounds,
as by J. "Ward in Naturalism and Agnosticism.
Ward insists boldly with Kant that the intellect
makes or fashions, though it does not create,
nature. He shows that the fundamental principles
of knowledge, unity, causality, and regularity
have entered anthropomorphically into our concep-
tion of nature, and that nature itself as one and
uniform is teleological, being found conformable
to human intelligence and amenable to human ends.
The result is that unity of nature and man in one
rational and coherent scheme of things, that con-
fronting of human reason by universal reason, in
which idealism or spiritualism has always consisted.
It is the fault of naturalism, as Pringle-Pattison
expresses it, that it prematurely closes the record,
that it substantiates the antecedents in abstraction
from their consequents.

' There is no system,' as he says, ' no whole of being, no real
fact at all, till the external gathers itself up, as it were, into
Internality, and existence sums itself up in the conscious soul.' ^

3. The essence of teleological interpretation. —
Teleological interpretation is then confessedly
anthropomorphic, or, as F. C. S. Schiller would
say, humanistic. It rests upon the general episte-
mological principle of analogy, and is itself a
particular instance of it. According to the tele-
ologist, the worlds of nature and history are to be
interpreted after the analogy of the purposeful life
of which man is conscious in himself. Since Hume
and Kant, at any rate, the analogical character of
the teleological principle has been widely recog-
nized. We saw it in Lotze, who believed none the
less that the category of end or purpose afforded a
definite clue to the nature of ultimate reality.
We may see it in Bergson, who, however, regards
the category of end or purpose as applicable only
to the lower scientific order of realitj'. Yet, as
H. Hoffding ^ points out, Bergson himself actually
employs the principle of analogy along with that
of intuition. With him intuition is only the first
step towards the interpretation of reality. As
mechanism proceeds by analogy in taking the
organism to be a machine, and linalism in making
it respond to a preconceived plan, so is it not to
go by analogy to understand life as an Han, a
thrust, an eli'ort ? But in this instance, it must be
allowed, the analogy is drawn not as in finalism
fi-om the intelligent self-conscious life, but from
the spontaneous and semi-conscious psychical life.
While there is force in this criticism of Bergson's
position, it does not follow that Bergson's philo-
sophy of life is thereby discredited. All meta-
physic, as Leibniz said, is founded on analogy.

1 Kleine Schriften, iii. 229, quoted by Merz, iii. 5-19.
3 The Id^a of God, p. 215 ; cf. also p. 332.
^ Moder7i Philosophers, Eng. tr., London, 1915, p. 290 ff. (see
ref . at p. 292 to Den menneskelige Tanke, French ed. , pp. 318-327).

Apart from the analogy of human experience, no
kind of knowledge would be possible, and it is
entirely reasonable to proceed by way of that
analogy to the consideration of the truly and
ultimately real. But it may be urged, as against
Bergson, that the analogy of purposeful self-con-
scious activity — so central a feature in human
experience — offers a better clue to the nature of
the absolute experience than does any analogy
based on experience which is subpersonai. In any
case what is claimed here is that teleology is a
valid principle of interpretation, and that divine
purpose may be recognized as a true cosmic
principle. We shall see that, if divine purpose
is actually so recognized, the analogia hominis
must not be pressed in detail. The category of
purpose or end, viewed from the side of the
Absolute, requires to be delicately handled.

4. Pragmatic teleology. — Pragmatism (q.v.)
claims to be different from other philosophies
in respect of the clearness of its consciousness that
teleology is no more than a methodological postu-
late. It is astounded at the misunderstanding re-
vealed in the recent criticism * that it assumes a teleo-
logical constitution of the universe g\iaranteeing
in mediaeval fashion satisfaction to human desires
and needs — an assumption out of keeping, the
critic adds, with the spiritual pluralism or radical
empiricism which pragmatism generally professes.
In reply F. C. S. Schiller^ insists that, while the
pragmatist makes use of the teleological principle,
it is not for him an a priori truth that the universe
is going to prove good and to be found favourable
to his desires. His is a heuristic teleology. He
assumes commensurability between the supreme
reality and human faculty, and then acts upon the
assumption in hope. In contrast to this methodo-
logical optimism, one recalls the attitude of
Bertrand Russell,' who repudiates the 'will to
believe' as an argument and can only face the
universe with 'unyielding despair.' For, accord-
ing to his naturalistic view, the universe is blind
to good and evil and indifferent to human interests.
Perhaps, as C. A. Richardson ■* suggests, it is the
preoccupation of logical pluralism with the objec-
tive side of experience that leads it to look upon
the notion of teleology with doubt and suspicion.
But more likely the attitude arises out of a personal
conviction or resolution of character.

5. Teleology in personal idealism. — [a) Where
personal idealism means spiritual pluralism of a
theistic type, the concept of purpose applied to the
interpretation of the universe yields a conclusion
that satisfies. Consider first how thoroughgoing
an application of this concept is embodied in
personal idealism. It conceives reality, as in the
monadisms of Leibniz and Lotze, as consisting of
a plurality of experiencing subjects or spiritual
centres of experience. In this it builds upon the
analogy in respect of purposiveness between human
persons and the lower forms of organic life, and
upon the conjecture that even inorganic matter is
composed of purposive individuals. Like organic
species arrested in their evolution, or apparently
so, these exhibit the minimum of spontaneity and
the maximum of habit, according to the idea
expressed by J. Ward, ' Routine presupposes
antecedent living purpose.'' The essential nature
of the monads or spiritual individuals is affirmed
to be their .self-activity, involving self-determina-
tion (conscious, subconscious, or unconscious) in

1 J. M. Warbeke, in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and
Scientific Methods, xvi. [1919] 207, 'A Medieval Aspect of
Pragmatism.'

2 lb. xvi. 548, 'Methodological Teleology.'

3 Philonnphical Ussays, London, 1910, p. 60ff.
* Spiritiial Pluralism, Cambridge, 1919, p. 17.

5 Proceedings of the A ristoteiian Society, 33rd session, 1911-12,
p. 260 ; cf. also 0. A. Richardson, Spiritual Pluralism, p. 53.

230

TELEOLOGY

reference to ends. Thus spirit and spontaneity,
which naturalism banishes from the world, are
restored on this panpsychist hypothesis through-
out the whole vast range of experience. But that
coherent experience may be made possible, a
sympathetic rajiport or responsive sympathy is, as
with Lotze, postulated among the monads.

(b) With this the theory of personal idealism
advances from its pluralistic base to its final
theistic position, in which the world-ground is also
teleologically conceived. Sympathetic rcq-iport
implies unity in the plurality, and imity implies
a unifying principle, and the unifying princijile
is best stated not in the abstract terms char-
actei-istic of absolutist systems but in terms of
that conative unity, that striving after the realiza-
tion of ends, which is given at once in the most
simple and the most complex individual experience ;
and in terms, moreover, of conscious and self-
conscious activity, according to the teleological
principle of the interpretation of the lower by the
higher. Further, if we describe the world-ground
as an ultimate self-conscious will, we are not to
think of it, as in absolute idealism, as a purely
immanent principle. Though God gives unity or
system to the plurality of monads, He is not Him-
self the unity in which they subsist. There is a
principle of distinction in a self-conscious mind,
in virtue of which it belongs to itself and does
not merely enter into other selves. So it is that
G. Galloway,' e.g., presses to a theistic conclusion.

(c) The map of reality consists, according to
this theistic argument, of simple monads interact-
ing within a common medium or environment,
which is grounded in a transcendent self-conscious
will. It is claimed that the theory offers a better
key to the understanding of unity and individual-
ity than absolute idealism or natural realism can
supply. It is a brave attempt at any rate (and
this is our particular point) to justify the teleo-
logical view of the universe on metaphysical
grounds. Whether it yields too much to the
voluntaristic psychology we do not pretend to
judge ; but we appreciate its consistency with the
theism of the moral and religious consciousness, in
which the teleological character of the world is felt.

'At the heart of religion and morality,' says Siebeck, ' is the
feeling that the existence and development of the world ia not
an indifferent matter, but is designed to realise a highest Good. '2

When therefore ethical theism, with its religious
conception of God as the absolutely good, is set
beside the metapliysical theism of the pluralistic
approach to reality, it seems possible to state a con-
clusion in terms such as these. (1) In the language
of pliilosophy : though individual existences and
personal spirits have a being for themselves and
are variously endowed with spontaneity, the
development of experience remains in the control
of the world-ground. (2) In the language of
theology : though the actions of the creature are
not absolutely foreordained or predestinated but
manifest spontaneity and freedom in various
degrees, they fall within the providential govern-
ment of God. (3) In the language both of
philosophy and of theology, and in Galloway's
concluding words, if the world have its ground in
a self-conscious and etliical will, which compre-
hends and sustains all the individual centres of
experience, faith in a providential order of things
is sufficiently justified.^

6. Teleology of deism. — (a) While it may be
said from the humanist side that the development
of the universe is towards the goal of spiritual
personality, it is difficult to conceive of the world-
process sub specie mternitatis. The deistic con-

1 Pliilisophy of Religinn, Edinburgh, 1914, pp. 402-456.

2 Uchcr Prciheit, Entwicklvng, und Vrtrschunrj, 1911, p. 45
(quoted by Galloway, p. 4H9)

3 Gallowav, pp. 447-449.

ception of it, however, is an easy target for criticism.
Its view of the world has been described as ' heter-
otelic' The world is regarded as a sphere of
divine purpose, but divine purpose is as it were
imposed ujion it from without. There is an
inherent dualism in this, as J. S. Mill realized.

(b) In the traditional form of the ' argument
from design,' where the setting is deistic, the
divine Artificer fashioned the world to its present
form out of an already given matter ; or else, as
in the ecclesiastical doctrine, the matter was first
created out of nothing by divine power, then
shaped by divine wisdom and beneficence. But
this initial dissociation of matter and form is
inconceivable, and has been ' as much a bugbear
as a chimsera.'^ The idea of external adaptation
should be replaced by that of internal or immanent
purpose. God is not beyond or even alongside His
world, says a truer theism ; He is within it as
immanent life, will, intelligence.

(e) In the sphere of history, as in the sphere of
nature, the deistic teleology is also superficial and
inadequate. Its language, if not inappropriate in
the world of concrete relationships in which religion
lives and moves, can hardly be literally applied in
i:)hilosophy. It looks upon God as a moral governor
who imposes His laws upon man after the fashion
of an earthly potentate. But, says a truer theism
again, the divine laws are not externally imposed,
but are immanent in man's heart and conscience ;
and the divine providence is not exercised ab extra,
but is an immanent righteousness working in and
through free human agency.

(d) May we not say that the end or purpose of
God in nature and history is His self-manifesta-
tion or self-communication to personal self-con-
scious individuals capable of a spiritual response
to Him whereby His own life receives enrichment?
But, even in so sajdng, we speak in the manner of
men in terms of time rather than eternity.

7. The purgation of purpose. — (a) With the deep-
ening of its philosophical interpretation, the tele-
ology of theism loses undoubtedly much of its
traditional and popular meaning, but a substantial
meaning may remain. Tbe finite element of con-
trivance, with external adaptation of means to
end, may rightly fall away from the idea of pur-
pose as applied to the nature of the infinite experi-
ence. No part of the world is then in danger of
being handed over, as virtually in deistic theology,
to mechanical necessity ; and the inorganic
becomes essentially related or adapted to the
organic, and both inorganic and organic to the
whole cosmic process. It is the strength of ideal-
istic interpretation that it can thus dispense in
the cosmic reference with the ' theistic Demiurge ' ^
and associate itself with what has been called
an ' autotelic ' view of the world-process. When
purpose is no longer thought of as superinduced in
creation and providence upon particular events of
the world, but is intimately applied to the world
in its totality, we learn to appreciate Kant's ideal
of nature as a complete teleological system, in
which for the intuitive or perceptive understand-
ing the distinction of means and end is transcended,
and the whole appears as the unity of its members
and the members as the diflerentiation of the
whole. ^

(6) If the notions of contrivance and external
adajitation are to be dismissed as unduly anthro-
pomorphic, is the notion of a preconceived jilan to
be retained, or is the so-called plan but the nature
or process of the whole? It would be easier for
the personal idealist or theistic pluralist to retain
the notion than for the absolutist. It was the

1 Ward, nealm of Ends, p. 70.

2 Bosanquet, Principle of Individvality and Valve, p. 133.
s Cf. Pringle-Pattison, Idea of God, p. 328.

TELEOLOGY

231

conviction that God cannot be regarded, except by
the logical imagination, as devising schemes and
selecting methods that led Spinoza, from his
standpoint of abstract monism or singularism, to
repudiate the principle of human analogy altogether
and to deny of God the faculties of intellect and
will. These, as being exercised in the outcarrying
of finite plans and purposes, could not be predi-
cated of the eternal Being. There is danger as
well as truth in such a position, but what we are
here concerned to say is that Spinoza's views are
not incompatible with the essential idea of tele-
ology. He denounces externalism and antliropo-
centrism, but none the less he looks upon the
world as a significant whole, necessitated indeed,
but necessitated by tiie divine nature itself, which
is the nature of the whole.

' It is the idea,' says Pringle-Pattison, ' of the divine necessity
as a self-affirmed life, and not as a blind force acting within the
universe like a fate which it undergoes, that constitutes the
differentia between a theistic and a non-theistic doctrine.' i

(c) In support of Spinoza's objection to the
notion of a pre-existent cosmic plan, it is pointed
out that the conception of purpose therein involved
iseven inapplicable to human action of the highest
kind, such as moral conduct or artistic production.
We may therefore grant it to A. D. Lindsay,'-^ a
sympathetic interpreter of Bergson, that, if the
world is a purposive system, it possesses a unity
or individuality in time as well as in space.
Apparently such a consideration lies behind
Bergson's rejection of radical finalism — such as
Leibniz's — as being only an inverted mechanism,
as implying that things and beings realize a
programme previously arranged (' Tout est donnf. ').
To postulate the totality of the real as thus com-
plete in the beginning is to make time {q.v.) of no
account. If time does nothing, it is nothing. Yet,
according to Bergson, time — not abstract spatialized
time but concrete time or real duration {la durie)
— is the very substance of our world, and there is
no stull' more substantial or more resistant.

(d) The force of what Bergson here essentially
contends for is acknowledged by idealistic thinkers.
If the course of tlie world is preformed and pre-
determined— ' the dull rattling off of a cliain that
was forged innumerable ages ago ' ^ — there is
indeed not much to choose between naturalism
and idealism. In this connexion it is significant
that naturalism and idealism, like fatalism and
predestinarianism, often meet and, like righteous-
ness and peace, kiss each other. It is also signifi-
cant that the crusade of spiritual pluralism, in its
various forms, against the absolutist systems is
for the redemption of the spiritual values sold by
them — ' treacherously sold,' says F. C. S. Schiller ^
— into the bondage of naturalism. If then we
abandon radical finalism with its illusion of pre-
formation and predeterminism, shall we say that
' the history of the universe is the history of a
great adventure ' ? So C. F. D'Arcy ^ puts it, in
sympathj'^ with the Bergsonian view.

(e) Where idealism diifers from Bergsonism, if
not from Bergson himself, is in holding that the
adventure is not in the experience of tlie absolute
but in the experience or from tiie standpoint
of the finite subject. Moreover, for a theistic
idealism there are bounds to tlio scope of the
adventure. The theistic universe is fundament-
ally ethical. It is the very lieart and core of
theistic faith that an eternal purpose of good is
working itself out in the world. In terms of

1 Idea of God, p. 340.

2 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, :{3rd session, 1911-
12, p. 2J1.

' W. James, Principles of Psychology, 2 vols., London, 1890,
i. 453, quoted by Pringle-Pattison, p. 3(i7.

* Humanism^, London, 19T2, p. xxv.

6 God and Freedom in Uvinnn Krperience (DonncUan
Lectures), London, 1915, p. 217.

modern Christian theology, the world is the scene
of the progressive realization of the Kingdom of
God.

(/) It is but to state the complementary side of
this faith to affirm that the world must posse-ss
value and real existence for the divine experience,
and that into the divine experience the time-pro-
cess must enter somehow. The purpose which
God possesses in Himself is independent of time,
Avhich is not as in Bergsonism an ultimate reality,
yet it is somehow connected with the time-process
in which it is being realized. How time is retained
and yet transcended in God we do not know, nor
can we. Yet we are not without a clue. In
mystical contemplation and in artistic enjoyment
the sense of time, as we are told, may almost
vanish from the consciousness ; and it is claimed
that the life of the philosopher or artist bears in
this respect some kind of analogy to the divine
life. It is at least suggestive of the idea for which
Pringle-Pattison contends, that purposive activity
is the concrete reality and time only the abstract
form.^ If this be so, then Bosanquet's criticism of
teleology, in the sense of ' aiming at the unful-
filled,' is so far met. Such a teleology, he says,
gives undue importance to time and to the last
term of a time-sequence. ^ But, says Pringle-
Pattison :

'The last terra is only important because in it is most fully
revealed the nature of the principle which is present through-
out. It is precisely this linkage of the first term with the last
and, to that extent, the transcendence of the mere time-
sequence in the conception of an eternal reality, that seems to
me to be expressed by the profound Aristotelian idea of re'Xo?
or End. '3

[g) The question may be raised here whether the
purpose that may be attributed to the infinite
ground of the universe is to be regarded as con-
scious or unconscious. On this question Bergson
would appear to range himself in the succession of
Schopenhauer [q.v.) and von Hartmann,* with this
difierence that for them the gates of the future are
closed. Undoubtedly the via media of unconscious
purpose avoids the difficulty of explaining how one
self-consciousness may exist within another, the
finite within the iniinite, but it possesses inherent
difficulties of its own. It has to account for in-
organic arrangement and process, and for the
transition from the unconscious to the conscious
and self-conscious, nor can it explain the reason
why the vital impetus should tend in one direction
rather than another.

' If,' as W. R. Sorley says, summing up an illuminating dis-
cussion, ' purpose be admitted as necessary for the interpreta-
tion of organisms, and if organisms are held to have arisen out
of inorganic material, then" tliere is good reason to postulate
that the process which led to organic and pur^iosive life was
itself animated by purpose,' not individual nor merely racial
purpose, but universal purpose acting, moreover, not ' after
the fashion of impulse ' but ' in the maimer of mind or con-
sciousness.' 3

This theistic postulate of universal conscious
purpose is to be justified in face of the facts of
dysteleology,^ yot it appears a more reasonable
postulate than that of unconscious purpose, and
more hospitable too of human experience in the
realms of fact and value.

8. Teleology and value. — The category of end
or purpose, wiieu purged of its finite incidents
of preconceived plan and external adaptation of
means to end, tends to pass into the category of
worth or value [q.v.). In the teleological view of
the universe the end, which is the nature of the
wliole, is an ethical end wortlij'- of being purposed,
i.e. worthy, so to speak, of enlisting the desire

1 Pringle-Pattison, p. 358.

2 Principle of hidiuidualit!/ and Value, p. 135 (f.

3 P. 332.

■* See art. Pessimism and Optimism.
8 Mo7-al Valties and the Idea of God, p. 4-20 f.
8Cf. Haeckel, The Evolution of Man'', 2 vols., Eng. tr.,
London, 190.'), i. SG-SS.

232

TELEPATHY

and effort of the Absolute. And may we not
attribute desire and effort — conative activity — to
God ? May we not say that in the Infinite Experi-
ence conation and its correlative satisfaction are
to be found, that, as Bosanquet^ strikingly puts
it, ' the contradiction of a conation co-existing with
fruition must somehow be realized ' ? It seems to
us that we must say this if the world is to be re-
garded as truly a ' vale of soul-making,' in whicli
Providence rules and not fate, the concurrence of
the living God and not the eternal decree, and in
which spiritual values are created and realized.
It is our belief that God is thus present and active
in the process of the world, and that tlie true
image of Him is not the pre-existent Creator of
the deistic theology, nor the static timeless Abso-
lute of acosmic pantheism, but the eternal Re-
deemer of the religious consciousness.

Ltteraturk. — The literature of which the writer has made
most use is mentioned for the most part in the footnotes. For
the historical discussion of the subject histories of philosophy
may be consulted. For the general history of philosophy,
J. E. Erdmann (Enfj. tr., 3 vols., London, 1890-91), F. Ueber-
weg-8and9(4 vols., Berlin, 1898-1903), W. Windelband (Eng.
tr.. New York and London, 1893), A. K. Rogers^ (London,
1907), A. B. D. Alexanders (Glasgow, 1908), C. C. J. Webb
(London, 1915). L. J. Henderson, Order of Nature, Cam-
bridge, U.S.A., and London, 1917, contains a useful sketch of
the subject from the scientific standpoint. For ancient philo-
sophy, E. Zeller (5 vols., Leipzig, 1876-1909), T. Gomperz
(Eng'. tr., 4 vols., London, 1901-12), W. Windelband (Eng. tr.,
London, 1900), R. Adamson (Edinburgh, 1908) ; also the works
of E. Caird, J. Adam, and J. Buniet already mentioned. For
modern philosophy, H. HofTding (Eng. tr., 2 vols., London,
1900), Modern Philosophers (Eng. tr., do. 1915), R. Adamson
(2 vols., Edinburgh, 1903, esp. vol. i.), J. T. Merz — for nine-
teenth century — (esp. vols. 3, 4, Edinburgh, 1912-14), B.
PUnjer, Hist, of the Christian Philosophy of Reliijion (vol. i.,
Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1SS7); A. CaXdecoti, The Philosophy of
Religion — for England and America — (London, 1901). For the
systematic discussion works on metaphysics, pliilosophy of
religion, and philosophy of science may be consulted : in addi-
tion to the works already mentioned, J. Johnstone, The Philo-
sophy of Biology, Cambridge, 1914 ; The Philosophical Review,
vol. xxvii. no. 6 [1918] (a series of articles on ' Mechanism and
Vitalism'); Mind, new ser., no. 113 [1920] ('The Categories of
Biological Science,' by F. H. A. Marshall) ; R. Otto, Natural-
ism and Religion, Eng. tr., London, 1907; J. Watson, 2'Ae
Interpretation of Religious Experience (Gifford Lectures),
2 vols., Glasgow, 1912 (historical and constructive) ; J. Lindsay,
A Philosophical System of Theistic Idealism, Edinburgh, 1917 ;
O. Pfleiderer, Philosophy and Development of Religion
(Gifford Lectures), 2 vols., do. 1894; P. Janet, Fiiial Causes,
Eng. tr.2, do. 1SS3 ; A. Trendelenburg, Logische Untersuch-
ungen^, Leipzig, 1862, li. 1 IT. ; C. Sigwart, Kleine Schriften^,
2 vols., Freiburg, 1889, 'Der Kampf gegen den Zweck,' ii. 24-67
(a useful essay); W. Wundt, Logik'i, 3 vols., Stuttgart,
1906-08 ; P. N. Cossmann, Eleinente der ernpirischen Teleo-
logie, do. 1899 ; L. T. Hobhouse, Development and Pxirpose,
London, 1913 ; V. F. Storr, Development and Divine Purpose,
do. 1906. The 'argument from design 'is sympathetically dis-
cussed from a theistic standpoint in the last-named work, also
by J. Martineau, A Study of Religion, 2 vols., Oxford, 1900;
A. C. Eraser, Philosophy of Theism^ (Gifford Lectures), Edin-
burgh, 1899 ; C. C. J. Webb, Problems in the Relations of God
and Man, London, 1911 ; A. J. Balfour, Theism and Human-
ism (Gifford Lectures), do. 1915. See also J. M. Baldwin,
DPhP, lii. B. 2. 1, for a full bibliography. See also the artt.
End, Epistbmoloqy, Theism, Theodicy, Value.

William Fulton.
TELEPATHY. — Telepathy, ' feeling from
afar,' is a term coined by F. W. H. Myers, on
the foundation of the Society for Psychical
Research in 1882, to express the apparently
supernormal transmission of information from
mind to mind in 'thought-transference' experi-
ments and the like, just as ' telte-sthesia ' was
suggested to cover the alleged facts of clairvoyance
and clairaudience. It was defined as ' communica-
tion between one mind and another otherwise
than through the known channels of the senses.'
As thus defined, the notion was in the first place
not free from vagueness. For, as a certain amount
of hyperresthesia of the known senses was admitted
to occur under exceptional conditions, and this
could be so extended as to amount to miracle,
while it yet in a way explained away miracle, it

1 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 33rd session,
1911-12, p. 261.

was not clear how hyperaesthesia was related to
'telepathy.' Secondly, the definition was essenti-
ally negative, a declaration of ignorance, which
suggested no agency or adequate cause for the
phenomena it described. Now this was neither
satisfactory nor a very strong or stable position
logically. Even if the difficulty about the limits
of hyperaisthesia is not raised, and if it is admitted
that the possibilities of communication through
the senses may be taken as fairly completely
explored, we are impelled to develop such a
definition in one of two directicms. We may
imagine some unknown sort of vibration, radiation,
or ' brain-wave,' as a physical explanation of the
phenomena alleged, undeterred by the facts that
no positive support has yet been found for any
such agency, and that, unlike physical forces,
it would appear to be indifferent to distance ; or
else we may conceive telepathy as essentially
psychic in its nature, and shall then tend to exalt
it into a fundamental ' law ' of spiritual being,
as Myers himself subsequently inclined to do.
But, so conceived, it is manifestly a challenge to
further exploration of the spiritual world of which
it claims to be a law ; and yet it proves rather
a double-edged weapon for believers in a spiritual
Avorld. It enables them indeed to hold that every
mind, incarnate or discarnate, may in principle
communicate directly with any other by telepathy ;
but it seems to formulate this possibility so broadly
as to render it almost impossible for a discarnate
mind to authenticate itself by communicating in-
formation. For any verifiable information must
normally be, or have been, known to incarnate
minds ; and, if any living mind can ' tap ' any
other, and if knowledge can ' leak ' subconsciously
from any mind to any other, and still more if we
entertain the somewhat fanciful but not unsup-
ported hypothesis that all knowledge may be pooled
in a vast ' cosmic reservoir ' before it bubbles up in
individual minds, the telejiathic hypothesis can
evidently be used to discredit nearly all the prtm«
facie evidence in favour of 'spirit-communication.'
Accordingly the opponents of this belief have
made great play with it, even while holding also
that the evidence for telepathy is itself insufficient
to establish it as a vera causa.^ This objection
the believers endeavour to meet in various ways.
They point out rightly that, if telepathy is a
fundamental psychic law, it cannot be restricted
in its operations to living minds. They argue,
however, that unrestricted telepathy between in-
carnate minds, and such alone, is antecedently
improbable, and quite unsubstantiated. Lastly,
they try to develop methods of experimentation
which avoid this objection, because the informa-
tion communicated, though verifiable ex j)ost facto,
can be shown never to have been, as a whole, in
the possession of any living mind. Hence the
importance of ' cross-correspondences ' between
the information received through several channels
and dovetailing into a coherent message ; by this
method some striking successes have been recorded,
though different minds will long continue to vary
widely in the estimation of their weight. Again,
certain sorts of prediction may baffle exjjlanation
by telepathy. At present, however, no agree-
ment, either about the nature of telepathy or
about the degree to which it may be taken as a
fact in nature, can be said to exist. More evidence
is still required, and, until it is obtained, opinions
will be determined not so much by the evidence
itself as by the bias with whicli it is regarded.

The existing evidence is usually classified under

the heads (nr) experimental and (6) spontaneous.

The former includes the evidence of hypnotization

at a distance, recorded e-sijecially by Gibert and

1 Cf. art. Psychical Research.

TEMPERAMENT

233

Pierre Janet, and experiments at close quarters,
though without contact between the 'percipient'
and the ' agent,' in guessing sucli things as cards
and numbers, in reproducing diagrams and figures,
etc. Tlie transition to the ' spontaneous' evidence
is mediated by a few rare cases in which the
experimental projection of a phantasm is attested,
on the strength of which it becomes possible to
conceive the ordinary ' ghost ' as an apparition
telepathically projected by the dying or the dead.
In all these cases the transfer of information has
an emotional interest wliich is generally lacking
in experiments of the first class, and this may
conceivably account for their apparent capacity
to override the obstacle of distance, which con-
spicuously differentiates them from the former.
Still it should be remembered that to ascribe these
phenomena to telepathy is a liypothesis which is
possible only if telepathy is established independ-
ently by experimental evidence. Accordingly it
is on this that the real stress falls. Now, as
regards this evidence, it may be said in general
that its character is very similar to that for other
supernormal phenomena. Much of it is bad,
some respectable, none beyond cavil. Its quality
is not better than that of the best evidence for
some of the most extreme phenomena, such as
'materializations.' It is liable, moreover, to the
same or similar sources of error, fraud (in the
shape of codes, collusion, and mendacity), mal-
observation, lapses of attention, errors of memory,
coincidence. The ultimate reason for these defects
is that there plainly does not exist as yet any
real experimental control of the phenomena and
their conditions, so that the evidence cannot be
accumulated at will, crucial experiments cannot
be made, and the pragmatic test cannot be used to
apply the doctrine of the direct intercommunica-
tion of minds and to distinguish the real from
the alleged phenomena. As, however, this sort
of situation occurs commonly enough in the
beginnings of a science and sometimes lasts for
centuries, it is no disproof of the reality of what
is now provisionally called ' telepathy ' ; it may
well be dispersed by pertinacious and concerted
investigation, and in any case the matter should
not be left in its present ambiguity.

LiTERATxniE. — This is largely the same as given in artt.
Psychical Research and Spiritism. There may be mentioned
in addition E. Boirac, La Psychologie inconnue", Paris, 1912,
and L'Avenir des scitmces pstjchirjiies, do. 1917, Eng-. tr., Our
Bidden Forces and The Psychology of the Future, New York
and London, 1918 ; the art. by F. C. Hansen and A. Lehmann
in Philosophische Studwn, xi. [1895] pt. 4, ' Ueber unwill-
kiirliches Flustern ' ; E. Parish, Hallucinations and Illusions,
London and New York, 1897 ; J. E. Coover, Experiments in
Psychical Research at Leland Stanford Junior University ,
Stanford University, Cal., U.S.A., 1917; L. T. Troland, A
Technique for the Experimental Study of Telepathy and other
Alleged Clairvoyant Processes, 1917. All but the first of these
attack the historical evidence, with some success, while the
last two confess also (almost) complete failure in repeating the
card- and number-guessing experiments of the Society for
Psychical Research. F. C. S. SCHILLER.

TELUGU- SPEAKING PEOPLES.

DeA VIDIANS.

•See

TEMPERAMENT. — The doctrine of the
temperaments is at once one of the earliest and one
of the most persistent and popular efforts to classify
the diversities of mental character in relation to
bodily characteristics. It has always been recog-
nized that there are broad diflerences of type in
mind, and that some of these diH'erences are in-
born, and, practically at least, unmodified through-
out life. It was natural that these should be
looked for mainly in the feelings and emotions,
which appear both more dependent upon the bodily
constitution and less under individual control than
either cognition or will. The temperament is
accordingly a permanent disposition to oertain

forms or degrees of feeling, so far as such disposi-
tion is dependent on the inherited organic consti-
tution. The number of temperaments has been
variou.sly given as two, three, four, six, eight, and
even much larger numbers, but on the whole the
classic ' four ' has held the field down to our own
day, as if it corresponded in some mysterious way
to some ultimate diflerences in mind or body, or
both.

This number was derived originally from the
four elements of Empedocles, fire, earth, water, and
air, and the four qualities, warm and cold, dry and
moist ; on these in turn was formed Hippocrates'
theory of the four cardinal humours of the body —
blood, corresponding to air, warm and moist ;
phlegm to water, cold and moist ; yellow bile to
fire, warm and dry ; and black bile to earth,
cold and dry. From these came through Galen the
names of the main temperaments, sanguine, phleg-
matic, choleric, and melancholic. Occasionally
physiologists have suggested other terms for the
phlegmatic and the melancholic, as ' lymphatic '
and ' nervous,' lymph and nerve being at least
known constituents of the body ; ^ but the names
as well as the number of the old four have kept
their ground. For the Greeks the temperament
meant a mixture or union of the four elements,
qualities, or humours ; where this contained a
certain ideal proportion of each, there was bodily
and mental health ; where an excessive degree of
one or more, or an excessive defect, there was dis-
temper or disease. There should therefore have
been only one ideal temperament, and a large
variety of intemperaments,* but actually the four
temperaments were regarded as falling within the
limits of health and as implying only a slight pre-
dominance of one or other of the four qualities.
With the progress of physiology, the physical basis
of the temperaments underwent a series of changes
in the conception of the theorists ; first the mixture
was sought in the blood itself, as conveying nutri-
ment to all the tissues of the body — e.g., the pro-
portion of fibrin to fluid in the blood, the width of
the vessels, the porousness of their walls and of
those of the tissues ; then stress was laid on the
tissues of the body themselves, and especially the
nervous tissue, its strength and its excitability
(Haller) ; and finally on the more delicate qualities
of the nerves as shown in intensity, and in rate,
persistence, etc., of impression and of reaction.
Here we are probably nearest to the truth, since
it is with the nervous system that mental qualities
and degrees are most directly correlated, but it
must be admitted that we have no really scien-
tific knowledge as yet of the precise relation of
one to the other.

The problem may be approached from another
side by considering the actual characterization or
description of the four temperaments, the psychi-
cal qualities which each reveals ; those are inferred
of course from the behaviour, more especially the
emotional expressions and the reactions of the will
upon impressions ; and here also there has been
a constant tendency to simplify by seeking the
main features of the temperaments in two pairs of
mutually opposed characters, such as receptivity
and spontaneity ; change and persistence ; feeling
and action ; pleasure and pain, etc. The most
satisfactory of these psychological accounts is that
of Wundt, based on the strength or weakness, and
on the quick or slow rate of change in feeling and
in mental life generally.^ Strong and quick is
the choleric temperament ; strong and slow, the
melancholic ; weak and quick, the sanguine ;
weak and slow, the phlegmatic.

1 Henle, Anthropolog. Vortrdge, i. 108.

2 Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologic*, i. 207 f.

s Wundt, Grundziige der physiologischen Psychologies, iii.
637.

234

TEMPERAMENT

As E. B. Titchener has put it, ' the man who thinks quickly
and feels strongly, is choleric, the man who thinks qiiickly
and feels weakly, sanguine. The phlegmatic thinks slowly
and feels weakly, the melancholic tliiulcs slowly and feels
deeply.' i

The classification does not adequately explain,
however, the fact that the feelings of the sanguine
are predominantly clieerful or pleasant, those of
the melancholic predominantly painful or gloomy ;
and Hotfding has suggested another pair of tem-
peraments, or another division — ' the bright and
the dark temperament' — in order to explain 'the
tendency to one or other of the two gi-eat opposites
of the life of feeling, which gives colour and direc-
ti(m to the whole disposition.'

' This opposition is more fundamental than that upon which
the otlier four temperaments are based, for it has its root in
the fundamental conditions for the preservation of the indi-
vidual organism.' 2

More recently an interesting attempt to analyse
the dominant characteristics by experimental
methods has been given by Narziss Ach ; * he finds
that it is mainly on the strength or weakness of
the ' determination,' along with the persistence or
rapid falling away of the determining force, that
the feelings, the associations, and generally the
whole mental life depend ; accordingly he makes
these characters the basis of his five temperaments
— for he adds a fifth, the reflective (besonnene)
temperament.

Whatever the ultimate characters may be, mental
or physical, they must be such as exercise a deci-
sive influence on the whole life, inner and outer, of
the individual. The facts that the pure tempera-
ment is rare ; th.irt it makes, as Volkmann says,
*an almost uncanny impression,' when it does
appear ; that most of us are of ' mixed ' tempera-
ment (however illogical such mixture may be) ;
that the old terms have lost all meaning, and that
the scientific analysis is still to seek — these facts,
which have led many psychologists to drop the
doctrine of the temperaments altogether, do not
dispose of the existence of broad and deep differ-
ences of mental type, mainly in the spheres of
feeling and action, for which some names, and a
scientific analysis, must be found.

The organism, through the afferent nerves, sends
from its every part a stream of influence to the
brain ; to the functions of every tissue there corre-
spond impressions and feelings which may or may
not reach or effect separate consciousness, but
which produce a mass-efiect in the coenfesthesia,
or organic sensibility, and in the general feeling-
tone which corresponds to it. This is the basis of
the self-feeling : it is the inner or subjective aspect
of the temperament. There is, as Henle says, a
tonus, or degree of tension, in every nerve, even
when the muscles which it contracts or the sense-
organs from which it is impressed are ' at rest ' ; it
differs in degree in different individuals ; for each
individual it varies from time to time, under vary-
ing conditions of health, fatigue, etc., but there is
a relatively constant value for each below which it
does not fall, so long as the nerves have life. Where
the tension is high, response of feeling and action
will be energetic and rapid ; Avhere it is weak, or
low, response will be feeble and slow. The tonus
is the physiological fact corresponding to the mass-
feeling — vague and indefinite as it necessarily is
— out of which the different moods of the indi-
vidual, and his emotions, his passions, down to the
simplest feelings of sensory pleasure and ' un-
pleasure,' emerge like waves on the sea. Like all
feelings, the temperamental feeling is both an
index of bodily condition and a cause of bodily

^ An Outline of Psychology, p. 233.

2 Outlines of Psychology, Eng. tr., p. 350.

3 Ueher den Willensakt und das Tciiipframent, Ijoipzig, lOlo,
p. 312 S.

expression and action ; like all feelings, it influ-
ences alike the intensity, the quality, and the
course of thought. Hence the detailed descrip-
tions of character which we find in the older and
even in some of the later writers on temperament
are not without interest.

Johannes Miiller,! who regards the phlegmatic as the highest
type — the ideal temperament — finds that in such a man, witli a
well-developed intelligence, his phlegm enables him to accom-
plish results impossible to others, even with their livelier feel-
ings and desires ; easily retaining control of himself, he
caiuiot be induced to acts ' of which he would repent on the
morrow ' ; he can calculate in all security the chances of the
success of what he undertakes ; in danger, at the decisive
moment, he is master of himself, wherever it is not a question
of sudden decision and energy ; 'he feels his ills little, and
bears them patiently, nor is he much moved by those of others ' ;
speed and quickness of choice often give others an advantage
over him; but, 'when he has time before him, he arrives
quietly at the goal, while others, heaping mistakes upon
mistakes, are lose in endless side-issues.' On the other hand,
Miiller finds that the species of phlegm characterized by lazi-
ness, apathy, insensibility, irresolution, ennui, slowness of
intellect, and the like, is not the true type, but a pathological
form. The choleric has a remarkable power of action, botli in
energy and in persistence, under the influence of passion ; his
passions inflame at the least obstacle ; his pride, his jealousy, his
desire of vengeance, his thirst for domination, know no bounds,
as long as his passion moves him. He reflects little, acts with-
out hesitation, on the spur of the moment, because he is con-
vinced that he is right, and above all because such is his will.
He rarely turns aside from error, but follows the course
of his passion to his own ruin and that of others. With the
sanguine, pleasure is the dominant tendency, along with great
excitability, and a short duration of any mood. Sympathetic
and friendly to others, but without persistence or constancy ;
quick to anger, but equally quick to regret ; prodigal of
promises, but equally ready to forget them ; credulous and
confident, he loves to make plans, which he soon lays aside ;
indulgent to the faults of others, he claims the same indulgence
for his own ; easy to appease, frank, open, amiable, sociable,
incapable of interested calculation. With the melancholic,
sadness is the prevailing tendency ; his excitability is equal to
that of the sanguine, but disagreeable sensations are both more
frequent and more durable than those of pleasure. The
sufferings of others call out his sympathy to a high degree ; for
himself he is fearful, undecided, distrustful ; a trifle wounds
and offends him ; the slightest obstacle discourages him, and
renders him incapable of reasoning to overcome it ; his thoughts
are full of melancholy, and his sufferings appear to him beyond
all consolation.

In their Psychology in the Schoolroom 2 T. F. G. Dexter and
A. H. Garlick venture to describe, on behalf of teachers — for
whom it is necessary to know their pupils' temperaments— not
only the mental but also the external physical appearance of
the types. The sanguine, lively, excitable, quickly but not
deeply roused, with feeling generally uppermost in his char-
acter, has the circulatory and respiratory systems well developed,
has red hair, blue eyes, skin fair, and face animated. The
choleric, self-reliant and confident, with will uppermost, has
the muscular system well developed, hair and eyes dark, com-
plexion sometimes sallow, face impassive. The phlegmatic or
Ij'mphatic, mind heavy and torpid, sometimes nearly stupid,
patient, self-reliant, and slow, has the abdomen large,
face round and expressionless, lips thick, body generally dis-
inclined to exertion. Finally the sentimental (i.e. melan-
cholic), vnVa great love of poetry, music, and nature, and
marked indifference to the practical affairs of life, has the
head large, eyes bright and expressive, figure slender and
delicate, movements quick.

It may be doubted whether teachers would be
well advised to guide their treatment by such
physical characters as these, when noted in their
pupils. Nor has the attempt been very successful
to look in the difierent temperaments for predis-
position to certain diseases of the body. It is,
however, antecedently probable, and appears
to be confirmed by experience, that different
temperaments are liable to different forms of
insanity ; at least it is true that in insanity the
differences of temperament are as clearly marked
as in health.

As in drunkenness one man is 'talkative and boastful,' another
'maudlin,' another 'tetchy and violent,' another ' melancholy
and silent'; so 'the lunatic of sanguine temperament ... is
puffed up and vain, his dreams are of marble halls and flatter-
ing voices ; the choleric patient suspects everywhere the plots
of his enemies, and hears voices insulting him or urging him
to deeils of violence; and whilst Iiis hallucinations are more
often auditory than visual, the contrary is the case with the

3 Handbuch der Physiologic des Menschen, French tr.2, ii.
r.r,7.
2 London, 1905, p. 343.

TEMPERANCE

235

melancholic, and especially, as the name implies, with re-
ligious "visionaries."'!

It is especially in the melancholic, nervous, or,
as it is called in extreme cases, the ' neurotic '
temperament that the tendency to insanity is
marked. T. S. Clouston gives a striking descrip-
tion of the modern phase of this temperament.

'The man of this temperament is in body small, shapely,
tending- towards a dark complexion, thin skin, with delicate
features, a well-shaped head, a quick, bright, restless eye ; in
figure small and wiry, nervous, hij,'hly strung and sensitive,
feeling pain keenly and tolerating it badly, subject to dyspepsia
and insomnia. His muscles are incessantly active. He is quick
in mind and body, imaginative, keen, sensitive, ever alert, fine
in the grain, subtle, fond of intellectual work, not always resolute
in decision because he sees there are two sides to every question,
often artistic in feeling, ambitious, and with an ill-concealed
contempt for fools. When run down, this man is'MU todo with."
When he grows old he gets thin, dyspeptic, irritable, and often
neuralgic. The diseases he is specially subject to are nervous
and mental.' 2

In religious psychology also the temperaments
are of considerable importance, owing to the great
suggestibility of some (the sanguine and melau-
ciiolic) as compared with otliers, the greater excit-
ability of the sanguine and choleric, the brooding-
tendency of the melancholic or nervous, the insus-
ceptibility of the phlegmatic, and the excessive
self-centring of the sanguine and choleric'

The relative permanence of the temperament in
the individual is not inconsistent with some gradual
change over long periods of time, although there is
no doubt that the temperament is that part of our
mental and physical endowment which requires
greatest eiiort or most violent and prolonged change
of circumstances to modify. It has been thought
that broadly the different stages of individual de-
velopment and of racial evolution are marked by
differences of temperament. Childhood is sanguine,
youtli sentimental or nervous, mature age choleric,
and old age phlegmatic. The temperaments of
primitive races are less obvious, but they seem to
move from the phlegmatic and choleric (Negroes,
Malayans) to the melancholic and sanguine (Mon-
golian, Caucasian) ; in Europe we have the sanguine
Frenchman, the choleric Spaniard or Italian, the
phlegmatic Teuton, and the nervous Briton.
Women on the whole are sanguine or nervous, men
choleric or phlegmatic* These are of course mere
rough general impressions. It has also been re-
marked that there has been a change of fashion in
temperaments, or in what has been regarded as the
ideal temperament : at one time the sanguine, it
became the dark and melancholic (in the days of
Byron), later the phlegmatic or indifferent, to-day
perhaps the choleric — the man of energy." Char-
acter in the highest sense of the word is something
very different from temperament ; the latter has to
do with the form and manner, the quantity and
degree of mental life, character with its qualitj^,
the intellectual, moral, and aesthetic values which
that life recognizes and pursues ; temperament
gives the foundation on which character must
build — it sets the problems which the training and
the making of character have to solve ; whatever
we may think therefore of the popular classification
of the four temperaments, the individual differences
themselves on which it is based — differences of
sensitiveness to impressions and to feelings, of
strength and quickness of reaction, of energy and
endurance— are of the iitmost importance. It is to
such differences and their measurement that the

1 E. Parish, Hallucinations and Illusions, London, 1897,
p. 188, quoting Paul Radestock, Schlaf nnd Traxim, Leipzig,
1879, p. 209.

2 The Ilycjicne of Mind, London, 1906, p. or. f.

3 See G. A. Coe, The Spiritual Life : Studies in the Science of
Religion, New York, 1903 ; and K. L). Slarbuck, The Psi/choloijy
I'f Religion'^, London, 1901.

* See L. George, Lchrhvch der Pst/chnlagie, }■>. KiC. fl'., and
Dexter and Garlick, op. fit.
'• Volkmann-*, i. 211.

modein individual psychology is directing its
attention ; and from it we may hope in time to
obtain a scientific account of temperament.

LiTBRATURK. — I. Kant, Anthropologie in pragmatischer Ilin-
sichts, ed. J. H. von Kirchmann, Leipzig, 1880, p. 206 ; L.
Georg-e, Lehrbttch der Psychologic, Berlin, 1854 ; J. Miiller,
Ilandbuch der Physiologie des Mcnschen, Coblenz, 1838-40,
French tr.2 A. J. L. Jourdan, Paris, 1S51, ii. ; H. Royer-Collard,
'Des Temperaments consid6r6s dans leurs rapports avec la santd,'
Mim. Acad. Roy. de Midecine, do. 1843 ; W. Volkmann (von
Volkmar), Lehrhuch der Psychologies, ed. C. S. Cornelius, 2 vols. ,
Cothen, 1894-95 ; R. H. Lotze, Medicinische Psychologic, new
ed., Gcittingen, 1896, Mikrokosmm, Eng. tr. E. Hamilton and
E. E. C. Jones, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1885-86 ; G. Rumelin, ' Ueber
die Temperaniente," Deutsche Rundschau, Ixiv. [18!tOJ 397^12 ;
J. Henle, Anlhropologische Vortrdge, Lrunswick, 1870-80, i. 101,
' Von den Temperamenten ' ; Theobald Ziegler, Das GefUhP,
Stuttgart, 1893 ; G. T. Ladd, Outlines of Phi/siological Psy-
clwlngyi, London, 1896; E. B. Titcheuer, An Outline of Psy-
chology, New York, 1897 ; W. Wundt, Grundziige der pki/si-
ologischen' Psychologies, Leipzig, 1902-03, iii. 637; H. Hoffdi'ng,
Outlines of Psychology, tr. Mary E. Lowndes, London, 1893, p.
348 ff. ; W. McDougall, An Introd. to Social PsychologyT, do.

1913 p. iiefl. J. Lewis McIntyee.

TEMPERANCE.— There is much difference
of opinion among writers on moral theology as to
the true relationship between the three virtues of
sobriety, moderation, and temperance. Each has
had its claims to be the archetypal virtue, which
includes the others, advocated by representative
writers ; but there seem to be very strong reasons
why temperance should be regarded as thelnclusive
virtue, the chief being that it has held a place from
early times among the 'cardinal' or principal
virtues. From the first, Plato seems to accept
this grouping of virtues as based upon a current
classification, and it passes through Aristotle and
Stoics into Christian thought. Tlie definition of
temperance given by Cicero may be accepted as
typical :

'Temperantia est rationis in libidinem, atque in alios non
rectos impetus animi, firma et moderata dominatio. Ejus
partes sunt, continentia, dementia, modestia.' i

Plato shows a tendency to identify 'temperance'
with ' continence ' ; in Eep. iv. 4oU E he defines

ffUfppocnjvr] as follows :

Kocrixoi irov rts 17 iruxfipocrvvri itrrl Kal rjSoviav riviiitv koI iiriOviiiaiv
tyKpareia.

Aristotle, however, defines the word as iu.£ff6Tris irepl
i)S6vas and distinguishes it from eyKpdT€i.a. The
temjjerate man {a-wcppuv), he says, does not feel
the pressure of inordinate desires ; the continent
((yKpari^s) feels it, but holds desire in restraint.^
So Cicero : ' Continentia est, per quani cui)iditas
consilii gubernatione regitur. * In the NT the
Avord (TUKppoirivri occurs only in 1 Ti 2'^ {<Tw<ppuv in
1 Ti 3=, Tit P 2"- % ejKpdreia occurs in Ac 24--^ Gal
523^ 2 P 1" ; ^yKparevofiai in 1 Co 7" 9-^ ; eyKpariqs in
Tit 18.

The general idea of temperance or moderation as
an element in all virtue is peculiarly Greek, and it
re-appears in Ciiristianity.

'Temperance,' says Aquinas, 'is a cardinal virtue because
that moderation which is common to all the virtues is peculiarly
praiseworthy in the case of temperance.'-*

This has been pointed out elsewhere.^ It is perhaps
most in accordance with modern Avays of tliinking
to take as a basis the fact of ])ersonality and to
consider the Christian as standing- in a threefold
relationship— to God, to his neighbour, and to
himself. According to Augustine, there is a virtue
corresponding to each of these relationships, as is
implied in Tit 2'-, IVa . . . cru(f)p6vws Kal diKalus Kal
eiicre^uis fijo-w/tev.^ Temperance is the form which

1 De Invent, ii. 53. 164. 2 Eth. Nic. vii. 2. 3 Ivoc. at.

•» Summa, 11. ii. qu. cxli. art. 7, concl. ; cf. Aug. de [ieata
Vita, 32 : ' Modestia utique dicta est a modo, ol. a ti'mperie
temperantia. Ubi autem modus est atque temperies, nee plus
est quid(Hiam nee minus.'

s See art. Moderation.

« Bern. Senn. 3 in temp. Res. 11, alludes to this p-aasyige :
' Haec enim tria sunt conversationis nostrai? luaximo neces-
saria : quoniam prinuim debennm nobis, secMinduni jiroximo,
tertium Poo.'

236

TEMPLES

true self-love, duty to self, necessarily takes. It
is the spirit of discipline, or rather the spirit of
love consecrating itself — body, soul, and spirit — to
God.

The function of temperance 'consists in restraining and
moderating the desires wherewith we yearn for those things
which are apt to turn us away from God's laws.' 1
Hence the virtue of temperance consists in the
moderate and regulated use of those pleasures of
sense, especially of touch and taste, which are
most apt to draw the soul away from God, and to
overthrow the supremacy of the rational faculty in
man.* Temperance implies the control of appetite
at those points where its demand is most impor-
tunate and difficult to resist. While ' moderation '
(niodestia) means self-control in matters of less
difficulty, 'temperance' is concerned with the in-
stincts and passions which in average human
nature are the strongest and the least easy to
restrain.

The following points seem to be worthy of
special note.

1. The aim of the 'temperate' man is positive,
not negative. He aims not merely at the subjuga-
tion of his lower nature, but at the cultivation of
moral and spiritual power. Temperance is the
virtue of the man of high ideals who strives to win
a 'sovereign self-mastery.' It implies 'no mono-
tonous restraint, but an ordered use of every gift.'^
The temperate man faces life and uses its gifts and
blessings in the temper of an athlete training for
a contest (I Co 9-^^-) or of a soldier engaged in a
campaign (2 Ti 2^^-). He exercises self-control
' not only in cutting off superfluities but in allowing
himself necessaries'* — watchful against any form
of self-indulgence that may bring him under the
power of the world or of his lower nature (1 Co 6^^).
He is not hindered or overpowered by circum-
stances, but controls them ; he makes them sub-
servient to his spiritual progress ; he passes
through them upwards and onwards to God.

So Augustine describes temperance as ' that action whereby
the soul with the aid of God extricates itself from the love of
lower (created) beauty, and wings its way to true stability and
firm security in God. '5

2. Temperance holds a very prominent place in
the earliest Christian teaching (cf. Ac 24*^). In the
Acts of Thecla the substance of St. Paul's teaching-
is described as X670S Beov wept iyKpareias koL
dvao-rdo-ews. In the early Christian usage of the
word iyKpdreia Avas probably identified with sexual
purity, and was gradually extended to include any
form of world-renunciation and mortification of the
body.® The words iyKparei-a, ^yKpareOeo-dai occur
frequently in Hermas, but already the tendency is
to connote by them the temper of self-control or
temperance in general.'' It includes control of
appetite in the sphere of sex, food, and drink ; but
also the temper of moderation in expenditure, of
sobriety in judgment and self-esteem, of self-
restraint in matters of speech, etc. There follows
a list of virtues in respect of which del fii]
iyKpa.T€i€(Tdai. According to Hermas, iyKpdreia is
in fact an archetypal and inclusive virtue. It is
coupled with dw\6Ttjs in Vis. ii. 3.^ It has a saving
virtue. The 'first commandment' is IW (pvXd^ys
Ti)v irlffTiv KoL rbv ^6^ov koL rriv iyKparetav.^ Self-
restraint is a fundamental duty because it is
directly involved in that conflict between flesh
and spirit which is the condition of our mortality

1 Aug. de Mor. Eccl. 35.

2 Aquinas, S^imma, 11. ii. qu. cxli. art. 2.

3 Westcott, Lessons from Work, p. 271.

■* Bern, de Consid. i. 8. b Be Mus. vi. 15. 50.

6 Cf. A. Hamack, Expansion of Christianity, Eng. tr.,
London, 1904, i. 111.

1 See, e.g., the list of things a.^' S>v Set toi/ SovXov tov SeoO
eyKpareweo-Sai in Mand. viii.

« Cf. iii. 8, ' From faith is produced self-control ; from self-
control simplicity,' etc.

9 Ma7id. vi. 1.

and the occasion of moral victory or defeat. So
Augustine asks :

' Cui peccato cohibendo non habemus necessariam continen-
tiam, ne committatur? . . . Universaliter ergo continentia
nobis opus est ut declinemus a malo.' 1

3. Temperance or self-control forms part of ' the
fruit of the Spirit ' (Gal 5^^). ' Walk in the spirit
and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.' As a
gift or endowment of the Spirit it was supremely
manifested in our Lord.

'Where,' asks Bernard, ' is temperance to be found if not in
the life of Christ ? Those alone are temperate who strive to
imitate ffis life, . . . whose life is the mirror of temperance."'*

It is of self-control that Augustine is speaking
when he exclaims, ' Da quod jubes et jube quod
vis.'^ The presence of the Spirit in man gives him
liberty — the true freedom which consists not in
following the impulses of the lower nature, but in
fulfilling the will of God. Accordingly in Eph 5^^
St. Paul seems to imply that the one infallible
safeguard of temperance is the realization of the
presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the
soul.

4. The sin of intemperance is wrongly limited to
one particular form of excess.* It may include
want of restraint in work, in recreation, in in-
tellectual speculation, in the pursuit of wealth or
power, in the u.se of the faculty of speech. On
this last point much stress is laid by some Christian
moralists.^ The fact is that the habit of loose,
unrestrained speech paves the way for grave lapses
from truth, purity, or good faith. It ' defiles the
man ' (Mt 15"). It hinders or weakens that power
of controlling ' the whole body ' ( Ja 3^) which is
essential to Christian perfection. St. James
implies that the ' sovereign sway of the Christian
conscience' must be exercised even in what seems
a small sphere, and thence gradually extended to
the whole field of human nature till man becomes
' Deo solo dominante liberrimus.'®

Literature. — Augrustine, de Mor. Eccl., de Continentia,
etc. ; Ambrose, de Off. Min. i. 43; Aquinas, Summa, 11. ii. qu.
cxli.-cxliv. ; J. Taylor, Holy Living and Holy Dying, London,
1S47, ch. 2, § 2, Sermons, do. 1848, no. xvi. ('The House of
Feasting,' pt. 2) ; B. F. Westcott, Lessons from Work, do. 1901,
p. 209 ff. ; H. Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil, Oxford,
1907, bk. i. ch. vii. § 4 ; Stopford Brooke, The Kingship of
Love, London, 1903, serm. x. R, L. OtTLEY.

TEMPLES. — A temple, in the original sense
of the Latin word templum, meant a rectangular
place marked out by the augur for the purpose
of his observations, which were taken within a
rectangular tent. An extended sense gave it the
meaning of a consecrated place or building, of
rectangular shape, ' inaugurated ' by an augur.
In this sense it was applied to the house of a god,
though, strictly speaking, this meaning belonged
to the cedes. In its primitive sense templum cor-
responds to the Gr. rifievos, a place mariced off as
sacred to a god, in which a vais, or house of the
god, might be erected. As we shall see, an enclosed
consecrated space often precedes an actual temple
in our sense of the word, viz. the house of a god, a
structure containing his image, and sometimes an
altar, though not infrequently the altar stands out-
side the god's house (as in Greece) but within the
sacred place, in the open air, as it did before any
house for the god was erected. As images became
more decorative and costly, it was natural to pro-
vide a house for them, though this might be done
for a quite primitive image or even a fetish.'' Less
often, however, the chamber or house of the god
contained no image ; it was merelj'^ a place where
he might invisibly dwell or which he might visit

1 De Contin. i. 17. 2 jn Cant. 22. 11. 3 Conf. x. 29.

4 For temperance in drinking see artt. AiiCOHOL, Drhnkennrss.

5 See, e.g., Aug. de Contin. ii. 3 ; Ambrose, de Off. i. 2 and 6 ;
Butler, Serm. 4.

^ A>ig. de Mor. Eccl. xxi.
7 Cf . the African fetish-hut.

TEMPLES

237

from time to time.' Where a god has his image in
such a place, those of other divinities may also stand
there or in subsidiary chambers connected with it.
In the popular sense of the word, ' temple,' while
it is connected with worship, is not usually a place
within which the people worship. The priests alone
enter it; the laity may worship only within the
precincts, if even there. Temples vary from the
simplest and smallest buildings, as they mostly
Avere at first, to the most elaborate and vast
structures.

In studying the origin of temples, no single source
for all can be found, as this differs in different
regions. Nomads could have no temples, though
they might have tribal sacred places, or sacred
tents carried in their wanderings. With the
advent of a more fixed mode of life and permanent
dwellings, a similar dwelling for the deity became
necessary, as is seen in 2 S 7^^. A variety of primi-
tive temples is known, and it could have been only
in the course of a long period of time that the more
elaborate buildings came into existence, while,
generally speaking, the intermediate stages are
not always discoverable.

I. Origin of temples. — (a) Sacred places. —
Among savages, and probably also among most
groups of primitive men,^ most of the rites of
worship are carried on in the open air, sometimes
because no images of divinities exist, or, where
they do, they are not always enclosed within walls,
and sometimes because spirits are regarded as
connected with natural objects. Sacrifices ai-e
simply laid on sacred stones, or cast into the
waters, or into the fire, or hung upon trees. ^
Worship takes place in the open air among many
of the lowest tribes (Veddas, Australians, Mundas
and other Dravidian tribes, Melanesians, Sakai,
and Jakun), as well as among tribes at a higher
level (some American Indians, Lapps, Buriats, etc.).
This is often the result of a nomadic life, yet even
nomads carry sacred images with them * or have a
tent for these or for other sacred things.^ Such
open places for worship tend to become sacred and
to be preserved inviolate for cult purposes, and
there images are set up.

Examples of this are found among the Sakai, Jakun, Muncjias,
Fjort, and Indians of Oalifornia.6

This is obviously necessary where a sacred tree
or stone stands in such a place. Sometimes sacred
places are associated with the traditional appear-
ances of spirits, gods, or ancestors, and must there-
foi'e be holy for all time. The mere fact that a
religious gathering takes place in a certain spot
once is enough to give it sanctity, and the gather-
ing becomes recuiTent there. Such sacred places
will usually be marked by images or symbols, or
by boundary-stones forming an enclosure.'' Single
graves, often with a structure over them, and
places of sepulture also become recognized places
of cult.

The same preference for open-air worship in a recognized
sacred place is found among: the Chinese— «.(;., in the cult of
the Altar of Heaven, which dates back to early times when the
genius loci was worshipped at an altar under a tree. 8 The
practice is also found in the primitive cult of the Indo-European
races, as a result of their conceptions of deity, not dissimilar
from those of savages. The sacred stone, the sacred tree or
grove, the sacred spring, were places of cult and usually

1 Cf. the shrine or chapel of the god on the summit of the
Babylonian ziqqurat, and the Jewish Temple.

2 But see § i (c) below.

3 For American Indian instances see J. U. Swanton, in HAI
ii. 405.

* C. Hose and W. McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo,
London, 1912, ii. 186.
B See § 1 («) below, and cf. the Hebrow ' tent of meeting.'

6 W. W. Skeat and O. O. Blagden, I'a-ffan Races of the Malay
Peninsula, London, 1906, ii. 197 ; ERE iii. 144", viii. 3C2'', ix.
2a, 281h.

7 Hose-McDougall, ii. 7, 15 ; artt. Laim-.s, § 7, Laxdmauks ani/

BOI'NDARIES, § 3 (rt), (d).

8 See art. Altah (Chinese).

possessed an altar. The limits of the reVei/os were marked
b.y boundary-stones, and within these stood an altar and a stone
or post in which the deity resided. In early Indian worship
there were no temples nor indeed permanent sacred places for
cult — probably a result of earlier nomadic conditions prevailing
after the people had become settled — and to some extent this is
the case even now when temples have existed for centuries. So
in early Rome there were holy places but no temples ; and in
ancient Persian religion there were neither images nor temples.^
The custom and method of building temples were borrowed by
the Romans first from the Etruscans and then from the Greeks.
Teutons and Celts also worshipped first in the open air, and in
their case the earlier cult is especially associated with the
sacred tree or grove, though a spirit or god might be worshipped
also on a mountain top, in a cave, or at a spring.2 For the
Gauls the evidence of Lucan is interesting in the passage where
he describes a sacred grove near Massilia. The grove was tabu
to the people ; even the priest feared to walk there at midday
or midnight, lest he should meet its sacred guardian. The
trees were stained with sacrificial blood, but there were also
altars, and the images of the gods were misshapen trunks of
trees. The marvels of the grove are of a mythical kind. 3

While sacred groves were general over the Celtic area, temples
had begun to be built in both Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul.
The Boii had a temple in which were stored the spoils of war,
and the Isubri (Isombri) had a similar temple. •* Plutarch speaks
of the temple where the Arverni hung Cesar's sword, and
Diodorus of 'temples and sacred places.' 5 The temple of the
Namnite (Samnite) women, unroofed and re-roofed in a day,
must have been a simple building.S In Gallo-Roman times
elaborate temples were built after Roman models, as well as
smaller shrines at sacred springs.''

Similar sacred groves existed among the Teutons, as many
passages of Tacitus show.8 ' What we figure to ourselves as a
built and walled house, resolves itself, the farther back we go,
into a holy place untouched by human hand, embowered and
shut in by self-grown trees.' 9

The use of the sacred grove continued during many centuries.
But in these groves simple temples also stood, and are referred
to by Tacitus, while sagas and later ecclesiastical writings speak
of them, and the latter show that, when they were destroyed, a
Christian church was often built on the site.i"

The Latin names used for these are fanum, casula, and
tcmjHuin. The first was probably a mere hut in which stood
the sacred image ; the others were more elaborate buildings,
whether of wood or of stone.n

The grove is thus a primitive holy place, which
may have as an accessary a small structure for the
image which later becomes a more elaborate temple.
This worship in groves, which might become the
seat of a temple, is also found among lower races.

The village shrine among the Dravidian tribes of India is an
example. Under a sacred tree or grove stands a heap of stones
or a mound ; this may be replaced by a mud platform or a mud
hut with a thatched roof, or by a small building of masonry
with a domed roof and platform. These form an abode for the
deity and are thus a primitive kind of temple.12

The early Semitic sanctuary was a sacred place
associated with a theophany or with the continued
presence of a spirit or divinity. Tiiis might be at
a tree, a stone, on a hill, or in a cave.

These holy places were sacred territory enclosed by boundary
stones or walls, with altar and asherdh, or sacred pole. The
' high place,' or bdmdh, as its name denotes, was on a height,
and in the enclosed space or court there were the .altar, the
asherdh, and the ma^^ebhdh ([5.W.] the abode of the divinity),
while connected with these were 'houses,' probably of the
priests, which sometimes contained images (2 K 17'-^), though
these were also enclosed in tents (2 K 23', Ezk 16"')-'^ These
houses or tents represent a prhnitive temple within the bdmdh,
and, though no clear traces of actual temples have been met
with in excavations, these may have been the origin of actual
Canaanite temples such as those at El Berith and Gaza (Jg QWr.

I Herod, i. 131; J. H. Moulton, Early Zoi-oastrianism (UL),
London, 1913, pp. 53, 225, 391.

2Cf. J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, tr. J. S. St.allybr.ass,
London, 1SS2-SS, iv. 1309.

3 Lucan, Pharsalia, iii. 399 f.

4 Livy, xxiii. 24 ; Poh bins, ii. 32.

5 Plut. Ccesar, 20 ; Oiod. Sic. v. 27.

6 Strabo, iv. iv. 6. ^ See art. Celts, § XIV. i.
8 Germ. 9, 39 f., Ann. iL 12, iv. 73.

8 Grimm, i. 69 ; cf. art. Old Prussians, § 4 (c).
10 Tac. Ann. i. 51, Germ. 40; Grimm, i. SOff. ; B. Thori>e,
Northern Mythology, London, 1851-52, i. 260; G. Vigfusson and
F. Y. Powell, Corini^ Poeticuin Roreale, Oxford, 1SS3, i. 403.

II Thorpe, i. 212 ; Grimm, i. 202.

12 W. Crooke, I'he M. W. Provinces of India, London, 1897, pp.
236, 244 f., 249, Natives of N. India, do. 1907, p. 236; artt.
Dkavidians (N. Indi.a), § 27, Bknoal, § 9, Oiiaons, § 7 ; cf. E. B.
Tylor, ii. 223f.

ISA tent was tised as a sanctuary in the temple of Belti.s at
Harran, and elsewhere (1). A. Chwolsohn, Di^: Sttalner und der
Ssabismus, St. Petersburg, 1856, ii. 33), and by the Carthaginians
as a portable shrine (Oiod. Sic. xx. 65).

238

TEMPLES

1629), probably consisting of an outer hall and an inner sanc-
tuarv for the imag:e. The tents referred to resemble that pro-
^ded for the Ark by l^avid (2 S C") though it had previous^^^
been kept in some kind of building (1 b 33- 16 cf 2 S W-), DUbfc
as there were family or tribal houses of a -od (Jg 175 ISia- oOf.).
Remains of simiile Phoenician temples suggest Egyptian influ-
ence ; they are little more than a cella, rectangular, but open
in front. 1

Examples of 'high places' among other races
are found among the Aleuts and Bhils.^ while they
existed also in primitive Greek religion, and indeed
wherever a cult was carried on on hilltops.

(6) Shrines at graves.— The grave as a sacred
place may be another point of departure for the
temple, when it is associated with a structure-
though it be no more than an enclosing wooden
fence with shrubs, as among the Tami of New
Guinea =*—wliere a cult is carried on. Sometimes
an altar is placed over a grave, as with the Mayans
and possibly tiie Nicaraguans,* and by the Chinese
for the half-yearly sacrifice to the spirits of the
dead.^ Sometimes a series of memorial stones is
erected, not always, however, over a grave, like
the menhirs and dolmen-like structures of the
Khasis," the stone circles with a rectangular niche
in their circumference found in Algeria, the rectan-
gular, elliptical, or circular groups of stones in
Syria,^ and the stone circles in Britain, varying in
size and elaboration up to that at Stonehenge.«

These circles, long regarded without evidence as ' Druidical
temples ' were probably connected with a cult of the dead in
pre-Celtic times, and so were a kind of temple, like the Fijian
nanqa presently to be referred to. Some have regarded such a
circle as that of Stonehenge as a temple dedicated to the sun or
other heavenly bodies.**

Akin to these are the sacred stone enclosures,
or nanga, of the Fiji islanders, now existing only
as ruins.

These formerly presented the form of a rough parallelogram
enclosed by flat upright stones, divided into three compart-
ments by cross walls called respectively the little, great, and
sacred nanga, the last enclosing the sacred kava bowl. Trees
stood rouud the enclosure, and outside, beyond the sacred
nanga, was the vale tambu (' sacred house ), a bell-roofed hut.
Here the foreskins of youths circumcised on behalf of a sick
parent were offered to ancestral gods with prayers for the
patient's recovery. In the nanga ' the ancestral spirits are
to be found by their worshippers, and thither offerings are
taken on all occasions when their aid is to be invoked, and
here firstfruits are presented to them. They were also used in
the elaborate initiation ceremonies, the object of which was the
introduction of the candidates to the ancestral spirits. lo

Where large chambered tombs exist, as they do
in many parts of the world, they have been used
for worship of the dead, either at the time of the
burial or at stated intervals thereafter. To this
extent, therefore, they form temples, and some-
times they contain a conventional image of the dead
like the human figures roughly sculptured on the
walls of rock-hewn tombs in France." The struc-
tures built over graves may be no more than
large huts, of logs and thatch, like those built
over the graves of kings and chiefs among the
Banyoro and Baganda, but these are regarded as
temples, with priests and attendants, where the
spirits of the dead are consulted. ^'-

In Fiji certain temples of a primitive kind are associated with
craves and with the cult of the kalouyalo, or ancestor-gods.^'*
Not unlike these are the huts of reed and grass built over the

1 For the more elaborate Canaanite temples see art. Architec-
TURB (Phienician) ; and Lucian, de Lea Syria, 31.

2 See artt. Alkuts, § s, BuiLS, § 3.

3 G. Bamler, in R. Neuhauss, JJe.iUsch Nm-Gumea, Berlin,
1911, iii. 518.

4 JVjK ii. 799, iv. 61 f. ri hue i. .V,h,\

6 P. R. Clin-don, The KhasU, London, 1907, p. 144 f. ; cf. art.

IMlNOAS, § 4. , ., . o ■. 1 ,

7 T. E. Peet, Romih Stmie Monumenlif and their hmcaer>-,
I,ond"on,'l91'2, pp. 9 i', 110.

s EHE iii. aol^", iv. 408. " Of. .irtt. Stonkh. ^

10 B Thomson, The Fijians, London, 1908, p. 147 ft. ; L.
Fison, JAI xiv. [18S.-.| 14 ff. . „ , ^ r, , ■ , ■ a ,

11 E. A. Parkyn, A a Jntrod. to the Stmly of Prehistoric Art,
London, 1915, p. 158 f .

12 J. Roscoe, The Baganda, London, 1911, p. 109 f. ; AhJi
ii. 357''.

i-i ERE vi. 15''.

eraves of chiefs in pre-historic Egypt, where offerings were
made They "ave place to nnid houses, and these again to
structures of stone. Of the latter the mastaba had a chamber
for the statue of the deceased and a tablet for offerings.
Funerary chapels were part of the tomb-structure, but, where
pyramid's were built, this chapel or temple was erected outside
the pyramid, and in it gifts and offerings were made, bome-
times they de^'eloped into large temples, which, like the smaller
funerary chapels, had lands attached to them for their
maintenance.!

(c) Caves and temples.— Q&yqh occasionally served
as scenes of a cult, and by their shape and enclosed
space may have suggested the structural temple.
The caverns of mid-Magdalenian times, which
contained elaborate paintings of animals or even
of human figures, have been regarded as the scene
of religious or magical rites, but of this there is
no direct evidence,'^ Where cave-dwellers used
part of the cave as a shrine for an image or fetish,
it might easily through conservatism still be re-
garded as the dwelling of a god, when men no
longer used it for a dwelling. It might become a
temple or be associated with a temple built above
it. Caves used for burial purposes would doubtless
also acquire a sacred character and be used for
commemorative rites.

Thus some of the Canaanite 'high places' are associated with
caves, which may have been abodes of the living or burial-
places, and which, it ha.s been conjectured, were used for
oracular purposes or regarded as sanctuaries of a god.*
Natural or artificial grottoes also constituted the earliest
Phoenician temples.-* An example of gods incarnate in annual
shape inhabiting a cavern which served as a temple occurs m
Fiji in the case of the gods Ndengei and Ratu-Mai-Mbulu, to
whom prayers and offerings were made there.5 Names of
divinities worshipped in caves among the ancient Berbers are
known, as well as the caves themselves with mscriptiona to
them. Sacrifices were probably offered in front of the entrance ;
within the cave niches contained sacred objects.'' Rock
temples are known in early Egypt and in N. Arabia, but they
are most elaborate in India and Ceylon, where they are both
hewn out of solid rock and sculptured in caverns, borne
originated in Buddhist times, and many still exist as examijlea
of striking architectural skill-e..;., at Elephanta and Ellora.7
Their prototypes are ca\'es used as shrines and for the cult ot
Hindu gods in N. India.8 Among the Caribs two caves were
the places where sun and moon emerged and fertilized the earth.
They were places of pilgrimage, were adorned with paintings,
and contained images. Spirits were supposed to guard them.a
Another reason for caves becoming associated
with worship is the belief that men first came out
of them from their subterranean home. Examples
of this are found in ancient Peru and other parts
of America.^"

Caves may also be the depositories of sacred or
cult objects or of images of gods, and thus serve a
purpose to which temples are also put.

The Arunta ertnatulunga is a rock crevice and sacred
store-house containing churinga and their indwelling spirits.
They are visited ceremonially and are highly sacred." The Ved-
das keep their sacred arrows in caves to prevent them from being
contaminated, especially by women.12 The IIopi use clefts in
the rock in which to place the bahos, or prayer-sticks, in
honour of their deities, and the Coras and Huichols deposit
ceremonial arrows and images in sacred caves." The Ostyaks
keep their images or stones representing the gods in sanctuaries
in the hills guarded by a shaman. i^

1 A Guide to the Egyptian Collections in the British Museum,
London, 1909, p. 16.5 f. ; £/iJS iv. 403. , • • „„„-,,

2 S. Reinach, ' L'Art et la magie,' L' Anthropologie, xiv. [1!)03J
257; H. F. Osborne, The Men of the Old Stone Age-, London,
1916, p. 423. . „^,.

3 See the reff. in ERE ui. 178, vi. e81b.

4 W. R. Smith, p. ISO. ^ t r. , ^ i:,^-- 1
0 B Thomson, p. 114 ; T. Williams and J. Calvert, i'yi and

the Fijians, London, 1858, i. 217 f. ; cf. ERE vi. U\ 15b.
i> ERE ii.b07K „, , . J ,■ r 1

^ J. Fergusson, The Rock-out Temples of India, London,

l^(U ; see also artt. A.ianta, Oavk.s, Ei,ki-iiani'a.

^ EREv. 1(K , . , ,r ,- • i> I

y J. G. Miiller, (Scsch. der amcrikanisehen Urrehgmnen, basel,

i 8.5.^), p. 2'20.

10 Jl, 1, ;u?..

J I SiHiu;er-Gillen!i, p. l.'?3, Spcncer-Gillen'', p. 2G7.

12 C G Seli"-mann, 'The Vedda Cult of the Dead,' Trans-
actions of the Third International Congress for the History of
Religion, Oxford, 1908, i. 66.

y^ERE vi. 786'', 829"; C. Lumholtz, (Jnknovm Mexico,
London, 1903', ii. 27, 160. , „ . ,r- , ■ lt-

14 J. Abercromliy, The Pre- and Proto-Uisloric J< mns,
London, 1898, i. 102 ; ERE ix. 577 '.

TEMPLES

239

(d) Tho village-house, men^s house, etc., astemj^le.
— In many regions where separate temples are
unknown, the men's house, council-house, village-
house, or the kiva, to some extent serves the
l)urpose of a temple among its many other uses,
and corresponds to the prytaneum of the Greeks
and the curia of the Romans.

Religious dances or sacred dramatic plays are held in the
' villas e-house ' among the Aleuts or in the ' assembly-house ' of
the Californian tribes, which may consist of a circular dome-
shaped structure or a mere brushwood enclosure.^ To the
latter corresponds the bough wurlcy used in the fire-ceremony
of the Warramunga tribe, in which certain men maintain for
hours a continuous singing to the accompaniment of beating
boomerangs.2 Among many American Indian tribes, especially
in the south-west, religious rites are associated with a ' sacred
house,' as with the Hupa, which does not differ in construction
from other houses in the village. Here sacred dances take
])lace, and traditions are connected with \t.'^ With the Pueblo
tribes the kiva serves at once as sacred council-house, medicine-
lodge, and temple of the members of a mystery society. In
some districts kivas of ancient date are circular ; more generally
they are square and often below the surface of the ground.
The pre-historic kivas of Colorado and Utah are of similar type.
Women might not enter the kiva except to give food to
husband or sons. Kivas are often very large, but the well
openings are small, and entrance is gained by a ladder up to
the roof, whence by another ladder descent is made to the
interior from a hole in the roof. The walls are often decorated
with symbolic paintings and are surrounded by a bench. At
one end is an altar on which the symbolic objects of the society
are placed, and before it is a dry sand ' painting,' representing
gods and forces of nature.* Corresponding to these are the
sacred lodges and club-housoa of Melanesia and Papua, which
are generally the nearest approach to temples in those regions.
Examples are found in the 'sacred houses' of the Solomon
Islands ; 6 in the toreu of New Britain, etc.— a sacred enclosure
with a large room where the dresses and masks were pre-
pared and members of the society met, whence the spirit-
personatora of the ceremonies emerged, and which no woman
or uninitiated male might approach;'' in the marawot of the
Uismarck Archipelago, a similar construction to the toreu, but
with a special part containing images and visited by the tcna,
or magician, alone ;1 and in the house used in the asa-cult at
Astrolabe Bay, where an ancestor-cult is practised.8 The
structure consisted mainly of wood and thatch. The 'men's
house' in the same regions has often a sacred significance, and
contains skulls and heads, effigies of the dead, and symbols
associated with ancestor-worship, and sometimes masks, drums,
and flutes connected with the mysteries and concealed from
the uninitiated. These houses are often used for the worship
of ancestors.^

(e) The house-shrine as temple. — Still another
aspect of the primitive temple, sometimes suggest-
ing a point of departure for more exclusive temple
structures, is the liut or house a corner of which
is set apart as a place or shrine for an image or
sacred objects. This custom is well-nigh universal,
and only a few ex-amples need be noted.

Among the Banyankole in each hut is a special place for
fetishes, consisting of a mound of earth a foot high, beaten
hard, with grass laid upon it. 10 With Gold Coast tribes the
suhman containing a spirit has an honoured place in a corner
of the hut, where offerings are made to it, or, as with the
Yoruba, the house-god Olarosa, represented in human form, is
set up at the door, and huts ha\'e a recess in the wall for the
fetish. 11 Here and there in Melanesia and Papua images of
ancestors are kept in houses, or, as in certain islands off the
western end of Now Guinea, in a separate room of the house in
which miniature wooden houses are placed for the souls to
reside in. Offerings are made to them. In the chief's house
are shrines for the souls of all who have died in the community.
'Such a house might almost be described as a temple of the
dead.' 12 Among the Klemantans images are kept in the huts.

1 ERE i. 305", iii. 143^, 144b.

2 Spencer-Gilleni^, p. 332 f . 3 ERE vi. SSQb.

•» F. S. Dellenbaugh, North ATncri.cans of Yesterday, New
York and London, 1901, p. 233 f. ; F. W. Hodge, in UAIi. 710;
cf. ERE i. 336», 822'.

6 F. Kat/.el, The History of Mankind, tr. A. J. Butler,
London, 1.S96-98, i. 325.

OG. Brown, Melanesians and /'olyacsians, London, IDK),
1>. 60 f .

7 /6. p. 72 ff. s ERE ix. 348 f .

» R. ParUin.son, Inter. AE xiii. [lOOllJ S."), 42 f. ; M. J. Krdweg,
MittheiluiKjen der anthropolmii.-n'hen Ocsellschaft in H'irn,
x-txii. [1902] 292 f. ; II. Zahn, in Nenhauss, iii. tJOl, 308 ; cf. ERE
ix. 341, 349, 351, 354.

10 J. Roscoe, The Northern Banfn, Cambridge, 1915, p. 133.

11 H. Ling Roth, Great Benin, Halifax, 1903, pp. 166, 171 ; cf.
ERE ix. 278b, 280*.

12 R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, Oxford, 1891, pp. 139,
173 ff. ; J. Q. Frazer, The Belief in Immortality, Ixjndon, 1013,
i. 315 1.

or, as also with tho Kayans, stand before Dieni.i The Votiaka
set their vorsud, or clan-god, on a shelf in the out-house. 2 In
higher religions the household shrine is well known. Most
Buddhist houses have their shelf with an image of Gautama.
Shintoists treasure objects of private cult on a house-altar.
In ancient Egypt each house had its domestic shrine, usually
a recess or a cupboard with the figure of a household god.

In certain regions the temple seems to have
arisen out of the private sanctuary of the king.
In Mycenfe houses, especially the king's palace,
had chapels as part of tlie structure, and the palace
later became the temple. With the Phoenicians
the temple was at first an annexe of the palace,
like Solomon's temple at Jerusalem. Where a
cult of the hearth-divinities, with libations thrown
into the fire, existed — e.g., in Roman houses — the
house itself was a temple with the hearth as altar.

2. Actual temples in the lower culture. — We
have seen that, v/hile in many savage religions
actual temples are unknown, many api)roaches to
temples exist. Yet even savages are not devoid
of temples of a primitive kind, for it Avas natural
to suppose that, as the Avorshipper had a house,
the god or spirit also should have one, either as the
permanent shelter of his image or as the place
Avhither he might resort and be approached by men
in Avorship.

(a) The most primitive temples are probably
those found in Africa, both Negro and Bantu.
While frequently the ' place of praying ' is a mere
clearing under the tree in the village courtyard,^
thus conforming to Avhat Avas found in early Indo-
European worship, sometimes an actual hut is
provided for a god, not ditlering much from the
ordinary hut.

On the Lower Niger the temples contain images standing on
mud platforms, and the ju-ju house in the bush is secret to
all but the priests, and coiitains images, while the walls are
decorated with plates.'* Similar temples exist among the Ewe,
and that of the rain-god is painted with the colours of the rain-
bow.5 The celebrated serpent-temple at Whydah was merely
a circular hut, thatched with grass— a privilege allowed only
to shrines and temples— standing in an oblong enclosure. In
it the sacred snakes were kept.6 In Dahomey temples are
circular huts, so low that a man must bend double to enter one.
Images stand in them on a plat-form of clay, before which are
earthen pots and vessels smeared with blood, eggs, and oil. Some
temples are elaborately decorated, and they as well as sacred
groves are distinguished by calico streamers fluttering from poles
or trees. 7 Among the Yoruba — e.g., at Benin— the jw-jw temple
consisted of a' space of ground 150 yards by 60, surrounded by
a high wall, and covered with short grass. At one end a long
shed extended across the breadth, and under it stood the altar,
made of three steps the whole length of the shed. This was
shghtly raised in the centre, and on it stood ivory tusks on bronze
heads. In the centre of the enclosure were a kind of candelabra
with hooks, and a well for the reception of the bodies of
victims.^ Among the Baganda temples resembled the king's
house. They were conical structures with an elaborate reed
thatch coming nearly to the ground, and supported on posts,
with hide curtains for the doorway. Tliey liad also a sort of
pinnacle composed of layers of reeds bound together and
fastened to the top of the roof. The floor was strewn with a
carpet of scented grass, dried, and cut to uniform length.
These temples took some time to build, and their structure was
frequently renewed. Some had also a court surrounding them,
and in the case of the more important gods only the priests ami
mediums could enter it. In others the temple attendants had
their huts in the court. Ten)))les without courtyards could bo
approached and even entered by the i)eoiile. The temple of the
god of war was surrounded on three sides by a thick forest
sacred to him. Each temple had its priests and mediums who
lived in huts near by, where their vestments, worn on entering
the temple, were kept. Young girls tended the sacred fire
always burning in the temples, save in those which might not
be entered by a woman. The larger temples had estates
attached to them for their upkeep. Temples of gods had no
images, for images were unknown, but they had a dais on which
the invisible deity was supposed to sit, or on which his relics
were kept. Sacred drums were stored in certain temples.
Fitislii.'s had also temples with priests and mediums, and there
were special temples for the king's jaw-bone and uml)ili<al cor<l,

1 Ilose-McUougall, ii. 7, 19. " Abercroniby, i. hU.

•' C. W. Hobley, Ethno/nciy of the A-liaml>/i and other East
African yn'ic-s, "Camhridgi", li)i(l, ]>. 80; cf. KI!Ei\. 35S''.

* A. O. Leonard, The Lowi.r Niger ami its Tribi's, London,
1906, p. 40).

6 A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of
W. Africa, London, 1890, p. 49.

6 lb. p. 57. ^ lb. p SO.

8 Ling Roth, p. 150.

240

TEMPLES

and others for his ghost.i Similar temples for divinities and
for the ro3'al jaw-bone existed among the Busoga, Banyoro,
etc., but with these and the Baganda the creator-god had no
temple. 2

(6) In Melanesia temples are not common, but in
the Admiralty Islands wooden, thatched huts of a
beehive shape, with carved door-posts representing
male and female figures, serve as temples. The
doorway is closed by a hurdle. Skulls of pigs and
turtles are attached to the rafters, as well as balls
of human hair. A mystery was always made
about the principal temple, which contained images,
and was sometimes open, sometimes closed.^ In
Fiji each village had one or more temples [bure),
built on a mound faced with stone rubble-work.
The roof was high-pitched, with a projecting ridge-
pole, and the height of the structure was twice its
breadth. Each bure had two doors and a fire-place,
and contained images, jars, boxes, mats, etc.
From the roof hung a long piece of bark cloth
reaching to the floor at one of the corner-posts,
and marking the holy place which none but the
priest approached to be inspired by the god, who
descended by this cloth. The dead were some-
times buried in the bure, but the building was only
used for worship on special occasions and often
became ruinous in the interval. It served also as
a council-house and chiefs' club-house. Bures were
also erected in memory of the dead, and had an
altar for offerings.'^ In the district of Tumleo,
New Guinea, paralcs, or temjjles, built of wood
and standing on piles, are found. They consist of
two storeys and have high gables, and are ap-
proached by ladders with hand-rails carved in the
form of crocodiles and ape-like figures. Nothing
but drums and flutes is found in the paraks, and
these, played by men, .signify the presence of the
spirits, for whose worship the temples exist. A
certain degree of mystery attaches to the paraks ;
no woman or child may enter them or loiter in
their vicinity.^

(c) In certain parts of Polynesia — Society and
Sandwich Islands — the temples, or marce, were
enclosures open to the sky and they were of three
classes : national, local, and domestic.

The national temples, called tabu-tabu-a-tea, perhaps because
of their wide-spread sacredness, were depositories of the chief
images and the places where great festivals were held. Each
of them was composed of several marce, some with inner courts
for the images, altars, and sacred dormitories for the chief
divinities, all enclosed by stone walls on two sides. In front
was a fence, and at the back a pyramidal structure often of
large size, with images and altars before it. At Atchura this
structure was 270 ft. long, 94 broad, and 70 high. Steps led to
the top, which had a surface area of 180 bj' 6 ft. Within the
enclosure were the priests' houses, and trees grew both within
and around it, forming a dark grove. Offerings were placed in
the marce. Men alone usually took part in the festivals, but on
the completion of the year women and children also attended,
but were not allowed to enter the sacred enclosure. Ijocal
marce were those belonging to the different districts ; the
domestic marce were for the family gods. In both of these, as
well as in the royal marce, the dead were deposited, and were
there under the guardianship of the gods.S In other districts
— e.g., Samoa — temples resembled the beehive thatched huts,
or, again, the village house where the chiefs met served as a
temple. In some cases gToves as well as temples were used as
places of sacrifice. 7

{d) Among the coast Veddas temple structures
exist. One is 12 ft. by 10, roofed, and facing east-
wards, with the roof carried forward beyond the
front wall and door. Outside this structure are a

1 Roscoe, The Baganda, pp. 271 ff., 292 ff., 303, 308. Of. artt.
Head, § 5 (/), Moutu, § i.

2 Roscoe, The Ncyrthem Bantu, pp. 90, 131, 227, 246.
8^4/ vi. [1877)414.

4 O. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring
Expedition during lSSS-i2, London, 1852, ii. 53 f. ; Williams,
pp. 191, 223; B. Seeman, Viti: an Account of a Government
Mission to the Vitian or Fijian Islands, Cambridge, 1SG2,
p. 391.

5 R. Parkinson, p. 33 f. ; Erdweg, pp. 295 f., 377.

6 W. Ellis, Polyiwsian Researches'-^, London, 1S32, i. 339 fF.,
405 ; cf. Ratzel, i. 325.

7 G. Turner, Samoa, a Ilundred Years Ago and Long Before,
London, 1SS4, pp. 19, 152, 289.

long pole, a well, and a tree with a platform, and
just outside the door stands an altar. The interior
is decorated with cloths and branches on the
occasion of a ceremonial dance, and ceremonial
garments are kept within it. Some of the village
Veddas have temples of bark or of mud resembling
their own huts. In these the shaman dances, and
symbols of the spirits are kept.^

(e) With the Todas, worshippers of the sacred
buffalo, the dairy forms the temple or sacred place,
with its ceremonial vessels and other things, which
are preserved tliere ; and precautions are taken to
prevent their contamination by the touch or look
of unauthorized persons. Relics of heroes are also
stored in them. These temple-dairies have usually
two rooms, and are of the same form as the native
huts.2

{/) As an example of various stages in the
evolution of temples from simple to highly
elaborate, over a large area, we may cite those
known in N. and S. America. Most of the lower
tribes, and some of the more advanced (Hurons,
Iroquois 2), had no temples. But usually there
were sacred spots or shrines where ceremonies
Avere performed, sacrifices ofl'ered, and images set
up.*

Among the Hopi such places were called pahoki, ' prayer-
house,' and often had nothing to mark them but prayer-sticks
—sticks with feathers attanhed. Others were denoted by circles
of stones — e.g., the sun shrine with an opening to the direction
of sunrise at the summer solstice— by a single stone, or by some
natural mark on a rock. 5 To these correspond the sites on
which are erected bowers or lodges for the public performances
of mystery societies in other tribes, often containing an altar
with sacred objects.6 More elaborate shrines also exist among
the Hopis and will be described later. In S. America corre-
sponding to such shrines is the secret spot where the botuto, or
sacred trumpet, of the Orinoco tribes is kept, so that women
and children may not see it. With other tribes the insignia of
a piai are tabu and are kept in a special shed or hut, which is
also used as a place where he may be consulted. It is called a
' spirit-house ' and is tabu. 7 Here also may be mentioned the
special 'medicine-lodge' of many tribes, erected for the per-
formances of the shaman, corresponding to that found among
the Ural-Altaic tribes of N. Asia.8

With other tribes— e.^., the Omahar— the sacred structure
consisted of three sacred tents, or tipis, which were carried
from place to place, like the Hebrew ' tent of meeting.' They
consisted of poles tied together at the top, arranged in a circle,
and covered with bison skins. They sheltered the three sacred
objects— the sacred pole, the sacred buffalo-cow skin, and the
sacred bag.9 The household tent as a shrine containing an
altar is also sporadically found — e.g., among the Siksika, with
whom each tent has an altar, a mere hole in the ground. In
wliich sweet gum is burned.^"

With the Apaches, Sioux, and others, sacred caves took the
place of temples, where religious rites (tabu to women) were
performed, or which were used as resorts for prayer.'i In
Florida the Apallachians had a cave-temple on thesun-mountain,
Olaimi, 200 ft. long, and containing an altar and images.
Images also stood at the entrance, which faced eastwards, so
that the earliest beams of the sun fell upon it.i2 More elaborate
still was a cave-temple of the Wlyataos, which had been used to
celebrate rites by the followers of a culture-hero Wixipecocha,
but was later turned into a structure with galleries, halls, and
apartments. Into it the priests descended to perform sacrifices
and ceremonies hid from the vulgar eye.l3

Among the Chibchas the temples, each of which was
dedicated to a god, were mere huts with clay walls, containing
sm:\ll stools on which idols were set. The floor was covered
with grass, and mats hung on the walls. Those of greater
importance had the distinction of having their chief posts set
on the body of a sacrificed slave. Small shrines also existed

1 0. G. and B. Z. Seligmann, The Veddas, Cambridge, 1911
pp. 168, 235.

2 VV. H. R. Rivers, The Todas, London, 1906, pp. 56 ff.. 422.
428.

3 See ERE i. 335b. 4 See § x above.
6 J. W. Fewkes, in HAI ii. 558b.

6 G. A. Dorsey, in HAI i. 227 f.

"ISO RBEW [1915], p. 137; T. Whiffen, The North-West
Amazons : Notes of some Months spent among Cannibal Tribes
London, 1915, p. 212. '

•* See, e.g., artt. Navaho, Ojibwa, Shamanism.

'■> Dellenbaugh, pp. 204, 208 ; J. O. Dorsey, 13 RBEW [18961,
p. 274.

10 W. Hough, in HAI i. 46.

11 J. G. Bourke, PL ii. [1891] 426; Fewkes, in HAI ii. 559-
Muller, p. 69 ; ERE vi. 829*.

12 Miiller, p. 69.

1^' NR ii. 211 ; for other cave-temples see Muller, p. 184.

TEMPLES

241

throughout this region, on hills or by lakes.i Among some
Californian tribes structural temples, or vanquechs, in honour
of the god Chinigchinich, consisted of an oval enclosure, four
or five j'ards in circumference, with interior divisions formed by
branches, stakes of wood, and mats, and containing a hurdle
supporting an image. 2 The temples of the Natchez, one in
each village, which stood on mounds, were huts about
30 ft. square and of a somewhat elaborate structure. They
contained the sacred fire as well as a division in which sacred
objects were kept. On a platform rested the remains of the
' sun-chiefs,' with sacred images, and in an innermost sanctuary
was the holy image of the sun-god or hero. This temple was
the object of great reverence. s Such sun-temples existed over
a wide region in Florida, Arkansas, and Virginia, and were no
more than large wigwams with thick mud walls and a dome-
shaped roof with figures of eagles. Images stood in them, and
women were excluded from them.'* No more elaborate were the
temples described by travellers among Virginian tribes, in the
Mississippi region, among the Fox Indians, or in S. America
with the Tupinarabas.5 Among the Huichols are temples
{tokpla), ' god-houses,' and sacred caves, though the difference
between the first two is not clear. The temples are larger than
but otherwise resemble the houses, which are circular, stone-
built, and roofed with thatch, and which possess a low entrance
to the east. The roof is supported by upright beams. In the
centre is a fireplace — a circular basin o! clay. Niches in the
interior walls contain ceremonial objects, and each of them is
devoted to a god, and in charge of an officer of the temple.
Flowers are offered with prayer in these niches. In front of
the temple is a square open space for the ' god-houses,' in
which the officers live who watch the temple. They are
rectangular, of stone and mud, with a thatched gable-roof.
The interior contains symbolic objects to please the gods. The
people meet in the temples for shamanistic ceremonies. Chairs
are placed for the deities invisibly present. Images are kept in
sacred caves in the mountains, sometimes set in miniature
temples there.6 In the Pueblo region the more elaborate shrines
were of the nature of temples. They consisted of sealed stone
enclosures, sometimes with symbols painted on them, and they
contained images and symbolic representations of supernatural
beings. Among the Hopi the shrine of the earth-goddess is a
sealed chamber in which is her image, seated. Every November
at the ' new fire ' ceremony a slab is removed, and offerings
are placed in the shrine, while every four years the image is
carried in procession. In all Pueblo shrines are placed
permanent objects (images, stones, carved slabs, etc.) and
temporary objects (prayer-meal, pollen, sticks, bowls of water,
clay images)."

The council-house, men's house, the kiva, etc., as serving
inter alia all the purposes of a temple, have been already
referred to.** In the case of a kiva, or lodge of a mystery
society, this is particularly marked. None but priests or the
initiated may enter the sacred place ; in it are made the sacred
objects used in the ritual ; and here prayers are said, smoke
offerings presented, and other ceremonies— e.jr., purificatory
rites — are carried on.

The rude stone structures just described form a
primitive aspect of tlie more elaborate stone
temples of barbaric peoples in N. and S. America.
It was also natural that, where wooden temples
existed, they should be replaced by temples of stone,
as soon as more elaborate architectural methods
were attained. Intermediate stages between these
simple structures and the massive and elaborate
temples — the ruins of which still command respect
—are seldom met with, but Peter Martyr describes
one in Hayti, and Schoolcraft another at Cayambe
— a circle of sunburnt bricks 48 ft. in diameter and
13J ft. high, with a small door, open to the sky."
Probably many of tlie Peruvian temples were of
such a simple character, and even the great temple
of the sun at Cuzco, comprising many buildings
and apartments, though it was richly adorned with
gold plates, cornices, and studs, and was provided
with gardens and fields, had no great architectural
character — mere squares and parallelograms of one
storey, roofless or thatched.'" Previous to the Inca

1 T. A. Joyce, Smith American Arckceology, London, 1912, pp.
33, 37.

2 NR i. 405.

3 Dellenbaugh, p. 207 ; ERE ix. 190h.

4 Ratzel, ii. 154.

B Miiller, pp. 69, 280 ; John Smith, Virginia, in Ilakluytus
Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrirnes (Hakluyt Soc. Ex. Ser.),
Glasgow, 1905-07, xviii. 450 f.

6 Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, ii. 27 fl., 148 f., 160 ff.

7 J. W. Fewkes, in HAI ii. 559.

8 § I (d) above.

9 Miiller, p. 184 ; H. R. Schoolcraft, Information respecting
the History, Condition, etc., of the Indian Tribes of the United
Stales, Philadelphia, 1853-57, v. 94.

i« Garcilasso de la Vega, in Purchas, xvii. 340 f.; Schoolcraft,
r. 89.

VOL. xn. — 16

rule, the temple was strictly a lofty altar with a
chapel for the image. Under the Incas the chapel
increased in size, encircling the altar, and was
made elaborate by the addition of other buildings.'
Certain remains of temples in Peru, however, show
a greater architectural complexity than those
described by early Spanish travellers.

The Mexican temples, teocalli, ' abode of the
gods,' may be described as gigantic altars on which
stood chapels for the images. There were many
temples in each city, varying much in dignity.

The larger teocalli had a great outer court capable of holding
a crowd of people. Within this space stood priests' houses,
oratories, and chapels for lesser gods. There arose from it a
pyramidal structure of earth faced with brick or stone, rising
in stages, three to nine in number, each with a platform, to a
height of 80 to 100 feet. Stairways, differently arranged, rose
from the base to each platform, and thence to the top. Some-
times the stairway rose directly from base to summit up one of
the faces of the pyramid ; or it ascended at one of the angles to
the first platform, at another angle to the second, and so to the
top, in order that a religious procession in ascending might
make a circuit of the structure. The platforms had palisades on
which were stuck the heads of human victims. On the summit
stood a tower or chapel, or sometimes two, containing the
image of the god or gods to whom the temple was dedicated.
In front of them stood the great stone of sacrifice and altars
on which perpetual fire burned. The great procession of
priests at the numerous religious services was visible to all who
directed their eyes to the teocalli, as it made the ascent.*

The practice of placing temples on pyramidal
structures is also found among the Mayans and
throughout the whole area of Central America,
but here the buildings were of a more ambitious
kind, with elaborate architecture and sculpture.^

The mounds of the Mississippi region were thought to be of
Mexican or Mayan origin, but it is now accepted that they were
the work of Indian tribes— Cherokees, Shawnees, Delawares,
Choctaws. Nor is it proved that every mound was crowned by
a temple or altar. ' Whether these were sacred enclosures,
sacrificial and temple mounds, are questions to be settled, if
possible, by investigation and legitimate deductions.' Houses
were built on some of the mounds, but occasionally travellers
speak of a temple on a mound. In such a case the mound was
of no great heiglit, and the temple was a simple structure like
that of the Natchez.4

3. Miniature temples.— Among many African
tribes there is a custom of making a small hut for
the spirits, about 2 ft. high. This stands in the
village or outside, and offerings are made at it._ It
is supposed to contain 'an uncanny something,'
and is a kind of temple of the dead, whose spirits
are supposed to visit it.

In Uganda the hut is a veritable sanctuary, with a sort of
altar for offerings.5 In New Guinea some of the tribes set up
little houses in the forest for the use of ancestral spirits, or
place these within inner rooms of their own dwellings ; others
place the skull of the dead man in such a hut in the forest.*'
Similar miniature structures for ancestral ghosts are found in
Indo-China and among the Gilyaks.7

4. Temples in the higher culture.— In higher
civilizations the temple usually has a prominent
place in religious life, and is architecturally of
great importance. But here also it was evolved
from simple structures, though these as well as the
intermediate stages cannot always be traced in
archjeological sequence or from historical evidence.
The series of articles on ARCHITECTURE deal with
the structure of such temples iu the greater
religions, and it is unnecessary here to do more
than otier a few general remarks.

(a) The great temples of ancient Egypt were
preceded in pre-historic times by a simple structure
of dried mud or a hut of wicker-work, not diller-
ing much from human dwellings and probably

1 A. Reville, The Native Religions of Mexico a7id Pent {HL),
London, 1SS4, p. 215.

2 Joseph Acosta, in Purchas, xv. 319fl.; R6ville, p. 47 ; AR u.
577, iii. 430 ; see art. Altar (.\merican), § a.

3 See art. Architecture (American), § 5 ; NR iv. pasHm.

4 la RBEW [1S94], pp. 17 f., 604, 609, 052, 660, 671.

i '&o\>\Qy , Ethnology of the A-Kamba, p. 85 ; A. Le Roy, La
Religion des pmnitifs, Paris. 1909, p. 288 ; A. Werner, The

7 ERE vii. 231», vi. 226*.

242

TEMPLES

resembling African native temples. The hut was
sometimes square, sometimes domed, and stood on
a platform of earth to save it from inundation.
Within it was the image of the god, and the only-
opening for light was the doorway or portico, with
a mast at each side. In front was a court fenced
with a palisade.

The hut gave place to a stone building, but, when additional
rooms were built round the central ' house of the god,' and when
the whole structure of the temple, with its spacious sphinx-
guarded approach, pylons, courts for the worshippers, pillared
halls for processions of priests, etc., was elaborated, the dark
central chamber of the god, accessible to the higher priesthood
only, remained as a constant factor, and contained the divine
image or the sacred animal. The door was solemnly sealed
with papjTus and clay at night, and as solemnly opened in
the morning, before the day's ceremonial began. Thus what
had once been the temple itself was now the inner sanctuary
of a wide-spread temple, with all its multifarious buildings and
chambers for purposes connected with the cult. The height
of the Egyptian temple diminished from front to back.i

(b) The great temples of Babylon had probably
originated in a structure of simple kind, oblong
in shape, witli a recess for an image. Excavations
show that the great temples stood in a court with
a vestibule, flanked by chambers.

The temple building consisted of a long outer hall, opening
into a smaller one with the holy place, or parakhu, where
stood the image of the divinity and an altar. The holy place
was open to the priests alone, or to a worshipper accompanied
by a priest for special religious purposes. An altar stood in
the court and perhaps in the outer hall also. The names of
temples are many, and some of them show their great sanctity,
others are suggestive of height — ' the house of the shining
mountain,' 'the lofty house.' This points to the high tower-
like structure, the ziqqurat, which stood beyond the important
temples, or towered within the sacred enclosure where stood
many temples dedicated to various gods, as well as the houses
of priests — a grouping of religious buildings found in the larger
cities. The ziqqurat was a storeyed tower or pyramid, consist-
ing of a series of diminishing and superimposed cubes. These
varied in number, and symbolized the mythical mountain of
the world. Where it consisted of seven storeys, these repre-
sented the planetary zones, or the seven zones of the earth.
Each storey was approached by an inclined pathway or a flight
of steps, either directly up the face or diagonally across it,
until the top, which formed a broad platform, was reached.
On the platform stood a chamber for the god, containing a
couch and throne, and perhaps an image. As with the Mexican
teocalli, processions winding up the tower could be plainly
seen below, and, while the Egyptian temple in its grandest
development was spread over a large area, the Babylonian, as
far as the ziqqurat was concerned, aimed at reaching a lofty
elevation, and represented in miniature the structure of the
universe. It seems to have been regarded also as the grave of
the god to whom it was dedicated, and persons of importance
were sometimes buried round it.2

Both Egyptian and Babylonian temples were
endowed with lands which yielded large revenues.
Hence, outside their religious purpose, they had
great influence on the economic life of the nation.
In the Babylonian temple area also, as the priests
were administrators of the law, there were courts
of justice, chambers where national archives Avere
stored, and even banks.

(c) The Greek temple was preceded by the rifievos,
the open sacred place with its dyaXfia of the deity,
altar, and otlier sacra. In the yEgean religion
the sacred cave served as a temple where the
Mother-goddess was worshipi^ed, as in the double
cave (upper and lower) of Dicte in Crete, where
a rich store of cult objects lias been found in
recent years. ^ Palaces had their domestic chapel
or shrine, plain and of small size, with a ledge at
one end for images and sacred objects. The ruler
was a priest-king, and in one instance, that of
the palace of Knossos, ' the Place of the Double
Axe ' (Xd^pvs), the whole building has the character
of a temple.'* Free-standing shrines or temples

1 G. Maspero, L'ArcMologie igyptienne, Paris, 1887, pp. 65 f.,
106 f., The Dau'n of Civilization, tr. M. L. McClure, London,
1894, p. 119; W. Max Muller, Egyptian Mythology (=The
Mythology of All Races, xii.), Boston, U.S.A., 1918, p. 187 f.

2 Maspero, Daitm of Civilization, p. 427 ; Herod, i. 181 f. ;
M. Jastrow, Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in
Babylonia and Assyria, New York and London, 1911, lect. v.

3 C. H. and H. B. Hawes, Crete the Forerunner of Greece,
London and New York, 1909, p. 112.

* ERE i. 14fr'>.

also existed, like that discovered at Gournia, a
small enclosure 12 ft. square, in the heart of the
town, in which were found many images and
cult objects.^ With the perfecting of the divine
image, a house to shelter it became necessary, and
tlie earliest type was no more than a rectangular
oblong cella, or crrjK6s. To this was soon added
an additional chamber, with open front and a
couple of columns supporting an architrave, the
corners of which rested on flattened columns
attached to the ends of the side walls. These
columns were at first of wood ; the earliest stone
columns date from the 6th cent. B.C. Throughout
the whole period of Greek religion the rectangular
cella remained as the central part of all Greek
temples, though it was sometimes prolonged back
and front with additional chambers, or surrounded
by single or double rows of columns, while these
were sometimes also introduced within the cella.
Vitruvius, indeed, classifies temples according to
the arrangement of the columns in relation to the
cella.^ The temples of the gods faced eastwards,
and opposite the entrance stood the image of the
god. The cella also contained an altar or altars,
votive offerings, and treasure, the last being also
stored in the chamber behind the cella. The
temples were never large ; they were merely
houses for the image, and hence were often kept
closed. They were decorated with sculpture and
painting botii within and without. The temple
stood within a t^/j.€uos, where the great altar was
placed, and where the worship was carried on.^

(d) The Roman templum, as already shown,
was originally a rectangular space of ground
marked off by the augur, in which a tent was
pitched for augural purposes, like the ' medicine-
nut' of the shaman. Strictly speaking, the house
of a god was the cedes, but the word templum was
now applied to such a structure, inaugurated by
the augurs, and usually of larger and more com-
plicated structure than the ceclcs. In the earliest
times divine dwellings were unknown. The grove,
the cave, the hearth, were the earlier sacred places,
or the sacellum, a small place consecrated to a god,
enclosed by a fence or wall, but roofless, with an
altar and possibly an image. The Romans, in
erecting houses for the gods, were influenced by
the Etruscans and the Greeks. The Etruscan
temples were of wood, oblong, with one or more
chambers and an open portico. The Roman
temple had also a central cella, but of much
greater breadth than the Greek, this feature being
probably a result of Etruscan influence. The
structure of temples, whether simple or elaborate,
was generally determined by Greek architecture,
though there were ditlerences in detail — e.(j., the
absence of columns at the back. Circular temples
were also built ; these had become common in
Greece from the 4th cent. B.C., though it is not
impossible that the form may be copied from the
early Italian liouse.

Before building a temple, a space of ground was liberatus el
ejfatus by the augurs, and consecrated by the pontifex. When
the building was erected, it was dedicated to a god. In some
instances, however, a building might be consecrated to religious
use without the preliminary augural ceremony. Such buildings
were sacra, or cedis sacra, like the temple of Vesta.^ Outside
the temple stood the altar, and within burned the sacred fire.
In the temples were stored votive offerings, gifts, treasure of
all lands, as well as the images of the gods.

(c) During the Vedic period in India, as has
been seen, there were no temples. No trace of
temples in the pre-Buddhist period is known,
but, if any existed, they must have been of wood,
as they still are in Burma, the use of stone in

1 Hawes, p. 101.

2 Vitruvius, de Architectura, iii. 2.

3 For plans and details, architectural and structural, see art.
Architecture (Greek), and cf. art. Altar (Greek).

4 For architectural details see nrt. Aiicuitectl-re (Roman),
and cf. art. Roman Rbliuiox, § IV.

TEMPLES

243

architecture not having been introduced until
Asoka's reign, as a result of contact with the
West. Religious edifices are certainly known
for the first time in Buddhism. The primitive
sacred object in Buddhism was not an image, but
a relic. This at first was not set in a temple,
but enclosed in a stupa, or tope (Sinhalese ddgaba)
— an elongated hemispherical structure standing
on a base, the exterior often riclily carved or
ornamented, and crowned with a square capital
and the chhattra, or umbrella. Many stupas
contained no relic, but were erected as com-
memorative objects. A path fenced by a railing
surrounded the stupa, for circumambulation. The
stupa was decorated with flags, streamers, and
flowers ; and it was the chief religious edifice of
early Buddhism.' Another religious edifice was
the chaitya, a name applied to any religious
monument — e.g., a stupa with relics — but al.so
restricted to a building corresponding to a temple
or church, the ^ clmitya hall,' with pillared aisles
and an apse containing a stupa and an altar.

The earliest known structural building of this tj-pe — e.g.,
at Ter, Haidarabad— consists of an apsidal chamber with high
barrel-vaulted roof. In front is a square hall, or mundapa —
perhaps a later addition, lower in height, with a flat roof
supported by pillars. The fagade above the roof of the hall
has a niche containing now a Hindu image, which was prob-
ably at one time a window. Within the apse stood a, ddgaba,
now replaced by a Vaijnava image. Chaityas of this type must
have been common in India. Buddhism made use of rock
excavations at an early time for chaitya halls, which sometimes
had aisles. 2

A third structure was the vihdra — a hall where
the monks assembled, with cells at the sides for
sleeping. The vihdras Avere later used as temples
and became the centre of monastic buildings
grouped around them. They usually stood beside
chaityas, though they came to be furnished with
chapels in which religious services could be per-
formed as well as in the chaitya.

During ten centuries from Asoka's time onwards
cave chaitya halls and vihdras were excavated all
over India.

In early examples at Bihar the chaitya halls are merely
oblong chambers, sometimes with a cell or apse at the farther
end for the ddijaba vrith its relic. Others are more elaborate.
The facade of the cave represents the exterior of a wooden
chaitya in all its details. The interior is apsidal. Pillars are
cut in the sides, and in the apse is the ddgaba, which now has
the image of Buddha in front of it. Some of these caves are
highly elaborate in their carving both within and without, and
are also pillared structures with aisles. The cave vihdras have
a central pillared hall with cells at the sides for monks. Beyond
the hall are one or more inner sanctuaries for images of Buddha.
These are later additions. Here again the architecture and
adornment varies from simple to highly elaborate. The earliest
free-standing vihdras were probably simple halls with cells
attached, and were sometimes of a storeyed pyramidal form,
each successive storey decreasing in size, and giving a series
of pillared halls one above the other, with cells for the monks
on the terraces. This architectural structure supplied a form
for all the later temples of southern Hinduism.^ Attached to
great monasteries, as at Peshawar, was a court, or vihdra, with
cells for images, and beyond that, opening from it, a circular
or square court surrounded by similar cells, and with a stupa
la the centre. These belong to the period of Mahayana
Buddhism.

One of the earliest known temples, or chaityas, is at Bodh
Gaya, in front of the Bo-tree of Buddha's enlightenment.
Frequently restored, it was probably erected in the Gth cent.,
and is 160 ft. high by 60 ft. wide. It is rectangular wth an
elongated pyramidal form of nine storeys, each with exterior
niches for images, and the interior cella contained originally
an image of Buddha. Such a nine-storeyed tower-temple is
unique in India, but is found frequently north of the
Himalaya.^

Hindu temples doubtless owe much in their in-
ception to Buddhism, and are of great variety in
structure, size, and ornamentation. But tliere are
two principal groups, one in Southern India of the
so-caUed Dravidian style, and one in Northern
India, each of which shows great uniformity in
general plan. In S. India the structure consists

1 See art. St5pa. 2 See art. Chaitya.

* J. Fergusson, Eist. of Indian and Eastern Architecture,
i. 171.

•*i6. i. 77 f.

of the temple proper, or mmana, ' the vehicle of the
gods' — a square building with a pyramidal roof
which may have one or several storeys, like the
storeyed vihdra of Buddhism. In this is the square
cell containing the chief image of the god, and lit
only from the doorway. Between the wall of the
inner cell and the outer wall is the procession path,
or pradak&ina. Pillared porches or halls called
mantapams (Skr. mandapa) precede the entrance,
and are usually larger than tlie v^mana. Vlmana
and mantapam stand in a walled enclosure with
gate-pyramids, or gopurams, corresponding to the
Egyptian pylons and often very imposing. Within
the enclosure stand a pillared hall, priests' dwell-
ings, tanks, and other structures. These temples are
devoted to the Vaisnava and Saiva cults, and are not
otherwise distinguishable apart from the sculptures
and images. The earliest examples of the vimann
show its derivation from the Buddhist apsidal
chaitya hall. The apse for the relic-shrine has
become a cell for an image and is entered by a door.
In another early example the circular apse has
given place to a cell with altar and image, sur-
mounted by a tower, and the hall in front, di.stinct
from the cell, is pillared. Cell and pillared nave or
mantapam are reproduced in all Jain and Hindu
temples of later date, together with the storeyed
tower. The enormous size and elaborate architec-
tural and sculptural design of these buildings make
them still marvellous rivals of the cathedrals of
Europe. Some, besides the original enclosure
with its gate-pyramids, have a second or even
third exterior enclosure, with gopurams, shrines,
porches, cells, etc. The vlmana in itself cor-
responds to the ordinary Hindu village temple,
and in some examples has either been such a
temple or is little more imposing than one of these.
Sometimes two vimanas dedicated to different
divinities stand within the central enclosure. In
S. India the largest group or congeries of temple
buildings is at Srirangam. There are seven en-
closures, leading gradually to the central shrine,
and the three surrounding the central enclosure
are crowded with temples, porches, halls, etc.,
Avhile in each wall there are two or three gopurams
of great height. ' The idea is that each investing
square of walls . . . shall conduct the worshipper
by regular gradations to a central holy of holies.' '
While the temples of this kind are of comparatively
late date, others of earlier date, but presenting
the same general features, have laeen carved out
of the solid rock and excavated internally, so that
they are monolithic temples. The chief examples
are the raths {ratha = vlmana) at Mamallapuram
and the beautiful kaildsa at Ellora.^

The Northern temples (Fergusson's ' Indo-Aryan
style')— e.g-., in Orissa— are characterized by a
pyramidal curvilinear tower on a polygonal ba.sc
in which is the central shrine, often quite small.
The interior plan is square, and in the Orissan
examples there are no pillars, or these are found
only in modern additions. In front is a square
porch with pyramidal roof, and sometimes in front
of this again additional porches. The enclosing
wall is always insignificant, if it is present at all,
and has no gopurams. Other shrines are always
suborduiate to the towerin" temple proper with its
porch. Even the more elaborate temples preserve
these essential features — e.g., the Kandarya Maha-
deva, or temple of Siva, at Khajuraho.

In all Hindu temples the inner cell or shrine
with its image is the central feature round whicli
all the other parts are grouped, and to which, how-
ever elaborate, they are all subordinate. The cell
is cubical, of small dimensions, unornamented,

1 M. Monier - Williams, Brdhmanism and Uindiiism*,
London, 1S^01, p. 448 ; Fergusson, i. 368.

2 See art. Kllora, vol. v. p. 270".

244

TEMPLES

and unlit save by the doorway, and is too sacred to
be entered by any but the priests. The exterior
building surrounding the cell is of the most elabor-
ate workmanship, often of a kind which oflers little
clue to the method of producing it. In some
districts enormous numbers of temples exist,
ancient and modern, and at Benares, the sacred
city, there are 1500, though none are older than
the 18th century.

(/) In Nepal the stupas do not contain relics.
Some are of flattened hemispherical shape with a
square capital, 'umbrella,' and lofty finial or spire,
like those in Tibet and China, and stand on a
plinth on which are built shrines of the five Dhy-
anibuddhas. Others are lower and flatter ; and
others again stand on a structure with successive
roofs. Buddhism in Nepal is mingled vk'ith Saiv-
ism, and the characteristic temple is a square
structure of several decreasing storeys divided by
sloping roofs. Some are mounted on a pyramidal-
stepped platform. These buildings are of wood
and stone. ^

(g) In Burma the stiipa (tsedi) is bell-shaped and
stands on a series of platforms, and is crowned
with a conical finial. The temples are of square
form with projecting porches. In the thickness
of the walls are narrow corridors with niches in
which are images. A series of storeys arranged
pyramidally and crowned with a slender steeple
forms the roof. Ancient Buddhist temples in
Siam have a rectangular outer enclosing wall,
within which is the bot, also rectangular, with a
porch. The interior is divided by pillars into a
nave and single or double side aisles. Within are
the high altar and image of Buddha. Behiiid the
bot stands a stuiM, or phra. Vihdras, or vihdns,
and kamburiens are buildings similar to the bot,
but smaller, where the laity come to pray or hear
sermons. The bot is accessible only to the priests.
The mondob is a rectangular building enclosing a
huge image of Buddha. One enclosure sometimes
contains several of these structures, erected from
time to time by devout Buddhists.'^

(h) The earliest Chinese religion had no temples,
and apparently the general use of these is due to
Buddhism. With few exceptions the temples of
the three religions, Confucianism, Buddhism, and
Taoism, are mainly of one type, though they differ
in size. The religion to which each is dedicated
can be discovered only from their interior decora-
tions and the images which they enshrine.

Buddhist temples are enclosed by a wall with an ornamental
gateway. The temple has a series of porches or halls, opening
from each other. Two of these form antechapels to the main
structure with its altar and images of the tliree Buddhas, facing
the entrance, and stalls for the monks. Before the images stands
the table for offerings, with lamps and flower-vases. Beyond this
another hall contains a dnijaba, and a final one enshrines the
image of Kwan-yin. Within the enclosure are the various
buildings for monks, pagodas, drum-tower, bell-tower, and other
structures. The roof lias the characteristic form of all Chinese
buildings, concave, with projecting eaves, but more elaborately
decorated tlian in secular buildings. Confucian temples are of
the same general plan, the central 'Hall of Great Perfection'
containing the tablets of Confucius, his disciples, and the twelve
sages. Tables for offerings stand before these. Taoist temples
contain the images of the Three Precious Ones, in imitation
of the three images of Buddhist temples.

(i) In Japan, as in China, the earlier worship
was in a consecrated enclosure open to the sky.
Tradition assigns the first temples to a period near
the beginning of tlie Christian era. Shinto temples
are not large and conform in structure to the
architecture of an age when tools were few and
primitive. The quality of the wood used in the
structure is of more importance than ornamenta-
tion and carving, whereas the carvings on Buddh-

1 Fergusson, i. 277 f. ; H. A. Oldfleld, Sketches from Nipal,
2 vols., London, 1880.

2 L. Fournereau, Le Siam ancien, arcMologie, ipigraphie,
giographie{AMG xvii., xxxi.), Paris, 1896-1908 ; Spiers, in Fer-
gusson, ii. 404 ff.

ist temples are highly elaborate, and have much
gilding, lacquer-work, and painting. The oldest
Shinto temples and many of the smaller ones are
thatched. The type is similar to that of China,
showing that Chinese influences prevailed.

The temple area, at least in the case of the greater temples, has
several enclosures, with fences and gateways preceded l)y flights
of steps. The grouping of the various structures differs accord-
ing to the nature of the ground, usually on a slope, giving the
chief eminence to the main shrine. Shinto temples, but rarely
Buddhist, are preceded by the characteristic tori-wi, of two
wooden uprights with cross-bars, the upper one projecting and
curving upwards at the ends ; they correspond to the gateways of
stv.paso.rA temples in India, like that of the tope at Sanchi, and
to similar structures in religious architecture elsewhere, i The
temple consists of two or three halls, one an oratory or prayer-
hall for worshippers, an intervening haU, and the sanctuary open
only to the priests. Shinto temples have no images, a mirror
usually constituting the symbol of deity. Some temples are
dedicated to more than one divinity. An altar stands in the
shrine. The lay-worshipper, entering the prayer-hall, puUs a
rope attached to a gong and so announces his presence to the
deity before beginning his devotions. Within the temple en-
closure, as in China, the grounds often being laid out artistically,
stand a pagoda, drum-tower, belfry, stage for religious dances,
library, votive-offering hall, storehouses, kitchen, priests' rooms,
etc. This general description applies to both Shinto and Buddh-
ist temples, though the latter are generally more gorgeous and
imposing, and contain images, lights, votive offerings, lotus-
flowers of silver-gilt, while the priestly ritual is elaborate. They
are usually built of wood, with gilding and porcelain casing,
and metalWork ; the roofs are of tiles.

(j) In Tibet the Buddhist monasteries are the
chief architectural structures, occupying large areas
and containing a square for assemblies, in which
stands the temple.

This is a stone rectangular building, on the top of which is
a pavilion wth a roof of Chinese tj'pe. The interior is divided into
a nave and side aisles by pillars, which are painted in yellow and
red. The three great Buddhist images with their altar stand at
one end. Other images stand along the side walls. There are
no windows, and the interior, which is richly coloured or
decorated with frescoes and hung with banners, is lit by lamps.
Seats for the various officials and Lamaist congregation are ar-
ranged according to a definite order. The temple is approached
by a flight of steps and a gateway guarded by demoniac
figures. In the vestibule are images of the kings of the four
quarters, and also prayer-wheels. These, in larger temples, are
placed in detached chapels, in which are images of lower divin-
ities. Occasionally, as at Gyan-tse, a temple is built in stepped
terraces, like a vl'mana, crowned by a drum-like structure, on
which are a square and a chhattra canopy. Shrines to the
different Buddhas occupy the various storey8.2 The great
' cathedral ' at Lhasa faces eastward, and is three-storeyed, the
roof being of gold. The approach is through a pillared hall,
adorned with pictures. Beyond this is an antecourt, leading to
a pillared hall, shaped like a basilica and divided into aisles by a
series of colonnades. It is lit from aboTe, aa there are no side
windows. On the side walls are chapels. Lattice-work separ-
ates the cross aisles from the longer aisles, and on the west the
sacred place is approached by a staircase. This is in form of
a square, with six side chapels, three on each side. An altar
stands in the centre, and on the west is a recess with an image
of Buddha. Here too are the seats of the Dalai and Tashi
Lamas, and of abbots and lesser officials, as well as images,
relics, prayer-wheels, etc.!*

{k) The Hebrews had diflFerent kinds of sanc-
tuaries before the Temple was built at Jerusalem.
The ' tent of meeting ' referred to in E was pitched
outside the camp in the wilderness. There Moses
communed with God, who appeared in a pillar of
cloud (Ex 33'f-, Nu ll^^^- 12^ W>). It is not
described, and was obviously of a simple character.
Its one guardian was Joshua, who 'departed not
out of the tent ' (Ex 33"). The tent may have
contained the sacred Ark, a kind of abode of deity,
as Nu 1^ shows (cf. 2 S IS^^), though tent and Ark
are never mentioned together. Such portable sanc-
tuaries were used by the Semites, either in nomadic
or in more settled times, in the latter case certainly
in connexion with war, when the images were
carried with the army. The Hebrew 'tent' was
used for sacred divination like the Semitic portable
sanctuary, and it may be compared with the sacred
tents of the Omaha. •» The Tabernacle, elaborately

1 See art. Door, § 2, vol. iv. p. 849*.

2 L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet, London, 1895, p.
287 ff. ; Fergusson, i. 290 f.

•» Waddell, p. 300; see also his Lhasa and its Mysteiies,
London, 1905, p. 361 fl.
4 See § 2 if) above.

TEMPLES

245

described by P, and containing the Ark, was prob-
ably never more than an ideal priestly construction
projected upon the past. The Ark was later kept
in a ' house ' or temple at Shiloh (ISP S^- '^), which
may have been destroyed by the Pliilistines, who
carried off the Ark, On its recovery, it was kept
from time to time in private houses, and possibly
in a tent (2 S 7^), as it was so kept later by David
at Jerusalem (2 S 6"; cf. 11"), Tents were also
used after the settlement in Canaan on the ' high
places' (2 K 23^ Ezk 16'«, 'sewn high places').

What the ' house ' at Shiloh was Hke we have no means of
knowing, but probably it was not elaborate. Micah's image and
other religious objects were kept in an apartment of his house
(Jg 175 181S). When captured by the Danites, these were placed
in a sanctuary at Laish. At Nob there was a sanctuary with its
priesthood, containing an ephod and a table of holy bread
(1 S 21).

Tent and high place were succeeded by the
Temple built by Solomon, It stood within a great
court as one of a series of buildings, including the
palace, and was thus dominated by the latter, to
some extent, though it was itself the chief building.
It had its own ' court of the temple,' surrounded by
a wall of stone and cedar.

The Temple was an oblong structure of stone, faced by a
porch, in front of which stood two bronze pillars called Jachin
and Boaz, like those in front of other Semitic temples. Tlie
structure, exclusive of the porch, which was of equal breadth
with the Temple, was 60 cubits long, 20 broad, and 30 high. It
was divided by a partition with doors into a Holy Place (hekul)
and an Oracle, or Most Holy Place {deblr}—a, square dark cham-
ber 20 cubits in each direction, leaving a space of 10 cubits above
it. The interior walls were lined witb cedar, carved, and orna-
mented with gold, and the floor was of cypress. Between the
walls of the structure and an outer wall, running round the
sides and back to the height of 20 cubits, were three storeys of
rooms for treasure and Temple ornaments. In the Temple wall,
above these, there were latticed windows. The Oracle, or Most
Holy Place, the adytum, was the dwelling of Jahweh, and con-
tained the Ark with the cherubim. In the Holy Place stood the
altar of shewbread, the altar of incense, i and ten candlesticks,
five on each side. Outside the porch, which faced east, was the
altar of burnt-offering, and near it a brazen sea supported by
metal oxen, as well as ten smaller la vers on wheels. The people
gathered for worship in the court, though it is called ' the
priests' court.' The Holy Place was for the priests alone— a
suggestive difference, appearing now for the first time.2

Thus the main features of the Temple were
common with those of Syrian and Phoenician
temples of the period — porch, outer chamber, and
adytum — though some have suggested Egyptian
influences in its construction. ^

Ezekiel's ideal Temple has the same division of
inner and outer sanctuaries and porch, but there
are two courts, an inner one for the priests, an
outer for the laity ; and the sacred building was to
be entirely dissociated from all secular buildings,
and was also to be shut out from Jerusalem by the
lands of the Zadokites.^

Zerubbabel's Temple of the restoration period
had an outer court with walls and gates, and an
inner court in which stood the altar of unhewn
stones, and perhaps a laver. Into the inner court
the laity appear to have had access for a time at
least. The Temple itself had a Holy of Holies,
but was unique among temples in possessing no
representation or symbol of deity, the Ark having
been lost. The presence of deity, however, was
marked by the ritual of the Day of Atonement,
The Holy of Holies was separated from the Holy
Place by a curtain, and this chamber contained
the table of shewbread, altar of incense, and the
seven-branched candlestick. The Holy Place was
entered by a curtain.

Herod's Temple, built about 20 B.C., was on a
larger scale than any of its predecessors, but the
general plan was the same.

1 1 K 7-»8, perhaps a later addition to the text.

»lK6f., 2Ch3f.

» Lucian, de Dea Syria, 31, describes the temple at Hierapolis,
with its court, altar, pillars, pronaon, and cMce. It faced east-
wards.

* Ezk 488ff-.

A large outer court— 'the court of the Gentiles'— was sur-
rounded by porticoes or cloisters with marble pillars, built
against the enclosing hattlemented wall. Within the area, on
a raised platform, was a second court surrounded by a terrace
and an enclosing wall with nine gates, and with chambers and
porticoes on its inner aide. Within this none but Jews might
enter. A wall across the breadth of this inner court divided it
into two parts, the smaller of which was 'the court of the
women.' The other part was open to male worshippers, and
within its area stood the temple building, surrounded by a
breastwork of stone enclosing the court of the priests. Within
this court priests only could enter, e.\cept when a layman
offered a sacrifice which required his presence. The Temple
within this inner area was preceded by a lofty porch and gate-
way. This gave access to the he.kdl, or Holy Place, across the
great door of which hung a curtain, and this again to the deblr,
the Holy of Holies, across the entrance to which hung two
curtains. Above these was an upper storey, and a side building
of three storeys surrounded the Temple on three sides. In the
/Lekal, which was open only to the priests, stood the table of
shewbread, altar of incense, and seven-branched candlestick.
The debir was empty and quite dark, and was entered by the
high-priest alone on the Day of Atonement. In front of the
porch outside stood the allar of burnt-offering and the laver.
The building was of white marble, and the eastern front and
part of the walls were covered with gold.i The debir was 20
cubits square ; the hekcil 40 cubits long, 20 broad, and 40 high.
The porch was 100 cubits high, 100 broad, and 20 in depth, and
extended on both sides beyond the Temple, with its side build-
ings, by some 15 cubits. Herod had raised many pagan temples
throughout his dominions, and he erected this for the Jews in
his capital partly as a matter of poUcy,

5. Conclusion. — A general survey of temples
shows that the essential part is the cella, or chamber,
for the image of the god, and that, whatever
additions are made by way of increasing the splen-
dour of the temple or as adjuncts to it, this remains
constant, and is indeed its most important feature.
It is the holy place, and is seldom if ever entered
save by the priests. The temple at Eleusis forms
an exception, for apparently there all Mas open
to the worshippers. But generally worship takes
place in the temple area or within the hall pre-
ceding the cella, which is very often dark and unlit
by windows. The Jewish synagogue, the Muham-
madan mosque, and the Christian church are not
strictly temples, for they are not houses enclosing
a divine image, but places of public prayer. Yet
even in the mosque the recess, or mihrdb, indicating
the direction of the kcibah, towards which the
worshipper prays, has a certain parallel to the cella
with its image which the worshipper also faces.
The great mosque at Mecca also contains the ka'bah
with the sacred black stone, and the ka'bah is an
old but reconstructed sanctuary within the mosque.
In the Christian church the chancel and the
sanctuary with the altar are not ordinarily open to
the laity assembled in the nave, but yet they
approach the altar at the Holy Communion.

Certain temples are national holy places, like
the Pantheon at Rome, the ka'bah at Mecca, and
similar great temples in important centres. Pil-
grimages are often made to temples, and temples
form asylums whither criminals flee for safety.
Frequently there is much S3'm holism connected
with the temple, and attention is paid to the
direction in which it faces, most temples facing the
east or the place of the rising sun. Very often in
connexion with one great temple there will be a
series of lesser shrines for other divinities, all form-
ing a group of sacred buildings within the area.
The area is usually enclosed by a wall with gates,
which are often most elaborate, and avenues, while
pillars and poles stand about it, and it is often
decorated with flags and streamers. It is interest-
ing also to notice how frequently with the change
of a religion the old sacred places are retained, and
successive buildings occupj' the old site, or the same
temple serves for new deities,

LiTERATORB,— W, J, AndcrsoD and R, P. Spiers, The Archi-
tecture of Greece a?id R(wie'\ London, 1907 ; Daretnberg-
Saglio, s.v. 'Temple'; J. Ferg:usson, Tltnt. 0/ Architecture
ill all Countries^, ed. R. P. Spiers, 5 vols., London, 1S91-93,
Uist. of Indian aiid Eastern Architecture, ed. J, Burgess and

1 Jos, BJ V. V,, Ant. XV, xi, ; Mishnfih, tr, Middnlh.

246

TEUTONIC RELIGION

R. P. Spiers, 2 vols., do. 1910, The Temples and other Buildings
in the Haram Area at Jerusalem, do. 1878 ; G. R. M. Main-
dron, L'Art indien, Paris, 189S ; Pauly • Wissowa, s.v.
'Temper; G. Perrot and C. Chipiez, Hist, de I'art dans
I'antiquite, 9 vols., Paris, 1882-1911 ; O. Schrader, Reallexicon
der indorjerman. Altertumskunde, Strassburg, 1901, s.v.
'Tempel.' J. A. MACCULLOCH.

TEN ARTICLES.— See Confessions, vol. iii.
p. 851.

TEN COMMANDMENTS.— SeeDECALOGUE.

TENDAI.— See Philosophy (Japanese).

TERAPHIM. — See Images and Idols
(Hebrew).

TEUTONIC RELIGION. — I. Introduc-
tory.— I. Position of the Teutonic peoples. —

We have no detailed information (and indeed little
historic evidence of any kind) relating to the
Teutonic peoples before the time of Julius Csesar
(58 B.C.). For the first one and a half centuries
A.D., however, a comparatively large amount of
evidence is obtainable. During this time the area
occupied extended from the Rhine to the basin of
the Vistula. From the Koman empire it was
separated by the rivers Rhine and Danube and by
a fortified line connecting these two rivers. On
the east and south-east the boundaries of the
Teutonic area cannot be determined with any
precision — the plain of Hungary was occupied
largely by Sarmatian peoples, but it seems prob-
able that the Teutonic peoples extended into the
basin of the river Dneister. In the north they
undoubtedly occupied the kingdom of Denmark
and considerable portions of the Scandinavian
peninsula.

From the 3rd to the 6th cent, the Teutonic
peoples extended their dominions considerably to
the south-east, south, and west. The Goths con-
quered a large portion of S. Russia, and from about
260 to 270 the Romans had to give up to them their
territory of Dacia (north of the Lower Danube) ;
moreover, about the same time the Alamanni
occupied the Black Forest region. During the 4th
cent, bands of warriors, in ever-increasing numbers,
began to enter the Roman service, and towards the
close of the century a large section of the Goths
was admitted en hloc within the Roman territories
in the Balkan Peninsula. Between 406 and 486
all the western territories of the empire were
conquered by the Teutonic peoples, of which the
most important were : (1) Visigoths, who occupied
S. France and Spain after 412 ; (2) Ostrogoths, who
occupied Italy, 489-553 ; (3) Vandals, who crossed
the Rhine in 406, and in 429 passed over into
Africa, which they held for over 100 years ; (4)
Burgundians, who crossed the Rhine shortly after
the Vandals and in 443 occupied S.E. France ; (5)
Alamanni, who went into Alsace and Switzerland
about the same time ; (6) Bavarians, who occupied
the Alpine regions farther east probably about
the same date ; (7) Franks, who conquered and
occupied successively one part after another of
Gaul from 428 onAvards, becoming supreme by their
victory over the Visigoths in 507 ; (8) Langobardi,
who, after occupying for some time the province of
Austria and the Alpine regions to the south, passed
into Italy about 56S and brought the greater part
of the peninsula under their dominion ; (9) English,
who conquered and occupied most of the southern
half of Britain from about the middle of the 5th
cent, onwards.

Before the end of the 8th cent, a new series of
movements began among the Northern peoples, an
activity almost entirely maritime and lasting
throughout the 9th and 10th centuries ; this jjeriod
was commonly knoAvn as the Viking Age. While
it lasted, large number.-^ of piratical .adventurer.^

settled on the coasts of the Scottish islands, of
Ireland, of the Netherlands, and of N. France.
The last named, occupied by the vikings under the
leadership of Hr61fr, son of Rognvald, officer of
Harold the Fair-haired, king of Norway, became
after 911 the earldom of Normandy. From 866
ouAvards a large part of England too came under
Scandinavian rule, though this domination was
only temporary. In 870, however, those Norwegian
chieftains who were unwilling to accept the
sovereignty of Harold the Fair-haired began
permanently to settle in Iceland, and more than
100 years later, in 985, Greenland was colonized
from Iceland. Contemporaneous with these events
were similar movements across the Baltic, which
probably emanated mainly from Sweden. The
establishment of the Russian kingdom (traditional
date 859) was due to such bands of adventurers.
In the East we hear of raids by parties of Scandi-
navians as far as the Caspian.

2. The conversion of the Teutonic peoples. — As
conversion was in general due to direct contact
with the Romans, we find those Teutonic peoples
first converted who were settled within the terri-
tories of the empire. Before the middle of the 4th
cent, the conversion of the Goths by Wulfilas to the
Arian form of the Christian religion liad begun and
was practically complete within a generation.
From them this religion must have spread very
rapidly to the Gepidae in E. Hungary and to other
neighbouring peoples, since the Vandals appear to
have been converted Ijefore the great movement to
the West began. The Rugii in the province of
Austria, the Langobardi, and some of the Bur-
gundians also adopted the Arian form of Christi-
anity, while the Franks before the close of the 5th
cent, and the English in the 7th were converted to
Catholicism. It was due largely to the efforts of
Irish and English missionaries that between the
6th and 8th centuries the remaining peoples on the
Continent (except the Danes), viz. Alamanni,
Bavarians, Old Saxons, and Frisians, were con-
verted. In the 8th cent, after great difficulty
Charlemagne enforced the adoption of Christianity
throughout the tenitoiy of the Old Saxons who
had been conquered by him. Among the Danes
and the Swedes missionary enterprises met with
some temporary success, especially in the 9th cent,
during the time of the missionary bishop Ansgar
(826 to his death in 865). But Christianity was
not pei'manently established in Denmark till after
the defeat of Harold Gormsson by Otto II. in 973.
In Norway Hdkon I. (934-960) and his successors
Harald II. and his brothers (960-975) were Christ-
ians, but the country was very little afi'ected till
the time of Olaf Tryggvason (995-1000), to whom
conversion was really due. Many of the Scandi-
navians settled in the British Isles were converted
before the close of the 9th cent., and these countries
had become entirely Christian in the course of the
10th century. Some of the early settlers of Iceland
had been converted to Christianity in the British
Isles, but it was abandoned by their descendants
and not established in the island till 1000. The
traditional date of the establishment of Christianity
in Sweden was 1008, but it was only towards the
close of the 11th cent, that the heathen religion
was entirely abolished. The adoption of Christi-
anity by the Russians dates from 988.

3. Authorities. — (1) The little information which we possess
relating to the religion of the Teutonic peoples durini,' the
period before their invasion of Eoman territories in the 5th
cent, is derived from the writings of Cajsar, Strabo, and Tacitus
— especially from Tacitus' Germania, \mtten in the 1st cen-
tury. Some little evidence is also furnished by Roman inscrip-
tions. Still less information is to be obtained from the period
(luring which the Teutonic peoples hving on the Continent
were converted, though a few scattered notices are preserved
in the writings of Ammianus MarccUinus (late 4th cent.), of
.Jordanes (c. 5.50), and especially of Procopius (about the same

TEUTONIC RELIGION

247

date). In the 8th and 9th centuries a little evidence is to be
derived from laws and capitularies in which heathen practices
are prohibited, and survivals of heathen practices are occasion-
ally noticed in writings of a much later date. The autliorities
until the 6th cent, are entirely Greek and Latin, in the 7th
Latin alone, and with the exception of Jordanes, a monk of
Gothic family, we have no records of Teutonic nationality.

As to actual beliefs we learn very little. The only myth
which has come down to us is of Langobardic origin and con-
nected obviously with an attempt to explain the name of that
people. It occurs for the first time in the Origo gentis Lango-
oardarum, an anonymous work dating probably from the 7th
century. There are also two German metrical charms from
Merseburg which deal with mythological subjects (10th cent.
MSS). Beyond this we have scarcely more than a few names,
particularly those of the days of the week, which are trans-
lations from Latin and date probably from the 4th century.

(2) English. — In England most of the evidence available,
which is but httle, is contained in the writings of Bede (t 735),
who in the Chronicle attached to the de Ratione Temporum has
left an account of the calendar used by the English in heathen
times. A few references to their religion before conversion are
preserved also in the Ecclesiastical History. No Anglo-Saxon
poems have come down to us in a purely heathen form, but a
certain amount of information relating to heathen practices and
beliefs may be obtained from lieowul/ and also from certain
shorter poems, especially from charms. We may also learn
something of the mythological conceptions of the English from
glossaries, letters, and other writings.

(3) Danes and Siceifes.— Certain foreign Latin works throw
light on the religion of the Danes and Swedes. Particular
mention may be made (for the Swedes) of the Life of St. Ansgar
written by his disciple Rimbertus, and of the work of Adam of
Bremen, who in the 4th book of his History of the Church of Ham-
burg gives an important description of the sanctuary' at Upsala.
Later Danish historians add considerably to our knowledge
both of religion and of mythology for Danes and Swedes. In
particular we have the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus
(c. 1200), much of the information in which is obtained from
Icelandic sources. He himself acknowledges this in his reference
to the men of Thule :

' Their stores, which are stocked with attestations of historical
events, I have examined somewhat closely, and have woven
together no small portion of the present work by following their
narrative.' i

Some important evidence from earlier times is also to be
obtained from inscriptions and sculptured monuments of the
heathen period.

(4) Norivay and Iceland. — (a) For the religion of Norway and
Iceland far more abundant information is available from the
Icelandic sagas, the evidence of which varies greatly in value.
First in importance are the tslendinga Siigur (' Stories of the
People of Iceland '), anonymous works written chiefly in the
13th cent., though a few may be slightly older. These are based
on oral sagas — stories preserved by oral tradition in a more or
less fixed form of words — from the latter part of the 10th and
early 11th centuries. Among these special mention may be
made of Eyrbyggja Saga, which in its early chapters gives an
account of the religious practices of a certain Thbrolfr of Mostr,
who emigrated to Iceland c. 8S4 to escape from Harold the
Fair-haired. Much information relating to religion is also given
in Egils Saga, Njdls Saga, Viga-Glums Saga. These sagas tell
us not only of the religion of Iceland itself, but also of the home-
land Norway both before and after the settlement. For through-
out the period covered by the tslendinga Sugur (till c. lOaci) it
was customary for Icelanders to visit the home country, and
consequently the scene of the sagas is often laid in Norway.

Next in order to these come the Stories of the Kings of Nor-
way, contained in the important collection known as the Heirns-
kringla by Snorri Sturlason (t 1241). As an authority for the
period of, ilarold the Fair-haired, he is not inferior to the writers
of the Islendinga Sogur, but his account of earlier periods,
contained in the first saga, Ynglinga Saga, is legendary.
The longer sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of St. Olaf, in the
Flateyjarhdk and in the Fornmanna Sogur, offer a large
amount of additional information, which in general is of a more
legendary character than Snorri's sagas of the same kings, but all
these sagas deal primarily with Norway. Much information too
about rehgious practices and beliefs is contained in various
8,tories of ancient time — the Fornaldar Sogur — which, hke the
islendinga Sogur, are for the most part anonymous, but of
which the authority is much inferior to that of the latter. In
part they are derived from earlier poems, some of which are
inserted in the text. But there is no doubt that much fiction is
emijodied in these stories. The most important are Hervarar
Saga ok Hfidhreks Konungs and (Imitreks Saga.

(V>) For Norse mythology the chief sources of information are
the poems commonly known as the Older Edda, tlie MSS of
which date only from the 13th century. The poems themselves,
on the other hand, are for llie most part considerably older,
most of those on mythological subjects dating probably from
the 10th cent, and even in some cases from the Dth, and belong-
ing consequently to the heathen period. The poems which
give us most information are Vvliispd, V afthruthnismdl, and
Grimnismdl. The first deals with the cosmogony and fate of the
gods. The second is in the form of a dialogue on mythological
lore between Othin and the giant Vafthruthnir. The third is a
monologue by the disguised Othin, who gradually reveals himself
by his mythological knowledge. Next in order of importance

1 Tr. O. Elton, p. ft.

are Lokasenna, another dialogue poem in which Loki attacks
various gods and goddesses with scandalous charges ; Skiriiis-
mdl, which tells of the wooing of Gerthr for the god Freyr ;
H ymiskvitha and Thrymskvitha, descriptions of the adventures
of the god Thor ; Vegtainskuitha (' Balder's Dreams '), a dialogue
between Thor and a ferryman supposed to be Othin ; Alvl'smndl,
a dialogue between Thor and a dwarf ; Hyndluljdth, a dialogue
between the goddess Freyja and a giantess Hyndla. Much
mythology is also contained in the philosophical poem Hdvamdl,
and incidentally in some of the heroic poems ia the same
collection.

In addition to the Edda poems there have been preserved the
so-called 'skaldic' poems dating from the 9th and 10th cen-
turies by known authors. The earhestof these (early 9th cent.)
are fragments of poetry by Bragi Boddason, some of which are
preserved, and which we know come from Ragnarsdrdpa. To
the late 9th cent, belong the Ynglingatdl and Uaustlimg by
Thjdtholfr of Hvin, a genealogical poem describing the ancestors
of the Norwegian royal family. To the same century belongs
the poet, Thorbjcirn Hornklofi. The Eiriksmdl, an incomplete
poem whose authorship is unknown, describes the death of
Eric Bloodaxe shortly after 954.

There are also extant two poems by Eyvindr Skaldaspillir, the
Hdkonanndl recounting the death of Hdkon i. in 960, a copy of
the Eiriksmdl, and the Hdleygjatdl, a genealogical poem deal-
ing with the ancestors of the earls of Lathir, and modelled on
Ynglingatdl. References to mythology are also contained in
many other poems.

It ia to be noted that our knowledge of mythology comes
almost entirely from Icelandic sources, for even the Norwegian
poems — including the poems of the Edda, many of which were
doubtless composed in Norway — are preserved only in Icelandic
MSS. The chief reason for this phenomenon is doubtless to bo
found in the peculiar faculty for oral tradition developed in
Iceland during the 11th cent, or slightly earlier, for which it
would be difficult to find a parallel in Europe, except in Ireland.
The unusual conditions under which Iceland was converted
afford another reason, for there Christianity was not forced
from above, as in countries with monarchical government. In-
deed in Iceland there existed no strong central power which
could effectively stamp out the observances and eradicate the
remembrance of the old faith. The traditions of the heathen
age survived the hostility of the Church in the 11th cent, and
formed evidently a leading source of literary and antiquarian
interest to subsequent generations.

A systematic account of Norse mythology is given in Snorri's
Edda (commonly called the Prose Edda), the first part of which,
Gylfaginning ('the Befooling of Gylfi'), is entirely devoted to
the subject. Much mythology too is also introduced inciden-
tally into the second part, Skdldskaparmdl (' the Language of
Poetry '). The chief authorities used by Snorri here are the
poems of the Edda (Vdluspd, V afthruthnismdl, and Crrim-
nismdl). He makes use also of some lost poems and also no
doubt of oral tradition.

Another account, which, however, has very little in common
with the Edda, is given by the same author in the opening
chapters of Ynglinga Saga. In it the gods are represented as
having lived on earth as the rulers of the Swedes in ancient
times — an account in which the euhemeristic element is promi-
nent. A certain amount of mythological information also is
afforded by the Fornaldar Sogur.

(c) The chief authority for the ethics of heathen times is the
Edda poem called Hdvamdl, which, properly speaking, appears
to be a composite work, made up of five different poems. In
substance it may be compared with Hesiod's Works and Days
or with the early Egyptian Wisdom of Ptah-hetep.^ Such
maxims occur in several other Edda poems, particularly in
Fdfnismdl and Sigrdrifumdl. They are also common in the
earliest Anglo-Saxon poems, though these do not often contain
distinctively heathen precepts. The ethical standards of
heathen times are no doubt faitlifully portrayed in early Norse
poetry and in sagas relating to the same period. With certain
reservations the same may be said of Beo«fuy and other Anglo-
Saxon poems.

4, Difficulties. — One of the greatest difficulties
which the student of Teutonic mythology has to
face is the question of how far the mythology and
religious practices found in Iceland alone or in
Iceland and Norway were shared also by the Danes
and Swedes or by the Teutonic peoples in general.
Indeed so little evidence is available, except for
Iceland and Norway, that neither positive nor
negative conclusions can be drawn with any con-
fidence. Thus we have no information except
from Norwegian-Icelandic sources of some of the
more important deities, such as Freyja and Heim-
dallr ; yet are we justified in assuming that these
deities were unknown except in Norway and
Iceland ? One is forced to hesitate ; for occasion-
ally evidence is forthcoming for characters or
conceptions which one might justifiably have
assumed to be the creation of Norse literature.
Othins horse, Sleipnir — to quote one instance — is

1 Tr. by E. A. W. Budge (' Egyptian Library ').

248

TEUTONIC RELIGION

represented as having eight legs in Norse mytho-
logy, and we find a clear representation of such a
horse on an engraved monument at Tjiingvide,
Gotland.^ The riding valkyrjur too (one of the
most picturesque conceptions of Norse mythology)
might well have been regarded as the creation of
Norwegian poetry, had we not met with the same
conception on a Swedish inscription at Kok ;
indeed with great probability it may be traced also
in an Anglo-Saxon charm.

Another difficulty which confronts the student
is that at first sight there appears to be an irrecon-
cilable discrepancy between the account of Norse
mythology given by Snorri and the references to
religious beliefs and observances recorded in the
Islcndinga Sogtcr. The former represents Othin
as the chief and most important god of the Norse
pantheon ; and the early poems of the Edda and of
the skalds agree with this representation. The
Islendinga Sbgur, on the other hand, scarcely
records a single instance of worship of Othin. In
them Thor is by far the most prominent deity, and
after him Freyr. It is only in the Fornaldar
Sogur and in the other sagas relating to the
legendary period ^ that we find Othin prominent.
The explanation of this fact is ])robably that the
worship of Othin and that of Thor belong to different
classes of the population ; the former was the god
of the royal families and of their military followers,
while the latter was the god of the free population
in general. Kingship never existed in Iceland,
and very few settlers appear to have been of royal
blood, and consequently the god of this class of
society, though still celebrated in poetry, does not
seem to have received any actual worship.

Lastly, one characteristic of Norse mythology
may doubtless be accounted for by the fact that
so much of our information is drawn from Iceland.
In peculiar contrast to the mythologies of other
peoples, the Norse deities are not associated with
particular localities, and herein no student can
fail to contrast Norse and Greek mythologies.
Freyr indeed is traditionally associated with
Upsala, and there are indications which connect
Gifj6n Avith Sjaelland ; but these instances are
rare. The homes of the gods mentioned in the
Edda poems— Breithablik, the home of Balder,
Hirainbjorg, the home of Heimdallr, etc. — seem to
be purely mythical. Some evidence is to be found
in place-names, however, that various deities were
connected with localities in Norway, Sweden, and
Iceland as well as with districts in other Teutonic
lands. The reason for this comparative absence of
local association is obviously to be found in the
fact that by their emigration the colonists were
cut off from the ancient sanctuaries of their race.

II. Gods, spirits, and mythical beings.—
Since Norse literature offers an abundance
of material for the study of its mythology and
religion, it seems almost necessary to make it the
basis of any description of Teutonic mythology
and religion. In the following account under each
heading an attempt will be made to show also how
far the testimony available for the mythology of
the other Teutonic peoples is corroborative or dis-
cordant. In the first place, it is convenient to
distinguish between (1) beings essentially mythical
and (2) beings or phenomena in themselves natural
but treated mythologically.

i. Beings essentially mythical.— This class
consists of the following : (1) aesir (sing, dss) and
vanir, (2) jotnar (sing, jotiinn), (3) dvergar (sing.
dvergr), (4) dlfar {sing, dlfr), (5) nornir (sing, norn),
(6) valkyrjur (sing, valkyrja), (7) fylgjiir (sing.
fy^ja), (8) Inndvaettir, (9) such impersonal con-
ceptions as Yggdrasil's ash.

1 Cf. Du Chaillu, The Viking Acje, i. 53.

2 Cf. Ynglinga Saga.

I. Aesir and vanir.— (a) Norse.— It is a peculiar
characteristic of Norse mythology that it possesses
two classes of gods. To the aesir belong Othin,
his sons Thor, Balder, Vali, Vitharr,i his brothers
Vili and Ve,^ and others. To the vanir belong
Njdrthr and his children Freyr and Freyja.
Possibly also to the same class belongs Heimdallr,
for, though this is not altogether proved by
Thrymskvitha, 14, yet the fact that he is often
associated with Freyja, apparently as her guardian,
j)oints in this direction.*

The story of ttie relationship of the two sets of gods is told
most fully in Ynglinga Saga, 4. There had been a war be-
tween them, whi(-h was eventually settled by an exchange of
hostages. Njorthr and his children were given as hostages to
the aesir, and Iloenir accompanied by Mimir was sent as a
pledge to the vanir. This story, in part at least, is known to
early poetry. In Vobtspd, 24, it is suggested that the vanir
were successful, while in Vafthruthnismdl, 39, we are told that
Njorthr had been given as a hostage to the aesir, and that he
would return home to the vanir at the ' Ragnar Rtik.'

Apart from the vanir the divine mythology is
confined to the «c5t>, in which term all the gods
collectively are included. With them there are
goddesses, known comprehensively as dsynjur, the
chief of whom is Frigg, wife of Othin. Often
Freyja of the vanir is included with this group.*

Besides the aesir and the vanir, we find two
deities who belong to neither class and who indeed
are never brought into connexion with the Norse
pantheon, viz. Thorgerthr Holgabruthr and her
sister Irpa. Their worship was very prominent in
Norway during the last years of the heathen age,
especially under Earl Hdkon of Lathir, who ruled
Norway from 975 to 995 and who was specially
devoted to their cult. Of myths connected with
them we have no mention in Norse literature except
what is apparently a confused reminiscence in
Skdldskaparmdl, 45. Their story is told only by
Saxo,^ who says that Thora (Thorgerthr) is the
daughter of Cuse {i.e. Gusi), king of the Lapps,
and wife of Helgi, the eponymous hero of Haloga-
land. It is generally believed that these deities
hail from the north of Norway, and their character
is Finnish (Lappish) rather than Norse.

Under the lordship of Othin the gods form an
organized community, which is evidently modelled
after the fashion of the ancient Scandinavian
community. They have a council of twelve, whose
duty it is to keep up the sacrifices, to deliberate
on the government of the country, and to judge
between man and man.^ Councils of this type are
found in many early Scandinavian countries, and
there cadi be little doubt that in heathen times
they had religious as well as judicial functions.
In Grimnismdl the gods are said to meet daily at
Yggdrasil's ash. From tlie same poem we learn
that each of the gods had a home of his own, the
names of which are apparently mythical and
generally adapted to the character of the god,
Breithablik for Balder, Alfheimr granted as a
tooth gift {at tannfe) to Freyr, etc. The most
frequently mentioned is Othin's home of Vallioll
('the hall of the slain'), where he, together with
the Valkyries, entertains hosts of slain warriors,
who pass their days in combat and their nights in
feasting. In Gylfaginning , 23, some verses are
quoted indicating that Njorthr loves living by the
sea-shore, while his wife Skatlii, daughter of
Thjazi, a jbtunn, prefers to dwell in her father's
home, the mountains. Wherefore a compact is
made by which they divide their time between
the two places — Njorthr's home is called here

1 Cf. Gylfaginning, 30, 51 ; Grimnismdl, 17.

2 Cf. Gylfaginning, 6.

i* Heimdallr's father is not mentioned, but he is said to be
the son of nine mothers, whose names are enumerated in the
closing stanzas of Eyndlulj6th.

4 See art. God (Teutonic).

B Tr. O. Elton, p. 87 flf. 6 cf . Gylf. 20.

TEUTONIC RELIGION

249

N6atiin. The association of Freyr with Upsala
does not belong to this category.

Besides their individual homes, the gods collect-
ively are said to inhabit Asgarthr. Their meeting-
place is called Ytha-vbllr.^ In Gautreks Saga, 7,
the hero Starkathr is represented as attending a
conference of them held in a forest clearing. The
significance of this (together with Yggdrasil's ash
and the fact that vollr originally meant ' wood ') is
seen below, § IV".

A totally different account of the gods is given by Snorri,
curiously enough, in the early chapters of Ynglinga Saga. Here
they are represented as men who had once lived on the earth
and come to Sweden from S.E. Europe. Othin is represented
as dying and being succeeded in the leadership of the gods by
Njorthr, whose reign was marked by prosperity and peace. The
latter on his death was succeeded by his son Freyr, whose reign
was of the same character. Freyr was succeeded by his sister
Freyja, and she in turn by Freyr's sons, grandsons, etc., who
are no longer represented as gods.2 This story is no doubt of
euhemeristic origin, but the association of Freyr with Upsala is
ancient and traditional. In Saxo he is represented as instituting
the Upsala sacrifices and is said to be the ancestor of certain
Swedish warriors. Ynglinga Saga itself is largely based on
an early poem Ynglingatdl, which traces the ancestry of the
ancient Norwegian royal family through the Swedes to Freyr,
who is no doubt to be identified with Fricco of Adam of
Bremen's account.3

There are many stories relating the appearances
of the gods to men. These occur most frequently
in the Fornaldar Sogur, and the deity most men-
tioned is Othin.*

(6) Danish and Swedish. — On examining non-
Norse sources, we find a number of the Norse gods
mentioned by Saxo, including Woden (Othin),
Thor, Freyr, Frigg, and Oiler (Ullr), as well as
Balder and Hoder (Hothr), who, however, are by
him represented as demi-god and human being
respectively. It is not always clear how far Saxo
draws from Icelandic sources, but there can be
little doubt that these deities were known to
him from Danish tradition. Freyr is constantly
associated with Upsala and Sweden, and Saxo is
also the only authority who gives the story of Oiler
(Ullr).^ With Saxo the home of the gods is some-
times called Byzantium, which apparently is used
to translate Asgarthr.

With regard to Swedish beliefs, we have import-
ant earlier evidence in Adam of Bremen's descrip-
tion of the sanctuary at Upsala. This contained
the images of three gods, Thor, Woden (i.e. Othin),
and a deity Fricco, who is in all probability to be
identified with Freyr. No stories of the gods are,
however, recorded from Sweden. In much earlier
times we have a short account of the religion of
the people of Thule [i.e. Scandinavia) written by
Frocopius.® The only deity specially mentioned
by him is Ares, and it is not clear whether by this
name we are to understand Othin or Tyr. An
early trace of worship of Freyr may be preserved
in the name Frove(n) — the god among the Wagri
of N.E. Holstein.7

(c) Eiiglish. — For the mythology of the heathen
English we have little or no information except
that to be obtained from names. The A.S. word
OS, corresponding to the O.N. dss, occurs as the
name of one of the letters of the Kunic alphabet
(though here apparently its meaning is forgotten).^
It also is to be found very frequently in personal
names, as in Oswald, and the j)lural form occurs
only in the genitive esa in an A.S. charm.* The
form van- does not occur, except rarely in personal
names — e.g., Wanraed — unless this is possibly the
origin of the prefix wan- in wanseoc ('epileptic'),

1 Gylf. 24.

2 Cf. Saxo, tr. O. Elton, p. 228, ' sons of Frey.'
8 Cf. Hist, of the Church of Hamburg, iv. 26.

4 Volsunga Saga, ch. 11 ; ib. ch. 17 ; Vlga-Glums Saga, 26 ;
cf. Forninanna Sogur, xi. 134.
« See art. God (Teutonic). 6 Gothic War, ii. 15.

7 Cf. Hehnoldus, Chran. Slavorum, 153. 70. 84.

8 Cf. Runcnlied, str. 10, C. W. M. Grein, Hibliothck dcr angel-
sacks. Poesic, ed. R. P. Wiilcher, Leipzig, 1881-98, i.

9/6. p. 318. . f o.

in which case we might compare elf-adl in Saxon
Lcechdoms,^ ii. 344. 20.

Othin's name also is preserved — A. S. Woden —
as the ancestor of all the royal families except that
of Essex, which traced its genealogy to a certain
Seaxneat. His name is also preserved in ' Wednes-
day ' (as a translation of ' Mercurius '). Thunor
(O.N. Thorr) is known only from 'Thursday'
(where his name is used to translate 'Juppiter')
and from certain place-names, e.g., Thunresleah
and Thunresfeld.2

The name of Fri (i.e. Frigg) is preserved only in
' Friday ' (as translation of ' Venus'), and Ti (Tiig)
(O.N. Tyr) occurs in glossaries as translation of
' Mars,' and, like os, is the name of one of the letters
of the Runic alphabet. His name is preserved also
in 'Tuesday.' In Bede's account of the heathen
English calendar two months (corresponding to
March and April) are said to derive their names
from goddesses called Rheda (Href?) and Eostre
(Eastre). The existence of these deities has been
doubted by some modern writers. We also find a
reference, in a charm which appears to be a mixture
of Christian and heathen beliefs, to Erce ('Mother
of Earth '), with which we may compare Semnes
Mate (Lettish).

Lastly, mention may be made of Ing, the name
of one of the letters in the Runic alphabet. In the
verses dealing with Ing he is said to have been
seen first among the East Danes, but afterwards
he went east over the sea, his car speeding after
him.

(d) German. — With regard to German myth-
ology, a fragment relating to gods is preserved in
one of the Merseburg charms, in which we are told
that Wodan and ' Phol ' were riding to the forest
when the pastern joint of the latter's horse was
dislocated. Various deities tried by their incan-
tations to put it right. The names mentioned are
Frija and her sister Volla,^ and Sinthguud and her
sister Sunna. The only other myth recorded occurs
in certain Langobardic writings and is rather
striking.

'The two tribes of Vandals and Langobardi (then called
WinnUes) appealed to the gods for victory in their war with each
other. The Vandals approached Woden, who replied : " What-
soever I shall first look upon when the sun rises, to them will I
give victory." The Winniles appealed to Frija, wife of Woden,
who gave counsel that at sunrise the women of the Winniles
should come with their husbands and let down their hair about
their faces, like beards. And when V\oden saw the Winniles
women, he said: "Who are these Longbeards r " And Frija
replied : " As thou hast given them a name give them also
victory." And he gave them victory.''*

Apart from these references, the gods are known
from the names of the week : Donar (O.N. Thorr ;
A.S. Thunor) throughout the German area ; Fria
(Frigg, Fri) at least in the greater part of German
area ; Wodan (Othin, Woden) only in the north-
west and in Holland ; Tin (Ti, Tir) only in the
south-west. Occasional references to the gods are
also found in lives of missionary saints. Thus the
worship of Wodan among the Alamanni is men-
tioned in Jona's Life of Columbanus, while in other
cases German deities are no doubt intended by old
names such as Juppiter. In a formula used after
baptism and commonly supposed to have come from
the region of the Old Saxons (though the language
is ratlier peculiar) the convert is required to abjure
Wodan and Thunor and Saxnot together with
other monsters (Unholden) associated witli them.
This Saxnot is doubtless to be identified with the
name that stands at the head of the genealogy of
Essex. Lastly, in Alcuin's Life of St. Willibrord
we hear of a god called Fosite. He was worsliipped
on a certain island, called after him and identified

1 Ed. T. O. Cockayne, Leechdoins, Worteunning and Starcraft
of Early England, 3 vols., London, 1SG4-60.

2 Cf. Thunderslcigh in Essex and Thunderslield in Surrey.

3 Cf. ' Fulla ' of Norse mythology.
* Urigo gentis Langobardarum.

250

TEUTONIC RELIGION

by Adam of Bremen with Halogaland. ^ Grimm
and others have identified this deity with Forsete,
the son of Balder,^ bnt discrepancies in the spelling
of the two names offer difficulty.

In Gothic no names of deities have been pre-
served, unless we place in this category the name
of the Kunic letter Enguz (A.S. Ing). The word
ansis, however (O.N. aesir), is mentioned by
Jordanes in a curiously interesting connexion. He
states that the Goths called their chiefs to whose
good fortune they thought they owed their victory,
' non puros homines sed semideos id est anses.'^
In earlier times Tacitus,* though unfortunately he
seldom mentions Teutonic gods by their native
names, twice mentions ISIars and Mercurius among
the deities of the Germans, and in the Germania
specially mentions Mercurius as the deity most
worshipped by them. There can be no doubt that
the deities meant are the later Ziu and Wodan (N.
Tir and Otliin). In ch. 9 too he mentions Hercules
and in Annals, ii. 12, a grove sacred to him. It is
not so easy to ascertain the identity of this deity.
Some modem writers believe Donar (O.N. Thorr ;
A.S. Thunor) to be intended; others think the
reference is to a tribal deity.' In the same chapter
Tacitus states that some of the Suevi worship with
the symbol of a ship. Here again we are left in
doubt as to the identity of the deitJ^ Perhaps we
may include the 'templum Tamfanse' mentioned
in Annals, \. 51, and 'lucum quem Baduhennae
vocant ' in iv. 73, if these be the names of deities.
In Germ. 43 he speaks of a grove in which Castor
and Pollux are worshipped under the name of
deities. The fullest account, however, of a Teutonic
deity is that of Nerthus,'' who was worshipped by
certain maritime peoples including the English,
and whose sanctuary was situated on an island,
the position of which is not clearly stated by
Tacitus but is probably to be placed in the S.W.
Baltic. It is to be observed that the name Nerthus
is identical with the O.N. Njorthr, and, in spite of
the difierence in sex, we need scarcely doubt their
original identity. Kites similar to those which
Tacitus describes in connexion with Nerthus are
associated with Freyr, son of Njorthr.

Apart from Tacitus, practicallj' the only references to Teutonic
deities occur in inscriptions upon altars raised by soldiers in the
Roman service. Besides Mars, these inscriptions sometimes
record a deity Nehalennia with the prow of a ship, and this may
point to the identification with the Isis of Tacitus. In the in-
troduction to Genn. 2 Tacitus states that in their ancient poems
the Genuans trace the «rijjin of their race to a god called Tuisto
(' son of earth '). His son was Mannus (? ' man '), and he again
had three sons from whom three groups of peoples were named
and descended — the Ingaevones (or Inguaeones), Ermi[n]ones,
Istaevones. These group-names are mentioned also by Pliny
the Elder, and a genealogy of the kind classifjing Teutonic and
other peoples is found in Merovingian times. We have no trace
elsewhere of any god or hero called Istio, but there is some
slight evidence for an Irmen. The name Ingaevones (or Inguae-
ones) is undoubtedly to be connected with A.S. Ing, who is
associated in tradition vAth the Danes and with the titles
Inguina Eodor and Frea Inguina, used in Beoioul/ot the king of
the Danes. It is further to be noticed that in Norse the god
Freyr and his descendants sometimes bear the title Yngvi, the
full title of the god being Yngvi- Freyr or Ingunar-Freyr. His
descendants — the ancient kings of Sweden — are known collect-
ively as Ynglingar. It will be seen that there is some discrep-
ancy between Norse and Enghsh tradition, the former connecting
the name with Sweden, the latter with Denmark. Whatever
may be the explanation of this, the association of the word with
Freyr, the son of Njorthr, seems to point to some connexion
with the worship of Nerthus — a conclusion which is confirmed
by the fact that Tacitus, with whom Pliny is substantially in
agreement, describes the Ingaevones as 'proximi oceano.'

2. Jotnar. — (a) Norse. — Giants or monsters play
an important part in the stories of Norse mytho-
logy. When viewed collectively, they are called
jotnar or thursar. Sometimes also we hear of the
hHmthursar ('frost-giants') and bcrgrisar ('cliff-

1 Cf. Adam of Bremen, De Situ Daniae.

2 Cf. Gylf. 32. 3 Ch. 13.
4 Ann. xiii. 57 ; Germ. 9.

s For Irmen cf. below, IV. (/) (ii.).
« (ienn. 40.

giants '). Most often, however, they appear singly,
and the corresponding feminine form of the word
jotunn is gygr. Unlike the aesir, they do not
appear to form an organized community as a whole,
though sometimes individual jotnar (like Thrymr,
'Lord of the Thursar') seem to have conmiunities
under their dominion. The home of the giants is
known as Jotunheimar, lying, according to early
story, far to the north-east, remote from Asgarthr,
the home of the aesir. The general characteristics
of the giants were huge form and superhuman
strength.

The story of Skrymniri tells dramatically how huge and
strong a giant was conceived to be in Norse literature. For
the god Thor took refuge one night in the thumb of one of his
gloves, and, when he attempted to kill the giant with a blow of
his hammer, Skrymnir only asked whether a leaf had fluttereil
down into his face.

Although the giants may have had monster shapes,
it seems clear that sometimes the giantesses were
deemed very beautiful, as in the case of Gertlir, to
wliose radiant beauty Freyr lost his heart.

It is necessary to distinguish between anthropo-
morphic and ther'f^raorphic giants, though it is difii-
cult todrawadeiiuiteline between them ; e.g., Loki
has theriomorphic children. Many of the former
class are mentioned in myth, the best known being
Thrymr, Hymir, Hrungnir, Geirrothr, and Thjazi,
all of whom fight with Thor, and are slain by
him.

Sometimes the jotnar are on friendly terms with the aesir :
Hj'rrokin, a giantess, attended Balder's funeral, and it was
through an appeal to her strength that the funeral ship was
able to be launched. Further, we find a number of marriages
between gods and giants ; Njorthr married Skathi, the
daughter of Thjazi.2 Freyr married Gerthr, daughter of
Gj'niir ; and even Thor, despite his general hostility, had a son
Magni by a giantess Jarn-Saxa. Ttis giantess, with others,
including the daughter of Geirrothr, appears as the mother of
Heiradallr in Hyndlulj6th, but this part of the poem (the short
Voluspd) is commonly believed to be a late composition. The
giants too are often represented as wanting to marry dsynjur ;
Thjazi carries off Ithunn, and Freyja was sued for by Thr3Tnr.
It may here be mentioned that anthropomorphic giants often
had the power to as.sume the form of animals. In the incident
referred to above Thjazi assumes the form of an eagle, and in
Vafthruthnismdl, 37, the wind-demon Hraesvelgr is described
as a, jotunn in the shape of an eagle.

Although the giants are presumably gifted Avith
tremendous physical strength, they are not always
lacking in intelligence, for we have the incident of
Othin's visit to the giant Vafthriithnir in order to
learn of his store of wisdom.

The chief theriomorphic jotnar are the Mith-
garthsormr, or Jormundgandr, and the Fenrisulfr,
both of whom together with Hel are said to be the
otispring of Loki and the giantess Angrbotha (' she
v/ho bodes distress'). ^Iithgarthsornlr is repre-
sented in Gylfaginning, 34, as a kind of vast sea-
serpent stretching round the earth. In Hymisk-
vitka, 23, Thor goes fishing and catches it on his
hook. Fenrisulfr is a wolf which the gods succeed
after great difficulty in fettering, though not until
he has bitten off Tyr's hand, which has been placed
in his mouth as a pledge of the good faith of the
gods.^* At the end of tlie world he will burst his
bonds and attack the gods in conjunction with
INIithgarthsormr, Loki, Surtr (a fire-demon), and
other monsters. Although usually found in the
company of the aesir, it would seem that Loki
belonged to the jotnar. Here also we should
perhaps mention yEgir, also called H16r, a sea
being, who is on friendly terms with tlie gods and
visits them.-* From Fornaldar Sogur, ii. 17, it
seems clear that he was the son of Fornjotr, and
in Hymiskvitha, 1, 2, he is described as a berg-bui
('cliff-dweller'), an epithet which is elsewhere
synonymous with jotunn. His wife is called Ran,

1 Cf. Gy!f. 45.

2 According to Hdleygjatdl, she was later also the wife of
Othin.

3 Cf. Gylf. 34.

* Cf. Lukasenna (prose introfluction) ; Brnrjarncthur, .'i.5.

TEUTONIC RELIGION

261

and is said to have a net in which she catches all
who perish in the sea. There is a suggestion too
from the story in Frithjdfs Sac/a, 6, that a man
fearing death by drowning would do well to carry
gold on his person in order to be received well in
the halls of Ran.^

Apart from mythological works monsters are
not infrequently mentioned both in the Islendinga
Sogur and in sagas of the kings, as well as in
the Fornaldar Sogur, though they are more
nsually called troll t\i^n jotnar.

As examples we may refer to the two demons (male and
female) at Sand Haugar in the north of Iceland encountered by
Grettir ; 2 the female demon who ate eleven merchants in a rest
house in the Norwegian mountains; 3 and the monster Brusi
and his mother in the form of a black cat encountered by Ormr
St6rolfsson in the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason.

In those Fornaldar Sogur which deal with the
north of Norway, viz. Kctil Saga Haengs and
Grims Saga Lothitikinna, monsters are frequently
mentioned. It may be noticed that Thorgerthr
Holgabriithr once appears among them,* and
Saxo's Danish History abounds with such stories.
Tales like these recall Procopius's remark : ' The
rest of the inhabitants of Thule . . . worship
many gods and demons in heaven and in air and
in sea and certain other daemonias which are said
to be in the waters of springs and rivers.'

A spring was the home of Mimir. His story is given in
Ynglinga Saga, 4, where the aesir send him with Hoenir as
pledges to the vanir, who cut off his head and return it to the
aesir. Othin then smears the head with worts to preserve it
and keeps it for divining purposes. In Voluspd, 45, Othin is
said to converse with Mimir's head. We are told further 6 that
under one of the roots of Yggdrasil's ash is Slimisbrunnr
(' Mimir's spring '), in which are hidden cumiing and wisdom.
Othin came to the brook asking a drink and was refused until
he left his eye as a pledge. This he granted, and In Voluspd,
28, the sybil says : ' Mimir drinks mead every morning from the
pledge of Otliin.'

A reference to a Miming is made by Saxo ^ in his
story of Balder and Hothr, Here Miming is called
the 'silvarum satyrus,' and is said to have in his
possession a sword and magic bracelets, the former
of which alone of all swords will prevail against
the charmed life of Balder. At the beginning of
Thithreks Saga too Mimir is the name of the smith,
teacher of both Sigfrit and Velint. It is to be
noted also that Miming was the name of Weland's
famous sword in the poem of Waldhere.

Perhaps originally Mimir was famed for his
wisdom, but later tradition laid stress on his skill
in smith's work. His name is preserved in modern
Swedish folk-lore — Mimis-sjo and Mimis-a ('sea of
Mimir' and 'river of Mimir'), both of which pre-
serve his connexion with water. His name is also
mentioned in the mediaeval German poem Biterolf
as 'Mime the old.'

(b) Anglo-Saxon. — The A.S. forms corresponding
to the Norse jotunn and thurs are eaten and thyrs,
and both terms are applied in Beowulf to the
monster Grendel, who with his mother dwells
under a pool in the feus and makes attacks on the
hall of the Danish king whose knights he devours.
As far as we can gather, these beings are anthropo-
morphic. The story of Beowulf's encounters is
clearly to be connected with those of Grettir and
of Ormr St6rolfsson and presumably has its origin
in a folk-tale. In A.S. literature ancient weapons
are sometimes described as being made by the
giants.'' In the Gnomic Verses, which form the
introduction to the Abingdon text of the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle, the thyrs is said to have his
home in the fens.

1 For Ymir, the primeval giant out of whose flesh the world
was made, see art. Cosmogony and Cosmolooy (Teutonic).

2 Grettis Saga, ch. 65.

3 Sa{)a of Olaf the Holy (Ileivishringla), 151.
* Ketil Saga Haengs, 5.

6 Oylf. 15 (drawn from Voluspd, 29). •• P. 85.

TEald sivcord cotenisc' {Bioumlf, 1. 1558). The same ex-
pression is used for buildings of the past : ' Visible from afar are
the (cities) skilfnlly built by the giants.'

(c) German. — There is no doubt that these
monsters were known also in Germany, where we
find for them the words duris (i.e. thurs) and risi.
No stories dating from very early times happen
to have been preserved, but mediaeval German
poetry and legend abound with references to such
beings.^

3. Dvergar. — {a) Norse. — Dvergar is the name
given collectively to the dwarfs in Old Norse
literature, and to many of them are assigned in-
dividual names in Voluspd, 15 ft'., where also their
creation is mentioned. In Gylfaginning, 14, Snorri
tells us that they first received life as maggots
in the flesh of Ymir, but were endowed with in-
telligence by the gods, and given human shape.
The dvergar were said to live either down in the
earth or more frequently in stones (rocks), in
front of which they were sometimes seen in the
evening.

Svegdir one evening at sunset saw a dwarf sitting under a
stone,'and, when the dwarf called him to go into the stone, he
assented, whereupon it shut behind him and naught has been
heard of him since.2

It is perhaps to their connexion with rocks that
the word for echo — dvergmdl (' dwarf -speech') —
owes its origin. In Norse literature they were
renowned particularly for their skill in metal-
work, and many were the wonderful things
fashioned by their hands — so much so that a
compound word has been formed to denote great
skill, viz. dverg-hagr?

On most occasions the dwarfs appear in human form, though
small, but in Reginsmdl Andvari lives in a water-fall in the
shape of a pike and is caught in that form bj' Loki, who borrows
Ran's net for the purpose. It is from him that Loki gets the
gold required to ransom himself and his companions, Othin and
Hoenir, from Hraethmarr, and this incident afterwards plays
an important part in the Volsunga Saga. After this episode
Andvari withdraws into the stone and curses all who shall
possess the gold.

Possibly, too, ' Mimingus, sylvarum satyrus '
mentioned by Saxo is associated with dwarfs, and
possibly this Miming is identical with Volundr or
Weland, the most famous of all smiths.

(6) The word corresponding to O.N. dvergr is to
be found in all languages of the Teutonic peoples
extant— O.H.G. twerg, A.S, dweorh. In A.S.
literature we find a charm against a dwarf. Dwarfs
also figure in German folk-lore. Thus in the
Seyfriedslied the treasure which the hero won
again after killing the dragon belonged in reality
to some dwarfs, sons of Nybling.

4. Alfar. — For these see art. Demons and
Spirits (Teutonic), vol. iv. p. 633.

5. Nornir.— For these see art. Doom, Doom
Myths (Teutonic).

6. Valkyrjur.— (a) iVorae.— Valkyries, or 'choosers
of the slain,' were supernatural maidens sent by
Othin to determine tlie course of battles and to
choose warriors for Valholl. They are also known
as valmeyjar, skjoldmeyjar, and dsktneyjar, and in
Voluspd, 31— if the phrase is not an interpolation
— they are called nonnur herjans. By the Edda
poems, Grimnismdl, 36, and Voluspd, 31, we are
given certain information about them, and of the
former poem Snorri has made use in Gylf. 36. In
Grimnismdl our attention is drawn mainly to one
aspect of the valkyries— their duties in Valholl ;
for Othin is represented in the poem as crying to
his maidens to bear him the ale as they do to the
einherjar, when they are feasting in the evening
in the hall. Here we have the names of thirteen
valkyries given.

Snorri inserts this stanza from Grimnismdl
in his elaborate account of Valholl in Gt/I/. 38,
expanding it in prose and adding that Othin sends
these maidens to battle. He specially mentions,

1 Cf. art. Dkmons and Spirits (Teutonic), vol. iv. p. G34.

2 Ynglinga Saga, 15 ; also Hervarar Saga, 2.

» See art. Dkmons and SrnuTS (Teutonic), vol. iv. p. eSSh,

252

TEUTONIC RELIGION

Guthr, Rosta, and Skuld, the youngest norn, as
undertaking this work. It is this function of the
valkyiies that the poet of Voluspd deals with in
str. 31 of the poem. He gives us a picture of
a band of valkyries, six in number and named,
equipped and ready to ride into battle. From
other references in Norse literature we learn that
they were seen riding through the air and over the
sea {'lopt ok log'), white and shining with their
helmets, shields, and spears— a splendid company
of maiden warriors. ^

With the valkyries may perhaps be compared the Slavic con-
ception of the v'ila, who was thought to ride a seven-year-old
stag and bridle him with snakes. The characteristic, attributed
to her by the Slavs, of discharging fatal darts at men while in
the air is especially interesting when compared with a similar
reference in an A.S. charm. 2

Other valkyries, who became the wives and
lovers of heroes, and are represented as human in
origin, although included by Othin among his
battle-maidens, are mentioned below.^ From a
story in Saxo * we hear of maidens called ' nymphse
sylvestres,' who seem to be valkyries.

Hotherus (O.N. Hothr), the enemy of Balder, was hunting in
a wood when he came to a lodge where he was greeted by
certain wood-maidens. They told him that it was their lot to
determine the fortunes of war and that often they secretly
assisted their friends in battle, and gained for them the victory.

Since the valkyries were so closely bound up
with the fate of warriors and the issue of battles,
it is clear that they cannot be entirely dissociated
from the norns. The close relationship between
the two conceptions is clearly seen in the poem
given in Njdls Saga, 156.

There in the accompanying prose account a certain Darruthr
saw women riding twelve together to a bower, and, looking
within, he saw that they had set up a loom of which ' men's
heads served for weights, men's entrails for the weft and warp,
a sword for the skeith, and an arrow for the hrselL' They sang
at their work and in their song seemed to describe themselves
as valkyries, and finally they rode away, six to the south and
six to the north.

Moreover, in Gylf. 36 Skuld, the 'youngest norn,'
is included among the valkyries. In contrast with
the norns, however, the valkyries are in Norse
mythology associated chiefly with Othin, whose
messengers they are, though in one passage quoted
from Saxo they seem to assist Hother, who is an
enemy of the gods.

(b) Anglo-Saxon.— In A.S. literature we find on
several occasions the word waelcyrge (O.N. valkyr-
jur). In glossaries^ it is glossed 'Erinys,' ' Bel-
lona, ' ' Tisiphone. ' In Wulf stan's Serino ad A nglos
the waelcyrge are classed together with other
undesirable people, and in a charm mention is
made of certain women who ride over the land and
array their forces. They hurl darts at human
beings, who are thereupon seized with sudden pain.
The word waelcyrge is not mentioned in the latter
example, but there can be little doubt that the
lines refer to them.

(c) Gerjnan.— In German the word does not occur,
though the idea does in the Merseburg charm,
where they are called idisi. They are represented
as fastening bonds, holding back the host, -and
tugging at the fetters.

7. Fylgjur.— For these see art. Soul (Teutonic).

8. Landvaettir.— Just as the fylgja presided over
the individual, so the landvaettir presided over the
country as its tutelary spirits. A certain number
of references are to be found to them in Norse
literature, not the least interesting being the
heathen law mentioned in the Landndmabok, iv.
7, which ordered that figure-heads of ships were
to be removed on approaching the island, lest they
should frighten the landvaettir with their ' yawn-

1 Helgakvitha Hj'&rvarthssonar, 28, and Edkonarmdl, pass. ;
cf. art. Demons and Spirits (Teutonic), vol. iv. p. 633*.

2 Cf. below, § II. i. 6 (6).

3 Cf . below, § II. ii. 9. For the valkyries as swan-maidens see

art. SWAN-MAIDBNS.

4 p. 84. ' Cotton MS, Vitellius A 15.

ing heads and gaping snouts.' In Egils Saga,
57, Egill turns a curse against the landvaettir of
Norway in order to force them to drive away King-
Eric and Queen Gunuhildr, from whom he was
fleeing. Sometimes landvaettir seemed to favour
certain individuals, as was the case with Bjorn, the
he-goat whom they accompanied to the assembly,
while his brothers were accompanied by them when
hunting and fishing. ^

The landvaettir seem not always to be very
clearly distinguished from the fylgjur of indi-
viduals; e.g., in the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason
(Heimskringla), 36, it seems to be suggested that
the landvaettir of Iceland seen by the wizard are
connected in some way with the great chiefs of the
land. The word vaettr (pi. vaettir) is identical with
A.S. wihf, 'creature,' etc., although the latter has
not the specialized meaning of Old Norse. For
the idea itself we may refer to the genius loci of
the Romans.

9. Yggdrasil's ash. — Our information for
Yggdrasil's ash is mainly derived from Voluspd,
19, 20, 27, and Grimnismdl, 29-35. References
also occur in Fjolsvinnsmdl, 13-18. From Voluspd
we learn that the ash Yggdrasil stands ever green
over the well of Urthr (' Fate'), and from it falls
dew into the vales beneath. Under this tree
dwell the three norns. In Grimnismdl not only
do we learn that the aesir go daily to the judgment-
seat under the ash, but we are given many details
about its appearance.

It has three roots stretching in three directions. Hel dwells
under one, the frost-giants under a second, and under the third
the children of men. Its branches are the home of an eagle, a
hawk, and a squirrel Eatatoskr, who bears messages to Nith-
hoggr dwelling below. Four harts gnaw the topmost branches,
and many are the serpents which lie under its boughs.
In Gylf. 15 f. Snorri adds that in the spring of
Fate dwell two swans, from whom are sprung all
birds of that race, and also from the branches of
the ash drops dew called 'honey-dew,' on which
bees feed. The ash is sometimes called Yggdrasil,
Askr Yggdrasils. Laerathr, Mjotvithr, and Mima-
meithr seem to be names for the same tree. In
both Grimnismdl and Fjolsvinnsmdl we have indi-
cations that the ash is being gradually destroyed ;
a hart bites it from above, it rots in its side, and
Nithhoggr gnaws it from beneath. And, accord-
ing to Voluspd, 47 f., when the last days come, it
will shiver and groan. The golden foliaged Glasir
which stands by ' Sigtyr's halls' 2 is perhaps to
be identified with it. One other striking passage
must be mentioned— ^dmmd;, 138, in which Othin
is described as hanging on that tree of which no
one knows from whose roots it proceeds.

A similar conception to that of a world-tree is
certainly to be found among other Teutonic
peoples— e.gr., among the Old Saxons, who wor-
shipped the Irmensul. Several features in Adam
of Bremen's description of the tree beside the
temple of Upsala also recall Yggdrasil's ash.^

ii. Natural things viewed mythologi-
CALLY.— I. Day and night.— From references in
Vafthruthnismdl, 13, 25, Night, the daughter of
Norr, is depicted as driving across the sky her
chariot and horse Hrimfaxi, from whose bit falls
the spume which makes the dew in the valleys.
Of Day we are only told that he is born of Dellingr.
In Gylf. 10 Snorri gives further genealogical
details.* In Alvissmdl, 30, is given a list of names
by which Night is known among the jottiar, elves,
and gods. In the document Hversu Noregr
Bygthist we find a genealogy traced back to Swan
the Red, son of Dagr, son of Dellingr, and of
S61, daughter of Mundilfari. For the personi-
fication of Night and Day, we may compare

1 Cf. Landndmdbdk, iv. 12. 2 Cf. Skdldskaparmdl, 36.

3 Cf. schol. 134 to Adam of Bremen.

* See art. Sun, Moon, and Stars (Teutonic and Balto-Slavic).

TEUTONIC RELIGION

263

Greek mythology, especially the allusions to the
chariots of the Sun and the Moon.^

2. Sun and moon. — For these see art. Sun,
Moon, and Stars (Teutonic and Balto-Slavic).

3. Rainbow. — To the old Norse people the
rainbow was the bridge built by the gods to span
the space between earth and heaven. Bifrost or
Xsbru was its name, and it was triple-hued.
Though it is made with cunning and of gi-eat
strength, Snorri tells ^ that the day will come
when it shall be broken. This bridge is referred
to as Bifrost in the Older Edda, though it is not
explicitly identified with the rainbow. In Gylf.
27 Heimdallr is named as guarding it against the
frost and cliff giants.^

4. Winds and seasons. — In Vafthruthnismdl,
27, 37, references are made to the winds and
seasons. The Avinds, according to the poet, arise
from beneath the wings of the giant Hraesvelgr,
who sits at the end of heaven in the likeness of an
eagle. In Vafth. 27 Vindsvalr is said to be the
father of Winter and Svasudhr of Summer. In
Gylf. 18 f. Snorri gives further details, explaining
that the difference between Summer and Winter
is to be accounted for by the diti'erence of parent-
age, for each has inherited the disposition of his
father.

5. Thor. — In the preceding paragraphs we have
been dealing with mythological conceptions which
are scarcely distinguished from the natural bodies
or phenomena which have given rise to them.
There can be no doubt, however, that other mytho-
logical conceptions originated from similar phen-
omena in early times, though their identity with
these was subsequently forgotten. Thus the name
of the god Thor is identical with the word for
' thunder ' preserved in English and German. The
identity was practically forgotten in Norse owing
largely to the fact that the word had gone out of
use, but it is clearly preserved in Adam of Bremen's
account of the Upsala sanctuary, where he speaks
of Thor, ' qui tonitrus et fulmina . . . gubernat.'*
We may refer also to the ' malleos joviales ' which
were carried off" by the Danish prince Magnus on
one of his raids among the Swedish islands, and
which, according to Saxo,"* had been venerated as
symbols of thunder.

In English and German the name of the god is
not distinguished, and consequently with the small
evidence at our disposal it is not always clear
which of the two was meant. The thunder-god
(especially personifications of thunder) is of course
wide-spread among the people of Europe. It is
sufficient here to refer to the Taranis of the Celts
(whose name appears to be identical with that of
the Scandinavian Thorr), Juppiter Tonans of the
Romans, Zeus Keraunios of the Greeks.

6. Othin. — Many writers hold that Othin origin-
ated in a personification of the wind. This view
is largely bound up with the association of the
god with the raging host, the antiquity of which
is not very clear. The name Woden itself, which
seems originally to have meant ' inspired or
frenzied,' hardly furnishes a parallel to the case
of Thor.

7. Jotnar. — It has been supposed by many
Avriters that not only gods but &\so jotnar largely
owe their origin to personification of natural
phenomena. The hrimthursar ('frost-giants') in-
deed, of whom we often hear collectively, can
hardly be of other origin. The friendly jotunn
Aegir is very closely associated with the sea, for

1 E.g., Homeric Hymns, xxxi. 15 f., xxxii. 9f., and, in par-
ticular, Od. xxiu. 244 fif. C(. also 2 K 23".

2 Gylf. 13.

s For reference to the rainbow in other mythologies we may
compare PC* i. 298.
■» iv. 26.
s Gesta Danorum, ed. A. Holder, Strassburg, 1886, p. 421.

which his name is often used in poetry. There is
some reason also for suspecting that Thrymr, the
jotunn who steals Thor's hammer, may originally
have been a counterpart of Thor, a rival thunder-
god. It has been proposed by some that the eotcn
Grendel in Beowulf sxo&q from a personification of
storm-floods, but this explanation is open to the
objection that the story is clearly based on an
early folk-tale, the original locality of which has
not yet been determined. If the, jotnar in general
had been derived f rona the personification of natural
phenomena, one would expect to find an obvious
meaning for their names, as in the case of Thor
and perhaps of Thrymr, but as a matter of fact
the etymology of the majority of their names is
quite obscure.

According to another view, which has obtained
more currency in recent times, the jotnar largely
represent the communities of a more primitive
race or civilization. This view also can be justified
in some cases by the records. The giant Hrungnir
fights against Thor with a hone, which may per-
haps represent a stone hammer, and the word
berg-bui ('cliff-dweller') points in the same direc-
tion. In some stories, as in the case of Grendel,
the jotnar have cannibal propensities, and for this
practice there is thought to be evidence in the
way human bones are found mixed with those of
animals in some caves. We may note also that
the name Heithr is sometimes applied to witches
of ' Finnish ' (Lappish) origin, while in Hyndluljdth
Heithr is said to be the daughter of the jotunn
Hrungnir.

Occasionally also the word jotunn is applied in
some MSS to persons also described as Flnnar, as
in the case of Swasi, father-in-law of Harold
the Fair-haired. In the genealogies given in a
document Hversu Noregr Bygthist some connexion
is hinted at between Finn a.nd jotunn. With the
evidence at our disposal we are not yet in a position
to determine their origin. It has been suggested
also that the dvergar may be derived from com-
munities of more primitive inhabitants.

8. Nornir. — The nornir bear so close a resem-
blance to the volur^ ('wise women'), not infre-
quently mentioned in the sagas, that there can be
little doubt that they are at least partly derived
from them. Sometimes indeed the words norn
and vblva are used interchangeablj^

9. Valkyrjur. — It is not unlikely that the
valkyrjur have a similar origin. Sometimes the
name is applied to human beings endowed with
supernatural powers, as, e.g., to Svava, the heroine
of Helgahvitha Hjorvarthssonar, and to Sigrun in
Helgakvitha Hunding-bana II., and to Sigrdrifa,
a Valkyrie who was punished by Othin for not
carrying out his commands. And, as most author-
ities identify her Avith Brynhildr, the term is
applied to the latter also. This conception of
human valkyries is not confined to the North.
For, in Wulfstan's Scrmo ad Anglos, waelcyrgeati
are mentioned beside wiccean, among a list of bad
characters, from which the country is said to be
suffering.'^ It is more difficult, however, to ex-
plain how the conception arose. We hear of fight-
ing women more than once in Saxo, and the human
sk/dldincyjar in the Atlakvitha point perhaps in
the same direction.

10. Kings. — Among other human beings we
may notice especially kings who were credited
with supernatural powers both during their lives
and after death. Two of the legendaiy kings of
Sweden, D6maldi and Olaf Tr^telgja, are said to
have been put to death owing to bad harvests for
which they Avere held responsible.^ This belief
lasted doAvn to late times, since Gustavus Vasa is

1 See art. Demons and Spieits (Teutonic), vol. iv. p. 632».

2 Cf. n. i. 6 (&). 3 Yiigliivja Saga, 18.

254

TEUTONIC RELIGION

said to have complained that the Swedes blamed
him for bad weather. Nor was it peculiar to the
North. According to Ammianus Marcellinus,
xxviii. 5. 14, it was customary among the Bur-
gundians to depose their kings in time of famine
as well as after military disaster.

11. The dead. — Norse literature shows by con-
stant reference that to the dead were attributed
supernatural powers. Among those most com-
monly referred to is that of bringing prosperity
and abundant harvest.

In Ynglinga Saga, 12, the g-od Freyr Is said to die, but his
death is not announced to his subjects the Swedes. His dead
body was preserved that prosperity might abound in the land.
A similar storj' is told about Halfdan the Black, for his body
after death was cut in four pieces, which were buried in
different parts of the kingdom, so that all sections of the land
might have plenteous years.l A similar belief underlies the
story of Olaf Geirstatha-alf,2 and that of Guthmundr,3 who
after death was thought by his people to be a god, and was
therefore worshipped. Yet another example is to be found in
Landndmabdk, i. 14, where Thordlfr Smjorr is mentioned as
being worshipped after death. A curious instance of worship
of the dead occurs in Kristni Saga, 2, where the missionar)'
Thorvaldr is taken by a heathen Kodran to see a stone in which
the ancestor {dr-madhr or spd-madhr) of the latter is said to
have dwelt for a long time. Kodran averred that, when tlie
missionary had sprinkled the stone with holy water, his ancestor
had come out and complained that the water had scalded his
little children.

12. Yggdrasil's ash. — This is a very complex
conception, as may be seen from the variety of
plienomena attached to it.^ The descriptions in-
deed are hard to visualize and are apparently in-
consistent. Sometimes the ash seems to spread
out over the whole world ; sometimes again it is
represented as a definite locality to which the gods
ride or walk to hold their court. If the tree called
LadrAthr in Grimnismdl, 25 f., is to be identified
with the ash, as seems probable, it must be re-
garded as standing very near to Othin's hall.
Now it was, and indeed still is, the custom for
country houses in the North, especially in Sweden,
to have standing by them a tree known as vdrdtrdd
('protecting tree'), on which the welfare of the
house is supposed to depend. Such trees were
doubtless regarded as especially sacred in heathen
times, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that
the original conception of Yggdrasil's ash may
have been that of a vardtrad of the divine com-
munity. In Voluspd the reference to the ash
seems to point to a tree on which the destiny of
the gods depends rather than to an all-comprehend-
ing world-tree. That its origin is to be found in
actual trees is rendered probable by the Irmensul,
which likewise was all-comprehending (' universalis
columna . . . quasi sustinens omnia '),^ for this
was a real tree, or rather a tree- trunk, in spite
of the property assigned to it. Furtlier, the
adjuncts mentioned in Grimnismdl and Gylfaginn-
ing — the harts, snakes, etc. — link it with grove
sanctuaries. We may refer particularly to those
of the Lithuanians and Prussians, especially to the
sacred one at Roraove. It was forbidden to injure
any birds or animals in such groves. The descrip-
tion indeed of the sacred oak at Romove furnishes
an interesting parallel to Yggdrasil's ash from real
life. In the North itself we can find parallels for
all the features involved; e.g., snakes seem to
have disappeared from the Northern sanctuaries
before the date of our records, yet a very interest-
ing analogy in some respects is furnished by the
description of the sacred tree at Upsala in scholium
134 to Adam of Bremen's History.

iii. Cosmology. — See art. Cosmogony and
Cosmology (Teutonic).

iv. EsCHATOLOGY. — See art. State of the
Dead (Teutonic). D. E. Martin Clarke.

1 Ynglinga Saga, 9. 2 Flateyjarb<jk, ii. ch. vi.

3 Cf. the m3-thical Uervarar Sagn, 1.

* Cf. accounts in Grimnismdl and the Prose Edda.

6 Rudolph of Fulda, MGII Inscript. ii. 076.

III. Worship. —The Teutonic festivals are
treated separately under the heading Festivals
AND Fasts (Teutonic). There are also separate
articles on SACRIFICE (Teutonic) and Human
Sacrifice (Teutonic). The various superstitions
are covered under the headings DIVINATION
(Teutonic), Magic (Teutonic), " and Ordeal
(Teutonic). It remains in this section to speak
of prophecy and the priesthood.

1. Prophecy. — According to Tacitus, Sist. iv.
61, numbers of women among the Germani were
considered to possess the gift of prophecy * in con-
sequence of which many were revered as goddesses,'
though he denies elsewhere^ that the veneration
paid to them was so great as this. One of the
chief of these prophetic women was known as
Veleda, a prophetess of the Bructueri, who ruled
over considerable territory. To increase the
honour in which she was held, she lived at the
top of a high tower, and questions and oracular
responses were conveyed between her and the
public by a near relative ' like a messenger who
had converse with the gods.'* The name Veleda,
strictly speaking, does not appear to be a projier
name but a Gaulish word for ' prophetess. ' '^ We
may here mention the story of the older Drusus,
Avho in his last campaign was met on the banks of
the Elbe by a woman taller than human who pro-
phesied to him the manner of ,his death even as
it afterwards came about.* According to Strabo,*
the Cymbri had prophetesses who practised divina-
tion with slaughtered prisoners.^

2. Priesthood. — (a) Priest. — (i.) In Norway, and
especially in Iceland, the duties of the priest were
performed by the political leader of the people.
During the colonization of Iceland the more im-
portant of the chiefs who went out from Norway
built their own temples, not infrequently of the
wood of which their temples had been made in
Norway.

Thus we read in Eyrbyggja Saga, i, that Thordlfr of Mostr
built a temple to Thor of such wood. To this temple all the
men in his own district had to pay a tax called ' temple-toll' ;
but the chief himself paid for the upkeep of the building and
performed all the necessary duties in connexion with the temple
and the temple services, while at the same time exercising
judicial authority over the people of the neighbourhood. Again
in Hrafnkel's Saga Freysgotha, 2, we are told that Hrafnkel
raised a great temple in Athalbdl, where he ' made offerings to
Freyr of the half of all the best things that he had.' Hrafnkel
settled the whole of the valley and gave land to people on con-
dition that he should be regarded as their chief and exercise
the authority of priest over them. 7

The priest was called gdthi, and his office
gothorth. In each gothorth was a consecrated
place set apart for the thing (gathering of the
people). Small settlers who were not of sufficient
substance and authority to build temples of their
own joined one or other of the gothorth so as to
have the benefit of the temple services and the
temporal protection of the gdthi. So inseparable
was the political function from that of the priest
in Iceland that the gothorth formed the starting-
point for the foundation of the constitution of
Iceland. The title of gdthi continued in existence
after the adoption of Christianity, although now
it had lost all religious significance and meant no
more than magistrate {logsdgumathr). It is inter-
esting to observe that the gothorth was a heredit-
ary office and could even be bought and sold like
any other property.^

This combination of priestly with secular author-
ity existed also no doubt in Norwaj% whence the
original priests of Iceland came, though — and here
is a difierence from Iceland — the power of the

1 Germ. 9. 2 Hist. iv. 65.

3 Cf. Gael. file. * Suetonius, Claud. X.

5 VII. iv. 3.

6 See art. Divination (Teutonic), vol. iv. p. 827.

7 Cf. also Egils Saga, 86, 89 ; Kyrbyggja Saga, 15.

8 Cf. Vatnsdaela Saga, 41 f. ; Ba7idamanna Sagn, 3.

TEUTONIC RELIGION

265

local chiefs in Norway was subordinate to that of
kings. The word g6thi is occasionally applied to
local chiefs — e.g., to Thorhaddr the Old, who was
hof-gdthi at Maeren in Trondhjem ^ — and on several
occasions we hear of priests in Iceland who had
formerly possessed temples in Norway. The Saga
of Hdkon the Good {Heiinskringla), 16, gives an
account of a great sacrificial feast at Hlathir of
which Earl Sigurthr sustained the whole cost him-
self ; and from the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason
(Heiinskringla), 75, we learn that it had been the
custom of Olaf's predecessors to offer sacrifice in
Trondhjem. In poetry we sometimes meet with
such expressions as vorthr rtstalls ('guardian of the
altar ') applied to kings of the past. In all cases,
here as in Iceland, it is clear that no exclusively
priestly class existed, and that priestly duties
were in all cases combined with temporal power.

For Denmark very little evidence is available.
On three Runic inscriptions found in Fyn, and
dating approximately from the 9th cent., the
word kuthi (i.e. got hi) is found in combination
with some proper name to form a compound word.
Hr6ulfr and Ali are said to have been nuBakuthi
{Nora-gdthi) and sauliiakutha (Solva-gdthi) respec-
tively. It has been suggested that Nori and
Solvi are the names of men ; but it seems at least
equally probable that they are place-names.^ If
this is so, Hroulfr and Ali may have been local
chieftains, like those on the west coast of Norway.
It is significant that Saxo, who frequently refers
to the laws and customs of heathen times, makes
no references to a priestly class in Denmark.

For Sweden the evidence is more abundant.
Adam of Bremen states in connexion with the
great temple at Upsala :

' Assigned to all the gods they have priests to present the
sacrifices of the people.'*

It does not necessarily follow perhaps from this
statement that the duties of these persons were
of an exclusively priestly nature. Elsewhere the
evidence seems rather to point to a union in
Sweden, like that in Norway and Iceland, of
priestly duties with secular authority.

Thus we read in Tnglinga Saga, 47, that a famine which arose
in the dajs of the legendary king Olaf Tretelarja was attributed
by the people to the king's remissness in offering sacrifices ; and
even towards the end of the 11th cent, we read in Hervarar
Saga, ad fin., of one B16tsveinn ('sacrificing-Sveinn') obtaining
the throne in virtue of his promise to offer sacrifice on behalf of
the people, which he actually carried out Rimbertus •* describes
the formal deification of the Swedish king Ericus ; and it will
be remembered that the native dynasty, the Ynglingar, traced
their descent from the god Freyr.

Thus, while the evidence is perhaps less direct and
convincing for Sweden than for Norway, it seems
on the whole to indicate a close union from the
earliest times between secular and religious jiower.

(ii.) Except in Tacitus references to priests
among the Teutonic pe<)])les are of rare occurrence.
In later times we read in the llistoi-ij of Ammiaiius
Mercellinus^ that the priests of the Burgundians
were presided over by a chief priest who held his
office for life. Jordanes" states that the priests of
the Goths were of noble extraction.

(iii.) We learn from Bede' that the priests of
the ancient English were forbidden to bear arms
and to ride except on mares. Heathen priests are
also referred to,* perhaps the most interesting
instance being that of Colli.

Eddius,9 in his description of the shipwreck of Wilfrid off the
Sussex coast, refers to the 'priiiccps sacerdotum idolatriae '
standing before the country-people on a hiuh mound and by
his magic arts seeming to cast fetters on the hands of the people
of God.

1 Cf. Landn. iv. 6.

2 Of. L. F. A. Wimmer, Die Runenschrift, German tr. by
F. Holthausen, Berlin, 1887, pp. 34 Iff., 359 ff.

3 iv. 27. ■* Vita Anscharii, 26.

6 xxviii. 5. 14. 6 De Rebus Geticis, oh. 5.

7 HS ii. 13. 8 lb. ii. 6, and elsewhere.
» Oh. 13.

(iv.) Among the Teutonic peoples of the Con-
tinent in ancient times the priest seems to have
combined to a great extent spiritual with temporal
powers. According to Tacitus, his duties were
threefold : (1) the consultation of omens on public
occasions, together with divination, the casting of
lots, and the observation of the sacred horses ; ^
(2) duties in connexion with the tribal assembly
such as the proclamation of silence at the opening
of the meeting, and the administration of jiunish-
ment at the assemljly and in time of war ; ^ (3)
the guardianship of the sacred groves, symbols,
and other holy objects,* which they also carried
Avith the host to battle.* They no doubt had
duties also in connexion with the public sacrifices.
Indeed it may be said that their functions as a
whole were essentially of a public character.
There is little or no trace of any mystical relation-
ship existing between the priest and the god, or of
any peculiarly spiritual qualification in the priest
such as we find noted, e.g., in the case of prophet-
esses like Veleda, or in the account of the Druids
given by Diodorus Siculus.*

(b) Priestess. — (i. ) In Iceland the woi"d gythia
('priestess') occasionally occurs," and seems to be
applied to women belonging to the ruling families
of Iceland [i.e. those who held gothorth).

In Kristni Saga, 2, we are told of a woman Frithgerthr who
was 'in the temple offering sacrifices' while Thorvaldr was
preaching the Christian faith hard by. The term gythja, how-
ever, is not applied to her, and it is possible that she was only
acting as deputy for her husband, who was absent at the
althingi (' general assembly '). Mention is made in Vdpnfirth-
inga Saga, 10, of a woman called Steinvor, w)io is described as
a hof-gythja (' temple-priestess ') and who owned a hufuth-hof
(' public temple ') and claimed temple-toll. When she wished
to enforce the civil authority of the gothorth, she was obliged
to apply to her kinsman Brodd-Helgi for help. But that she
was conscious of her full religious responsibiUties seems to be
borne out by the amusing account given in Kristni Saga, 5, of
a 'flyting' between Thangbrandr the priest and one Steinvor,
the mother of the poet Ref, who is without doubt to be identi-
fied with the hof-gythja of Vdpnfirthinga Saga. Here we are
told that, after she had preached heathenism to Thangbrandr
at some length, she made the startling announcement that
'Thor challenged Christ to fight in single combat ; but he dared
not fight against Thor I '

Beyond this, references to priestesses in the old
Scandinavian countries seem to point to persons of
a different character, though these references are
not verj' satisfactory.

In Sturlaugs Saga Starfsama, 18, we are told of 60 hnf-gythjar
in a temple, which, however, was Finnish. Again in Ynglinga
Saga, i, we are told that the goddess Freyja was a hl6t-gythja
('sacrificial priestess'), and that after Freyr's death she kept
up the temple and sacrifices at Upsala.

Here also we may mention the story of Gunnarr Helmingr,
who is related in ch. 278 of the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason
{Flateyjarhok) to have personated the god Freyr after flestroying
his idol. Freyr's image was kept in a temple in Sweden, and his
shrine is said to have been attended to by a young and beauti-
ful woman who was known as his wife, a7id wth whom he used
to make an annual progress through the land, driven in a
chariot. This person is not actually called a priestess (gythja),
but at all events she .apparently had charge of the sanctuary
and interpreted the answers of tlie god. We may here compare
the account of Freyja, who in Ynglinga Saga, 13, is said to
have upheld the sacrifices at Upsala after the death of Freyr.

(ii.) We have no definite evidence for the exist-
ence of priestesses in the strict sense of the term
among the other Teutonic peoples. Tacitus si>eaks
of 'numbers of women of prophetic power, '^ but
these recall the volur rather than the priestesses
of the North. The former existence of a priestess
may, however, perhaps be inferred from the
account of the sacred grove of the Nahanarvali,
which is said"^ to have been under the charge of a
priest ' muliebri ornatu.'

IV. TEMPLES AND SANCTUARIES.— (a) Iceland.
— (i.) In Iceland the temples formed centres
of jurisdiction, one belonging to each of the 3U

1 In the last duty he was accompanied by the king ; cf. Gerrn.
10.

2 76. 7. 11. S lb. 40, 43.

4 lb. 7. 8 BiU. Hist. v. 31.

8 E.g., Landn. iii. 4, iv. 10. 7 Hist. iv. 61, 65.

8 Genu. 43.

256

TEUTONIC RELIGION

gothorth. One of the fullest descriptions of such
temples which we possess occurs in Eyrbyggja
Saga, 4.

Here we are told that ThdroUr of Mostr set up a great temple
to Thor by Thor's river. There was a door in the wall near one
end. Inside stood the high-seat pillars containing the pegs
which were called reginnaglar (' holy pegs '). On one of these
pillars the image of Thor was carved.

' The interior of this temple was a very holy place. At the
end of the temple farthest from the door there was an annexe
like the choir of a church at the present time, and there in the
midst of the floor stood a stalli which served as an altar, and
thereon lay a jointless ring weighing twenty ounces on which
all oaths are said to have been sworn. The priest wore this ring
upon his arm at all assemblies. On the stalli stood also the
sacrificial bowl wherein was a hleitteinn which served as a
sprinkler, wherewith was sprinkled the blood from the bowl
which was called hlaut. That was the blood which was shed
by such creatures as were sacrificed to the gods. In the annexe
round about the stalli were the gods ranged. To this temple
all men had to pay tribute, and they were under an obligation
to accompany the temple priests on all such journej-s as thing-
men now take with their chiefs, and the gothi kept up the
temple at his own cost so that it should not fall out of repair,
and in it he upheld the sacrificial feasts.'

Some additional details are furnished by the
descriptions of the temple at Kjalarnes in Kjalnes-
inga Saga, 2, 4.

This temple was 60 ft. in breadth, and, like the one built by
Ingimundrin Vatnsdaela,! 100 ft. in length. Thor was the god
most honoured in this temple. The inner sanctuary was circular
like the hull of a ship. Thor stood in the midst of it, and other
gods on both sides. In front of them stood a stalli made with
great skill and covered with iron. On it there was a fire which
was never allowed to die down. They called it the ' consecrated
fire.' On that stalli there lay also a great ' ring ' of silver. The
temple priest wore it on his arm at all assemblies. Men took
their oaths on it in all law-suits. On that altar there lay also a
great bowl of copper into which was poured the blood which
came from the cattle which were sacrificed to Thor or from the
men. This blood they called hlaut, and (the bowl they called)
hlaut-bolli. Men and cattle were sprinkled with the hlaut, but
the cattle which were sacrificed there were used for entertaining
the company when sacrificial feasts were held. And the men
who were sacrificed were sunk in the pool which was outside by
the door, and which was called WdffciMa (' sacrificial spring').
The temple was surrounded by a wooden fence too high to
cUmb, and both the temple and the fence contained doors that
locked. Finally we are told that the beams of the temple were
very excellent.*

Thorhaddr the Old, like many another, took the
temple-mould and the high-seat pillars from his
Norwegian temple and used them for his temple in
Iceland.* We are also told that Jorundr gdthi
raised a temple in Svertingsstathir.* Numerous
other instances might be cited.

In Eristni Saga, 1, heathen sacrifices are mentioned as being
offered in a temple at Hvamm. In Hrafnkels Saga Fre.ysgdtha,
3, we are told that Hrafnkel raised a great temple to Freyr in
Athalb61. This temple stood on a rock above a deep pool in the
river and contained images of the gods which had some kind of
robes or ornaments upon them. A temple dedicated to Freyr
is also mentioned in Viga Glums Saga, 5, as being ' on the
south of the river at Hripkelsstathir.' ' in ch. 24 of the same saga
we read that there were three temples on Ej'jafirthr. In ch. 25 we
have an interesting confirmation of the accounts of the oath-
ring mentioned above. In the temple in Diupadale on Eyja-
firthr ' whoever took the temple-oath took in his hand the silver
ring which was reddened in the blood of the cattle sacrificed
andf which weighed fully three ounces.' Possibly the ring of
Tomar (Thunor) which was carried off from Dublin by King
Charles Malachy ii. in 994 was one of the sacred rings upon
which oaths were sworn.^ Here we may compare the Anglo-
Saown Chronicle,'' where the oath-ring is represented as the
most binding form of engagement known to the Danes.

(ii.) Not only the temple itself, but also the
land round about, was regarded as sanctuary.

Thus in Eyrbyggja Saga, i, we are told that Th6r<5Ifr of
Mostr held as sacred a hill in the precincts of his temple on
Thorsnes. Here the thin;; of the men of the Western Firths was
held. No one was allowed to turn his eyes thither unwashed,
and no blood was to be shed there. Th6r61fr's sons preserved
the sanctuary inviolate as long as they could ; and, when it had
been defiled with bloodshed by the Kjallekings,8 the place was
declared unhallowed and the thing removed to another part of

1 Cf. Vatnsdaela Saga, 15.

2 Here we may compare the story given in Landn. v. 12 of
Ketilbjom, who was so rich that he ordered his sons to make a
cross-beam of sOver in the temple which they were building on
Mossfell. His sons, however, did not carry out his orders.

3 Cf. Landn. iv. 6. * lb. v. 3. 6 Cf. also 9, 19.
6 Cf. Annals of the Four Masters, sub an. 994.

Sub an. 876. 8 Cf. ib. 9, 10.

the promontory, where the domhringr is stUl pointed out to
travellers—' That was one of the holiest of places.'

A curious tradition of sanctity is found in Land-
ndmabdk, ii. 16.

Authr the Deep-Minded was a Christian. ' She was accus-
tomed to say her prayers at Cress-hills. She had crosses raised
there, for she was baptized and a good Christian. Members of
her family afterwards showed great reverence for that hill. A
horgr was made there when they began to offer sacrifices.
They believed that they would pass into the hill when they
died.'

(6) Nortvay.—{i.) From Eyrbyggja Saga, 3, we
learn that, before Th6r61fr of Mostr left Norway
for Iceland, he had charge of Thor's temple on the
island of Mostr, and was a great friend of Thor.
The framework of this temple was transferred
bodily to Iceland. Another island is mentioned
in the Saga of Olaf Tryggva^on ^ as containing a
large temple dedicated to Thor. Guthbrandr of
the Dales also possessed a temple dedicated to
Thor. 2 His predecessor was a great friend of Earl
Hdkon of Hlathir. They had a temple in common
in Guthbrandsdale, which contained figures of
Thor and of Hakon's patron goddesses, Thorgerthr
and Irpa. Thorgerthr is described as being as tall
as a full-grown man and having a hood on her
head. Thor was seated in his car, and all were
adorned with clothes or ornaments and had gold
rings on their arms. This temple and Earl Hdkon's
temple at Hlathir are said to have been the two
chief temples in Norway.' When Earl Hakon
first took possession of Norway, ' he commanded
throughout his whole kingdom that the temples
should be maintained,' * and later, when the emis-
saries of the emperor Otto had overthrown the
temples of S. Norway, Earl Hdkon caused them
to be rebuilt and the heathen sacrifices to be re-
established.^

Some interesting details of one of his temples
(in Arkadale) are given in Faereyinga Saga, 23.

It stood in the midst of a wood and was surrounded by a
paling and adorned ■vnth. gold and silver, while the roof was
lighted with several glass windows. Inside near the door was
a figure of Thorgerthr Holgabruthr, beautifully adorned. The
same story occurs in the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason {Flateyjarbdk),
326, where we are told that Olaf stripped Thorgerthr of all her
'gold and silver and fine clothes' and dragged the idol at his
horse's tail, flnalljj beating it to pieces with a club and burning
it along with the image of Freyr.

Olaf Tryggvason systematically destroyed Hd-
kon's temples and despoiled the idols. He took from
the door of the temple at Hlathir the large gold ring
that Hakon had had made, and burnt the image of
Thor which it contained.® In his missionary ex-
pedition to Inner Trondhjem he despoiled the
temple at Maer, which contained many idols fixed
on stallar, in the midst of whom sat Thor, ' an
image of great size, all adorned with gold and
silver.''' A curious and interesting account of a
temple and image dedicated to Balder in the district
of Sogn is mentioned in the Saga of Frithj6f the
Bold.^ It has been the custom to cast doubt on
this evidence, but the details are not obviously
fictitious, and it is difficult to imagine why they
should have been invented. The account is at
least as reliable as that of Kjalnesinga Saga,^
which is usually accepted as probable.

(ii.) The word ^o/ (' temple') frequently occurs
in association with the word hbrgr}^ What exactly
the hbrgr was we do not know. From Hyndluljdth,
10, the horgr seems to have been made of stones :

' He made me a hurqr built of stones. Now, this heap of
stones is turned to glass.'

But in Grimnismdl, 16, Njorthr is said to rule
over hdtimbruthum horgi (' high-timbered horgrs').

1 Flateyjarbdk, 243.

2 Cf . Saga of Olaf the Holy (Heimskringla), 118.

3 Cf. Nj'dls Saga, 87, 88.

* Cf. Saga of Olaf Tryggvason (Flateyjarbdk), 61.

5 /6. 87- cf. also 313-315.

6 Saga of Olaf Tryggvason (Flateyjarbdk), 248.

7 Ib. 268. 8 Ch. 1 and passim. 9 Ch. 2, 4.
10 Of., e.g., Helgakvitha Hjorvarthssonar, 4.

TEUTONIC RELIGION

257

The phrase ' horgr and hof high-timbered' occurs
also in Voluspd, 7. It has been suggested that the
word ' high-timbered ' is merely conventional and
that the horgr was a stone structure as opposed to
the wooden temples so common in Norway and
Iceland. In Orvar Odds Saga, 29, we are told that
Oddr ' burnt a Aq/'and broke a horgr '; but in the
preceding verse both hof and horgr are spoken
of as being 'burnt.' Hof and horgr are spoken
of as burnt in ch. 165 of the Saga of Olaf Try-
ggvason (Fornmanna Sogur). But in ch, 141 of
the same saga we are told that the king commanded
'hof and hdi-gr to be broken and burnt.' The
horgr is frequently mentioned in connexion with
women.

Thus in Gylf. 14 the goddesses are said to inhabit ' a hiyrgr
which was a very fair house. It was called Ving61f.' In Her-
varar Saga, 1, Stai-kathr is said to have carried off Alfhildr as
she was in the act of reddening the horgr by night after the
great disarbUt. After the death of Authr the Christian, her
relatives made a horgr on the hill where she had set up her
crosses.

The word is still traditionally connected with
high places in popular speech. Thus, when the
land lies deep in snow, the Icelanders say that ' only
the highest horgar jut out.' And in the Norwegian
patois a dome-shaped mountain is called a horg.
Perhaps the word is a survival of an older form of
religion when places of worship were more primitive
than the carefully constructed hof. It is obviously
connected ultimately with the O.H.G. haruc.

(iii. ) It will be seen that there are certain obvious
discrepancies in regard to the use of the term horgr.
It appears in some cases to have been a cairn, but
in others a building capable of habitation. Some-
times it is made of stone, in other cases perhaps of
wood. The difficulty is increased by the fact that
the word is obviously identical with the early Ger-
man word haruc, which is used to gloss the words
nemus, lucus, while the corresponding A.S. hearg
is also perhaps used for 'grove.' Such sacred
woods or groves were probably common in early
times, since many place-names are compounded
with the word lundr (' sacxed grove'). Moreover,
the usual name for the place of assembly in the
North is thingvollr, which must originally have
meant 'wood of the assembly,' vollr being cognate
with O.S. weald SLud O.H.G. wald (' ioresV).

The legendary sanctuary at Qlasisvellir 1 was probably con-
nected with a holy grove, and is no doubt identical with Glasir,
the name of the tree by Valholl, Othin's dwelling-place, men-
tioned in Skdldskaparmdl, 34. It is in a forest clearing that
the gods meet to decide the fate of Starkathr.2 According to a
mythological poem, 3 the gods meet every day to dispense justice
under Yggdrasil's ash. Perhaps we may also instance Tomar's
wood,4 which was situated near Dublin. It has been suggested
that this means ' grove of Thor."

It is noteworthy that the two great assembly
places, Frosta and Gaula, are both on peninsulas.
Sacred islands may also have been kno^^^l, as can
perhaps be inferred from the recurrence of such
names as Njardhrey, Ve-ey, Thorsey, and possibly
Halogaland.

(c) Sweden. — (i.) The great temple of the Swedes
was at Upsala.

' The Swedes have a most magnificent temple which is called
Ubsola [Upsala] not far distant from the city of Sictona [Sigtuna].
In this temple, which is fitted [?] entirely with gold, they wor-
ship the statues of three gods. Thor, the most powerful of'them,
has his seat in the midst of the couch [?), while Wodan and
Fricco occupy places on either side of him. . . . Wodan they
represent as armed, just as our people represent Mars, while
Thor with his sceptre seems to copy Jupiter.' ^

' That temple is surrounded by a golden chain which hangs
over the roof [?] of the building, and the gleam of which is visible
to visitors at a distance ; for the shrine itself stands on level
ground with hills round it like a theatre.' «

(ii.) In the (contemporarjO scholium 134 we have
an interesting account of a holy grove which stood

1 Cf . the Th&ttr af Nornagesti, 1 ; Hervarar Saga, 1.

2 Cf. Gautreks Saga, 7. 3 Grlmnismdl, 30.

* Mentioned in the War of the Oaethil with the Gaill, 113.
5 Adam of Bremen, iv. 26. 6 Jb. scholium 135.

VOL. XII. — 17

beside the temple, and which contained an ever-
green tree of great sanctity.

' Near that temple there is a very large tree stretching out its
branches afar and always green both in winter and summer.
No one knows what kind of tree it is. There also is a spring in
which it is the practice of the heathen to do sacrifice by sinking
a living man in it. If he does not reappear, the prayers of the
people will be fulfilled.'

The description of Yggdrasil's ash, which is said
to overshadow Asgarthr,i is no doubt derived
from the Upsala evergreen, as the description of
the home of the gods is surely derived from some
Northern sanctuary, in all probability the identical
sanctuary at Upsala.^

There are many other references to this sanctuary
in both Norse and Danish authorities, and it was
in fact the most famous one in the North. In
Ynglinga Saga, 12, and in Saxo, iii. 90, its establish-
ment is attributed to the god Freyr, who in the
former is represented as having lived and died at
Upsala. This is no doubt also the scene of the
story of Gunnar Helmingr, although in this story
the place is not actually mentioned.

In Jdmsvikinga Saga, 12, we are told of a temple
in Gotland which contained 100 gods and also
temple treasure and temple servants to offer the
sacrifices, but, apart from the great temple at
Upsala, we know little of the heathen temples
of Sweden.

[d) Denmark. — No records of Danish temples
appear to have been preserved. The chief sanc-
tuary of the Danes was at Leire. This was no
doubt a sanctuary of great antiquity. It is the
home of the famous kings of the 6th cent., Hroarr
and Hr6Ifr Kraki (the Hrothgar and Hrothwulf of
Beowidf). In Ynglinga Saga, 5, it is said to have
been the home of the goddess Gifj6n and her
husband Skjoldr, the eponymous ancestor of the
Skjoldungar (A.S. Scyldingas), the Danish royal
family. Like Upsala, the locality is remarkable
for its barrows, some of Avhich date from the earliest
times.

The existence of ancient sanctuaries in the old
Danish kingdom is also implied by some of the
place-names; e.g., Lundr, the name of the old
ecclesiastical capital in Skaney, meant originally
a 'sacred grove.' Cf. also V6borg (mod. Viborg ;
'sanctuary town') and Helganes ('holy promon-
tory') in Jutland; Othins^ or Othinsve ('Othin's
Sanctuary') on the island of Fyen, and Hlesey,
besides many other Danish (and Norwegian and
Swedish) place-names.

(e) England. — In England the worship of idols
and the existence of heathen temples were well
known to Bede. In A.D. 601 Pope Gregory sent a
letter to the abbot Mellitus urging that, while he
is to destroy the idols in England, he is to leave
the heathen temples standing that they may be
consecrated for purposes of Christian worship.
He says expressly, ' It is their custom to slay many
oxen in sacrifice to devils.'^ The East Anglian
king Kedwald, who had been converted to Christi-
anity on a visit to Kent, is said to have had in
the same temple an altar for Christian worship
and an arula at which to offer victims to devils ; *
and his son Earconberct is said to have been the
first of the English kings who commanded the idols
throughout his country to be destroyed.^ When
the Northumbrian Council decided to adopt Christi-
anity, the high priest of the heathen, Coefi, rode
to tire sanctuary of Gudmanum on the Derwent,
cast a spear into it, and commanded his companions
to destroy and set fire to it with all its precincts."
Keferences of a historical character to sanctuaries
in this country are rare, however. But such place-
names as Thunresleah, which must originally have

1 Gylf. 15.

2 Cf . also Skdldskaparmdl, 34

» HE i. 30.

* lb. ii. 16.

6 lb. iu. 8.

6 Ih. ii. 13.

258

TEUTONIC RELIGION

meant 'grove of thunder,' perhaps indicate the
existence of groves sacred to the thunder-god
among the ancient English, and there are other
reminiscences of heathen worship no doubt pre-
served in such place-names as Thunresfeld and
Wednesbury.

In Beowulf, 175, we hear of offerings made aet
haergtraftim, which perhaps means ' shrines 'covered
with canopies. The word hcterg, identical with
Norse horgr, is of frequent occurrence standing
alone, and is used to translate various Latin terms
such as fanum ^ and idolum. There are other
passages in which the word seems to mean a
' grove,' as in German, and it is not uncommon in
place-names — e.g., Harrow. A number of other
words which appear in Christian usage were pre-
sumably applied at first to heathen sanctuaries —
e.g., weofod ('altar ').2

(/) The Continent. — (i.) References to temples
on the Continent are rare. In the 6th cent, a
Prankish temple was destroyed by Radegund, wife
of Chlotar. Gregory of Tours describes a temple at
Cologne which contained figures of the gods and in
which sacrificial feasts were held. The Frisians
seem to have had temples, but the notices are not
always clear.

(ii.) The wordfanum, by which these sanctuaries
are usually denoted, is also used of the Irmensul,
which, according to Thietmar of Merseburg,^ was
an immense wooden shaft or pillar worshipJ)ed by
the Old Saxons in a place called Eresburg. Accord-
ing to the Vita S. Alex. 3, this pillar was 'set up
aloft in the open.' In their own language they call
it ' Irmensul, quod latine dicitur universalis col-
umna, quasi sustinens omnia.' It was cut down
in the year 772 by Charlemagne, who spent three
days destroying the sanctuary and carried off much
gold and silver.

Among the heathen practices of the Old Saxons
condemned in the Indietdus Superstitionum and
elsewhere we hear of sanctuaries connected with
woods, of springs connected with sacrifices, and
of various places which are venerated as holy.

The chief sanctuary of the Frisians was that of
' Fosite's Land.' According to Alcuin's Vita S.
Willibrordi, 10, it took its name from the god
Fosite.

' For /ana of this god were "constructed" {constructa) on it.'
This place was held so sacred by the country folk that no one
dared to touch the cattle or anything else that fed there. He
also mentions a sacred spring on the island. •*

Adam of Bremen ^ identifies this land with the
island of Heilgiland (Halogaland). In the Vita S.
Bonifatii, 23, we read of a sacred oak of gigantic
size, the robor Jovis, which was cut down by the
saint amid the clamorous protests of the heathen.

There is no doubt that sacred trees and groves
were of frequent occurrence among all the Teutonic
peoples of the Continent. In the Tramslatio S.
Alexandri, 3, we are told that the Saxons wor-
shipped trees and streams. Claudian speaks of
' groves grim with ancient religious rites and oaks
resembling barbaric divinity. ' ^

The O.H.G. word haruc, like the O.N. horgr
and A.S. hearg, presents some difficulty, being
used sometimes to gloss nemus, lucus, sometimes
fanum, delubrum. It has been suggested by INIogk
that the lack of clear distinction between the terms
for the natural and the artificially constructed
sanctuary is due to the utilization of old sanctuaries
as sites for later temples.

(iii.) References to Teutonic temples in earlier
times, in the works of Tacitus, are rare and doubt-
ful. In Ann. i. 51 it is stated that Germanicus
razed to the ground the temple which they called

1 E.g., in the passages quoted above from Bede, HE ii. 13.
" Ct. also husl, an old pagan word for sacrifice, etc.
3 Chron. ii. 1. * Cf. also Vita S. Liudgerii, i. 19.

5 iv. 3. 8 Cons. Slil. i. 288.

the temple of Tamfana and which was most fre-
quented by those tribes. Again, in Germ. 40
mention is made of the templum of Nertlius, but it
is not unlikely that the word is used loosely for
'sanctuary' — 'the holy grove on an island in the
ocean,' the home of the goddess Nertims, who
visits the nations in a consecrated car covered with
a garment.

' One priest alone is permitted to touch it. He is able to
perceive when the goddess is present in her sanctuary and
accompanies her witli the utmost reverence as she is drawn
along by cows. It is a season of rejoicing, and festivity reigns
wherever she deigns to go and be received. Tliey do not under-
take hostilities or take up arms ; every weapon is put away ;
peace and quiet are then onlj' known and welcomed, until the
goddess, weary of human intercourse, is at length restored by
the same priest to her temple. Afterwards the car, the gar-
ments, and, if you are willing to believe it, the deity herself,
are cleansed in a secret lake. This rite is performed by slaves
who are instantly swallowed up by its waters.'

The indications given by Tacitus are too vague to
enable the site of this sanctuaiy to be fixed with
any certainty, but it is not impossible that it was
the Danish sanctuary of Leire. In that case
Nerthus may have lived on as Gifj6n. Her name,
however, is identical with that of the Norse god
Njorthr.

According to Germ. 9, ' the Gerniani deem it to be incon-
sistent with the majesty of the gods to confine them within
walls or to represent them after any similitude of a human face ;
they dedicate groves and woods and call by the names of gods
that invisible thing which they see only with the eye of faith.' i

Sacred groves are mentioned by Tacitus in several
other places. Arminius's forces assemble in a
wood sacred to Hercules.^ Civilis brings his army
together in a sacred wood.^ According to Germ.
43, the Nahanarvali had a gi'ove of ancient sanctity.
It was in these groves that they kept the sacred
symbols.^ Here also were reared the sacred white
horses which were never allowed to do work for
mankind, but were employed to draw the sacred
cars, when their neighing was carefully observed
by the priest and king of the state.

According to ib. 39, the Semnones had a wood
of immemorial antiquity and holiness. Here on
certain occasions there met embassies from all the
kindred peoples (the various branches of the Suevi)
to celebrate their barbaric rites by the slaying of
a man. The grove was held in reverence, and no
one was allowed to enter unless he was bound with
chains to signify his own humility and the power
of the grove.

Lttbraturb. — J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie*, 3 vols., Berlin,
1876 (Eng. tr., Teutonic Mythology, London, 1880-88) ; E. Mogk,
' Deutsche Mythologie,' in H. P. Paul, Grundriss der german-
ischen Philologies, iii. 230-406, Strassburg, 1900 ; E. H. Meyer,
German. Mythologie, Berlin, 1891; P. D. Chantepie de la
Saussaye, Religion oj the Teutons, Eng. tr., Boston, U.S.A.,
1902 ; P. Herrmann, Deutsche Mythologie in genuinverstandl.
Varstellung, Leipzig, 1906, Nordische Mythologie, do. 1903 ; K.
Helm, Altgerman. Religionsgeschichte, Heidelberg, 1913, i. ;
H. M. Chadwick, The Cult ofOthin, London, 1899, The Origin
of the English Nation, Cambridge, 1907, esp. chs. ix.-xi. ; W.
A. Craigie, The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia, London,
1906; E. E. Kellett, The Religion of our Northern Ancestors,
do. 1914 ; B. S. Phillpotts, The Cambridge Medieval History,
ii. , ' The Rise of the Saracens and the Foundation of the Western
Empire,' London, 1913, ch. xv. (C) ' Germanic Heathenism ' ;
J. Brand, The Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, ed. H.
Ellis, revised and enlarged by W. C. Hazlitt, London, 1905 ;
Tylor, PC\ do. 1903 ; P. B. du Chaillu, The Viking Age, 2
vols., do. 1889; F. KaufFmann, Deutsche Altertumskunde,
Munich, 1913 ; O. Montelius, in Sveriges Ilistoria^, vol. i., etc.,
Stockholm, 1903 (Ger. tr., Leipzig, 1906). For further informa-
tion on the subject see B. S. Phillpotts, bibliography to ch.
XV. (C) in Cambridge Medieval Hist. iL 786-790.

For material on burial customs and archaeology in general see
EBr^i, s.vv. 'Germany' and 'Scandinavian Civilisation,' with
the bibliographies appended.

Convenient edd. of most Norse works, both prose and poetry,
are published by Sigurthur KristjAnsson, Reykjavik. An English
ed. of all the 'early poetry with trr. is contained also in the
Corpus Poeticxan Boreale, by G. Vigfiisson and F. York Powell,
2 vols., Oxford, 1883 (scarce). Tliere are also several German
and Scandinavian critical edd. of the Edda poems and of many

1 Cf. also ib. 7, and Ann. i. 61.

2 Ann. ii. 12. 3 Hist. iv. 14.

■« See art. L«aqb3 Aim Idols (Teutonic and Slavic).

THAQS

259

of the sagas. The following list of the English translations may
be found useful : The Elder or Poetic Edda, pt. i., ' The Mytho-
logical Poems,' tr. Olive Bray, printed for the Viking Club,
London, 190S ; The Prose Edda, tr. A. G. Brodeur, New York,
1916 ; Laxdaela Saga, tr. M. 0. Pre8s2 (' The Temple Classics '),
London, 1006 ; Eyroyggja Saga, tr. W. Morris and E. Magniisson
(' The Saga Library,' ii.), do. 1892 ; G-isla Saga Siirssdiiar, tr.
G. W. Dasent, Edinburgh, 1866; Konnaks Saga, tr. W. G.
Collingwood and J6n Stefdnsson, Ulverston, 1902 ; Viga-GlUms
Saga, tr. E. Head, London, 1866 ; the Ueimskringla, containing
Ynglinga Saga, The Saga of Hdkon the Good, The Saga of Olaf
Tryggvason, St. Olafs Saga, etc., tr. W. Morris and E. Magniis-
son ('The Saga Library,' iii.-vi.), London, 1893-1905 ; The Saga
of Olaf Tryggvason, tr. J. Sei)hton (' The Northern Library,' i.),
do. 1895 (different from the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason contained
in the Ueimskringla) ; Islands Landndmab6k (' The Book of
the Settlement of Iceland '), tr. T. Ellwood, Kendal, 1898 ; Story
of Egil Skallagrimsson, tr. W. 0. Green, London, 1893 ; Grettis
Saga (' The Story of Grettir the Strong'), tr. E. Magniisson and
W. Morris, new ed., do. 1900; also tr. A. Hight in the 'Every-
man's Library,' do. 1914 ; Brennu Njdls Saga (' The Story of
Burnt Njil '), tr. Q. W. Dasent, Edinburgh, 1861 (also in ' Every-
man's Library'); Erafnkels Saga Preysgdtha, tr. J. Ooles in
Summer Travelling in Iceland, London, 1882 (contains also
Bandamanna Saga and the Thiirthar Hraethu Saga) ; Howard
t?ie Halt (containing also The Banded Men, and Hen Thorir),
tr. VV. Morris and E. Magniisson ('The Saga Library,' i.), do.
1891 ; Volsunga Saga, tr. W. Morris and E. Magniisson, London
and Felling-on-Tyne, 1870 ; Three Northern Love Stories (con-
taining the Saga of Frithpf the Bold, Viglund the Fair, Gunn-
lavgs Saga Ormstungu, Hethinn and Hogni, etc.), tr. E. Mag-
niisson and W. Morris, London, 1875. A list of English trr. of
other sagas will be found in Craigie, Icelandic Sagas, ch. 7, p.
110 ; Beoumlf, ed. W. J. Sedgefield2, Manchester, 1913 ; also
by A. J. Wyatt and R. W. Chambers, Cambridge, 1914, etc. ;
Beotvu/f has been translated by J. R. Clarke Hall, 0. B. Tinker,
F. J. Child, etc. ; Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. C. Plummer,
2 vols., Oxford, 1896, tr. A. M. Sellar, London, 1907, tr. V. D.
Scudder (' Everyman's Library '), do. 1910.

The most important German texts, chiefly charms, will be
found in W. Braune, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch^, Halle, 1888 ;
and in M. Heyne, Kleinere Altniederdeutsehe Denkmuler^,
Paderborn, 1877 ; Saxo Grammaticus, Danish History, bks.
i.-lx., tr. O. Elton, London, 1894 ; Jordanes, The Origin and
Deeds of the Goths, tr. C. Mierow2, Princeton, U.S.A., 1915 ;
Strabo, Geography, tr. H. C. Hamilton and W. Falconer, 3 vols.,
London, 1854-57 ; Tacitus, Annals and Histories, esp. the
Germany, tr. by many and various scholars (e.g., A. J. (3hurch
and W. J. Brodribb), London, 1877 ; Caesar, Commentaries on
the Gallic War, tr. T. Bice Holmes, do. 1908.

N. Kershaw.

THAGS. — A secret organization of robber-
stranglers called Thags existed for centuries in
India, but it was put down by Lord William Ben-
tinck's Government in the second quarter of the
19th century. Their history is full of incident and
varied interest ; here the religious and ethical
aspects of the subject must be dominant.

1. Introduction. — The word thag, usually written
thug, comes from a Sanskrit root sthaga meaning
' conceal,' which in the modem vernaculars becomes
thag and means ' deceive.' The earliest reference
to Thags comes from the middle of the 12th cent.,
and the first historical information about them
from the end of the 13th cent. ; but clear and full
knowledge did not become available until the
time when the organization was put down, about
1830. At that time there were thousands of Thags,
well organized and extremely successful. They
were all men of intelligence and capacity, most of
them Hindus of good caste or respectable Muham-
madans. Religion controlled their operations
down to the last detaU. How far back the fully
organized confederacy reaches we cannot tell ; but
scattered fragments of information make it prob-
able that in all essentials the conspiracy had been
the same for several centuries.

2. Description. — Thags were ostensibly most
respectable men, engaged in business, farming, or
something else equally harmless. Their method
was to start out in bands of from ten to two
hundred in the month of October. They usually

Sosed as merchants, but on occasion adopted otlier
isguises, especially the dress and marks of ascetics.
They possessed a secret vocabulaiy and a number
of secret signs, which could be used without
danger in the presence of outsiders. They travelled
along or near the great roads used by merchants
and money-porters, discovered which individuals

or companies carried valuable goods or large
amounts of gold and silver, and then with much
skill and cunning contrived to win their confidence.
They would then travel with them, it might be for
days or even weeks, until time, place, and all else
were favourable to their purpose, when, at a signal,
they suddenly set upon the unsuspecting party,
strangled them all in a few minutes, buried their
bodies, distributed the booty, and decamped.
They used a cloth in strangling their victims.
Similar methods were practised on the rivers.
One of the most extraordinary features of their
history is the almost unbroken immunity which
they enjoyed : it was only very rarely that a Thag
was caught and punished for his crimes.

Thags believed their profession to be a religious
duty, and all that they did was done under the
sanction of religion. They were fully convinced
that the goddess Kali, the wife of Siva, called also
Durga and Bhawani, had commanded them to
strangle and to rob, and had laid down all the
rules which they followed in the course of their
operations. Many Brahmans were Thags ; and,
when there was a Brahman member in a gang, he
conducted the ceremonies. The neophyte, whether
the son of a Thag or a new accession, was initiated
in an irajiressive religious ceremony, and took a
dread oath of absolute fidelity to the brotherhood.
Before starting on the season's operations each,
gang met in a suitable place, and took part in a
solemn act of worship. As soon as possible after
every successful operation another religious cere-
mony was carriecl out. Once in seven days at
least the goddess was worshipped, and on the
greater occasions animals were sacrificed in her
honour. They would not start on a journey,
admit a new member, or decide upon an act of
murder, unless the goddess granted them favour-
able omens. In every ceremony she was wor-
shipped, and to her their prayers were offered.
No image was used ; but the pickaxe for digging
the graves of their victims, solemnly consecrated,
stood for the goddess, and was believed to be filled
with her power and inspired by her to guide
them. In every ceremony the offerings olgur (i.e.
coarse sugar) and water were made to the pickaxe ;
over it every oath was taken ; and at all times it
was regarded with extreme reverence, confidence,
and fear. On every occasion when gur and water
were oflered to the pickaxe, every fully qualified
Thag also ate of the gur and drank of the water.
At the close of each period of operations a percent-
age of the gains was solemnly presented to the
goddess in one of her temples.

Among the rules which guided the Thags per-
haps the most noticeable was the law that they
must never strangle a woman.

3. Sources of the system. — The religious and
political conditions of medieval India provided
the soil and the seed from which this extraordinary
organization grew. The following facts require to
be realized.

(a) In all parts of India to-day there exist criminal tribes,*
i.e. tribes whose regular caate-occupation is some form of
crime. In each case there is a belief that some divinity has
imposed on the tribe the particular type of crime which it
practises and has also laid down the rules under which it is
followed. It is therefore the dutj' of every member of the
tribe to make the practice of the crime his regular occupation,
and to obey all the religious rules which are laid down for hia
guidance in it. So long as he does so, he regards himself as a
religious man. A percentage of the gains is regularly dedi-
cated to the god or goddess who gave the tribe its criminal
profession. A few of these tribes profess Muhammadanism,
and dedicate their gains to some pir (Muhammadan saint) ; but
they are probably old criminal tribes which have undergone a
shallow conversion to Muhammadanism. Criminal tribes are
primitive people of very low social standing.

lb) All the chief forins of Hindu theology declare that the
Supreme is exalted far above the petty distinctions of human

1 J. N. Farquhar, Modem Religious Movements in India,
New York, 1915, p. 424.

260

THAGS

morality. The idea is to make Him truly absolute, to sever
Him in the most decisive way, not only from the earthly and
the sensual, but from all human conditions as well. Thus,
from the very fact that in Himself He is completely separated
from both good and evil, it becomes possible to acknowledge
that He is indifferent to them and is equally the cause of both.
Hence to suggest that God should bid men do what we call
wrong seems to the Hindu to be not only quite natural but also
inevitable.,

, (c) The Sakta sect of Hinduism, which worships the wife of
Siva, called Durga, Kali, Bhawani, or simply ' the goddess '
(Devi), and possesses a philosophical theology, falls into two
sub-sects — the Right-hand and the Left-hand. The Left-hand
sect has a cult which contains several extraordinary features.
Only one need be mentioned here, viz. that for many centuries
not only animal but also human sacrifice was offered. In 1835
the British Government prohibited human sacrifice, but until
then it was common in the chief shrines of the goddess in
North and Central India. According to the ritual law, only
males can be sacrificed to her.

(d) In the worship of the goddess in the homes of the people,
pots, pieces of metal, and diagrams are more often used than
images ; and both images and symbols, when duly consecrated,
are believed to be filled with the presence and power of the
goddess.

(e) In modern India there are many groups of ignorant
Muhammadans who take part in Hindu worship. They not
only join in the great festivals, but also visit Hindu temples
and make offerings to the gods, in order to secure immunity
from disease and to obtain other boons. Muhammadans of a
low type thus readily adopt elements of the Hindu cult.

These facts enable one to realize tliat, in mediae-
val India, there might readily appear a community
organized on the basis of the worship of the god-
dess and the practice of murder and robbery. At
first it would differ but little, if at all, from an
ordinary criminal tribe ; and the first Thags would
be ignorant Hindus who had been worshippers of
the goddess before they formed the society to
strangle and rob unwary travellers. To pass from
participation in human sacrifice before the altar of
the goddess to the search for victims for her on the
high roads would be no violent change. Nor would
even the thoughtful Hindu be shocked by the doc-
trine that the goddess had ordered the programme
of murder. Hindu theology provides a substantial
basis for the idea. Further, the fundamental
document on which the worship of the Devi rests ^
is full of blood and horror. The story in that
document of her struggle with a demon named
Raktabija and her final triumph over him was
made by Thags the starting-point of the tale in
which she commands the original Thags to strangle
men.^ The ritual law that only males should be
sacrificed to her is clearly the source of the rule
that Thags must not kill women. It would also
seem quite natural to devotees of the goddess to
use the pickaxe as a symbol instead of an image,
and they would instinctively believe that the
power and the wiU of the goddess were present
in it.

Nor need we wonder that Muhammadans, in
order to become Thags, were willing to participate
in Hindu worship, since so many are to-day accus-
tomed to supplement Muslim rites with the cult
of Hindu divinities.

(/) India has usuall3' been ruled, not by one Imperial
Government, but by a multitude of petty states, each of which
sought only to secure peace and order within its own narrow
territory, and cared little or nothing for what happened outside.
Nor has the individual Indian ever felt it to be his duty to go
out of his way to secure the well-being of the Indian people as
a whole. If, therefore, some of the subjects of one of these
small states pursued a certain type of crime outside the limits
of the state and brought back "large gains, whereof they gave
considerable percentages to the Government, on the one hand,
and to the temples, on the other, both Government and people
were usually only too willing to acquiesce in the arrangement,
and to do all that was possible to protect the men who brought
them so much prosperity.

These and similar facts account for the almost
universal immunity which the Thags enjoyed.
They were found all over India, were closely bound
to one another by oath and interest, and were
usually only too well able to take prompt ven-
geance on any who molested the brotherhood.

1 I.e. the Chapdi episode in the Mdrkaxi4eya PuTai},a.

2 Sleeman, Ramaseeana, p. 127.

Thus only an Imperial Government using wide
powers could successfully grapple with them.

4. The rise and fall of Thagi.— It seems clear
that the Thag conspiracy was originally a Hindu
organization, as we have already suggested, and that
it came into being before the Muhammadan con-
quest of North India (1193-1293). In his ^rikan-
thacharita the Hindu poet Mankha or Maiikaka
(fl. c. A.D. 1150) compares the thievish spring to a
Thag.i Clearly by his time the community was
already well known.

If the community was very successful, it would
soon attract indigent Hindus of high caste, and
there would be plenty of poor Brahmans who
would be eager to enter. It seems probable that,
after the Muhammadan conquest, during one of
the many periods when anarchy was wide-spread,
the stranglers found unusual opportunities for
their depredations, and waxed so rapidly rich that
many Muhammadans became Thags and readily
acquiesced in the established cult of the goddess.
The great success and the wonderful immunity
from punishment which the movement enjoyed
would be to them clear proof of its divine origin.
There is conclusive evidence that Muham-
madan Thags looked back with great veneration
to Nizam al-Din Awliya, a famous Muslim saint,
who lived at Delhi in the first quarter of the 14th
cent., and that they regarded him as one of the
founders of the system. ^ This fits in perfectly
with our theory that, at some time after the con-
quest, numerous Muhammadans joined the com-
munity. It is probable that the event occurred
about A.D. 1300. The story that Muhammadan
Thags were all descended from seven famous tribes ^
may also have a historical root.

The confederacy lived and flourished for many
centuries, and was still extremely prosperous at
the moment when it had the ill fortune to attract
the attention of the British Government in India.
In 1829 special oflficers were appointed to investi-
gate the system, and a serious campaign was
started for the destruction of the whole organiza-
tion. Within seven yeais the work was done.
The success of this great effort is mainly due to
the devotion and genius of Captain, later Major-
General, Sir W. H. Sleeman.

5. Religious and ethical character of the Thags.
— Those Europeans who had extended intercourse
with Thags, during the period when the British
Government were endeavouring to put the system
down, gave very vivid descriptions of the kind of
men they were.

(a) Every Thag was fully convinced that the goddess had
created the system, and that she invariably saved Thags from
punishment or disaster, so long as they obeyed the rules she
had laid down for their operations. They were also immovably
convinced that the consecrated pickaxe was so filled with the
presence of the goddess as to be able to guide the Thags in
their wanderings and to bring dire disaster on every one who
disobeyed.*

(6) No Thag ever showed the slightest compunctions of con-
science for his crimes. Sleeman writes :

'A Thug considers the persons murdered precisely' in the
light of victims offered up to the Goddess ; and he remembers
them, as a Priest of Jupiter remembered the oxen, and a Priest
of Saturn the children sacrificed upon their altars. He medi-
tates his murders without any misgivings, he perpetrates them
without any emotions of pity, and he remembers them without
anj' feelings of remorse. They trouble not his dreams, nor
does their recollection ever cause him inquietude in darkness,
in solitude, or in the hour of death.' 6

Never did the strength of religious faith or the
extraordinary domination which religion exercises
over man's moral nature find clearer illustration.

Literature. — W. H. Sleeman, Rainaseeana, or a Vocabti-
lary of the Language used by the Thugs, with an Appendix

1 Garbe, Beitrdge, p. 187.

2 W. H. Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections of an Indian
Official, rev. and annot. ed. by V. A. Smith, London, 1915, p.
491.

s Sleeman, Ramaseeana, p. 11.

4 lb. p. 9. « lb. p. 7 f.

THANBSAR— THEISM

261

descriptive of the Fraternity, etc., Calcutta, 1836 ; Report on
the Depredations committed by the Thitg Gangs, do. 1840 ;
Meadows Taylor, Confessions of a Thug (a novel), London,
1S39 new ed., do. 1916 ; J. Hutton, Popular Account of the
Thugs and Dacoits, do. 1857; i'firii, s.v. 'Thugs'; R. Garbe,
Beilrdqe zu ind. Kulturgeschichte, Berlin, 1903.

J. N. Farquhar.
THALES.— See lONic Philosophy,

THANESAR. — Thanesar (Skr. sthanm&vara,
sthdnu, a local name of Siva, iSvara, ' lord ' ; also
sthdneSvara, sthdna, ' shrine,' and Uvara) is a
sacred town in the Karnal District of the Panjab,
lat. 29° 59' N. ; long. 76° 50' E., on the banks of
the river Sarasvati (q.v.). The Chinese pilgrim,
Hiuen-Tsiang, descriljes it under the name of Sa-
t'a-ni-shi-fa-lo, as the centre of the Hindu Holy-
Land (Dharmakshetra, Kurukshetra) and gives the
local legends.^ It has been identified with the Osto-
balasara or Batangkaisara of Ptolemy.^ In A.D.
1014 it was sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni.* The
most famous shrine was that dedicated to Chak-
rasvami, Visnu, 'lord of the discus.' The statue
is said to have been taken to Ghazni to be broken
up and trodden under foot. It was finally
desecrated by Aurangzib. Enormous crowds of
pilgrims visit the place to bathe at eclipses of the
sun.

LiTERATDKB.— A. Cunningham, Archceological Survey of
India Report, ii. [Simla, 1871] 212 fif. ; IGI xxiii. 305.

W. Crooke.
THANK-OFFERING.— See Sacrifice.

THEATRE.— See Drama.

THEFT.— See Crimes and Punishments.

THEISM.— I. Definition.— The word 'theism'
(Fr. tMisme, Germ. Theismus) is a purely modern
formation, implying a non-existent Greek deiafj-os
and an equally non-existent verb dei^u (on the anal-
ogy of /UT/Sti'w, (ptXtinrl^o}, and the like). As there is a
certain vagueness about the meaning of the word
in current English, it is necessary to begin this
article with a convention as to the sense in which
' theism ' will be employed in what follows. The
word will be used throughout as a name for a
riM1nsnphical_theory as distinct from a practical
^ligious fSttK^ Perhaps the'faith and lEe theory
are neveF~absolutely disjoined, but they are at
least logically distinguishable. It may be doubted
whether any man wholly untouched by the spirit
of adoration and wholly devoid of love to God has
ever been a genuine theist in philosophy, and
again whether one can be in earnest with a philo-
sophical belief in God without being led on to
regulate his life by that belief. But it is at least
possible to practise love of God and trust in God
without making any conscious attempt to find a
speculative explanation of the world. There are
many who, in George Tyrrell's phrase, share the
faith of Simon Peter without concerning them-
selves about his theology. The present article will
be exclusively concerned with the philosophical
conception of God as the ultimate ground of things.
Current usage seems to require a further dis-
tinction. It seems necessary to discriminate
theism not only from atheism {q.v.), the denial
that God exists, and scepticism or agnosticism
(q.v.), the refusal to answer any question about
the ultimate ground of things, but also from deism
(q.v.), which, in its way, also treats God as an
mtimate ground. We shall probably not depart
far from the implications of current language ii we
agree to define theism as the doctrine that the
ultimate ground of things is a single supreme

1 S. Beal, Si-yu-ki, London, 1884, i. 183 ff.

2 J. W. McCrindle, Ancient India as described by Ptolemy,
Calcutta, 1885, p. 128.

3 H. M. EUiot, Hiit. of India, London, 1867-77, u. 452 £f.

reality which is the source of everything other
than itself and has the characters of being (a) in-
trinsically complete or perfect and (6), as a con-
sequence, an adequate object of unqualified
adoration or worship. Belief in a ground of
things which is not intrinsically complete and
perfect, and consequently no adequate object of
adoration, but at best of respect and admiration,
would at the present day probably be described by
every one as deism rather than as theism. Thus
the suggested definition in fact coincides with the
famous formula of St. Anselm, that God is id quo
maius cogitari non potest, ' the being than which
none greater can be thought.'^

It is evident that theism, thus understood, is
incompatible with polytheism (q.v.) and also with
any doctrine, theological or metaphysical, which
asserts a plurality of independent and equally
ultimate ' reals,' whether in the form of a dualism
between God, the good principle, and an im-
material evil principle (Zoroastrianism, Manichae-
ism [qq.v.]), or between God and matter, or in that
of an ultimate plurality of unoriginated 'souls'
or ' persons,' or in any other shape. All such
doctrines involve the denial that there is any
object which answers to the definition id quo
maius cogitari non potest. For this reason the
various modern theories of a finite or limited deity
are inconsistent with strict theism. For a deity
limited by restrictions arising outside his own
nature is manifestly not the source of all reality
other than himself, and thus not God in the sense
in which we are using that word. And, if the
'limitations' are asserted to be self-limitations,
due to the nature of God Himself (as in the
philosophy of Hastings Kashdall), we have to face
a dilemma. Either the presence of these limita-
tions in the deity is a defect, and the deity is
therefore not God in our sense at all, or their
presence is not a defect, and there is then no sen.se
in calling them restrictions or limitations, as it is
their absence which would, in this case, be the
defect.

It is mainly on the ground of alleged difficulties in the notion
of the divine Omnipotence that these theories are recom-
mended. But the difficulties seem due to misunderstanding.
Omnipotence means only power to do whatever is consistent
with God's own perfection. It is no real limitation of the divine
power to hold, as most theologians and philosophers have done,
that God cannot do what is in itself absurd— e.g., cannot make
a false proposition true, or make virtue vice, or annihilate
Himself. The old Stoic boast that the sage is in one respect
more powerful than God, because he can put an end to his
existence if he grows tired of it, is a mere false paradox.

It is, perhaps, more important to be clear on the
point that theism, as defined, is equally incon-
sistent with the type of philosophic monism called
by James Ward ' singularism —the theory that
there is only one existent, the Absolute, and that
this single existent is the true subject of all
significant propositions. If we mean by God_ a
being from whom all else that exists derives its
being and who can be worshipped, then the belief
in God necessarily implies belief in the real
existence of beings who can worship God. To say
that God is the source of existence implies that
God is not all that exists. From a theistic point
of view it is, no doubt, proper to call God, the
being from whom all others are derived, the
Absolute or unconditioned being, but only on the
condition that the Absolute is not equated with all
that really exists. The underived source of ex-
istence may, in virtue of its unique intrinsic com-
pleteness or perfection, be called the ens realis-
simum, but the very use of such a phrase implies
that there are other entia realia.

It will probably be readily admitted that the ev koX irav
doctrine of Spinoza cannot be reasonably called theism, nor
have the most distinguished representatives of singularism in

1 Proslogion, ch. 2.

262

THEISM

our own times shown any desire to claim the name of theists.
It should be recognized that the popular language about a
purely ' immanent God,' as opposed to the 'transcendent God '
of orthodox Christian theology, is equally incompatible with
genuine theism, inasmuch as it conflicts with the recognition
of a real distinction between the supreme source of existence
and the dependent existents. It is just this distinction which
is vital in a theistic philosophy, and, for this reason, it may be
taken as a fair test of the theism of a philosophy whether its
waj' of conceiving the relation of its God to the world is com-
patible with a real recognition of the divine transcendence.

2. Philosophy and theism. — If we look at the
history of European philosophy, it may be said
that in the main the general trend of philosophic
thought, even independently of the influence of
positive religions, has been theistic, at least from
the time of Plato to our own day. Even the
agnosticism of Herbert Spencer, when all the
qualifications with which it is enunciated by its
author are taken fully into account, has a
recognizable theistic tendency and might be said,
apart from its blunders about dynamics, to be
little more than a very crude reproduction of the
' negative theology ' which is really one-half of the
orthodox Christian doctrine of God. As will be
shown directly, this tendency to theism is a
direct consequence of the permanent influence of
Plato on all subsequent developments in philosophy.
Apart from materialism {q.v.), which has never
produced a philosopher of the first rank, the main
antitheistic influence in modern European philo-
sophy has been that of Spinoza (q.v.), which has
steadily aff'ected metaphysical thought, perhaps
even more outside than within the professionally
philosophical schools, from the time of Jacobi and
Lessing down to the end of the 19th century.
This is partly accounted for by the powerful
attraction exercised by the naturalistic strain in
Spinoza's doctrine on the devotees of physical
science, partly by the tendency of many of the
most prominent 19th cent, representatives of the
Hegelian line of thought to interpret Hegel {q.v.)
in a Spinozistic sense.

Whether the Spinozistic interpretation of Hegel is the true
one might admit of question, and it has been rejected by such
eminent Hegelian students as Hutchison Stirling and J. M. E.
McTaggart, in the one case for a definitely theistic interpreta-
tion, in the other for a version which has more affinity with
the monadism of Leibniz (g.r.) than with Spinoza's singujarism.
But in the main He^el has become known, at least in the
English-speaking world, through the work of philosophers with
strong Spinozistic prepossessions, with the consequence that
the influence of Hegelian waj's of thinking has been definitel}'
hostile to theism. Even among professedly Christian theo-
logians allegiance to Hegel in philosophy has usually led to an
extreme ' immanence ' doctrine of God which at least com-
promised the theistic position.

More ephemeral has been the influence excited
in the last half of the 19th cent, by the pessimistic
atheism of Schopenhauer (q.v.), and in the last
tAventy or twenty-five years by the brilliant, if
incoherent, anti-Christian polemics of Nietzsche
{q.v.). Both the pessimism of Schopenhauer and
the antitheism of Nietzsche are, however, too little
reasoned and too obviously matters of personal
temperament to be regaraed as of permanent
philosopliical importance. The influence of Hegel,
also, and still more that of Spinoza, would seem to
be for the present a spent force. In the present
state of philosophy the most formidable rival to
theism as an explanation of the world ajDpears to
be the thoroughgoing rationalist pluralism of the
' new realism,' represented at its best by the
writings of Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore.
Of this doctrine, as well as of the supposed
objection to theism arising from the evolutionist's
alleged vision of Nature as ' red in tooth and claw,'
bomething is said below (§ 17).

3. Plato. — The importance of Plato as the
creator of philosophical theology makes it
necessary to begin any serious account of theism
as a philosophical theory with a clear statement of
the Platonic position, so far as that position was

expressed by Plato in his writings. To call Plato
the creator of philosophic theology does not, of
course, mean that the belief in God is an inven-
tion of Plato. As has often been remarked, the
general trend of the best Greek thought on the
problems of human conduct and destiny — as re-
presented, e.g., by such poets as Aeschylus and
Euripides — is in the direction of a vague mono-
theism. And it cannot be seriously doubted that
an earnest practical faith in God was character-
istic of Pythagoras and of Socrates. Even the
most unreasonable scepticism about the historical
good faith of Plato's accounts of his master cannot
obscure the fact that Socrates gave up the whole
of his mature life to the execution of a mission to
Avhich he believed himself to have been called by
God and died as a martyr to his calling. But this,
so far as we know, was a matter of personal
religious conviction rather than of speculative
theory. Even Plato himself does not attempt a
formal philosophical statement and justification of
the belief in God until we come to the magnum
opiis of his old age, the Laws. In his best known
earlier writings — e.g., the Republic — great stress
is laid upon the importance for the formation of
moral character of an ethically adequate conception
of the divine nature. God must be thought of
as perfectly good, and current religion must be
purged of everything which suggests that there is
anything unethical in His character or that His
dealings with men have any other purpose than
their true good. It is just because God is perfectly
good that (licpublic, Theactetus) the end of life may
be said to be to ' become like God.' God fashioned
the world and made it the best possible Avorld
because it would be unworthy of His goodness to
make it otherwise (Timaeus). True piety is to be
a ' fellow-worker ' with God {Euthyphro). We are
God's sheep and He is our shepherd {Politicus).
The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and when they depart from us it is to be with Him
{Phaedo). But this is, of course, the language of
religion, not of science, and we are made to under-
stand the diflerence by the simple fact that nearly
all that is said of God, outside the Laws, beyond
the one emphatic statement about His perfect
goodness, is conveyed in 'myths,' i.e. in imagina-
tive stories, as to Avhich we are cautioned that we
cannot undertake to pronounce on their strict
truth. Nor is any attempt made to prove either
the existence or the perfect goodness of God. In
particular the story of creation in the Timaeus is,
as we are explicitly warned, not to be taken as
scientific truth, but as a tale which is the most
probable that can be told about matters which lie
outside the region within which scientific know-
ledge is possible. If we did not possess the Laws,
it would be legitimate, as in fact it is not, to doubt
whether Plato did not agree Avith Kant that
reasoned scientific knowledge of God is impossible,
though on grounds which are not identical Avith
Kant's. In the tenth book of the Laws, however,^
Ave have a formal proof of God's existence, Avholly
devoid of any features of mythical colouring,
Avhich is expressly declared to be conclusive. The
argument, the niain principle of Avhich had been
already anticipated in the Phaedrus,'^ is as
folloAVS. The most universal characteristic of
things is motion and change. Now, motions are
of two kinds, {a) impressed, and (6) original or
spontaneous. Or, to use Plato's OAvn phraseology,
there are motions which are able only to move
something else (impressed or communicated move-
ments), and there are motions Avhich ' move
themselves as Avell as other things.' And native
or spontaneous movement is logically prior to im-
pressed or communicated movement. We cannot
1 887 A-899 E. 2 Phaedrus, 245 C-E.

THEISM

263

regard all movements as impressed or communi-
cated without falling into an impossible logical
regressus in indcfinitum. Further, ' motion which
moves itself is precisely what we mean when
we talk of V'l'X^, 'soul.' 'Soul' is simply a
shorter name for the dvijcris iavrrjv Kiveiv 8vvafiiv7].
It is just when we see a thing manifestly capable
of internally initiated movement or change that
we feel bound to say that the thing in question is
' animated ' or has a ' soul.' It follows, then, that
souls and their various 'motions' (judgment,
volition, hope, desire, and the like) are prior to
bodies and their motions or changes. All bodily
processes are derivative from and dependent on
' motions ' of the soul, and it is just for this reason
that Plato explicitly denies the doctrine, often
imputed to him by the uncritical, that 'matter'
can be the principle of evil. Further, good souls,
in the degree of their goodness, are sources of
orderly and beneficent motions ; evil souls, of
disorderly and evil motions. Now, the great
recurrent motions which science discovers in the
universe (the periodic motions of the heavenly
bodies) are all regular and orderly and belong to
the class of the ' good ' motions. Hence they must
be due to good souls. (It had been carefully laid
down in an earlier passage that all apparent irregu-
larities and anomalies in these motions are only
apparent and disappear as our science becomes
more adequate.) If, then, we define God as a
perfectly good soul, we may say that, since the
great motions of the universe are all perfectly
orderly, they must be caused by God. God,
however, cannot be the only soul, or ' movement
that moves itself.' For, though the magnalia
naUtrae exhibit perfect regularity, there are also
irregular and destructive motions, such as those,
e.g., of disease or those due to a wicked will ; and
these are just as actual as facts as anything else.
Thus the facts of the universe bear witness to the
existence of souls which are not wholly good.
There must be at least one * bad ' soul, which is
not God, and there may, of course, be as many
more as are required to account for the observed
facts. The transcendence of God is thus safe-
guarded.

Plato's language about the 'bad' soula has been misunder-
stood both in ancient and in modern times. Plutarch i thought
that he had discovered in Plato's words the doctrine of an
ultimate dualism between a good and an evil world-soul. This
view did not find favour with the Platonists of antiquity, but
has been revived in modern times by Zeller, from the weight of
whose name it has obtained a wholly undeserved consideration.
Plato says nothing about an evU principle, in the Laws or any-
where else. What he does say 2 is merely that all motions can-
not be due to a single soul ; there must be at least two, the
' beneficent ' and ' that which has power to effect the contrary
results.' The whole context suggests that the bad souls of
which he is thinking are chiefly those of passionate and ignorant
men, which, of course, are numerous. It should further be
noted that, in the passage of the Laws containing the theistic
argument, Plato speaks throughout in the plural of ' gods,'
giving the soul which moves the sun as an example of his
meaning. This is, however, a mere consequence of the fact
that the legislation of the Laws is designed for an ordinary
Greek community. It is assumed that the State religion of the
colony will recognize ' gods many,' and Plato's object is to sub-
stitute the heavenly bodies, or rather the souls which move
them, as types of regularity and beneficence, for the morally
frail and passionate anthropomorphic deities of actual Greek
cults. Of Plato's personal conviction of the unity of God there
can be no real doubt. The unity of God, ' the best soul,' follows
in fact, as we may see from the Timaeus, from the unity of the
universe. The universe is one and is a rational system ; there-
fore it is the product of one intelligence.^ That a Greek writing
tor Greeks should allow himself to speak of Oioi explains itself ;
what is really significant is that Plato speaks so frequentl3', and
just when he wishes to be most impressive, of eeos."*

From the goodness of God, since God is a soul
{'^vxn), it follows that everything in the world is

1 De animae procreat. in Timaeo, 1014 E.

2 Laws, 89ii E. 3 Timaews, 30 D-31 B.

■• In Ep. 13 he writes to Dionysius ll. that he will distinguish
letters of real importance from those which he is obliged to
write as a matter of formal politeness by mentioning 6t6f and
not BeoC in the opening sentences.

governed by a wise and beneficent Providence, and
that God's dealings with man are perfectly and
inexorably just. Thus the tenth book of the Laws
definitely creates ' natural theology ' as a branch
of philosophy for the first time and indicates once
for all its main doctrines — the existence and good-
ness of God, the reality of God's providential
government of the universe, the immortality of
the soul, and the correspondence between man's
destiny and his works. These doctrines together
make up what was known as ' natural ' or ' philo-
sophical ' theology, as distinct from both ' poetic '
theology — the stories told of the gods by the poets
— and ' civil ' theology, which consists in knowledge
of the cultus prescribed by the State. ^

The question whether Plato's theology amounts
to a complete theism is not without its difficulties.
On the one hand, there is no doubt that, as Burnet
has said,^ Plato regarded his doctrine of God as
the central thing in his whole system. It is
precisely the activity of God, tlie perfectly good
soul, that connects the world of 'becoming,' i.e.
'Nature,' the world of all that we call empirical
existence, with the system of etdij. The reason
why there is a world of ' things ' at all is just that
God, the perfectly good soul, exists and is eternally
active. The perfectly good soul, of course, has a
perfect knowledge of 'the Good,' and its activity
consists in reproduction or ' imitation ' of the Good.
Thus all existeuts other than God owe the very
fact of their existence to God, as they owe it also
to Him that they are what they are. Still it does
not appear that the Platonic God is all that later
theists have meant by the Supreme. He is an
existent, though a perfect one, and beyond all
existents there is the system of ' form ' or * numbers.'
This is the pattern (irap6.d€iy/j.a) after which God
makes heaven and earth and all that is in them,
and is thus something metaphysically prior to God
Himself. If we understand by theism the doctrine
that God is the sole unconditioned source not only
of existents but also of real possibilities, we shall
have to say that it is only in Neo-Platonism that
Greek philosophy succeeds in being fully theistic.
A word or two may be said about the argument
by which Plato establishes the existence of God.
It contains in itself the germs of more than one of
the ' proofs of the being of God ' which have be-
come traditional. Its presuppositions are two :
(1) the universal validity of the principle of
causality, and (2) the regularity of the eosmical
motions— the ' reign of law ' in the physical world.
From the principle of causality, taken together
with the assumption that there cannot be an in-
finite regress in the causal series, comes the con-
clusion that there must be an original cause (or
causes) of all movements, which is ' self-moving' —
i.e. a 'soul' or 'souls' — and from the regularity
of the cosmic motions and the systematic inter-
connexion between them it follows that the ulti-
mate 'mover' is the perfectly good soul. Thus
Plato's reasoning combines in one argument the
principle of the cosmological argument from the
' contingency of the world ' to the existence of a
First Cause and that of the argument from design,
which is not degraded by Plato, as it has often
been by modern apologists, into an argument from
the alleged adaptation of the world to our indi-
vidual convenience. As understood by Plato, the

1 The distinction in this form became fixed in consequence of
the fact that it was adopted by the Roman encyclopaedist
M. Terentius Varro and taken over from him by St. Augustine
in the de Civilate Dei. The theology of the philosophers was
called ' natural,' not, of course, with any thought of a contrast
with ' revealed ' truth, but because it was held to be scientific
and true, unlike mythology, which the poets were believed to
have invented, and the cultus of the State, which, as Hobbes
puts it, 'is not philosophy but law.'

■.; Greek Philosophy, pt. i., Thales to Plato, London, 1814.
p. 335.

264

THEISM

argument from design is simply the argument
from the intelligibility of the world of actual facts
and events to intelligence in the cause which pro-
duces and sustains it.^ Plato's argument is thus an
argumcntum a posteriori, in the correct scholastic,
not in the inaccurate Kantian, sense of the phrase
a posteriori ; i.e., it is an argument from the char-
acter of a known effect to the character of its cause.
That there is a world of mutable things, and that,
as scientific insight advances, the processes in this
world of mutability are more and more found to
exhibit conformity to intelligible laws, are assumed
as empirically known truths, and without these
empirical premisses the demonstration would not
work. There is no hint in Plato of the line of
thought which at a later date crystallized into the
one genuinely a priori argument for the existence
of God, the ontological pi-oof, which, if valid,
establishes its conclusion without any empirical
premiss whatsoever.

4. Aristotle. — Aristotle's doctrine of God, though
better known to the modern world than Plato's,
is simply the Platonic doctrine rather more pre-
cisely expressed and shorn of its ethical and
practical applications. With Aristotle, as with
Plato, the doctrine of God is absolutely central,
and the argument is once more based upon the
assumption of the causal principle. Like Plato,
Aristotle contends that communicated or impressed
motion presupposes original or spontaneous motion,
and like Plato he regards ^vxh as the one source of
spontaneous movement. But here he is led to
make a further refinement. The ' motions of the
soul ' arise from 6pe^is, ' appetition,' and appetition
is always appetition of something apprehended as
good {dpeySfieOa. didrt doKsi). This apprehension of
an object as good is an exercise of voDs, an act of
immediate intelligent apprehension. The appre-
hension is not itself a movement, though it gives
rise to motions both of the soul and of the body.
We must not then be content to trace back all
motions to their origin in the ' movement which
can move itself,' but behind even this we must
look for an ' unmoved mover,' an unchanging
initiator of all change. Otherwise we shall simply
fall into an indefinite regress, and an indefinite
regress in the order of efficient causes is unthink-
able (the principle of the argument from the ' con-
tingency of the world '). The unity of the supreme
First Mover once more follows from the unity of
the physical world. The whole physical world is
a scene of ' becoming,' in which the potentialities
latent in things are developed into actuality by
the agency of efficient causes which are already
themselves developed actualities. Behind every
process of development lies the agency of such
already developed actualities, and thus, just be-
cause there really is something and not nothing,
there must be some actual agents which have
never developed at all, but have been eternally
and immutably active. From Aristotle's point of
view, all processes of development depend upon
the eternally regular and uninterrupted movements
of the heavenly bodies. Hence there must be as
many ' unmoved movers ' as there are independent
astronomical movements. Further, astronomical
movements form a hierarchy. Each of the 50
odd concentric ' spheres ' which Aristotle postulates
to account for the apparent movements of the
heavenly bodies has its own proper revolution and
its own ' unmoved mover.' But there is one sphere
which, without being enclosed by any other, en-
closes all the rest, and, according to the Aristo-
telian astronomy (which disagrees on this point
wholly from Plato), communicates its movement
1 The notion of an unconscious intelligence or reason as the
ground of things is excluded by Plato's doctrine that vov<; can
only exist in a >livxv (.Sophistes, 249 A, Philebtis, 30 0, Timaeus,
SOB).

to all the spheres it contains. This is the sphere
of the fixed stars, which rotates uniformly on its
axis in the period of 24 hours. The ' unmoved
mover' of this sphere is consequently God. As
that which He moves is one, and its movement is
eternal, continuous, and regular, God is also one,
eternal, immutable, the First Mover upon whom
all motion in the universe depends. ^ So far
Aristotle's doctrine is, in substance, that of Plato
in the Laws, except that Aristotle has dogmatically
committed himself to a particular astronomical
theory, that of Eudoxus, which, for sound scientific
reasons, did not commend itself to Plato. In his
conception of the nature of the First ]\Iover
Aristotle departs more widely both from Plato
and from true theism. God, as Ai'istotle describes
Him, is not a i^vx'^, but a vous. And he infers
from his doctrine that the First Mover must be
unmoved the conclusion that the divine mind,
unlike our minds, because it is unmoving, must
eternally think one and the self-same object.
Further, this object must be adequate to occupy
the divine mind through eternity. It follows that
the object of God's unbroken Sabbath of contem-
plation is God Himself. ' He thinks Himself and
His thinking is a thinking of thinking {vb-rjcns
vor)(Teo}%).'^ In fact, though without the presence
of God there could be no motion in the universe,
God is supposed to be wholly unaware of the exist-
ence of the universe which He moves. He moves
it by being an object of appetition to it, and thus
it is aware of Him, but He is no more aware of it
than the various objects of our human appetitions
need be aware of us and our desire for them. The
world's desire after God is precisely and exactly
the 'desire of the moth for the star.' This con-
ception, due apparently to Aristotle's own tempera-
mental indifference to the practical life, of course
strikes out of philosophical theology the doctrine
of Providence and of the righteousness of God's
dealings with man. In fact, since Aristotle held
that 'goodness of character' is a different thing
from 'goodness of intellect,' he is quite consistent
when at the end of his Ethics he expressly denies
that goodness of character or moral goodness is
predicable of God.' God, in fact, becomes in
Aristotle what Aristotle himself would have liked
to be, if the conditions of human life would allow
it — a mere ' magnified and non-natural ' scientific
thinker. In respect of this evacuation of all ethical
content from the idea of God, Aristotle may fairly
be said to be the founder of philosophical deism,
as Plato was the founder of philosophical theism.
It is clear that to Aristotle and his disciple
Eudemus, who identifies the speculative life with
the contemplation and worship of God,^ the First
Mover was an object of genuine worship and rever-
ence, though the worship of such a being could
have no real connexion with active good works ;
but a non-ethical deity, who knows nothing of
humanity's needs and aspirations, can never become
the centre of an enduring religion. Hence it is
not surprising that, while Platonism continued
throughout later antiquity to be the creed of
educated religious men, Aristotelianism was re-
duced to simple naturalism within half a century
of Aristotle's death by the third head of the school,
Strato of Lampsacus.*

5. Epicureans. — The deism of the Epicureans is
of no significance for natural theology. For all
practical purposes the school were, what their
opponents called them, pure atheists, since it was

1 See for all this in particular Metaphysics, 1072a 19-10736 17,
Physics, 2586 10 £f.

2 Metaphysics, 10746 33.

» Ethica Nicomachea, 11786 7-23.

4 Toi' Sebc eipanevet-v KoX Bewpelv {Ethica Eudemea, 12496 20).
B Cicero, Acadein. ii. 38, de Natura Deorum, i. 35 ; Plutarch,
adv. Colotem, p. 1115.

THEISM

265

one of their principal tenets that the gods not
merely take no interest in the doings of men but
play no part in cosmology ; the world has been
formed and continues to exist opera sine divom.
The only use made by Epicurus of gods is a trivial
one ; their existence accounts for the phantasms of
superhuman beings which are seen in dreams.

6. Stoics. — In Stoicism, on the other hand,
natural theology of a kind plays a prominent part,
though the original Stoic doctrine can hardly be
called theistic. The theology of Zeno, Cleanthes,
and Chrysippus is a materialistic doctrine of imma-
nence. The substance of all that exists is a single
body ; in fact, the universe is a ' fire.' The cosmic
fii'e is intelligent, and it is this fire that is God.
This doctrine, borrowed by the founders of Stoicism
from Heraclitus, but put forward with a conscious
opposition, which Heraclitus would not have under-
stood, to the immaterialism of Plato and Aristotle,
is the nearest counterpart that ancient thought has
to show to the Spinozist conception of the one
substance with its plurality of disparate but
'parallel' attributes. But with the Stoics it is
not, as with Spinoza, thought, but extension, that
is the ' Aaron's rod that swallows all the rest ' of
the attributes.

As to the details of the doctrine. God and the world, though
really one, are logically distinguished. At one time in the
histor3' of the universe the ' fire,' or God, exists alone in its
purity and contains within itself all the cnrfpfiarticoi \6yoi, or
constitutive ratios, of everything. There follows a process of
evolution, identified by the Stoics with the 'downward path,'
or 656s KOLTU), of Heraclitus, in which the o-TrepjiaTiKol Xoyot of all
things are unfolded and a world of diversified existents pro-
duced. There is a second and antithetical process, regarded as
identical wth the Heraclitan oSos aiv<a, or ' upward path,' and
ending in an cKTrvpojcris, or general conflagration ; the plurality
of diverse existents is once more converted into the original fire,
and God is left once more as the onlj' existent. The whole
double process of evolution followed by involution constitutes
a 'great year,' and the life of the universe is made up of an end-
less succession of such 'great years,' each repeating the events of
the preceding without variation (a fancy which we know from a
fragment of Eudemus preserved by Simplicius in his commen-
tary on the Physics of Aristotle i to go back to the early Pytha-
goreans, and which has been revived in our own time by
Nietzsche as the doctrine of ' eternal recurrence '). The details
of the process of evolution belong to the Stoic physics and do
not concern us here. In accord with this doctrine, God is
sometimes declared to be the same as the Kocrjios, or universe,
sometimes distinguished from it. ' They uge the word xocr/ao?
in three senses, to mean (1) God Himself . . . who is, of course,
imperishable and unoriginate, the artificer of the world-order,
who resumes into Himself and again begets out of Himself the
whole of being in accord with certain cycles of time ; (2) the
world-order formed by the heavenly bodies, (3) the composite of
these two. '2 Hence the full definition of God was that God is
TTvp Te^i'tKOJ', 65(o PaSC^ov inl yivetjiv Kocr/xov, e/irrepieiAi)(^6s
Trai'Tos Tovs CTTrep^taTiKoOs ^oyov;, Ka8' oi)s sKacrra Kaff cifxap/me'io))/
yiverai, 'a fire of craft [or 'art'] proceeding in order to the
generation of a world, containing in itself all the constitutive
ratios in accord wherewith all things come to be in the order of
destiny.' s Strictly speaking, this doctrine, which equates God
with the )C(i(r/ios, is not theism at all, since it denies that there
are any real existents other than God. But religiously the
founders of Stoicism, as we see from the well-known Hymn of
Cleanthes, were fervent worshippers of God. It was character-
istic of the school from the first that they insisted strongly on
the moral side of theism. Like the Platonists, they were
vigorous asserters of Providence and used the doctrine to
justify even such things as astrology, prophetic dreams, oracles,
and divination. Providence was, however, regarded as identical
with absolute predestination, and scientifically explained by the
rigid mechanical concatenation of all events in a single causal
system. Hence, as may be seen from the controversial essay
of Plutarch on The Contradictions in Stoicism (Trepl o-twiko)!'
ivavri.oiiJ.a.T<iiv), the devices by which the Stoic philosophers tried
to conciliate their optimistic belief in the providential order
with their materialistic monism were often really fatal to the
ascription of moral goodness to God.

In the writings of the Stoics of the Roman period, from whom
the ideas of the school have become familiar to the modern
world, the materialistic and fatalistic side of the doctrine is
less prominent. They often seem to be teaching a simple

1 Diels, p. 732, 26 = Diels, Fragmente der VorsokratikerS,
Berlin, 1912, ii. 355, 8.

- Diogenes Laertius, vii. 70, 137.

^ Aetius, Placita, i. 7, 33 (Diels, Doxographi Graeci, Berlin,
1879, p. 3U5). The same definition was given of <<)v(tis, ' nature."
Cf. Cicero, de Deor. Nat. ii. 57 : ' Zeno igitur ita naturam
definit, ut eani dicat ignem esse artificiosum, ad gignendum
progredientem via.'

spiritual theism. It must be remembered that all these writers
are later than, and were greatly influenced by, Posidonius of
Apamea (first half of 1st cent. B.C.), who gravely modified the
original doctrine of Zeno and Chrysippus by contaminating it
with Platonism, as his contemporary, Antiochus of Ascalon,
tried unsuccessfully to introduce Stoicism into the Academy.
It is precisely those among the later Stoics, such as Seneca, who
can be shown to depend most completely on Posidonius in whom
the monism and materialism of Stoicism is least apparent. To
understand the real tendencies of the system, it is important
to study it as it was before Posidonius had Platonized it.
For this purpose the anti-Stoic essays of Plutarch and the
account of Stoic doctrine given in the life of Zeno by Diogenes
Laertius are particularly valuable. Indispensable for special
students is H. von Arnim's collection of the complete fragments
of the Stoics of the pre-Roman period, Stuicunim Veterutn
Fragmenta, 3 vols., Leipzig, 1004-05.

The one really original contribution made by
Stoicism to natural theology is the appeal to
' innate ideas ' and the consensus gentium as an
argument for the existence of God. The doctrine
of innate ideas (Koiuai Iwoiai, notitiae communes) is a
consequence of the Aristotelian criticism of Plato.
According to the theory of method expounded
more specially in the Phaedo and the central
books of the Republic, the work of science begins
with the provisional assumption of a theory
(\jir6de(Ti,z) to account for a group of observed facts.
If the observed facts (to, (paiv6fj.eva) agree with the
results of deduction from the vir6$€(Ti.s, the ' appear-
ances ' are said to be ' saved ' by the theory, and it
is so far vindicated. It may still, however, be
called in question, and in that case will have to be
defended by being deduced from some more ulti-
mate premisses which the impugner himself admits.
It thus becomes a task for dialectic (or, as we
should say, metaphysics), the highest science of all,
to make a critical examination of the provisional
as.sumptions (the unproved postulates) of all the
other sciences and to discover the real unquestion-
able presuppositions of all knowledge. Aristotle
insisted, as against this view, that the special
postulates of each science must be self-evident when
once they have been formulated. For the Stoics
this doctrine, that every science depends upon self-
evident universal premisses, created a difficulty, as
in their theory of knowledge they were, unlike
Aristotle, extreme sensationalists, regarding
particular sense-perceptions as the foundation of
all knowledge. They were accordingly obliged
to provide some criticism or test by which those
universal propositions which are valid generaliza-
tions from sensation may be discriminated from
those which are not. An obvious test suggested
itself. Generalizations which are made only by
certain special groups of men or by particular
individuals may fairly be supposed to be due to
temperamental, educational, national, or racial
bias ; those which appear to be made without
exception by all men, no matter how widely they
diflFer in temperament, education, national tradi-
tions, social institutions, may be presumed to be
formed spontaneously, and therefore naturally, i.e.
as a consequence of the intrinsic character of mind.
It is thus reasonable to regard these generalizations
as true and thus to take the consensus gentium as
the best guarantee for the truth of a belief. The
Stoic Kotval ivvoiai, ' common ' notions, are thus
innate in the very sense in which Descartes after-
wards used the word. It is not meant that we come
into the world with them already in our possession,
but that the formation of them is due to the
normal development of intelligence independently
of any kind of bias. As the most obvious examples
of such common notions the Stoics instanced the
beliefs, which they held to be common to all man-
kind, ' that tiiere are gods and that they care for
us.'^ All this passed, mainly through Cicero, into
the natural theology of the 17th century. This
explains why modern natural theologians have
often been anxious to prove the universal diffusion

1 Diog. Laert. vii. 36, 52.

266

THEISM

of the belief in God and why their critics have
often laid great stress on travellers' reports which
have been supposed to indicate the existence of
' atheistic ' savages. The Stoics themselves, in
appealing to universal agreement, did not, of
course, mean to deny the sporadic appearance of
individual atheists. This could be accounted for
as the consequence of individual prejudices due to
improper education and ' unnatural ' institutions.
What Avas supposed to be demonstrated was merely
that belief in God and Providence is too widely
diffused to be regarded as anything but a spon-
taneous and ' natural ' conviction. The position
taken up by some modern apologists who deny that
there has ever been a single convinced and sincere
atheist is an exaggeration of the Stoic doctrine.^
It may be added that the degradation of the
argument from design or ' intentional causality '
into the crude form which it assumes in so much
of our popular apologetics is mainly due to the
extravagant exaltation of man by the Stoic
philosophy. With Plato and Aristotle teleology
means simply that the world of historical existents
and processes is so ordered that it realizes an end
which has absolute intrinsic worth.* It is to the
Stoics that we owe the coarsening of the thought
into the assertion that man and man's convenience
and comfort are the intrinsic and absolute good
which is the end realized by the cosmic processes.
Thus they maintained that plants and animals
exist only to furnish man with food and raiment
convenient for him, or even with agreeable luxuries.
Porphyrj- 3 quotes from Chrysippus the statement that ' the
gods made us for ourselves and one another, but animals for us,
the horse to help us in war and the dog in hunting, leopards,
bears, and lions, to practise ourselves in valour upon. The pig
was made for nothing but to be sacrificed, and God mixed soul
with its flesh like a seasoning to make it readily digestible for
us. Shell fish of all kinds and birds he contrived that we might
have no lack of soups and entrees.'* According to Plutarch, 5
Chrysippus carried things so far that he asserted in his work
irepl (^vcrews that God made bugs to prevent us from sleeping too
long and mice to teach us to take proper care of our cupboards.

7. Neo-Platonism. — In any account of the popular
theism of antiquity prominence would have to be
given to the utterances of the later Platonizing
Roman Stoics, such as Seneca, and to the earnest
defence of the ethical side of theism by writers like
Plutarch and his contemporary Maximus of Tyre.
Plutarch's philosophical essays which deal with
the theistic problem are specially interesting, as
his determination to treat Providence and the
moral government of the world by God as serious
matters leads him into sharp and acute criticism not
only of the perfunctory deism of Epicurus but also
of the Stoic pantheistic necessitarianism (especi-
ally in the essay 7re/3t arwLKwv fj'avriW/adTwv, which aims
at showing that the materialism, pantheism, and
determinism of Zeno and Chrysippus are inconsist-
ent with their moral optimism and professed belief
in an ethical Pi'ovidence). Interesting, however,

1 For a classic statement of the general Stoic view of the
place of God in the scheme of things see, besides the famous
Hymn of Oleanthes preserved in Stobaeus, Eel. i. 1, 12, p. 25, 3
(critical text in von Arnun, Stoicorum Veterum Fragrnenta,
i. 121 f., also J. Adam, Texts to ilhtstrate a Course of Elementary
Lectures on Greek Philosophy after Aristotle, London and New
York, 1902, p. 54 f., and A. C. Pearson, The Fragments of Zeno
and Oleanthes, Cambridge, 1891), the eloquent conclusion of
[Aristotle] de Mundo, 397, b 9 ff. The latter gives the Posidonian
version and betrays Academic influence by ending with a direct
quotation from the 'admirable Plato' of Laws, 715E-716A.
Cicero's expositions of Stoic theology, based mainly on Posi-
donius, are too well known to require special mention.

2 It is significant, as Burnet has remarked, that the very
word ' teleology,' as its form shows, is derived not directly from
TcAos but from the adjective reXeios, ' whole,' ' complete.'

3 De Abstincntia, iii. 20.

■1 Of. Cicero, de Nat. Deor. ii. 37 : ' Scite enim Chrj'sippus, ut
clypei causa involucrum, vaginam autem gladii, sic praeter
mundam cetera omnia aliorum causa esse generata : ut eas
fruges atque fructus quos terra gignit, animantium causa ;
animantes autem, hominum. . . . Ipse autem homo ortus est ad
mundum contemplandum et imitandum.'

5 De Stoicorum repugnantiis, 1044 C.

as this theological literature is to the historian of
Platonism, it cannot be said to add anything of
value to philosophical theism. The Neo-Platonist
school, founded in Rome by Plotinus (c. A.D. 205-
270), worked out for the first time a thoroughgoing
metaphysical theism which provided the philo-
sophical basis for the Christian theism of the whole
Middle Ages. For the purposes of the present
article it will be most convenient to reproduce the
main features of this doctrine as it is presented by
the great systematizer of the school, Proclus (A.D.
410-485), in his o-rotxeiwcrts deo\oyiK-f), Rudiments of
Platonic Theology.^ In what follows nothing will
be quoted from Proclus which does not form part
of the teaching of the whole Neo-Platonic school
from Plotinus onwards.

In Plato's own theology, or at least in the state-
ment of it which he gives in his writings, as we
have seen, God is not quite all that the Christian
theist has usually meant by God. God is the
supremely good ' soul ' and the source, it appears,
of all existents other than Himself. But we are
not positively told what is the relation of God to
the supreme principles of the Platonic system, the
forms (etST;, Ideai.) or numbers, and in the mythical
picture-language of the Timaeus these forms (or
numbers) are certainly represented as superior to
God ; they are the pre-existing model or pattern
which God contemplates in fashioning the world of
finite existents, or, as Plato calls it, the world of
' becoming.' There is no warrant anywhere in
Plato for the psychologizing interpretation, often
put on his language since the time of Philo of
Alexandria, which makes the forms into thoughts
of the divine mind. This means in modern lan-
guage that, though God is regarded as the source
of actuality, He is not unambiguously held to be
also the source of all real possibility. In Neo-
Platonism the further step is taken. God is
thought of as the ahsohite prius of everything, and
the world of existents as dependent on Him not
only for its actuality but also for all its possibilities.
God is no longer regarded as a soul or even as a
mind, but is simply identified at once with the
Good which is described in Hepublic, bk. vi. , as the
source of ' being and knowledge,' though itself ' on
the other side of both being and knowledge,
and with the One which, according to Aristotle,
Plato regarded as the oiaLa, or formal element, in
the forms themselves and as the same thing as the
Good.'' The One thus becomes in Neo-Platonism a
transcendent God of whom nothing can in strictness
be predicated. It must not even be said to be good,
since it is identical with goodness, not a subject to
which goodness can be ascribed as an attribute.
Nor must it be said to be or exist ; it is not a being
or existent, but the transcendent source of all
being, and is therefore regularly said to be virepovcrLov,
'super-essential,' or 'super-substantial.'^ God,
thus conceived as the transcendent and ineffable
source both of actuality and of real possibility (of
existences and of ' essences '), is connected with the
actual world by the Neo-Platonic theory of caus-
ality. The theory is commonly known as that of
'emanation,' but the metaphor of emanation is
with Plotinus and Proclus only a metaphor, and the

1 There is no good critical edition of this important work.
The least defective is that in F. Creuzer's Initia philosophiae ac
theologiae, 3 vols., Frankfort, 1820-22.

2 Metaphys. A 9876 20 : is u.iv ovv vX-qv to ^cya koI t6 /iiKpov
elvai dpx<is, (is S' oiicrioLV to iv. A ySia 14 : Irt 6e Tr\v rov e5 »cal
ToO KaK(i>s airCav, tois <TTOtx^^o^5 a7rc'6a>/ce>' eicarepots ^Karipav.

■> Here we have the origin of the mystical ' negative way ' in
theology, and of the familiar scholastic doctrine that nothing
whatever can be predicated univocally of God and of any
creature, as well as of the proposition Deus est suum esse ; i.e.
in God the distinction between existence and essentia, valid for
every other existent, ceases to have any meaning. It is from
this last thought that the famous ontological argument for the
being of God was destined to take its origin.

THEISM

267

theory requires to be explained a little more fully,
as it was not only influential throughout the Middle
Ages but is tacitly presupposed in the famous
attempt of Descartes to establish the existence of
God in the Third Meditation. Causality, as under-
stood by the Neo-Platonists, does not necessarily
imply antecedence in time and is always a relation
between substantival terras, not between events.
The relation is dyadic and subsists between a
producer {to nrapayov) and something which the
activity of the producer calls into being (rd
irapaybfievov). The cause of anything is the ground
not merely of the existence of that thing but of its
being what it is and having the character it has
(the cause of its essentia as well as of its actuality).
Causality is a relation of ' participation ' {ixide^is) or
' likeness' ; i.e., the effect (rb irapaydfievov), since it
derives the fact that it is and its whole quality
from its cause (r6 Trapdyov), is like its cause, exhibits
the same character but in a less perfect form.^

The Neo-Platonist theology is strictly creationist, not in the
popular sense of regarding the world as having been made at a
definite date in the past (all the Neo-Platonists held strongly
that Plato, like Aristotle, meant to teach the ' eternity of the
world '), but in the philosophical sense of maintaining the
causal dependence of everything in the world upon God and
upon God alone. What ' really is' and what 'becomes' form a
hierarchy of manifestations of the excellences contained
' eminentlj' ' in the One, each member of the hierarchy, accord-
ing as it is at a farther remove from God, exhibiting these
excellences in a less perfect way. Proclus adds the further
point that the causal activity of the higher principles extends
farther down in the scale of being than that of those below
them.2 The One, or God, as we have seen, is 'above being' and
is absolutely simple, not because it is void of character, but just
because all perfections are completely and perfectly united and
interpenetrant in it.3 The reason why the One creates at all is
that the One is goodness, and goodness is, of its very nature,
active. It must ' overflow. '■! That which is immediately pro-
duced by the 'overflowing' is voOs, 'intelligence' or 'under-
standing.' Or rather, since the fundamental inferiority of
produced to producer shows itself at this stage in the form of a
dualism, it is voOs together with the objects it contemplates, ra
voijra, the connected system of scientific concepts. The two are
inseparable, for the vorjra 'have no subsistence outside the
understanding '; they are not a realm of ' things-in-themselves,'
for which Neo-Platonism has no room. As mind or under-
standing is an imperfect image or mirroring of the divine
One, so soul is a further image or mirroring of mind. And
mind and soul together make up for the Neo-Platonist the whole
system of oi/ra, real things. Bodies, the natural world as dis-
closed through the senses, are images of soul and are properly
not oi/ra but yiyvSiJ.ei'a ', they 'are' not, they 'become' — i.e.,
they are 'appearances,' though we must remember that they
really do appear and are the appearances or shows of souls,
which are real ovra. Below these real shadows of real things,
just as God was placed above the real things themselves, stands
that ' shadow of a shade,' wpumq v\ri, bare 'stufif,' which neither
is nor appears, and, as a mere potentiality of something better
than itself, may properly be called /xtj oc.5

Besides being causally dependent on God, the series of ovra.
and yiyvoixeua is further connected with the One by inLcrTpo<j>rj,
' inversion ' or ' reflexion.' The effect not merely proceeds from
its cause, but is inverted or reflected back into its cause. This
is, in fact, a consequence of the identification of the First Cause
with the universal Good. For the good of anything is that to

1 The technical phrase of Proclus is that the characters which
exist Ka9' vnap^Lv—i.e. 80 as to be properly predicable of it — in
the effect exist ko-t' alriav in its cause. The scholastic way of
putting the matter is to say that what exists formaliter — as con-
stituting the foi-ma or essentia— in the effect exists eminenter or
eminentiore modo, ' in a more excellent manner,' in its cause.
It is in virtue of this doctrine that the philosophical theology of
Neo-Platonism and orthodox Christianity acquires a positive
side. Though we may not predicate of God any ' perfection '
(i.e. positive attribute) of a creature, yet, since all creatures are
produced solely by God, we may say that their perfections are
in God ' in a more excellent manner.' Hence, though we are
forbidden to predicate anything univocally of God and a creature,
we are permitted to reason per analogiam from beauty, wisdom,
power, goodness in the creatures to the presence of super-
excellenl beauty, power, wisdom, goodness in the Creator.

- This is intended to justify in particular the view that ' bare
matter,' though it cannot be regarded as produced by mind or
soul, is still created by the One, and so to get rid of the dualism
of God and matter.

3 So the schoolmen maintain, on the same ground, that each
attribute of God, power, wisdom, and the rest, is God.

•* As the Christian mystics say, ' love cannot be idle.'

5 The Neo-Platonist 'matter' is thus identical with that of
Aristotle, but it is important that it is regarded as the remotest
production of the One, not, as with Aristotle, as a principle in-
dependent of and coaeval with God.

union with which the thing in question aspires, and the univer-
sal Good is therefore, according to the old definition of Eudoxus,
that o5 ndvTo. e<f>ieTaL, 'that which all things go for.' As all
things have their source in God, so all things find their end or
completion in Him. In souls and minds this process of inversion
takes place, as Proclus puts it, yvoia-TiKCi^, as a yvaxns, or know-
ing. It is in turning back on their source in contemplation
that they come by self-knowledge, and are thus inverted into
themselves as well as into it. The soul gets to know itself in
learning to know vov^, and vovs learns its own true nature in
contemplation of the One ; in both cases self-knowledge is got
by reaching out of one's self towards the higher.i Thus the
transcendence of God, though it is so complete that we may not
even predicate ' being ' of Him, in no way interferes with the
truth that the whole world ' lives and has its being ' in God and
has no origin or support but God.2 The monotheism of this
philosophy of religion is, of course, no more affected by the
belief of the Neo-Platonists in an elaborate hierarchy of super-
human beings whom they call deoC than the monotheism of
Christians by the belief in the various orders of the angelic
hierarchy, or that of Milton by his application of the appellation
' gods ' to the fallen angels in Paradise Lost.

It should be particularly observed that the Neo-
Platonic school, by definitely making the One
its God and teaching that tlae One is ' beyond
being,' is committed to theism as against panthe-
ism. The world is in the One, but, precisely
because the effect is only an imperfect mirroring
of its cause, it would not be true to say in the
same sense that the One is in the world. The
relation between God and the world is that of
one-sided dependence. God, or the One, produces
vovs, yj/vxh, and bodies ; they do not produce the
One. In fact, in the mythology elaborated by
Proclus the iyKbaixioi 6eoi occupy the lowest rank
among the orders of beings to whom he gives
the name ' god,' thus corresponding to some of
the middle ranks of the mediaeval hierarchy of
angels.^

8. Anseltn. — As is well known, when the
Christian Church began to feel the need of a
philosophical foundation for its theology, it sought
that foundation primarily in Neo-Platonism. The
Neo-Platonie influence was exerted in three main
ways — through the Cappadocian Fathers, who,
without incurring the condemnation M'hich was
passed on the speculations of Origen, incorporated
much of Origen's Platonism in their system,
through the prominent part played in the develop-
ment of Christian theology by St. Augustine
and Boethius, and through the authority enjoyed
by the writings of the supposed Dionysius the
Areopagite, a superficially Christianized version
of the theological and angelological speculations
of Proclus. The Neo-Platonic conception of God
thus became part and parcel of orthodox Christian
thought. It is this conception that St. Anselm
assumes in his famous attempt to prove the exist-
ence of God by an argument whicli, in one form
or another, has been a centre of philosophical
controversy from the date of its first becoming
generally known to our own day — the so-called
' ontological proof ' of the existence of God. St.
Anselm's own formulation of his argument will
be found in clis. 2-3 of the little tract, written
before he had been called from his monastery at
Bee, to which he gave originally the name Fides
quaerens intellcctum and afterwards that of Pros-
lugion seu Alloquium de Dei existentia. The
object of the reasoning is to show that the exis^t-
ence of God is in fact an immediately evident
truth. Uncertainty about God's existence is
possible only so long as we are unaware of the
true meaning of the word Deiis. The argument,
as given by Anselm, runs thus. By ' God ' we

1 Bodies are incapable of 'inversion into self,' and they are
not inverted into their immediate cause, soul, yfaj<mKu>i.

'^ When Kingslcy in Uypatia makes his Neo-Platonic philo-
sopher misquote St. Paul as saying that it is God who 'lives and
has His being ' in us, he is going wrong from mere ignorance of
the doctrine he is criticizing.

3 For the sources of the preceding paragi-aphs see Proclus,
Institutio theologica, props. l-<3 (unitv and plurality), 7-14
(causation, the good), 15-20 (' inversion '), 21, 23, 24, 31-17.

268

THEISM

mean 'that than which nothing greater can be
conceived.' It seems that a doubt may be felt
about the existence of anything answering to this
definition, since Scripture tells us that the fool
has said in his heart (i.e. has thought) that there
is no God. Anselm, in reply to such a ' fool,'
argues as follows. Even the fool who doubts or
denies the existence of ' that than which nothing
greater can be thought' must understand what
this phrase means before he can doubt or deny
that there is such a thing. ^ Thus it is certain
that God, as defined, is in intellectu — a phrase
which means simply that the words ' that than
which nothing greater can be thought' have a
definite meaning. But, if God were only in
intellectu (i.e., if there were no object answering
to the definition), we could think of something
greater than God, for we could at least conceive
that such a being was not merely thinkable but
real. 2 Thus the argument is that, if ' that than
which nothing greater can be conceived' exists
only in intellectu, 'that than which nothing
greater can be conceived ' is not ' something than
which nothing greater can be conceived,' and
this is a formal contradiction in terminis. It
follows therefore^ that God cannot be conceived
as non-existent and therefore that God cannot
be conceived not to exist. How then can it be
true that the fool ' has said in his heart ' that God
does not exist? Only in the sense that the fool
attaches no sense or a mistaken sense to the word
' God.' * These few lines contain the whole of the
famous ' proof ' ; the rest of the pamphlet is really
taken up with the identification of 'that than
which nothing greater can be conceived ' with the
universal Good.

Before going any farther, it may be well to make one or two
reflexions on the general character of the argument as given by
its originator. This is the more necessary as Anselm's reason-
ing is not quite identical with that of Descartes, who gives
his own ontological proof in his Fifth Meditation, and it is
principally from Kant's criticism of Descartes' argument that
the ontological proof is known to modern students of philo-
sophy. It will be noted that Anselm expressly presupposes
the Neo-Platonic conception of God ; it is the One of Plotinus
and Proclus of which he undertakes to prove the reality. We
should also observe that Anselm for the first time attempts
a proof which is a priori in the proper sense of the phrase.
The existence of the world is not one of the premisses of his
reasoning, whereas with the Neo-Platonists the reality of the
many is the starting-point of all argument. Again, it is no
valid retort to Anselm to urge that his proof depends upon a
definition and on nothing else, but nothing can be proved
simply from a definition, since all definitions are merely con-
ventions about the meaning of a sign. Anselm is not, of
course, concerned to deny the truth of this account of defini-
tions or to maintain that men are not free to attach any
meaning they please to the sign Deus. The real question is
whether among all our concepts there is just one, the concept
of 'an X such that nothing greater than x can be conceived,'
which implies as part of its meaning the actual existence of the
corresponding object. It seems to the writer of this article
that Anselm is at least right in maintaining that, if we can
frame the concept 'thing than which no greater can be con-
ceived," we are bound to think of the object thus conceived
as actual. To admit that what we are necessitated to think
may be false is fatal to all phUosophy and all science, and no
exception can be taken to Anselm's argument on the ground
that it excludes such an ultimate agnosticism. The really
difiBcult question is rather whether there is any such concept
as 'thing than which no greater can be conceived.' B The

1 ' Certe idem ipse insipiens, cum audit hoc ipsum quod
dico . . . intelligit quod audit, et quod intelligit in intellectu
ejus est, etiamsi non intelligat illud esse ' (Proslogion, ch. 2).

2 ' Convincitur ergo etiam insipiens esse vel in intellectu
aliquid, quo nihil maius cogitari potest ; quia hoc cum audit,
intelligit ; et quidquid intelligitur, in intellectu est. Et certe
id, quo maius cogitari uequit, non potest esse in intellectu
solo. Si enim vel in solo intellectu est, potest cogitari esse et
in re : quod maius est ' (ib. ch. 2).

3 ' Sic ergo vere est aliquid quo maius cogitari non potest ut
nee cogitan possit non esse : et hoc es tu, Domine Deus noster '
(ch. 3).

* ' Nemo intelligens id quod Deus est, potest cogitare quia
Deus non est ; Ucet haec verba dicat in corde, aut sine ulla, aut
cum aliqua extranea significatione ' (ch. 4).

5 Hobbes and others raised this question very pertinently
when they replied to Descartes' argument from our possession
of an ' idea of God ' that we possess no ' idea ' of God. I

problem is not whether, granting that Anselm's definition of
God has a meaning, the actual existence of God is included
in that meaning, but whether the words given as the definition
have a meaning at all or are not rather an ' unmeaning noise,'
like the words, e.g., 'line so crooked that none crookeder can
be conceived ' or ' rational fraction so small that none smaller
can be conceived.' This is the diflSculty which we shall find
arising in connexion with every version of the ontological
argument which has been given by metaphysicians. Whatever
we may think on this point, it is plain that a proof of the
Anselmian type is not what is ordinarily meant in logic by
proof or demonstration. Its real object is not to deduce the
existence of God from any more ultimate or certain premisses,
but to find a definition of God such that, when the definition
is substituted for the definiendum, the proposition 'There is
one and only one God' is seen to be self-evident. The real
function of the argument is, like that of an Aristotelian
'induction,' not to demonstrate something, but to 'point
something out.'

Anselm's argument was at once subjected to
severe criticism by his contemporary CJaunilo of
Marmoutiers, in his ' Apology for the Fool ' (Liber
pro Insijnente), a tract which more than sustains
comparison for real acumen with the better-known
criticisms of the Critique of Pure Reason. Gaunilo
remarks that it is one of the premisses of the
Anselmian argument that id quo nihil maius
cogitari potest exists at least in the intellectus
even of the atheistic fool. It is assumed that
God exists in intellectu, and the only point dis-
cussed is whether He exists also in re. But what
is meant by this statement? It may mean only
that the fool understands the meaning of the
statement 'God exists.' But we understand the
meaning of many propositions which we know to
be false. Hence the existence of God is not proved
by simply urging that we know what the theist
means when he says that God exists. To make
the argument valid, it ought to be shown that
the fool cannot understand what the theist means
without also seeing that his assertion is true, and
Gaunilo denies that Anselm has established this
point. Arguing, not as an empiricist, but from
Neo-Platonic premisses common to himself with
Anselm, he urges that in point of fact we have no
positive adequate concept of God ; ^ and it adds
nothing to our information to be told that God is
greater than all the things of which we have positive
concepts.^

So far Gaunilo (who has been oddly mistaken
by some modern critics for an empiricist) is simply
playing off the negative or agnostic side of the
theology common to himself with Anselm against
the positive, and it is significant of his real purpose,
which is that of a mystic rather than of an em-
piricist, that he quietly replaces Anselm's defini-
tion of God as ' that than which nothing greater
can be conceived ' by the very different phrase
' that which is greater than all which can be
conceived.' He then continues as follows. Even
if I admit, what is itself questionable, that I under-
stand the meaning of the phrase ' something which
is greater than all which can be conceived,'
Anselm's argument cannot force me to admit that
there really is such a thing. All that the argu-
ment proves is that it would be inconsistent to
admit that there is such a thing and at the same
time to deny its reality, since, if it is not real, it
is not greater than things which are conceived
and are real. But the ' fool ' is not really con-
victed of this inconsistency, since all that he
admits is, at the outside, that he understands the
sense of the words ' something greater than all
that can be conceived.' To make Anselm's argu-
ment cogent, some proof ought to be supplied that
this something actually exists. If this proof is
once forthcoming, Anselm's further demonstration
that the something in question is all that God is

1 ' Neque enim rem ipsam quae Deus est, novi ' {Pro
Insipiente, § 3).

2 ' Nee prorsus aliter adhuc et in intellectu meo constat illud
haberi, cum audio intelligoque dicentem esse aliquid maius
omnibus quae valeant cogitari ' (ib. § 4).

THEISM

269

held to be will be valid. It is to illustrate this
second point that Gaunilo introduces the reference
to the famous lost island by which he is principally
remembered. If this lost island were described
to me as wealthier and better than any inhabited
land, I should readily understand the meaning of
the words, and the lost island would be 'in my
understanding' in the same sense in which God
may be said to be in the understanding of the fool.
But it would be idle to say that the island must
also really exist somewhere in the ocean because
it would otherwise not be, as by definition it is,
richer than all habitable lands. Finally he con-
tends that it is not, as Anselm had assumed, a
proprium of God that He can only be thought of
as existing. It is true, no doubt, that we who
know that God exists cannot think the proposition
' There is no God ' true, but neither can we think
any other proposition to be false which we know
to be true ; e.g., I cannot think it true that I do
not exist at this moment, because I know it to
be true that I do exist. There may be a sense
in which it is possible to think of my own non-
existence, but, if there is, it is equally possible,
in the same sense, to think of the non-existence
of God, even though we know that God does exist. ^
This last point, of course, anticipates Hume's
criticism that whatever we can think of as exist-
ing we can equally think of as not existing, and
if sustained is fatal to every argument of the
ontological type.

Anselm's reply to his critic is contained in the
short Liber Apologeticus contra Gaunilonem re-
spondentcin pro Insipiente. He points out, natur-
ally enough, that Gaunilo's substitution of the
phrase ' that which is greater than everything
which can be conceived' for 'that than which
nothing greater can be conceived ' alters the char-
acter of the argument, and that Gaunilo's reason-
ing about the lost island is not a real parallel to
his own proof, which, as he insists, is applicable
only in the case of the concept ' that than which
notliing greater can be conceived.' What he does
not prove, but merely asserts, is that this phrase
really has a definite meaning and is not a non-
sensical or insignificant sound. On this point he
is content to say that even the ' fool ' must con-
ceive the meaning of the words before he can deny
that they stand for a reality.

It is very difficult to follow Anselm here. If his reasoning: is
sound, it will prove not only the real existence of God but also
the existence (in the lo^cian's sense) of nothing, round squares,
equilateral right-angled triangles, fabulous monsters, the
greatest of all integers, since it is beyond a doubt that the
liropositions ' There is no such thing as a round square,' 'There
are no fabulous monsters,' 'There is no integer which is the
greatest of all integers,' etc., are true; and it may then be
argued that, since they are true, round squares, etc., must
exist in the intelleetus of the person who asserts the proposi-
tions. What Anselm is assuming is, as he himself saj's, that a
proposition cannot be understood unless its ' parts ' are sever-
ally understood. From this he infers that, if ' there is no such
thing as a; ' is a significant proposition, x must be a significant
term. The assumption is plainly not justified, since my ground
for asserting the proposition may be precisely that x has no
intelligible meaning. The state of the case, then, seems to be
that Anselm's argument certainly proves that, if ' that than
which nothing greater can be conceived ' (or ' that which
cannot be conceived as not existing") exists in intellectu, it
also exists in re. But the question whether it exists in in-
tellectu remains undecided.

9. Thomas Aquinas.— The history of the sub-
sequent fortunes of Anselm's theistic argument is
a highly interesting one. In the 13th cent., the
golden age of scholastic philosophy, it was widely
known and discussed by all the leading thinkers.
In the main the mediaeval philosophers seem to
have been disposed to accept it until it was rejected
as a sophism by St. Thomas, Avhose great authority

1 ' Cogitare autem me non esse, quamdiu esse certissime
scio, nescio utrum possim ; sed si possum, cur non et quidquid
aliud eadem certitudine scio ? Si autem non poggum, non erit
jam istud proprium Deo ' (ib. § 7).

has ever since discredited it. The principal 13th
cent, texts relative to the subject have been edited
with an acute commentary by the Benedictine
Augustin Daniels.^ It is a singular fact that,
though all the teachers of the second half of the
13th cent, seem to have felt themselves obliged to
make their attitude to Anselm's argument clear,
no theologian of the 12th cent, appears to have
taken any account of it. The most probable ex-
planation of this silence seems to be that of Daniels,
that the circulation of the Proslogion was slow
and the work unknown to theologians in general
until well on into the 13th century. It is certainly
not true, as is sometimes said, that acceptance of
the argument was confined to the Oxford Francis-
cans. Of the fifteen scholastics whose writings
are examined by Daniels, three (one of whom is
Albert the Great) express no opinion on the validity
of the proof, ten (including Alexander of Hales,
Bonaventura, and Scotus) accept it, only two
(Richard of Middleton and St. Thomas) reject it.
These facts seem of themselves to show that the
discredit into which the ontological argument fell
— it will be remembered that, when Descartes
revived it in the 17th cent., critics were quick to
remind him that he was laying himself open to at
least the suspicion of heterodoxy — was due almost
entirely to the general recognition of the weight
of St. Thomas's criticisms. They are, in fact, so
formidable that they still repay the closest atten-
tion and are, in the present writer's opinion, alto-
gether on a much higher philosophical level than
the better-knoAvn polemic of the Critique of Pure
Reason. The general position of Thomas is pre-
cisely what we should expect from a philosopher
whose thought has been moulded partly by Neo-
Platonism and partly by Aristotelianism. He
holds that the existence of God can be, and has
been, sufficiently proved a posteriori, by reasoning
from the works of God to their Author, and con-
sequently he accepts as valid both the argument
from the necessity of an unmoved First Mover
(the Aristotelian argument) and the argument
from design, in the wide sense of an argument
from final or intentional causality (the Platonic
argument from order and intelligibility in the world
to an intelligent Creator). But he rejects alto-
gether and on principle the attempt to demonstrate
the existence of God a p7'iori (from a mere con-
sideration of the content of the concept of God).

The most important of the relevant passages in the works of
Thomas are Suinma contra Gentiles, i. 10, 11, and Summa
Thcologica, I. qu. ii. art. 1, both dealing formally with the
question whether the proposition ' God exists ' is self-evident.
His own view on this question is that the proposition is self-
evident if the essentia of God is once adequately known, but,
since we in this life do not behold the essentia of God, His
existence is not self-evident to our understanding. It is not
immediately evident to us that there is anything 'than which a
greater cannot be conceived,' or that ' God cannot be thought
not to exist ' ; on this point St. Thomas is in complete agreement
with Gaunilo. Anselm's argument, in fact, is a sophism arising
from failure to distinguish between that which is notum per se
simpliciter and that which is quoad Jio.s notum, evident to us.
' For simpliciter it is self-evident that God exists, since what
God is is his esse ' (' cum hoc ipsum quod Deus est sit suum
esse'; i.e., God's essentia or 'what' and His existence are
identical). ' But because we cannot conceive what God is, it
remains unknown relatively to us.' 2 Anselm's reasoning is
fallacious because (a) not all even of those who admit the
existence of God are aware that God is ' that than which noth-
ing greater can be conceived ' ; and (h), even if every one were
aware of this, it would not follow that God exists otherwise
than in intellectu ; i.e., all that would be proved is that we can
think of such an object without absurdity. So Thomas asserts
against Anselm that there is no logical absurdity in supposing
the non-existence of God. 3 The same considerations are urged
in much the same language in the article of the Summa Theo-
loijica already referred to. Thomas's own view is^ that the
existence of God can be demonstrated a posteriori, by reasoning

1 Qiiellenbeitr. und Untersxich. zur Gesch. der Gottesbetoeise
im li Jahrh. mit bes. Berucks. des ArguinentB im Proslogion
des heil. Anselm, Munster, 1909.

i Contra Gent. i. U. » lb.

4 I. qu. ii. art. 2.

270

THEISM

from effect to cause. He relies on five such a posteriori arga-
ments,! which are (1) the argument from the tact of motion to
the First Mover ; (2) the parallel argument from causal agency
to a First efficient Cause ; (3) the argument from possibility
and necessity, known more commonly as the argument from
the contingency of the world ; 2 (4) the argument from the scale
of ' degrees of reality,' by which we infer from the existence of
greatel- and lesser goods the existence of a perfect good which
is the cause of all lesser degrees of goodness (in virtue of the
specifically Neo-Platonic theory of causality already explained) ;
(5) the argument ex gubematione rerum, i.e. from final or
intentional causality. (Even the processes of inanimate nature
are ordered or adapted to the realization of an end or good;
this adaptation presupposes an intelligent intention, and, since
inanimate things have no intelligence of their own, a super-
mundane intelligence.) St. Thomas's arguments are thus all
of one tjfpe. They are all appeals to the principle of causality
taken in combination with the denial of the possibility of an
infinite regress. Both the appeal to the principle of causality
and the refusal to admit the infinite regress are direct inherit-
ances from the Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy. The former
is invalidated if the soundness of the Kantian criticism of
speculati\e theology be admitted; the latter requires recon-
sideration in the light of what may be called the 'logical
realism ' of Bertrand Russell and the ' new ' realists. Scotus, in
the Scripluin Oxoniense,^ restates the Anselmian argument
with a modification which seems obviously meant to meet the
fandamental point in Gaunilo's criticism and anticipates a line
of thought afterwards developed by Leibniz. God is defined
as ' quo cogitato sine contradictions mains cogitari non potest
sine contradictione,' ' that which can be thought without a
contradiction but than which nothing greater can be thought
without a contradiction.' The important modification is the
addition to the definition of the first sine contradictione. _ As
Scotus says, ' in cuius cogitatione includitur contradictio illud
dicitur non cogitabile.' It thus becomes a preliminary to the
ontological proof to show that God can be 'thought without
contradiction'; i.e., that we really have a concept of God, or
that the word ' God,' or the phrase employed as by definition
equivalent to the word, is not an unmeaning noise. When this
condition is fulfilled, Scotus holds, the Anselmian inference from
the esse in intellectu of the su7n7num cogitabile siTie contradic-
tio^ie to its esse in re is valid.

10. Descartes. — Descartes' theism, like that of
his mediaeval predecessors, is predominantly of the
Neo-Platonic type, and is intimately connected
with the assumption, which underlies the reason-
ing of the Meditations, that the principle of
causality, in the very form which had been given
to it by Proclus, is evident by the natural light of
the understanding. The extent to which the
thought of Descartes is in fundamentals Platonic
is probably not adequately realized by most of
his readers. Even the most original feature of
his philosophy, the thoroughgoing reduction of
natural science to mechanics, is really a reversion
from mediaeval Aristotelianism to the standpoint
of the early Academy, and the metaphysics of the
Meditations is thoroughly Neo-Platonic. We quite
misconceive Descartes' meaning if we regard the
presence of God in his system as an excrescence
due to the necessity of artificially bringing together
again the artificially sundered worlds of body and
mind. Even from the point of view of a merely
mechanical interpretation of the world, Descartes
is, of course, much more true to the analogies on
which mechanical interpretations are founded in
assuming the direction of the mechanism by God
than those modern half-philosophers who attribute
to the cosmic machine an inherent power of direct-
ing and repairing itself. He has not forgotten, as
the modern materialist tends to do, that behind
the most complicated and perfect machinery there is
always intelligence which is not that of the machine
to start it, to direct its workings, and to repair it.
But, beyond this, Descartes has reasons for assert-
ing the existence of God which are wholly inde-

1 1, qu. ii. art. 3.

2 The argument is that whatever is merely possible or con-
tingent exists at some times but not at others. Hence, if all
things are mereh' possible or contingent, there must have been
a time when nothing existed at all. But (in virtue of the
principle of causality), if there had ever been a moment when
there was nothing at all, nothing could ever have come to be.
Hence the fact that there is something now proves that there
must be 'something in things ' which is necessary, i.e. incapable
of not existing. And the argument from the impossibility of
an indefinite regress is then invoked to show that there must
be one ultimate necessary being.

3 See the relevant passages in Daniels, pp. 105-107.

pendent of his reversion to the mathematical and
mechanical standpoint in physics and would have
been equally strong if he had adopted any other
type of physical doctrine. The theism of Descartes
is, in fact, dictated by two considerations — his un-
qualified acceptance of the principle of causality
and his adherence to the conception of the ' Perfect
Being' as the only adequate object of the under-
standing, and therefore the ' natural good ' of
rational beings (the ' ben dell' intelletto,' to use
Dante's phrase). He is a theist, not because he
holds the mechanical view of nature, but for the
same more ultimate reason which leads him to
hold that view, that he is, like the whole Platonic
succession, a rationalist and consequently regards
the knowledge of the ' Supreme Being ' as the cul-
mination of science.^ The actual proofs of theism
offered by Descartes are two. In the third Medi-
tation we have the a posteriori proof in the special
form of an argument from our possession of an
idea of God to the existence of God as the cause
of the idea. This is, of course, strictly on Neo-
Platonic lines. In the fifth Meditation the a
posteriori proof is confirmed by an a priori proof
which turns out to be, in principle, a restatement
of the Anselmian argument with a modification
which is by no means an obvious improvement.

The well-known argument of the third Meditation runs thus.
I have an 'idea' of the 'Perfect' or 'Infinite' Being. My
possession of this idea, like any other fact, demands a causaJ
explanation. The explanation cannot be that I am myself the
Perfect and Infinite Being and that the idea is derived from my
immediate awareness of myself, because I am aware of myself
as, in many ways, defective and limited. It is not derived
from acquaintance with other persons or things, which are all
no less limited and finite than myself ; and it has not been
obtained by an imaginative combination of the various perfec-
tions I have observed separately in different finite things, for
internal simplicity is itself one of the perfections which I think
of as constituting the ' Infinite Being.' Nor again is ' infinite ' a
merely negative expression. (If it were, it might, of course, be
objected that, when I say ' infinite,' there is no definite concept
corresponding to the word.) For in the order of logic the
infinite is prior to the finite. If I had not already an intellig-
ible concept of infinity, I could not even be aware of my own
finiteness. There is" thus only one possible cause of my
possession of the idea of the Infinite Being. It must be the
effect of a really existing Infinite Being, who possesses eminenler
or formaliter all the perfection which my idea of the Infinite
Being contains objectively, i.e. by way of representation. God
therefore exists, and my idea of God may be said to be the
mark which the Creator has stamped on His creature. It may
be added that, to argue the point even more generally, i who
have this idea could not exist if the object of the idea did not
also exist. For, since time is no more than a sequence of
moments, each independent of all the rest, conservation, con-
tinuance in existence, is logically equivalent to fresh creation
at every moment, and it is certain that I have no power to
create myself. (This is proved by urging that it is easier to
bestow new excellences on what already exists than to create.
If then I cannot bestow infinite wisdom or power on myself, as
I know I cannot, a fortiori I am not my own creator.) If it is
urged that my parents are my creators, and their parents in
turn their creators, we fall into the infinite regress. Thus the
mere fact of the existence of any finite thing is proof of the
existence of the Infinite Being ; i.e., if anything whose existence
requires an external cause exists (and the Cartesian cogitu
assures me of the existence of at least one such thing), there
exists also a Supreme Being whose existence requires no
external cause (another form of the argument called by St.
Thomas the argument from possibility and necessity).

The argfument from my possession of an idea of God is
Descartes' own substantial contribution to the philosophy of
theism. It must be carefully distingruished from the old Stoic
appeal to the consensus gentium. Descartes' critics were not
really hitting a blot in his reasoning when they said that
savages and atheists do not possess this idea. Against such
objections Descartes' own explanation, that he only meant that,
given the knowledge of myself from which he starts, reflective
analysis is sufficient to lead to the concept of an Infinite Being,
is a sufficient rejoinder. He seems to be equally right in his
contention that the concept of an Infinitely Perfect Being is
logically implied in my recognition of my own finitude, just as
T. H. Green maintains that the recoernition of a morally
' better ' implies the conception of a 'best.' The real point of
weakness in the argument, so far as the present writer can see,
lies elsewhere. Descartes is clearly right in maintaining that
the concept of a Being who conibines all perfections or ex-
cellences in the absolute internal simplicity of his own nature is
not formed by a process of synthesis ; it is clearly obtained by

1 ' Perfecta scientia,' as St. Hilary puts it, ' Deum scire.'

THEISM

271

the process of ' passing to the limit,' of which mathematical
reasoning furnishes so many examples. But we are not really
authorized to infer from our ability to conceive the limit of a
series or of a sum of terms that a given series has a limit or a
given sum a limiting value. Whether a series or a sum has
a limiting value or not has to be discovered by examination in
each special case ; it is notorious that mathematicians down to
a verj- recent date have been repeatedly led into fallacies by
the assumption that limits exist where, in point of fact, they
do not. Thus, when we have conceded to Descartes that there
is an idea of the Infinitely Perfect Being and that this idea is
presupposed in our own judgment that we and other things are
finite, it does not follow of itself that the series of existents,
arranged in ascending order of perfection (assuming such an
arrangement to be possible), must have an actual upper limit.
This is the very point which ought to be proved, and has not
been proved. Descartes himself was presumablj' led to ignore
the difficulty by the laxness with which he employs the word
idea to cover alike memory-images, concepts, and judgments.
When once he has allowed himself to call a judgment an idea,
it is easy for him to think that he has bridged over the chasm
between the concept of God and the judgment that God exists.
The whole argument, it will be observed, is based on the com-
bination of the Neo-Platonic doctrine of causality with the
doctrine of representative perception. According to the latter
doctrine, the direct and immediate object of apprehension, both
in sense-perception and in thought, is never an extra-mental
reality, but always itself mental or ' in the mind.' When this
theory is combined with the view that everything that becomes
has a cause and that all causality is imperfect mirroring, we
get at once the proposition of Descartes that the cause of any
idea must contain eminently or formally at least as much
perfection as the idea contains objectively. ' Eminently ' here
answers to the kolt' alriav of Proclus, 'formally' to his xaO'
vrrap$i.v, ' objectively ' to his Kara |ixe9ef 11/.

The a priori or ontological argument of the fifth Meditation
runs as follows. By 'God' I mean a being who has all per-
fections. But existence is a perfection. Therefore the being
who has all perfections has existence ; i.e. God exists. Or, in
other words, just as I see when I analyse the idea of a [rectilinear]
triangle that it includes the property of having the sum of the
internal angles equal to n, so, when I analyse the idea of God, I
find that it includes existence. God therefore exists and exists
necessarily. (Thus Descartes seems to assume that there is
just one existential proposition, and only one which is, in
Kant's sense of the term, analytical, viz. the proposition ' God
exists.') The objection that St. Thomas (now the recognized
chief authority in all questions of theology) had rejected the
Anselniian argument leads Descartes, in his Reply to the
First Objections, to insist vehemently that his own proof is not
that of Anselm, but differs on a vital point. The force of his
own reasoning depends entirely on the fact that existence is
already contained in the concept of God. Anselm 1 had said
nothing about this, and that was why St. Thomas was reason-
ablj' dissatisfied with his argument ; i.e., the all-important
point is that, according to Descartes, the proposition 'God
exists ' is analytic ; Anselm had left it an open question whether
it might not be synthetic. Historically this modification of the
ontological proof is important, since Kant (who appears not to
have known the writings of St Anselm) makes it the main
object of his attack on the proof to show that the proposition
' God exists ' is synthetic. It is precisely because the proposi-
tion is synthetic, though the conditions which make the
affirmation of an a priori s.vnthetic proposition legitimate are,
in this case, not fulfilled, that we can, according to Kant, have
no speculative certainty of the existence of God. If Descartes
should be right in regarding ' God exists ' as an analytic proposi-
tion, Kant's antitheological polemic would become a mere
ignoratio elenchi.

The further peculiarity of the Cartesian argument on which
Kant fastens, that it improperly treats existence as a predicate
or attribute, is not really of much importance. Whether all
propositions can without violence to their meaning be repre-
sented as asserting (or denying) a predicate of a subject is
an important question for formal logic, but seems to have no
relevance to theology. If there is no predicate in the proposi-
tion ' God exists,' it must be held, on the same ground, that
there is no predicate in such a proposition as ' Joseph dreams '
or ' Esau hunts ' or ' The rich man died.' Per contra, if dream-
ing, hunting, and dying are predicates in these propositions (as
Kant, who professed to re;,'ard logic as a science created perfect
by Aristotle, ought to hold, and presumably did hold), existence
is a predicate in every proposition of the form ' x exists.' The
only question it is relevant to raise about the Cartesian argu-
ment is the question whether in the special case of the ens
summe perfectum existence (whether existence be regarded as
a predicate or not) can be asserted to be part of the meaning of
a concept.

Whether there is really so much diflference as Descartes
maintains between his own argument and Anselm's may be
doubted. Certainly the definition from which Anselm starts

1 The name of Anselm occurs neither in the Objections nor in
Descartes' Reply. Apparently both he and his critic knew the
Anselmian argument only at second hand, through Thomas.
Descartes' point, to be strictly accurate, is that his own
argument turns wholly on the contention that concepts in
general contain only the ' possible existence ' of a corresponding
object, but the concept of God ' contains the necessary exist-
ence ' ol God.

(God ia id quo mains cogitari non potest) does not specify
existence as part of the meaning of the concept. But, since
Anselm tries to show that admission of the definition is logically
tantamount to admitting that ' God cannot be thought not to
be,' the difference between him and Descartes seems to be that
Anselm tries to prove the point which Descartes is content to
assume without more ado. It is hard to believe, as Descartes
does, that St. Thomas, who denied that God is notum per se
quoad nos, and gave a very sensible reason for his denial, would
have regarded the Cartesian version of the proof as anything
more than a glaring petitio principii.

11. Spinoza. — With Spinoza's attempt to give a
pantheistic turn to the Neo-Platonic and Cartesian
lines of thought it is not necessary to concern our-
selves further than to remark that the whole of the
First Part of the Ethics is logically no better than
one long petitio. The first, third, and sixth of the
definitions already contain the two assumptions,
that God= substantia=causa sici and that causa sui
(which is defined as 'that whereof the nature
cannot be conceived but as existing') exists.
Where the whole doctrine has thus been taken for
granted by arbitrary definition, it is really super-
fluous to add anything in the way of ' proof,' even
if the ' proofs ' themselves were more free than
they are from formal logical fallacy. What Spinoza
wholly evades considering is the question, which
is really fundamental, whether the definition of
causa sui is more than a ' meaningless noise.'

One particularly glaring example of Spinoza's singular care-
lessness about his initial definitions may be noted. He has
taken from Neo-PIatonism the first and most fundamental
notion of his system, that of causa sui (to auevn-ocrraToi' of
Proclus). Now, by calling a thing avdviroa-TaTov, the Neo-
Platonists meant e.xactly what they said, that it ' causes ' or
'produces' itself (n-poa-yei kavro). Hence they confined the
name avdvnocnara to minds and souls and expresslj' maintained
that the One, or God, having no cause, being unproduced, is
not av6vTr6(jTaTov ; 1 i.e., they understood causa szii in a positive
sense. Theologians had done the same thing ; as Arnauld said
in his comments on Descartes' Meditations,'^ no theologian
would admit that God is a se positive tanquain a causa, but at
most that God may be said to be a se in a purely negative sense
— i.e., in the sense that He is not an effect of anything else.
Spinozism succeeds in appearing to satisfy our demandfor an
object of religious adoration only by a constant equivocation.
It defines causa sui ( = Tb avdvnoaTa-rov) in the positive Neo-
Platonic sense as id cuius essentia involvit existentiam (to toO
tlvai eavTcu napaKTiKov) and then asserts of it all that Neo-
Platonism had asserted of the uncaused One. To put the point
rather differently, it defines God as ' that whereof the essentia
implies existence' and transfers to God, so defined, what theo-
logians have asserted of a God in whom the distinction between
existentia and essentia is unmeaning. Spinoza commits the
paralogism in set terms in the first sentence of the Ethics :
' Per causam sui intelligo id cuius essentia involvit existentiam,
sive id cuius natura non potest concipi nisi existens.'

12. Locke. — Locke's proof of theism,^ which he
regards as having an evidence ' equal to mathe-
matical certainty,' though in some ways perfunc-
tory, is in its general character of the Neo-Platonic
type. He does not refer to the a priori or onto-
logical argument, and refuses to pronounce any
opinion on Descartes' own special argument from
our posses.sion of an idea of God except to remark
that ' It is an ill way of establishing this truth and
sUencing atheists to lay the whole stress of so
important a point as this upon that sole founda-
tion.' (As the context shows, Locke thinks that
it would be a true and relevant criticism of
Descartes to say that some men have no idea, and
others false ideas, of God.) It is not quite clear
whether Locke regards the certainty of theism as
equal to tiie certainty with Avhich we know actu-
ally perceived facts or the fact of our own existence.
He says that we have more certainty of it ' tliau
of anything our senses have not immediately dis-
covered to us,' and again that 'we more certainly
know that there is a God, than that there is any-
thing else without us.' Thi.s certainty looks as if
Locke held (as Descai'tes did not) that the exist-
ence of God is less certain than our own, and

1 Proclus, Inst it. theoL, prop. 40 : avdyicri apa t6 avOvnocrarov
elvai /LteTa to iTpu>TOV.

2 Objectiones Quartae, § ' de Dec'

s Essay, bk. iv. ch. 10, ' Of our Knowledge of the Existence of
a God.'

272

THEISM

possibly less certain than that of the objects of
actual and present sense-perception. But it is also
possible that he only means that our certainty in
the last two cases is immediate, but in the first
depends on an ability, not found in all men, to
follow the steps of a deduction. He may not
intend to suggest that, to the man who can per-
form the deduction, its conclusion is inferior in
certainty to any immediate cognition, 'intuitive'
or 'sensitive.'

Locke's own proof is the usual a posteriori one based on the
principle of causalitj' and the empirical proposition (guaranteed
by the eogito) that something (viz. mj'self) exists. It is also
assumed, as usual, that a cause must contain more reahty or
perfection than any of its effects, as the Neo-Platonists had
taught. The argument then becomes this : I exist ; therefore
I must have a cause ; this cause cannot be ' bare nothing ' ;
therefore it is a positive something. Since ' bare nothing '
cannot be the cause of anything, therefore the cause of my own
existence and that of all other existents must be eternal. (The
impossibility of the endless regress and the 'contingency of the
world' are not mentioned, but are of course tacitly presup-
posed.) An effect must derive all its properties from its cause.
Therefore the ' eternal cause ' must be the most powerful of
things. (It is assumed that the cause has not only as much
' reahty ' as the effects, but more, and further that there can be
only one 'eternal cause' — a point which Locke is hardly
entitled by his own metaphysics to assume.) There is intelli-
gence in mj'self, the effect, and therefore there is intelUgence
(of a higher degree) in the cause. The ' eternal cause ' is thus
'most knowing' as well as 'most powerful.' From this Locke
thinks it follows that this cause is what we mean by God ;
whether we use the name or not is a mere matter of vocabularj'.
'There is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing Being ;
which whether any one will please to call God, it matters not.'
The rest of the chapter is jjiven to an argument in proof of the
immateriality of the eternal cause. The goodness of this cause
Locke presumably held, as any Platonist might, to be insepar-
able from its wisdom. He does not seem to reflect that he has
given no reason for supposing either the power or the intelli-
gence of the ' eternal cause ' to be perfect. His argument is thus
only the familiar one from causality very badly stated and with
most of its real premisses left unexpressed.

13. Leibniz. — Leibniz's treatment of the subject
is far more adequate. In his system, at least as
represented in his best known works, the proposi-
tion ' God exists ' holds a unique position. It is a
'truth of fact,' and therefore, like all 'truths of
fact,' synthetic. But it is the only truth of fact
which is capable of demonstration. In general,
only 'truths of reason,' analytic propositions,
admit of formal demonstration, because the
demonstration of a propo.sition is nothing but its
analysis into simpler propositions which are seen
on inspection to be identities. This is why the
'principle of contradiction' {A is not non-A) is
regarded by Leibniz as the supreme principle of
all truths of reason. Truths of fact (which all
assert actual existence) do not fall under the
principle of contradiction, but under that of suffi-
cient reason, and thus, with the one exception of
the proposition that God exists, they are not
analysable into identities and cannot be formally
demonstrated. The anomalous character of the
proposition ' God exists ' vanishes, however, when
we discover fi-om the papers published by Couturat ^
that Leibniz's real view was that all truths are
analytic, the only difference between ' truths of
reason ' and ' truths of fact ' being that the former
can be resolved into identities by a finite number
of steps of analysis, the latter require (like the
extraction of the square root of an integer which
is not a perfect square) an infinite number of inter-
mediate steps.^ It follows that God, being omni-
scient, knows all truths of fact a priori (i.e. sees
them to be identities), just as Leibniz says more

1 Opuscules et fragments inedits de Leibniz, Paris, 1903,
p. 518 ff.

2 Ih. p. 518 : ' Semper igitur praedicatum seu consequens
inest subiecto seu antecedent! et in hoc ipso consistit natura
veritatis in universum ' ; p. 519 : the law of sufficient reason
itself is a consequence of this, for ' alioqui Veritas daretur, quae
non posset probarl a priori, seu quae non resolveretur in
identicas, quod est contra naturam veritatis quae (semper) vel
expresse vel implicite identica est'; p. 376: ' omnes proposi-
tiones existentiales sunt verae quidem, sed non necessariae, nam
non possunt demonstrari nisi infinitis adhibitis.'

than once that God sees ' from eternity ' in the
'notion' of Peter that Peter will repent of his
denial, and in the 'notion' of Judas that Judas
will die impenitent, and that the distinction
between the necessary truths of reason and the
contingent truths of fact means nothing to him.
Quoad nos truths of fact are, in general, con-
tingent merely because we cannot perform an
infinite analysis. The peculiarity of the one truth
of fact which is necessary quoad nos, ' God exists,'
is merely that this proposition does not require for
its proof a priori an infinite series of resolutions.
In being capable of resolution into identities by a
finite number of steps it resembles the truths of
reason.

Consequently Leibniz is bound to hold that the Anselmian
argument a priori from the meaning of the concept of God to
the real existence of God is in principle valid. Since he also
held that all propositions without exception are predicative, he
naturally adopts the form of the argument used by Descartes,
viz. that the predicate of the proposition ' God exists ' is already
implicitly contained in the subject. Descartes' proof is vahd,
but incomplete. To make it complete it is onlj' necessary to
show that the concept of God is a genuine concept, i.e. that it
contains no contradiction, i.e. does not attempt to unite incom-
patible constituents.! Leibniz thinks that this can be shown
by the consideration that the ' most perfect ' or ' most real '
being means the being of whom no simple positive predicate
can be denied. (Any being of whom a positive simple predicate
could be denied would be without the excellence or perfection
for wiiich that predicate stands.) Now, aU complex predicates
can be resolved into simple ones, and Leibniz holds that all
positive simple predicates are compossible in a single subject
just because they are all positive. If any two predicates are
incompossible, one of them must deny what the other affirms.
But no simple predicate denies anything. Consequently all
simple predicates can ' inhere ' in a single subject. 'This proves
that 'the most real' being is possible. And Descartes has
proved in the fifth Meditation that, 'if the most real being is
possible, it is also actual.' Hence the ' ontological ' proof, when
completed by the preliminary proof that the most real being is
possible, is a vahd demonstration. 2 There is an obvious weak-
ness in the argument. Leibniz assumes that, if we have one
proposition, 'A is B,' where £ is a 'simple' predicate, and a
second, ^ A is C,' and the two are incompatible, the proposition
'A is C" must be capable of resolution into simpler proposi-
tions, of which one is ' ^ is not B.' It ought to follow that,
since the propositions ' A is red ' and ' A is green ' are incom-
patible, if ' red ' is a simple quality, ' green ' is a complex. But,
in point of fact, green is as much a simple positive ' perfection '
as red. This seems sufficient reason for regarding Leibniz's
proof that the ens realissimum is possible as a failure. A more
promising line of thought is suggested by the short memoir of
1701, De la Demonstration Cartesienne de Cexistence de Dieu
du R. P. Lami, where Leibniz is content to argue that the
ens a se must exist because, if there were no ens a se, there
would be no real possibilities — a position since made familiar by
Lotze's adoption of it. It is worth noting that in the chapter
of the Noiiveatix Essais where Leibniz is commenting on the
corresponding chapter of Locke's Essay he feels himself, as
standing outside the Roman Church, free to say expressly that
St. Thomas was wrong in rejecting Anselm's proof and to
commend Descartes for rehabilitating it.

Leibniz naturally agrees with Locke that there are several
ways of proving the existence of God and that none of the
proofs should be neglected. He himself expressly recognizes
three proofs besides the ontological.S These are (a) the cosmo-
logical argument from the actual existence of the world to the
e.xistence of God as its cause (the standing Platonic-Aristotelian
proof) ; (6) the argument from ' eternal truths ' — truths which
involve no reference to time or particular temporal existents
in time, and would still be true if the world of temporal existents
had never existed — to the ' eternal ' intellect of God as their
source; (c) the argrument from 'pre-established harmony.'
This is a special version of the teleological argument from the
order and purpose revealed in the world to an ordering and
designing intellect as its source. Any remarks which the
present writer desires to make upon these a posteriori theistic
arg:uments will more naturally find their place in a later para-
graph. But it should be mentioned that the use of the argu-
ment from design introduces a curious contradiction into
Leibniz's peculiar metaphysic. From his view that aU proposi-
tions are predications and that all true propositions can be
analysed into identities it follows at once that, as he constantly
asserts, every real existent (every monad) is the ground of all
its attributes. Since existence itself, on this view, is a predi-
cate or attribute, the world of existing monads ought to be its
own ground, and there should be no need of any external cause
to account for the order found in it. Accordingly we find

1 Cf. what has been said above about the attitude of Scotus,
by whom Leibniz may very possibly have been influenced.

2 Nouveaux Essais, iv. 10, § 7 : Meditationes de Cognitione,
Veritate et Ideis.

3 See the discussion of them in B. Russell, A Critical Exposi-
tion of the Philosophy of Leibniz, eh. ix.

THEISM

273

Leibniz himself at times explaining whj' the actual world,
rather than any other equally possible world, exists, by ascrib-
ing to the various possible worlds an ' appetence of existence '
(existuritio) proportionate to their degree of internal harmony,
and saying that the most orderly of them is actual just because
its existuritio is a maximum,^ but elsewhere, especially in more
popular writings, treating existence as something which is
conferred on the most orderly and harmonious of the possible
worlds by God in virtue of His ' choice of the best.' Unless one
is prepared, as the present writer after long study is not, to
accuse Leibniz of insincerity, it seems impossible not to recog-
nize here a fundamental inconsistency between his personal
religious convictions and the logical requirements of his meta-
physical system. If all true propositions are identities, philo-
sophy must be atheistic^

14. Hume. — The most important philosophical
treatment of the theistic problem between Leibniz
and Kant is unmistakably that of Hume in his
Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (written
apparently before 1751, though not published until
1779, three years after the author's death). In
judging this work it must be borne in mind that it
makes no pretence to expound the theology of the
author. It is strictly what it purports to be, a
conversation between a su[)porter of philosophic
'natural theology,' Cleanthes, a violent fideist,
Demea, intended as a representative of orthodoxy,
and a sceptic, Philo. The responsibility for the
positions maintained by the three speakers rests
entirely with themselves. Hume abstains from
indicating his own sympathies except in the final
sentence, where he suggests that the ' opinions '
(he is careful not to say 'the arguments') of the
' natural theologian ' Cleanthes probably come
nearer to the truth than those of Philo, and those
of Philo than those of Demea.^ Hume's real
position in natural theology, as in philosophy in
general, seems to have been that of a consistent
Academic. Genuine scepticism is a rare thing
and liable to be misunderstood. So Hume's
general philosophy has commonly been mistaken,
as by T. H, Green, Huxley, and others, for a
shallow sensationalistic phenomenalism. In reality
he is neither a sensationalist nor a phenomenalist.
He holds that there are insuperable difficulties in
the Cartesian rationalism, and that, on the other
hand, sensationalism leads to the conclusion that
science is an impossibility. Being unable to accept
either Cartesianism or sensationalism, and knowing
of no third choice in philosophy, he adopts the
sceptical attitude of iiroxn, ' suspense of judgment.'
There can be no question of seriously regarding
principles presupposed in all science as false ; at
the same time Hume confesses himself unable to
justify these principles. His real attitude towards
theism seems to have been the same. It is prob-
ably true, and, as the letter to Elliot shows,
Hume is very unwilling to believe that his leaning
towards it rests on nothing more solid than
emotional bias, but the alleged proofs of theism
are open to criticisms which Hume does not know
how to refute, and there are ' appearances ' which
it is hard to reconcile with the theistic 'hypothesis.'
We have not, as it is to be wished we had, con-
vincing proof of its truth, though Hume lets us
see that personally he inclines to accept it. His
attitude is neither that of a zealous ' infidel ' nor
that of a ' phenomenalist ' and anti-theist. Neither

1 Cf. Couturat, La Logique de Leibniz, Paris, 1901, pp.
224-226, with the passages cited there.

2 For a useful conspectus of all the more important utterances
of Leibniz on the existence of God known before the publica-
tion of Couturat's volume of Opuscules see Russell, Crit. Expos,
of the Philosophy of Leibniz, pp. 2S4-291, and, for a 'smash-
ing,' but by no means final, attack on all the four arguments,
ch. ix. of the same work.

3 That this remark is made in good faith seems clear from
Hume's letter to Gilbert Elliot of March 10th, 1751, where he
speaks of Cleanthes as the ' hero' of the dialogue and asks his
friend for any suggestions which will ' strengthen that side of
the dialogue," protesting against the ascription to himself of
' any propensity to the other side,' by which he plainly means
the side of Philo. No one could suspect him of ' propensity ' to
the side of the ' mystic ' Demea.

VOL. XII."— 1 8

the Hume of contemporary High Churchmen like
Johnson and Wesley nor the Hume of Huxley's
biography is the Hume of historical fact.^

In form the Dialogues, like some of Plato's greatest works,
are reported conversation. An unnamed narrator informs his
friend Hermippus of the discussions between Cleanthes, Philo,
and Demea. 'The narrator, it should be observed, is a theist.

' What truth so obvious, so certain, as the beinq of a God?
. . . What truth so important as this, which is the ground of
all our hopes, the surest foundation of morality, the firmest
support of society, and the only principle which ought never to
be a moment absent from our thoughts and meditations? But
in treating of this obvious and important truth ; what obscure
questions occur, concerning the NATURE of that divine being ;
his attributes, his decrees, his plan of providence?'

There is no sign of irony in this utterance, and its seriousness
is all the more probable that Hume proceeds to dwell on the
intellectual difference between the characters of the dialogue,
assigning an ' accurate philosophical turn ' to Cleanthes the
theist, 'careless scepticism' to Philo, and 'rigid inflexible
orthodoxy ' to Demea. 2 His obvious intention is to predispose
the reader to find in Cleanthes the hero of the work. It is with
the same object that, until the discussion is near its end,
Demea, the zealot ifor unreasoning faith, is made to regard
Philo as an ally against Cleanthes.* The intimate correspond-
ence between what Cleanthes saj'S about the impossibility of
seriously acquiescing in complete philosophical scepticism and
Hume's own utterances to the same effect in the Treatise of
Uiiriian Nature further helps to indicate that we are not to
take Philo's estimate of the theistic arguments as meant to be
that of his creator. His function is not to refute Cleanthes,
but to caU attention to the difficulties and weak points in his
exposition.* The precise position at the opening of the dis-
cussion is this. Cleanthes affirms the existence of a 'cause' of
the universe and, reasoning by analogy from the products of
art to those of nature, holds that this cause is a mind resembling
our own. He denies the doctrine of the Neo-Platonists and
Christian theologians that God is absolutely simple and there-
fore unknowable in His essentia to us, on the ground that this
amounts to atheism. Philo and Demea are agreed in opposing
him, though for different reasons — Demea because he accepts
the negative theology, PhUo on the ground that, as we have no
experience of 'world -making,' we are not entitled to say that
the order in the world presupposes a world-building intelligence.
Cleanthes has rested his case on the old Platonic argument from
' orderlj- motion,' but has admitted that the argument is one
from analogj'. Philo replies that there is no sufficient basis for
an analogical argument. He further appeals to the difficulties
of the 'infinite regress.' If matter and mind must be effects of
a cause, why must not that cause have a more ultimate cause,
and so on ad indefinitumt Cleanthes declines to consider the
problem : ' You ask me what is the cause of this cause ? I know
not ; I care not ; that concerns not me. I have found a Deity ;
and here I stop my enquiry. Let those go farther, who are
wiser or more enterprising.' Philo not unnaturall.v replies : ' I
pretend to be neither ; and for that very reason, I should never
perhaps have attempted to go so far ; especially when I am
sensible, that I must at last be contented to sit down with the
same answer.' 6 Philo, it must be remembered, calls himself a
theist, though he professes to regard the nature of God as
totally unknowTi. The point at issue between him and Cleanthes
is that Cleanthes maintains that the 'First Cause' is not only
a mind but also 'a mind like the human,' and that the teleo-
logical argument is an ' experimental proof' of this. These two
points are what Philo disputes and Demea regards as ' anthropo-
morphist' heres}'. Philo, in fact, wishes, like Kant, to main-
tain that speculative theism is dependent upon the vahdity of
the ' a priori proof.' If we rely solely on the argument from

1 That Hume was personally an orthodox Christian is, to be
sure, unlikely, but there is no reason to suppose that he was
much further removed from orthodoxy than more than one of
the prominent ISth cent, latitudiiiarian bishops or Scottish
' moderates,' and in his philosophy he never commits himself to
any view not compatible with the completes! orthodoxy, as
orthodoxy was understood in his day. Huxley's anti-clerical-
ism is quite incompatible with Humianism.

2 There is a certain want of definiteness about the position
ascribed to Demea. He is spoken of as a ' mystic ' and a
depreciator of the powers of reason ; on the other hand, he is
the champion of the 'simple and sublime argument a priori' —
an odd attitude for an irrationalist. Hume does not seem to
have distingfuished between negative theology, the creation of
philosophic rationalists, and the scepticism of despair which
arises from sheer distrust of reason. Philo's 'scepticism' is
quite another thing, a mere declaration that, 'as at present
advised,' he has not sufficient material for a definitive conclusion.

3 Demea is, in fact, so little of a real theologian that he is un-
aware that it is actually unorthodox to maintain that the exist-
ence of God is known only ' by revelation.' Perhaps, like Hume
himself, according to Johnson, 'he had never read the New
Testament with attention,' and he almost certainly did not
know that his position had been formally condemned by the
Fifth Lateran Council.

■4 Huxley's exploitation of Philo for an antitheistic purpose
rests on the false assumption that it is he who is the real ' hero
of the dialogue.'

5 Hume, Philosophical Works, ed. T. H. Green and T. H.
Grose, London, 1874-75, ii. 410.

274

THEISM

effect to cause, the known effect is not perfect and we are not
entitled to infer that its author is free either from intellectual
or from moral deficiencies, or even that ' several deities ' may
not combine to construct a world as manj' men co-operate to
build a house or a ship. ' A man, who follows your h\-pothesis,
is able, perhaps, to assert, or conjecture, that the universe,
sometime, arose from something like design : but beyond that
position he cannot ascertain one single circumstance, and is
left afterwards to fix every point of his theology, by the utmost
licence of fancy and hypothesis.' ' The God of Cleanthes is, in
fact, a 'finite deity,' and a finite deity is as bad as none at all.
And, if reasoning jjy analogy be in place at all, analogy suggests
that we should look on the material world as an animal of which
God is, as with the Stoics, the soul, and thus we shall be led to
affirm the eternity of the world (contrary to the position of
Cleanthes, who has tacitly assumed that the thing to be
accounted for is its origin). Or, again, if the world is more like
an animal or vegetable than a watch or loom, why should we
not infer that worlds are propagated rather than made? A
comet may be the ' egg ' of a solar system. Demea, of course,
comments on the absence of any data for such 'wild' theories.
But this is exactly the point on which Philo \vishe3 to insist ;
' we have no data to establish any system of cosmogony.' He
insists, none the less, that such analogies as we have suggest
that intelligence itself is caused by physical generation.
Generation, itself an unintelligent process, is explained to be
a 'principle of order in nature,' and 'we see every day the
latter [intelligence] arise from the former [generation], never
the former from the latter.' (It is, of course, obvious that
Cleanthes is here making two very questionable assumptions —
that the 'rational soul' is generated like the bod.v, and that,
because an oak or a spider is not rational, the growth of the
one and the instinctive behaviour of the other are not guided
by intelligence at all. ' Experience ' does nothing to assure us
of these negations.) Philo finally reaches the climax of his
polemic against the a posteriori argument when he urges that
the ' unguided ' motions of material particles may give rise to
'an uniformity of appearance,' and thus 'account for all the
appearing wisdom and contrivance ' in nature. (As before, he
makes the wholly illegitimate assumption that we know from
experience that this has really happened. ' This we know to
be the case with the universe at present. . . . May we not hope
for such a position, or rather be assured of it, from the eternal
revolutions of unguided matter?' Of course, experience does
not warrant the statement that there is or ever has been
'unguided matter.') He had himself repudiated the notion
that chance has any place in a scientific theory, but he ends by
suggesting that the only reason why there is order in the world
is that ' it happens ' so.2 Cleanthes reasonabl}' retorts that the
degree of harmonious adaptation in the known part of the
universe to the needs of an intelligent civilization goes far
beyond what Philo undertakes to account for — such order as
is necessarj- ' for the subsistence of the species.' But Philo has
made the main point for which he was concerned, that the
o posteriori argument, taken by itself, is not adequate to
establish the existence of the all-perfect or ' most real ' being.
Accordingly the dialogue now proceeds to consider the a priori
argument by which the existence of the ens realissimum is to
be established from an analj'sis of its own nature. The exposi-
tion of this argument is given to Demea, the spokesman of
traditional theology, and the objections against it are put into
the mouth of Cleanthes, the upholder of the argument from
design, as well as into that of Philo. We now find Cleanthes
and Philo allied against Demea, as we have hitherto had Demea
and PhOo combining against Cleanthes. The particular argu-
ment regarded as conclusive by Demea is one which ought
more properly to be called a posteriori. It is, in fact, as he
words it, a combination of two of the forms of the a posteriori
argument admitted by St. Thomas — the argument from the
fact of motion to a First Mover and the argument from the
possible to the necessary. Since the indefinite regress is
illegitimate, in arguing from effects to causes, we must come to
a First Cause, and, when we ask why the ' succession of causes '
should be what it is and not a different series, we are forced to
answer that the First Cause is a 'necessarily-existent Being,
who carries the BEAHOiV of his existence in himself ; and who
cannot be supposed not to exist without an e.xpress contradic-
tion.' 3 (This last clause thus gets in the point of the ontological
proof under cover of the argument from causality ; this may be
the justification for calling Demea's reasoning a priori. Or
Hume may possibly mean that his argument is based simply on
the general principle of causality and not on the special char-
acter of the effect under consideration, the actual universe.)
Cleanthes urges against the proof the five following considera-
tions. (1) No fact can be demonstrated a priori. ' Whatever
we conceive as existent we can also conceive as non-existent.
There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a
contradiction. Consequently, there is no being whose existence
is demonstrable. ' This agrees with Thomas's verdict on Anselm
except for the fact that Hume disregards the fine distinction
between what is evident in se and what is evident quoad nos.
(2) We cannot know that ' the Deity ' is a ' necessarily-existent
Being" 'while our faculties remain the same as at present,' and
therefore 'the words necessary existence have no meaning' to
us. Here there seems to be a direct contradiction between
Cleanthes and St. Thomas. But on looking more closely we see
that Cleanthes is merely repeating his former objection in fresh
words. By a ' necessarj' existence ' he means one that cannot

1 Philosophical Worke, p. 414. 2 Zb. p. 42S. 3 lb. p. 432.

be thought of as not existing, and St. Thomas also admits that
' our faculties ' do not allow us to perceive that God's existence
' flows from His essence.' St. Thomas's argument only went to
show that there is a being who exists alwaj'S. This contention
Cleanthes does not refute, but merely denies without giving a
reason ; ' nor can the mind ever lie under a necessity of sup-
posing any object to remain always in being.' (3) If there must
be a 'necessary being,' or a being which cannot be thought not
to exist, why may not ' the material universe ' itself be this
necessary being? _' For aught we can determine, it may contain
some quahties which, were they knovsTi, would make its non-
existence appear as great a contradiction as that twice two is
five.' 1 (4) How can there be a first cause of an ' eternal succes-
sion of objects'? (5) In such a 'succession of objects' each
may be said to be caused by something that preceded it, but
there is no sense in asking' for a cause of the whole chain.
Demea adds that possibly the ' whole economy of the universe '
is ' conducted by a necessity,' undiscoverable to us, which he
compares with the arithmetical rule that the sum of the digits
of any multiple of 9 is divisible by 9.2 These reflexions really
suggest more than they actually contain. Consideration (4), if
thought out, raises the question whether the 'infinite regress'
is really an impossibility, and consideration (5) is at least a hint
of the more modem doctrine of ultimate pluralism that the
universe may consist of a multitude of independent but inter-
related constituents. Demea's remark deserves less considera-
tion. It amounts manifestly to the suggestion that the
' material universe ' itself may be the ' necessary ' being whose
existence follows from its 'essence,' and is inconsistent with the
objection already urged against the ontological proof, that there
is no existent which may not be conceived not to exist.

The discussion now turns to the moral character of t!ie First
Cause. Philo and Demea agree in arbitrarily assuming the
pessimistic view of the general miserj' of creation and in par-
ticular of man. The case is argued by Philo with an abundance
of rhetoric and manifest want of logic which of themselves
suggest that Hume is treating him with some irony. That
Cleanthes declares that he feels little of this misery himself and
hopes that pessimists are not very common is a further indica-
tion that it is he who is the spokesman of Hume's own convic-
tion, so far as any of the characters can be said to be so,
Demea, of course, means only to infer from the pessimistic
estimate of life that the true good of man is not to be found on
this side of the grave, and is driven out of the companj' by dis-
gust when Philo goes on to argue at great length, and with still
more obvious begging of the question than before, that all the
indications show that the cause or causes of tlie cosmic order
are either incompetent, evil, or indifferent to morality. (It is
almost incredible, again, that Hume was not aware that the
whole of Philo's eloquence depends on the tacit assumption that
nothing is good but pleasure. He merely revives the old Epi-
curean argument against Providence in its crudest form, and
it is no surprise to an intelligent reader when he informs Clean-
thes, after Demea's departure, that his real object has been
merely to protest against the abuse of the topic of benevolent
design by popular preachers. It is not quite so easy to believe
him sincere in his assertion that, in spite of all that he has
hitherto said, he thinks the evidence of rational design in
nature overpowering and regards doubt about the existence of
a 'Supreme Intelligence' as 'pertinacious obstinacy.') Philo's
final conclusion is that the controversy between theists and
atheists is at bottom verbal. 'The order and design in the
world prove that its cause (he quietly abandons his own former
objection to the demand for such a cause) bears an analog^-,
though, no doubt, a remote one, to the human mind. If
theists would remember the remoteness and atheists the reality
of the analog}', there would be nothing left to dispute. But he
objects in toto to all ' religion ' which goes beyond the intellect-
ual admission of this one proposition (and thus is plainly
meant to be insincere in his assertion that his 'philosophical
scepticism ' is ' the most essential step,' in an educated man,
'towards being a sound, beheving Christian'). Deism — bare
intellectual affirmation of the existence of an intelligent First
Cause which exercises no influence whatever on the practical con-
duct of life — is manifestly what PhUo really means to recommend.
(His attack on ' religion ' is little more than a denunciation
of the ' horrors of the Inquisition ' and contains a logical contra-
diction to which his creator must have been alive. He main-
tains, on the one hand, that ' religious motives ' are so weak,
by comparison with others, that ' religion ' is impotent to
influence conduct for the better, and, on the other, that it is
so strong that all the worst evil in life is due to ' priests' who
play on the fanaticism of the vulgar for their own interested
purposes. It is hard not to believe that Hume is treating his
puppet with intentional malice, just as he is treating Demea
with malice when he represents him as welcoming Philo's
description of the hopeless wretchedness of existence without
any suspicion of its drift, though, as an educated man, he must
have known what conclusions Lucretius had drawn from the
same premisses.) Cleanthes, it is to be noted, listens to this
assault on religion almost in silence and leaves Philo with the
last word. It is to be supposed that he does not assent, though
he may not see his way to ' dissolve the arropCa.'

15. Kant. — Much more closely knit is the assault
on the whole of natural theology in Kant's Critique
of Pure Reason. It should be remembered that
Kant had not always been a disbeliever in the

1 Philosophical Works, p. 432. 2 /j. p. 434.

THEISM

275

possibility of demonstrating theism. In his thesis
for his degree,^ wliich aims at showing tlie irre-
ducibility of the principle of sufficient reason to
the logical principle of contradiction, he offers a
proof, based on the former principle, that ' there is
a being whose existence is antecedent to the possi-
bility of itself and of all things, Avhich being must
therefore be said to exist with an absolute neces-
sity.'^ This is, in principle, the contention most
fully developed later by Lotze.

As Kant states it, the argument runs thus. 'Possibility'
means the absence of contradiction (^non repxignantia) between
the constituents of a ' complex notion.' The ' constituents '
are thus presupposed as the ' matter' of the ' complex notion.'
Thus a 'possibility' with no presuppositions, a 'possibilit}'"
when nothing whatever has been given as actual, is mean-
ingless. It follows ' that nothing can be conceived as
possible unless that which is real in every possible notion
exists, and, indeed, exists with absolute necessity (since, if you
leave this [reality] out of account, nothing whatever wfculd be
possible, i.e., everything would be impossible). Further, he
urges, this ' necessary reality ' must be a single being. The
argument for this is that, if we suppose ' the reals, which are,
80 to say, the matter of all possible concepts, to be found dis-
tributed among many existents ' {i.e., if we suppose a plurality
of ultimate ' reals '), each ' real ' will have limitations, i.e.
'privations,' negative characters. But negative characters
have not, like positive ' realities,' an ' absolute necessity.' The
supposed ' reals ' vnll therefore all contain an element of con-
tingency. The being which exists with absolute necessity must
therefore be without any limitations and therefore infinite.
(Like Leibniz's God, it must be the subject of every proposition
affirming a positive 'perfection.') If there were more than one
such infinite being, the very plurality would re-introduce con-
tingency. 'Thus God, and one only God, is given as the
absolutely necessary principle of all possibility.' Kant thus, by
deducing the existence of God from the principle of sufficient
reason, is already anticipating the doctrine of the Critique that
all existential propositions are synthetic without exception.
Descartes' ontologioal argument is pronounced to be invalid,
precisely because it attempts to deduce the ' existence ' of God
from His ' essence ' (thus treating an existential proposition as
analytic), whereas, in the proof given by Kant, the ' possibility '
of God is itself made to depend on His ' existence.'

Kant returns to the subject in his short essay
on The only Possible Proof of the Being of God.^
The proof offered is substantially that of his thesis
of 1755, divested of scholastic terminology. Exist-
ence is not a predicate or determination of a sub-
ject, but the absolute positing of the subject
itself; e.g., when I am fully acquainted with the
whole story of Julius Caesar and know every pre-
dicate of the hero of the story, it is still an intel-
ligible question whether this Julius Caesar is a
' real ' man or only the hero of a fiction, and by
calling him a 'real' man I do not add an {n + \Y^
predicate to the n predicates which I have already
asserted about him in telling the stoiy. The
difference between a ' real ' and a merely possible
thing lies not in what is posited in each case, but
in the Avay in which it is posited. If I think of
a thing first as possible and then as real, the same
complex of predicates and relations is posited in
both cases ; but in the first case this complex is
posited hypothetically (a complex of propositions
are true about the thing if it exists), in the second
case absolutely — i.e. categorically. I cannot think
of anything as possible unless its predicates are all
compatible with one another ; e.g., I cannot think
of a triangle with four sides as possible, but I can
think of a triangle with a right angle as possible.
' Both the triangle and the right angle are the
data or material element in this possibility ; the
agreement of the first with the second in respect
to the law of contradiction is the formal element
of the possibility.' Since the material element
(the data) as well as the formal is required to con-
stitute a possibility, ' the internal possibility of all
things presupposes some existence' {irgcnd ein
Dasein), and ' it is wholly impossible that absolutely

1 Principiorum Primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova
dilucidatio, Konigsberg, 1755 {Werke, ed. G. Hartenstein,
Leipzig, 1838-39, i. 367-400).

* Jb. § ii. prop. 7.

3 Der einzig mogliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demongtration
des Daseins QotUt, Konigsberg, 1'^ {Werke, ii. 109-206).

nothing should exist.' (In more modern language
this means that the difference between the logically
possible and impossible depends on the compossi-
bility of some predicates and the incompossibility
of others ; thus, that there may be so much as the
difference between what is logically impossible and
what is possible, there mu.st be predicates, and
predicates are predicates of something. Hence
there must be something, to be the subject of
predicates if the very word ' possible ' is to have a
meaning.) Thus we get back to the starting-
point of the proof of 1755. Possibility logically
presupposes actual existence as its foundation.
Therefore there is something actual, the elimina-
tion of which would destroy all ' internal possi-
bility'; i.e. there is 'an unconditionally necessary
being.' Kant then proceeds, as in 1755, to prove
that the necessary being is one, simple, immutable,
and eternal, and, as that'which contains the data
of all possibilities, is, in fact, the ens realissimum.
From these attributes it is inferred that ' the
necessary being is a spirit (Geist),' and this com-
pletes the proof that God exists.

It still remains for Kant to show that his form of the argu-
ment ' from the possible to the necessary ' is the only valid
theistic proof. The Cartesian proof of the fifth Meditation is set
aside on the ground that it treats existence as a predicate.
The familiar argument from the contingenc}' of the world (the
world is an effect, therefore it has a cause which is itself
uncaused and therefore 'necessary') is unsatisfactorj'. Kant
allows in this essay, as he does not in the Critique, that the infer-
ence to an uncaused Krst Cause may be valid. It is not so
clear that ' this independent thing is unconditionallj' necessary,'
i.e. that it cannot even be thought not to exist, since the
demonstration of this turns on the pi'inciple of sufficient
reason, which is not admitted by all philosophers. But, even
if the point be conceded for the sake of argument, it is not
proved that the absolutely necessary being is what we mean by
God, i.e. is utterly perfect and utterly One. To establish this
point (that 'the necessary being = the perfect being') we
require to prove that, ' if X is perfect, X necessarily exists,' and
this is just the ontological argument, with its treatment of
existence as one predicate among others, over again (a point on
which Kant expatiates more fully in the Critique). The teleo-
logical or, as Kant calls it, the phj'sico-theological proof here,
as in the Critique, comes off better. Like Hume's Philo (in one
of his moods), Kant is convinced that there is such evident
system, adaptation, and benevolence in nature that its author
must be thought of as One, wise, and good. But, though the
argument deserves to be enforced in the interests of practical
piety, it is not enough to prove perfect wisdom or benevolence
in the Creator, and thus not enough to prove that He is all we
mean by God. The same criticism vriU meet us again in the
Critiqtie.

The argument for the dependence of the world
on a 'necessarily existing being' recurs again, in
a slightly different form, in a third ' precritical '
work — Kant's inaugural lecture as professor on
' The Form and Principles of the Sensible and
Intelligible "World.' ^ As in the two works already
considered, Kant assumes the Leibnizian concep-
tion of the universe as a complex of simple
substances or monads. His object is to show that
such a complex must depend for its existence and
character upon a supreme and 'necessarj'' extra-
mundane ' substance,' which is God. The theistic
argument is more specially contained in §§ 17-22,
and runs as foUoAvs. The principles of inter-
relation between a plurality of substances cannot
have their complete ground in the existence of
these substances. Each substance is indebted for
its mere subsistence only to its cause (if it has a
cause). But the relation of effect to cause is
not commercium (reciprocal interaction), but
dependentia (one-sided dependence), and what
we have to account for is the comwercium
of the substances which make up the universe.
Not all these substances can be 'necessary,'
because, if they were, they would be absolutely
\\athout dependence on each other ; there would
be no commercium between them, and they would
not form a world at all. The world, or ' totality

1 Z)« munrfi sengihilis atgve xntellegibUis forma et prindpiii,
Riga, 1770 {Werke, ii. 395-425).

276

THEISM

of substances,' is, therefore, a ' totality of contin-
gents ' ; and ' the world, in virtue of its essence,
consists of mere contingents. Moreover, no
necessary substance is connected with the world
(mundus) at all, unless as cause with effect, and
therefore not as a part with a whole, since the
parts of one and the same whole are connected by
reciprocal dependence, a relation which does not
affect a necessary being. The cause of the world,
then, is an extra-mundane being and not a " soul
of the world." ' And the necessary being which is
the extra-mundane cause of the world is one and
not many. For the effects of different ' necessary
beings' would stand in no relations of reciprocal
dependence, since their assumed causes are not
reciprocally inter-related. Hence the unity of the
substances composing the world in a single system
is a consequence of the dependence of them all on
one being, and it follows that this one being is not
a mere 'architect of the universe' (i.e. 87iiJ,i.ovpy6$),
but its Creator. Incidentally also the argument
removes the ambiguity which had haunted
Leibniz's account of the ' pre-established harmony '
to God. It definitely makes the harmony itself
dependent on God.^

Thus down to 1770 Kant shows no doubt of the possibility of
demonstrating theism. The argument on which he relies in all
the essa.vs examined is one and the same — the Neo-Platonic
argument a posteriori — and rests on the assumption that the
world as given is an object for which we are bound by the
principle of causalit.v to seek an explanation. 2 The proof, as
with the Neo-Platonists, aims at establishing the existence of
the One — the single, internally simple and perfect, extra-
mundane source of all the existents which together make up
the Koo-jMos. The peculiarity of Kant's special version of it is
that, to escape the criticisms which had been directed against
Descartes, he sets himself to deduce the existence of a ' being
which cannot be thought not to exist,' not from the logical
concept of ens realissimuin, but from the consideration that,
in the universe itself, some combinations of predicates of the
same thing and some combinations of relations between the
same things are possible, and others not. The existence of an
actual extra-mundane being once established as a pre-condition
of the difference in intra-mundane things between what is
possible and what is impossible, the internal unity, simplicity,
and perfection of the necessary being are then deduced as
consequences of its necessary existence. If this line of argu-
ment is not fallacious — i.e. if it really proves that something
' exists of necessity ' — it clearly has the double merit of being
free from the objection to the ontological proof, and of being
equally untouched by the considerations urged by Philo and
Demea in Hume against the a posteriori proof. If the
principle on which Kant relies— that the possible presupposes
the actual — is sound, his argument seems to be a complete
speculative demonstration of the ' being of God ' reduced to its
most succinct expression. Why, then, did Kant, in his later
' critical ' years, pronounce the question whether God exists to
be transcendent — i.e. outside the legitimate limits of speculative
investigation — and all ' proofs of the existence of God,' includ-
ing that for which he had himself formerly claimed ' geometrical
certainty,' mere fallacies?

In dealing with Kant's drastic assault on specu-
lative natural theology in the Critique of Pure
Reason, we may perhaps distinguish two questions
which Kant himself naturally treated as one. It
is one question whether Kant has proved that the
demonstration of theism is impossible on the
assumption that the special doctrine of his Critique
as to the limits of human knowledge is true, but
quite another question whether that doctrine is
true, and consequently whether Kant has proved
the fallaciousness of natural theology uncondition-
ally. The first of these two questions no doubt
permits of only one answer. Kant is clearly right
when he asserts that all existential propositions
are synthetic, at any rate (to repeat the distinction
of St. Thomas to which Kant himself pays no
regard) quoad nos. And it follows at once from
this single consideration that, if, as the Critique
maintains, the synthesis in a synthetical proposi-
tion must always in the end be effected by an

1 ' Commercium itaque omnium substantiarum univerei est
externe stabilitum per causam omnium communem ' (ib. p. 22).

2 PhiJo, in Hume, it will be remembered, had at least
suggested that this need not be the case ; the material world
may be its own explanation.

application of formal ' categories of the under-
standing' to a material supplied in sensation or
sensuous imagination, no synthetical proposition
(and, by consequence, no existential proposition)
can be affirmed of a subject which is purely
' intelligible,' a vorjrbv. And Kant expressly makes
this a main point in his criticism of the ontological
proof. Unfortunately, however, this doctrine, if
carried out to its full logical consequences, would
lead to a result which Kant would have been the
first to reject. For it follows that there can be no
such sciences as pure arithmetic and pure geometry.
The subjects about which synthetical propositions
are asserted in these sciences are one and all
Objekte des reinen Denkens no less than the ens
necessarium or the ens realissimtim of speculative
theology. No element whatever supplied by sense
enters into the mathematician's concept of a circle,
a parabola, an integer, or a real number, Kant
overlooks this all-important point because he
assumes throughout his whole reasoning that,
before I can demonstrate a proposition in geometry,
I must draw the figure, and similarly that, before
I can say what the sum of two integers is, I must
count the units of which he supposes the integers
to consist. The erroneous character of this view
has been sufficiently demonstrated by the sub-
sequent history of mathematical science, but ought
to have been clear to Kant himself. Even if all
geometry, as he tacitly assumes, were metrical
geometry, he ought to have seen that Descartes'
invention of co-ordinates had already made the
drawing of figures in principle superfluous in
geometrical science. His conception of arithmetic
is even more superficial — in fact, on a level with
Aristotle's. As Couturat has correctly observed,
Kant's examples ai"e all drawn from the demonstra-
tion of singular propositions (such as 7-f-5 = 12).
If he had asked himself how any general truth in
the theory of numbers is proved (how, e.g., we
prove Fermat's theorem), he would have seen at
once the inadequacy of his own theories. Indeed,
mere consideration of a singular proposition which
does not relate to integers {e.g., the proposition
2-5-f 3-6 = 6-16) might have taught him that
arithmetic is not the same thing as counting, and
even suggested to him that an integer is not a
' collection of units.'

With the discrediting of Kant's 'Transcendental Aesthetic'
and the section of the ' 'Transcendental Dialectic ' containing the
famous antinomies, which may now be fairly regarded as a
fait accompli, our task becomes the comparatively simple one
of considering whether natural theology does or does not involve
(as Kant alleges that it does) an illegitimate use of the principles
of pure logic. From Kant's point of view, to be sure, it does.
But this is just because Kant assumes that the only legitimate
use of logical principles is their employment to order a material
given by sense. If the doctrine of his ' Aesthetic ' is rejected,
and with it that part of the ' Dialectic ' in which he absurdly
tries to show that the mathematical doctrine of infinite series
leads to antinomies,! it is no longer obvious that what Kant
calls a transcendent employment of the principles of logic — i.e.
their employment independently of application to ' the mani-
fold ' of sense — need be illegitimate. In fact, it is not clear that
the whole of the general theory of arithmetic is not just such
an employment of logical principles as ' constitutive of a
Denkobjekte.' (It is certainly so if, as is probably the case, the
series of natural integers can be defined wholly in terms of the
primitive indefinables of logic.) One Kantian paralogism, in
particular, may be noticed here, as it plays a prominent part
in the assault on the theistic arguments. Kant complains that
all the arguments for the ' necessary being ' based on the causal
principle depend on employing this principle, which is a mere
rule for ordering the appearances of the sensible world, and
has no meaning apart from these appearances, as a means
of transcending the world of sense.2 It might be a sufficient
retort that the one form of causality with which we are
intimately acquainted is our own volitional activity. In this
activity, which is at once efficient and intentional causality,
what are connected as cause and effect are not an earlier and
a later event in the 'world of sensible appearances,' but the
self, which does not belong to that ' world ' at all, and an event

1 On the absurdity of all this see, in particular, the crushing
exposure of Couturat, De I'Infini mathimatiqiie, Paris, 1896,
bk. iv. ch. 4.

2 Kritik der reinen Vemunft^, Riga, 1787, p. 637.

THEISM

27:

which does belong to it. Kant could not deny the causal
relation between the rational self and events in the Sinnenwelt
without ruining the foundations of his own ethics, but the
admission of such causality ought to debar him from attacking
natural theology on the ground that it ' uses the principle of
causality as a means to transcend the world of the senses.' He
only escapes open self-contradiction by his monstrous theory,
which is not likely to find a defender at the present day, that
the self with which we are acquainted is not the real self at all,
but a phenomenal self apprehended by an inner sense. From
the pomt of view of logic, the criticism is equivalent to a re-
fusal to admit the validity of any logical inference from the
terms of a series to a limit which is not itself a term of the
series. It is not in itself any more absurd to hold that examina-
tion of the things and events of the Sinnenwelt in the light of
the causal principle reveals their dependence on something
which does not belong to that world than it is to hold that a
series of which every term is a rational fraction can be shown
to have a limit which is not a rational fraction. (This is, e.g.,
the case when we represent a surd ' square root ' as a recurrent
continued fraction. Each of the ' convergents ' is a rational
fraction, but the limit of the series is not.) The general
argument is thus invalid. No a priori reason can be given why
the causal principle should not enable us to transcend the world
of sense, and the only real question which remains is whether
the particular arguments of theists vrill stand scrutiny on their
merits. There is no general logical presumption against them
of the kind Kant imagines.

We are thus brought to the consideration of the
force of Kant's attack on natural theology taken
by itself and apart from its connexion with a
general theory of the nature of scientific know-
ledge which is certainly erroneous. We may
therefore confine ourselves to the sections of the
Critique of Pure Reason which profess to make
a complete enumeration of the possible proofs
of the existence of God and to convict each of the
•proofs' of fallacy, together with the 'Critique
of all Speculative Theology,' in which Kant sums
up his results. 1 The general line of argument is
as follows. The scientific interpretation of facts
consists in regarding any given actual condition
of things as conditioned and asking for the
antecedent facts which condition it. When they
have been found, science once more requires an
interpretation of them on the same lines, and so
on in indejinitum. Every set of facts has thus to
be regarded by the scientific intellect as con-
ditioned by an antecedent state of things which
has, in its turn, to be discovered. The scientific
' explanation ' of the world is thus a task which,
from its nature, can never be completed. Behind
every set of conditions, however remote, at which
we may arrive there is always a body of still more
remote conditions to be discovered. (The condi-
tions, in every case, like the facts they condition,
are facts and processes of the Sinnenwelt.) The
unending regress from conditioned to conditions,
however, naturally suggests the thought that the
process of explanation would be completed if we
could find something ultimate, itself unconditioned
but the condition of everything else. Thus we
arrive at the notion of a being which ' exists
necessarily ' and contains in itself the explanation
of everything else, the one and only being which
is not contingent (i.e. a consequence of something
other than itself). Next, it occurs to us that, if
there is such a 'necessarily existing' being, it
must, as the condition of everything else, contain
in itself all that is truly real or positive ; what
is real in all limited and finite things must come
to them from it. Thus we identify the ens
necessarium with the ens realissimicm (' dasjenige
was alle Realitdt enthdlt'). Finally, since we
ourselves, who are among the things dependent
on this being, are intelligent moral persons, we
' personify ' this being, and thus we arrive at the
conception of God as the Supreme Being and
source of the world. But the whole process has
no scientific worth. The inference to the existence
of a ' necessary being ' is invalid because it employs
the causal principle, which is really only a rule
for the interconnexion of sensible events, as a
1 Kritik der reinen Vemunft-, pp. 611-670.

means of connecting the sensible with the in-
telligible (a general criticism which has already
been considered in the last paragraph) ; we have
no positive conception whatever of the character
of this necessary being (supposing it to exist),
and the attempt to find one by identifying it with
the ' most real being ' will not stand examination,
since it is logically possible that there might be
a plurality of 'necessary' beings, each imperfect
and finite (one may illustrate by the theory that
' ultimate reality ' is a ' society ' of unoriginate
' persons ' without any Creator) ; and the attempt
to prove the existence of a single ' most real being '
directly is a pure sophism. The conclusion then
is that, though speculation may suggest to us the
possibility that God (conceived after the fashion
of the Neo- Platonic 'One') is the source of the
world, it can do no more. It cannot even prove
that the possibility is more than 'logical'; i.e.,
speculation may convince us that there is no
internal contradiction in the notion of such a
being ; it cannot show that God is a ' real '
possibility — i.e., that there is no incompatibility
between the existence of God and the actual facts
of the world of experience, if we knew them all
instead of being aware of a mere fragment of
them. The whole value of speculative theism
is to suggest this mere possibility, to Avarn us
that we are not speculatively justified in regard-
ing the sensible world as underived, but must
keep an open mind. If, however, apart from all
speculative philosophy, there are practical grounds
for believing in God — i.e., if the reality of absolute
moral obligation can only be made intelligible
by appeal to our dependence on God — then, for
practical purposes, the open possibility is con-
verted into a moral certainty. Kant means, as
he explains,^ that, in shaping the conduct of our
lives, il faut parier. We must act either on the
assumption that moral obligation is absolute or
on the assumption that it is not ; there is no third
course. But all moral obligation, as is shown at
length in the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der
Sitten,^ is absolute, and there is no fact more
certain than this. Without God as ruler of the
world, however, the system of absolute obligations
would be a logically flawless construction ( ' in der
Idee der Vemunft ganz richtig '), but would have
no ' reality of application to ourselves, i.e. would
be without motives.'^ A virtuous man is thus
necessitated to a firm rational belief in theism,
but that which makes the necessity is not the
demonstrative force of the theistic arguments .
(which in fact is zero), but the virtuous man's
immediate conviction of the absoluteness of moral
obligations. This is what Kant meant when he
described himself as abolishing knowledge to make
room for faith. ^ If our unfavourable judgment
on the 'Transcendental Aesthetic' is justified,
we plainly cannot concede to Kant that all
speculative theism must be baseless. The theistic
arguments must be scrutinized on their merits,
not condemned en bloc like the generals at
Arginusae. With his usual love for formal
schematism Kant urges that there can be three
and only three ways of trying to prove the
existence of the Supreme. AVe may attempt to

1 Kritik der reinen Vemunft\ p. 615. 2 Riga, 1788.

3 Kritik der reinen Vemunft-, p. 617.

* He must not be understood in a pragmatist sense. He did
not mean that the existence of God is a speculation which a
man may accept or decline 'at his own risk,' may adopt
' because up to the present it works,' or because inferences can
be drawn from it which gratify the believer. The faith of
which he speaks has its foundation in the conviction that the
law of duty is absolute, and this proposition is admitted by
the good nian not as an 'hypothesis accepted at his own risk
to see whether it works,' or because he chooses to accept it,
but because, being a good man, he sees it to be true and
I certain.

278

THEISM

prove the existence of the 'most real being'
entirely a priori (i.e. without the use of any
'truth of fact' as a premiss) by arguing that
existence is included in its very nature — the
ontoiogical proof ; we may, departing from the
strictly a priori method, employ the single truth
of fact, ' something exists,' as one of our premisses,
and then argue to the conclusion that a ' necessary
being ' exists — the cosmological proof ; we may
include among our premisses specific assertions
about the character of the ' something that exists ' ;
i.e., we may argue from the marks of intelligent
and benevolent design in the actual world
to intelligence and benevolence in its source —
the physico-theological proof. Each of these
proofs is now to be shown unsatisfactory. The
first is a pure verbal sophism and the second no
better, and, as proofs of the existence of God,
both the second and third have to be eked out by
a silent combination with the first.

The refutation of the ' ontoiogical ' proof is one of the best-
known passages of the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant speaks
of the argument as the 'ontoiogical (or Cartesian) proof." He
examines it only in the form in which it h^ . been revived bj'
Descartes, and was apparently not acquairtCfed with its earlier
history. His objection, put briefly, is simply this, that the
proposition ' God exists ' can only be got out of the concept of
' God ' if existence has already been included in that concept.
If I define God as a ' really existing X,' of course I can make
the true proposition, ' If there is such a being as the God thus
defined, then that being exists.' But I am not entitled to
assert that there is such a being, and consequently not
entitled to assert the consequent of the foregoing hypothetical
proposition (' God exists ') categorically. In fact existence is
not a real predicate. The concept 'a hundred dollars' has
precisely the same content whether the hundred dollars actually
exist in my pocket or not. 'Our concept of an object may
contain what and as much as you please, still we must go
outside it to impart existence to the object.' i Hence the
ontoiogical proof is not really a proof of anything. 'The Idea
of a Supreme Being is in many respects a most useful Idea,
but just because it is merely an Idea it is wholly incapable of
extending our knowledge of what exists by means of itself
alone.' 2 Since Hegel undertook to rehabilitate the argument,
it has been fashionable to retort on Kant that, though it may
be true that the real existence of a sum of a hundred dollars
cannot be inferred from analysis of the corresponding concept,
the case is wholly altered when we come to deal with the unique
and exalted concept of the Supreme Being. The present
writer does not feel that Hegel's witticisms on this point are
any answer to Kant's criticism. Kant is certainly right in
saying that mere success in defining a concept without con-
tradiction does not in general warrant our asserting that the
concept has an ' extension.' The logical investigations which
have issued in the creation of the modern ' exact ' or ' symbolic '
logic of Frege, Peano, and Russell have made this point even
clearer than it could have been to the first readers of the
Critique. If it is immediately evident that there is a member
of the unit-class of which 'supreme being' is the class-name,
there is neither room nor need for proof. If this is not
immediately evident, proof is wanted. In general it cannot
be inferred from the definition of a class that the class has
members. If the class 'supreme being' or 'most real being'
is an exception, we require proof that it is an exception to the
rule, and neither Hegel nor any one else has ever oflfered
anything in the way of proof. Thus, as against Descartes,
Kant's argument is, in the present writer's opinion, decisive.
Nor does he see that the original Anselmian proof fares any
better. It is not directli" touched by Kant's denial that
existence is a predicate, since Anselm does not rest his case on
the assertion that existence is a predicate. But Kant's counter-
argument can equally be stated without raising this question.
Whether existence is a predicate or not, it is equally true that
we are not entitled to infer from the hypothetical proposition,
' If there is a God, that God is an existent,' the categorical
proposition, 'God is an existent'; and this is what Anselm
tries to do. He is really committed, as every defender of the
ontoiogical line of argument must be, to the attempt to prove
that it is irrational to suppose that there might have existed
nothing at all. In point of fact most of those who have tried
to turn the edge of Kant's criticism have not attempted so
desperate a task. They have consciously or unconsciously
assumed as a premiss the proposition that something exists,
and have been content to argue that, since something exists,
God exists also. In doing this they tacitly admit the truth
of the contention of Kant and St. Thomas that no purely
o priori proof of theism is possible.

Kant's attack on the cosmological proof is more elaborate
and, in the present writer's opinion, less successful. The re-
jection of the ontoiogical proof does not depend in the least on
the acceptance of the peculiar theory of knowledge expounded
in the Critique. The proof had been rightly treated as a
sophism in all the precritical essays in which Kant deals with

1 Kritik der reinen Vernun/f^, p. 629.

2/6.

the foundations of natural theology. The case of the cosmo-
logical argument is different ; Kant's own precritical proof,
based on the need for an actual ground of real possibility, was
itself a form of the cosmological proof, and is thus among the
inferences now rejected as illegitimate. We may therefore
e.xpect to find that the rejection of this type of argument does
depend on the special critical theory of the limits of human
knowledge, and is thus only valid on the hypothesis that the
doctrines of the Critique are accepted. The typical form of the
proof as stated in the Critique for examination is this : (a) If
anything exists, an absolutely necessary being exists ; but at
least one thing (viz. myself) exists ; ergo an absolutely necessary
being exists ; (6) a necessary being must be completely deter-
mined by its concept ; the only concept which thus comi^letely
determines an object is the concept of the ens realissiimiin ;
ergo the concept of the ens realissimum is the only one by
means of which a necessary being can be thought ; i.e., a
Supreme Being necessarily exists. The argument thus consists
of two stages : first, the proof that, because at least one thing
exists, a necessary being exists, and, second, the proof that a
necessary being can only be the Supreme Being.

Kant denounces this cosmological argument with special
vehemence, as was only natural in one who had until his late
middle age buUt on it with perfect confidence and then come
to distrust it. His tone in criticizing it is not unlike that of a
rather unscrupulous attorney determined to secure a verdict
against the accused party by fair means or foul. He begins by a
charge of general fraudulence. The cosmological proof professes
to appeal to experience, but it is reallj' only the old discredited
ontoiogical argument dishonestly disguised. For it only uses
the appeal to experience to establish the result : ' There is a
being which exists necessarily.' When we ask what this being
is, we are referred back to the ens realissimum as the only
thing which meets the requirements of the case. Therefore
' it is only the ontoiogical ptoof from mere concepts which
contains the force of the demonstration and the alleged ex-
perience is wholly superfluous.'!

The complaint is surely unfair. The objection to the onto-
iogical argument did not lie in the concept of the ens realissi-
mum, but merely in the absence of an existential premiss. If,
then, the new argument supplies the missing existential pre-
miss, it is no objection to it to say that the necessary being of
which it speaks turns out to be the ens realissimum. The
only legitimate objection would be that the argument does not
actually supplj' such an existential premiss as is really needed.
This is what Kant next proceeds to urge.2 He complains that
it ought to be shown that the necessary being is the ens realissi-
mum. To prove this, we require to establish two propositions,
of which one is the simple converse of the other : (a) every
necessary being is an ens realissimum, (6) every ens realissimum
is a necessary being. But this second proposition is 'deter-
mined merely by a priori concepts," and therefore ' the mere
concept of the most real being ' must be the ground for ascrib-
ing to it necessary existence. Thus we commit the fallacy of
the ontoiogical proof, the establishment of a proposition by
mere analysis of concepts. This criticism seems wholly verfehlt.
The real objection to the ontoiogical proof was that it aimed at
proving an existential proposition by mere analysis of concepts.
There can be no logical objection to the attempt to prove by
such analysis the hypothetical proposition, ' If anything is an
(or the) ens realissimum, it is ens necessarium,' or the simple
converse, ' It anything is ens necessarium, it is also ens real-
issimum.' Both these propositions are implications, not asser-
tions of existence ; the existential import is brought into the
cosmological argument entirely by the preceding proof, or
attempted proof, that, if anything exists (as we know to be
the case), a necessary being exists. Kant is entitled to contend
that this has not been proved ; he is entitled to contend that
the equivalence of ens necessarium and ens realissimum has
not been made out. He is not entitled to treat the fact that
the equivalence is an equivalence of concepts as proof of this
second charge. Up to this point he is merely following the
recommendation to give a dog a bad name and trust to its
hanging him. We now come to the really relevant part of his
onslaught. This consists of the following allegations : (1) the
inference from the contingent to its cause has a meaning only
in the sensible world, but the principle of causality is used in
this proof to transcend the sensible world ; (2) the argument
from the impossibility of an infinite series of causes in the
sensible world to a first cause is illegitimate ; (3) the very
notion of necessity presupposes conditions upon which the
necessitj' in question depends, and it is therefore impermissible
to cut short the regress from proximate to more ultimate con-
ditions by the really empty concept of an unconditioned neces-
sity ; (4) the proof confuses the mere logical possibility of a
concept (absence of internal contradiction) with its transcen-
dental possibility, which ' requires a principle establishing the
possil)ility of performing such a synthesis,' but this latter can
only be established 'in the field of possible experiences.' All
these objections are valid only on the hypothesis that the
Kantian theories about the limits of scientific knowledge are
true, and it has alreadj' been contended that this hypothesis
(involving, as it does, the acceptance of the 'Transcendental
Aesthetic' and the consequent recognition of the antinomies of
the ' Transcendental Dialectic ' as inevitable) is certainly false.
In particular, it may be replied to (1) that all use of the
principle of causality involves transcending the sensible world ;
consistent phenomenalism, as the work of such writers as Mach,
Pearson, Avenarius, abundantly shows, is bound to eliminate

1 Kritik der reinen Vernunft-, p. 635.

2 lb. p. 636.

THEISM

279

the category of causality from science ; to (2) that the ' cosnio-
logical argument ' is not an argument from the impossibility of
an infinite series of events at all. In fact it has been often
maintained by thinkers who, like Aristotle, deny that the series
of events has a first term, or, like St. Thomas, hold that it can
only be known by revelation whether the series has a first term
or not. The real bearing of the argument cannot be seen at all,
so long as we think of causality, as Kant does throughout the
Critique, as a mere rule of uniform connexion between earlier
and later events. Its real foundation is in the conception of
efficient causalit3' (activity or agency). The point of the argu-
ment is that, if there is not a First Mover or First Agent (or
'movers' or 'agents' in the plural, as the case may be), the
whole history of the world is a mere accident. Things are what
they are because there ' happen to be ' such and such agents,
and the reason why there are just these agents and no others
is that there ' happen to be ' (or ' to have been ') certain others
by which the set fli-st mentioned have been produced, and so
on in indejinitum. This means that there might just as well
have been no world at all, or one quite different from that
which there is. An ultimate pluralistic realism, no doubt,
might maintain this thesis, and we shall have to face it in the
sequel. But it is an ignoratio elenchi to defend it by assuming
phenomenalism p/ws an erroneous theory of the mathematical
meaning of infinite series. The phenomenalism is further In
flat contradiction with the presuppositions of Kantian ethics,
for which it is indispensable that every human self shall be a
'first cause' of its own morally and legally imputable acts.
If 'first cause' really means nothing intelligible, Kant's
practical philosophy is no better than an idle sporting with
insignificant words. One must add that the full force of the
cosmological argument is onl}' seen when it is combined with
the argument from intentional causality. If the historical
world-process has a meaning of any kind, whether its meaning
lies in the direction of events towards an end or result or in
their internal, quasi-aesthetic harmony, the explanation of it
cannot, in the end, be merely that the constituents of the
universe happen to be what they are. An ultimate plural-
ism must, to be consistent, deny that there is any meaning
at all in the world-process. But, again, the Kantian pheno-
menalism affords no valid reason for entertaining this view.
As to the last point, it does depend on the special principles of
the critical philosojjhy, and, in particular, on the theory that
an appeal to the senses lies at the root of all valid synthetic
propositions. As has already been remarked, this theory is
sufficientlj' disposed of by the simple consideration that every
proposition in the theory of numbers is synthetic in Kant's
sense of the word. In the present writer's opinion, then,
Kant's attack on the cosmological argument (which he himself
clearly regards as the central feature of his general assault on
speculative theism) is a complete failure. He proves neither that
the argument from the fact of existence to the existence of a
' necessary being ' is fallacious nor that there is anj' sophism in
the reasoning by which he himself had formerly established the
equivalence of the 'necessary being' with the perfect or 'most
real ' being. This does not, of itself, prove that the cosmological
argument is valid, but it does prove, if the remarks just made
are in principle sound, that Kant's objections to the argument
are unfounded. Even the complaint that we have no positive
conception of either ' necessary ' or ' most real ' being only
amounts to the true assertion that we do not know what it would
be like to be God — a proposition which no reasonable theist,
least of all an orthodox Ciiristian theologian, need be concerned
to deny. For the matter of that, I do not know what it would
be like to be my cat, but that is surely an insufficient reason for
denjing the existence of my cat's mind.

Kant's treatment of the argument from intentional causality
— the physico- theological proof, as he calls it— may be summar-
ized more briefly. 'This argument, which he reduces to the
argument from design, he regards with great respect as the
most ancient, most obvious, and soundest of all. He assumes
it as an undoubted fact that nature, so far as we know it,
exhibits all the marks of intelligent purpose, and admits that it
is correct to argue from such marks to a designing intelligence.
It does not occur to him to explain away the appearances of
order and purpose as merely apparent or as the results of any-
thing in the nature of a struggle for existence. He is content
to call attention to the limitations imposed on the argument by
the imperfection of our knowledge of nature. It is only a part
of nature with which we are acquainted, and any inference
from the orderliness and purposiveness of that part to thorough-
going order and purpose in nature everywhere has at best a
degree of probability which falls short of certainty. We cannot
therefore be sure even of the unity of the designing intelligence,
since we do not know that, if all the empirical facts were before
us, they would show absolute singleness of design. Even if we
knew all the empirical facts, and knew that they all showed
perfect unitj' of purpose, we could only infer that the intelli-
gence which designed the natural order was very wise, very
jrood, very powerful. We could not argue from any knowledge
of empirical facts to infinite wisdom, etc. In particular, we
only detect intelligence in the arrangement of the ' stuff' of the
world, and thus, even if we knew all the facts, we could not use
them as a proof of the existence of the Supreme lieing, but at
most as a proof of the existence of a demiurge or ' architect of
the universe.' Thus, if a theologian appears to demonstrate
the existence of God by the appeal to design in nature, it is
only because he is illegitimately supplementing his reasoning
by a concealed appeal to the ontological argument. In these
criticisms, in which Kant is manifestly justified, he is, of course,
urging considerations with which Hume had already made

Philo confront Cleanthes. It is abundantly manifest that no
empirical reasoning can establish the existence of a Supreme
Being. Kant's final result, stated with his usual love for
pedantic formal distinctions, is given in the section of the
Critiqtie which bears the special title ' Critique of all Theology
based on Speculative Principles of Reason.' Theology, we are
told, may be based on revelation or on mere reason. Rational
theology, again, may think of its object (God) either as ens
rcnli^simum without further speciiioation or with a further
determination as the Supreme Intelligence. Tlie first is tran-
scendental theology, and its supporters may be called deists ; the
second is natural theology and is the doctrine of the theist.
Natural theology, once more, may conceive God as the source
of the order that actually exists (the natural order) or as the
source of an order that ought to exist (moral order). It is only
consideration of the latter that really gives us a right to postu-
late the existence of a Supreme Being ; speculative theology,
which attempts to establish the existence of God as required to
explain the order of nature, is, as we have seen, condemned to
failure, because it seeks to prove the reality of a being which
cannot be an object of possible experience. Its value is simply
that it shows us that there is no logical impossibility inherent
in the notion of a Supreme Being. Thus it forbids us to assert
that we know that there is no God, or that, if there is. He ia
not an intelligent being or is imperfect and limited like ourselves
(it saves us from dogmatic atheism, deism, and anthropomorph-
ism), and thus leaves us free to maintain the existence of a
supreme spiritual principle, if the moral order proves to be
unintelligible apart from the postulate that such a principle
exists. For the present it may suffice to make two observations
on this. The denial that God is an object of possible experience
depends, of course, on taking a specific view of what is meant
by experience. If it is indispensable to an experience that it
should have an object into which sense-data enter as con-
stituents (and this is what Kant always assumes), manifestly
God cannot be experienced. But it may be observed that it is
no ground of objection to speculative theology in particular to
sa3' that it claims to give us knowledge about a being which is
not an object of 'possible experience' in this sense. The same
thing is equally true of arithmetic or any other part of pure
mathematics. The integers, e.g., are not objects of experience
in this sense ; still less would it be possible to maintain that,
when one utters the well-known jiroposition, ' Every integer
can be represented as the sum of four squares, of which — except
in the case of the integer 0— one at least is not 0,' one is not
transcending possible experience. It would be quite impossible
to \ erify the proposition by examining its validity for each suc-
ctssive integer (since there is an infinite number of them).
Wherever I make a statement about a class with an infinity of
members, I am dealing with an object which is not, in Kant's
sense of the words, an ' object of a possible experience.' His
doctrine reposes on the theor3- of his ' Aesthetic ' that, in the
case of arithmetical propositions, I can justify such an assertion
by counting. But, though I could, e.g., prove the proposition
quoted to hold good for a few cases bj' actual counting, I mani-
festly cannot verify it or any other general proposition of the
science bj' this method of appealing to intuition. Again, we
may fairly ask whj' experience should be assumed to be con-
cerned onlj' with objects which fall under the ' forms of in-
tuition.' Why are the saint's moments of vision to be from the
outset excluded from experience ? If thej* are included, the
statement that God is not an object of possible experience
at once becomes questionable. It is a standing defect of the
Critique that the concept of experience itself has never been
subjected by Kant to careful and searching- criticism. The
second observation which naturally suggests itself is that the
sharp opposition between speculation and practice might prove
on a closer examination to be misleading. .\11 that Kant can
claim to have shown, even if every one of his charges against
natural theology could be sustained, is that tlie facts of physical
nature do not warrant the theistic hypothesis. But it is surely
as much part of the task of a speculative philosophy to explain
the facts of the moral as it is to explain tlie facts of the phj'sical
order. The absoluteness of moral obligations is a fact of the
moral order, and, if this fact is only intelligible from the theistic
standpoint, then it may fairly be said that speculative philosophy
is committed to tlieism. "This was, indeed, Kant's own con-
viction, and his hard and fast severance between speculation
and practice does less than justice to the view he intends to
maintain. It gives rise to the misleading suggestion that he
r; gards theism as a doctrine which is doubtfully true but had
better be taught to the proletariat with a \ iew to keeping
them out of mischief and making them conveniently submissive
to their 'betters.' This was not in the least what Kant meant,
but his unfortunate verbal distinction between theory and
practice is what gave colour to the jest of Heine that after
abolishing God in the first Critiqtie Kant re\ived Him in the
second in the interest of his old butler's morals, as well as to
the strange view of Bernard Bosanquet 1 that Kant's theism is
an ' unessential survival."

It wuuld be wholly unjust to Kant to confine
our attention to the destructive side of his treat-
ment of philosophic theism ; even more important
is his positive teaching, which will be found most
fully expressed in the Kritik der j>raktischen
Vcrnuvft.^ If Kant's object was to destroy the

1 Essays and Addresses, London, 1SS9, p. 129.

2 Riga, 17S8 (}V<:rke, v. 110-153).

280

THEISM

old speculative natural theology, it is even more
his purpose to replace it by a positive moral
theology, and it is probably true to say that it is
primarily due to his influence that in our own time
it is mainly upon the moral argument that popular
theistic philosophy continues to base itself. As
the Kantian moral theology has often been very
imperfectly iinderstood by its critics, it is necessary
to state Kant's real position rather carefully, in
order to put in the clearest light the differences
between Kant and those who hold that the exist-
ence of God remains after all a 'pious opinion,'
suggested but not established by the facts of the
moral life, or those who hold that it is a doctrine
recommended mainly by its comforting character.
To appreciate the strength of Kant's position, it
is necessary to understand that theism is not in
any sense an arbitrary hypothesis tacked on to
a system of ethics, or, as Bosanquet calls it, a
'survival' of belated superstition, but a logically
necessary part of ' practical ' philosophy. The
argument starts from premisses which are taken as
once for all established in the Grundlegung zur
Metaphysik der Sitten and the Analytic of Practi-
cal Reason.^ These premisses are as follows.
The object which all moral action has in view is
the realization of the highest or complete good.
The complete good means a state of things in which
the reasonable will finds full and complete satis-
faction. Such a state of things implies two con-
stituents : virtue (a right state of the will itself),
and happiness (by which Kant means, as he says,
a condition of things in complete accord with the
rational will, i.e. the successful domination of
rational will in the universe). If only the first
constituent were real, i.e., if the will of every
rational being were morally wholly good, this
would not of itself be enough to satisfy the demands
of the rational will itself. We should not think a
universe satisfactory or rational if it consisted of
beings of perfect morality whose volitions were
always defeated and disappointed by the course of
things. The only condition of things which would
satisfy our rational demand for the triumph of the
virtuous will would be one in which every rational
being should be happy {i.e. should find his volition
effective), in proportion to the moral goodness of
his will. The highest good — the object of the
moral will — is thus a union of virtue with happi-
ness, but a union in which the inner virtue of the
agent is the condition and cause of his happiness. ^
So the highest good means a condition of existence
in which a rational being is (a) deserving of happi-
ness, deserving that his ' will be done, as in heaven
so in earth, '^ and [b) has the happiness which he
deserves as a consequence of his deserving it.
(More briefly, the highest good is that the actual
order of things should be a moral order. ) But—
and here comes in the antinomy which Kant thinks
indispensable in a Critique — the principle, as dis-

1 That the Critiqiie of Practical Reason should be divided,
like the Critique of Pure Reason, into an ' Analytic ' and a
' Dialectic ' — of course there can be no ' Aesthetic ' In this case
—and that the ' Dialectic ' must have its antinomy is a pure
piece of pedantic formalism which Kant would have done well
to dispense with.

2 The words of this statement are not precisely those of Kant,
but have been chosen to express aa briefly and untechnically as
possible the substance of his thought. It should be carefully
observed that the central thought is not egoistic. Kant's point
is that the ' ideal spectator,' apart from any consideration of his
own happiness, would judge unfavourably of a world in which
the will of the truly virtuous man was constantly thwarted by
the 'force of circumstances.' My own happiness, as he is
careful to state, only comes into the consideration in so far as I
am one among the many rational and responsible beings in the
universe. Nor is happiness understood in a merely hedonistic
way. It is the condition in which things happen ' according to
our will ' — i.e. in which the rational will is really effectual.

3 In fact, though K.ant would have been horrified by so
'fanatical' a phrase, he is at bottom quite agreed with
'Dionysius' that 'deification' (fieuxm) is the ultimate goal of
the moral life.

tinguished from the object, of the virtuous will is
always to act from reverence for the unconditional
obligatoriness of the moral law, without any con-
sideration of the results of our conduct. We
must, as moral beings, wUl the highest good, yet
we must also, as moral beings, will to do right for
its own sake, without even asking the question
whether our right actions will result in bringing
about this good or not. We cannot escape from
this antinomy, as Kant holds we can from those
of speculative reason, by dismissing it as illusory.
For we are under absolute obligation to be virtuous,
and we cannot be really virtuous without desiring
the highest good, nor yet can we be really virtuous
if we allow this desire to affect our will to do right
because it is right, regardless of consequences.
Thus, if morality is to be more than an empty
dream, the union of virtue and happiness must be
realized, though we must not set ourselves to realize
it by treating virtuous action as a means to it. The
realization of the union must be brought about for
us, not by us. Now, experience shows abundantly
that in the empirically known system of nature
there is no dependence of happiness on virtue.
The most virtuous man is not regularly the man
whose will is actually done 'in earth,' nor the man
whose will is done the man whose volitions are
morally purest. The union must therefore be
eflected for us by a supreme power, not our own,
in the ' intelligible world ' which disposes the
course of events so that, if we could see the whole
infinite series at once, we should see that every
man is happy in proportion to the degree in which
he deserves to be happy. Further, since morality
demands not merely that the virtuous shall be
happy but that the happiness shall be a consequence
of their virtue, we could not regard the union of
virtue and happiness as effected by a mere blind
• natural tendency ' in things. The virtuous man's
virtue must be the motive of the disposing power
to make him happy — i.e., this disposing power
must be thought of as an intelligent and absolutely
holy will. Thus it becomes a postulate of morality
that there is an absolutely wise and holy Supreme
Being. We have already seen that the speculative
use of reason in finding an explanation for natural
events themselves suggested the hypothesis that
there is a Supreme Being, though all our attempts
to demonstrate the truth of this hypothesis proved
to rest on fallacy. The consideration of the pre-
suppositions of morality now shows us that, unless
there is to be a hopeless conflict between our con-
ception of the highest good and the first principle
of duty, such a Supreme Being must really exist
and, what is more, must be spiritual. Practical
reason then does not introduce us to any new
idea ; if it did, there might be an insoluble con-
flict between its suggestions and the results of
speculative criticism. It only gives us the right to
aflBrm as a reality what speculative reason itself
unavoidably suggests as a possibility, the complete
dependence of the world on a Supreme Being, and
enables us to determine the character of that Being
so far as to say that it combines perfect wisdom,
holiness, and power. Beyond this moral theology
cannot go. It tells us what God must be if the
world is to have moral order, and it tells us noth-
ing more. Kant pushes this consideration so far
that he is not content to say with the Neo-
Platonists and scholastics that we do not know
God secundum essentiam suam. Recurring to his
view that an object of possible experience must
have sensuous constituents (must be given in
intuition), he in effect denies that we have any
experience of God at all. 'Mystics' profess to
experience the divine, but for that very reason
Kant sets them down summarily as ' fanatics ' who
must not be allowed a hearing.

THEISM

281

The value of Kant's moral argument for theism
seems quite independent of our judgment of the
critical philosopliy as a whole. The phenomenal-
ism which is the weakest point of the system only
afiects Kant's unfavourable estimate of specific
religious experience. It might, indeed, be said
with an appearance of plausibility that God as the
source of the subordination of nature to the moral
order is only brought in to solve a difficulty which
Kant has created for himself by the abstract for-
malism of his ethics. No Kantian doctrine has
come in for more unsparing reprobation than the
famous theory that the moral worth of an act
depends upon its being done from mere reverence
for universal law as such, and is destroyed if any
desire for a specific result influences the agent's
motives. But, apart from this untenable theory,
it may be said, there is really no antithesis
between the supreme object of virtuous willing
and its true principle ; the realization of the good
is at once object and principle. And thus the
problem which, according to Kant, is solved for us
by the existence of God is not a real problem at
all. Yet such criticism surely misses the mark.
The problem Kant has in mind still remains when
the pure formalism of his own conception of the
good will has been dismissed. One and the same
conviction of the absoluteness of moral values, the
I'ight of SiKaioavvr) to control the world, compels us
to pronounce the world evil and our own moral
striving a vain show if the highest good is not
realized or realizable, and also forbids us to aim
directly at the realization of this highest good by
doing moral evil that good may come out of it or
leaving the right undone because the consequences
of doing right are judged by us to be, in a certain
case, bad. It is certain that good often comes out
of moral evil, and that moral integrity itself often
demands action which leads to bad results which
would not have followed if the agent had been
less virtuous. 1 Thus, quite independently of any
special Kantian theses in ethics, we are confronted
by the dilemma : either the order of things, rightly
understood (the intelligible world), is a moral
order and realizes the highest good or the highest
good is not realized and all moral effort is senseless
and foredoomed to failure, in which case the con-
viction of the absolute value of the good, on which
morality is based, is a mere illusion. If this be so,
the argument from the reality of absolute moral
values to the all-wise, all-holy, and all-powerful
Supreme Being, in the present writer's judgment,
holds, exactly on the lines on which Kant has con-
ducted it. It is precisely the same argument,
divested of its incidental trappings of Kantian
' critical ' phraseology, which Solovyof compresses
into a sentence when he writes :

' The unconditional principle of morality, logically involved
in religious experience, contains the complete good (or the
right relation of all to everything) not merely as a demand or
an idea, but as an actual power that can fulfil this demand and
create the perfect moral order or Kingdom of God in which the
absolute significance of every being is realized. '2

i6. Lotze. — This article cannot undertake to
follow the history of the treatment of theism in
philosophy beyond Kant with any detail. To do
so would require a substantial volume, and it
does not seem to the present writer that anything
which is new in principle has been added to the
arguments for or against theism since Kant's
development of the moral proof in the Critique of
Practical Reason. An exception, however, may
be made for Lotze, more particularly on the ground
that he has done so much, in the face of Kant's

1 See the entertaining illustrations of this point in V. Solovyof,
The Justification of the Good, Eng. tr., London, 1918, pt. iii.
oh. 6.

2 lb. p. 180. The whole of SolovyoPs book is worth reading
as a corrective to Kant's thesis that philosophical theology is
exhausted by the one proposition that God exists.

critical repudiation of his own earlier position, to
vindicate the speculative argument upon which
Kant himself relied until advanced middle age.^

It may seem strange to describe Lotze as reasserting the
particular version of the cosmological argument which finds in
God the necessary actual ground of possibilities, in view of the
fact that Lotze himself, in the chapter on the ' Proofs of the
Existence of God ' in the Grundzwje der Reliijionaphilosophie,
professes to have disposed of the cosmological proof in one or
two paragraphs of not very profound criticism. Yet an analysis
of his own argument will show that, though it is not quite
identical with anj' former statement of the cosmological proof,
it reaUy follows the generalhnes of Kant's pre-critical argument
for the ' being which exists with an absolute necessity." The
starting-point of Lotze's train of thought was historically deter-
mined for him by the necessity of taking up a definite attitude
towards the philosophy of Herbart, and to a lesser degree of
Hegel ; this special concern with the problems raised in the
metaphysics of Herbart further accounts for the very marked
influence of Leilmiz.'-

Lotze starts with the fact of incessant change or becoming as
the most obvious characteristic of the empirical world. The
great problem of .the metaphysician is to give an intelligible
account of the pre-conditions of this universal fact of change.3
We can neither dismiss change or becoming as a mere illusion
(since, even if you deny all change in the objective world, the
illusion itself has to be regarded as a process of change in the
inner states of the existents which we call minds or souls) nor
resolve the history of the universe into a process of absolute
becoming, a wholly lawless succession of disconnected states.
This would be fatal to the possibility of all knowledge whatever.
Change or becoming, then, is real, and it is always grounded
change. This is shown by our success in formulating laws of
natural processes. If we i3nd that A is regularly, though not
always, followed by B, we must suppose that there is a reason
in the state of things in which A was present whj* A should be
replaced by B rather than by P or Q, and, if on special occa-
sions A (which is commonly followed by B) is followed by P,
there must again be a reason whj' it is, on these occasions,
followed not by the usual B but by the unusual P. At the
stage of reflexion reached in natural science we attempt to do
justice to this demand for an intelligible interpretation of
change by the view that the world is made up of a pluralitj' of
different ' things ' {A, B, C . . .), each exhibiting a succession of
' states ' (tti, a^, 13 . . . 61, 621 ^3 • • • "i, Ca. "3 • • ■)■ ^^ e then saj'
that the changes of state of the various things are intercon-
nected by laws according to which a definite change of ' state '
in one thing (e.g. , the occurrence of a state a in A) gives rise to
the corresponding change in another (the occurrence of a state
6 in B). 'This interpretation of the facts, Lotze urges, cannot
be final. If the universe were really a collection of independ-
ent existents, or 'things,' how could the occurrence of a change
of state in one of these existents be conditioned bj- changes of
state in the rest? The very fact that, e.g., A only exhibits the
change from state aj to state a2 on the condition that certam
definite changes occur in a number of other 'things' — in a
word, the ' interconnexion of things in obedience to determin-
ate laws' — shows that the universe is not an ultimate plurality.
We are bound to think of it as one being of which what we
commonly call the various ' things ' are partial expressions or
activities. We must amend the statement that the changes of
state in a plurality of things are related according to definite
formulae into the statement that the one and onl^' real ' thing'
has a determinate nature or character of its own which it
maintains unimpaired. It is this self-maintenance of the ' living
whole ' — 31, as Lotze symbolically calls it — that requires that
the change of which we speak as occurring in the thing A
should be compensated in a definite way b}' connected changes,
which we are accustomed to refer to the other things B,C. . . .
Strictly speaking, then, every change in any element of 31 is
correlated with changes in "all the rest. But some of these
changes may be minimal and so escape our notice. Hence we
are able for our human purposes to formulate laws which con-
nect a definite change in one element with definite changes in
a finite number of others, B, C, D, and treat all the rest of the
elements as a remainder R, which is irrelevant. The world,
then, is not a plurality but a unity-in-plurality. How the
unity is effected is more than we can ever expect to know. We
may say, ' The unity is the plurality,' but we must remember
that the ' is ' here is a copula of which the concrete modality

1 Lotze's treatment of the subject is to be found partly in his
3Ietaphj/sik, latest ed. Leipzig, 1912, Eng. tr.2, 2 vols., Oxford,
1887 ; see particularly bk. i. chs. 6-7, with which may be com-
pared the more condensed Grundzitge der 3letaphysik, Leipzig,
1883, Eng. tr., Outiines of Metaphysics, Boston, U.S.A., 1886,
particularly the chapter 'Of Causes and Effects ' (Eng. tr., pp.
57-73), partly in the Gnmdziige der Religicmsphilosophie^,
Leipzig, 1894. A longer and more popularly written ex-position
is given in 3lihrokosmvjs^, 3 vols., do. 1S9G-1909, Eng. tr.'*,
Edinburgh, 1894, bk. ix., 'The Unity of Things.' Only the
general outline of Lotze's doctrine can be dealt with here.

2 It must be remembered that Lotze was necessarily un-
acquainted with Leibniz's most important papers, which were
mostly unpublished until after Lotze had arrived at his own
fundamental doctrines ; hence his version of the earher philo-
sopher's thought is not to be implicitly trusted.

3 This was precisely the problem which had specially occupied
Herbart and the Herbartians.

282

THEISM

is not fully known to us. But it is important to be quite clear
on one pofnt of the first importance. Ttie one ' living whole '
31 is not properly described as 'subject to universal laws.'
If we think of the world as composed of things subject to
general laws, it is quite impossible to give any ultimately intel-
ligible account of the relation between the things and the
laws. The absolute prius ia not a complex of laws, but the
concrete JU and its individual acts of self-expression and
self-maintenance. Since we are part of the contents of M, we
can compare facts with facts, recognize likeness and differences,
and so come to formulate general propositions. We can even
carry this so far as, when we have formed the notions of ' class '
and ' member of a class,' to think of M, the real world itself, as
one member of a class of worlds, and to speculate on the possi-
biUty that there might be others — ' possible ' worlds, as Leibniz
said. Then we may be led, as Leibniz was, into the insoluble
problem whj- just this world 31, and not a different one N, is real.
But this whole way of thinking of possibilities as metaphysically
anterior to reality, or of the hjijothetical propositions we call laws
as anterior to the individual facts we call the actualized cases of
these laws, rests on illusion. Metaphysically speaking, it is the
actual nature of 31 that accounts for our existence and our
possession of the mental capacities which we exercise in fram-
ing laws and hypotheses. If M were other than it is, its ele-
ments would be different, and, if we were among these elements,
our views as to what alternatives are possible would be different
also. It is a radical error in philosophy to confotmd logical
with metaphysical priority.l

How 31 can be the ev koI woXXa required by the theory we
cannot say in detail. But we can see, at any rate, that 31 can-
not be material. The only thing with which we are acquainted
which, even imperfectly, discharges for a part of reality the
functions which 3{ must discharge for the totality is the soul
which at once has or owns a multiplicitj' of states or acti\ ities
and would have no life without them, and is yet aware of its
own unity and its distinction from each and ail of these states
and activities. We are thus driven to think of M in terms of
spirit. It must be akin to the soul, but must, at the same
time, have all the differences from our souls which result from
the consideration that it has nothing outside it, is wholly unique,
and can meet with no resistance. We are thus led to think of
3/ as an infinite spiritual and, Lotze adds, personal being, all-
wise (because its knowledge has not to develop under diffi-
culties and from point to point, like our own), almighty
(because it is the absolute prius, anterior to all ' law ' as well as
to all fact), and, above all, all-good (Lotze weakens his case on
this point by a half-hearted tendency to take a hedonist view of
good, and so to reduce perfect goodness to mere ' benevolence ' ;
a Platonist would have no difficulty, since the aU-wise must
have complete knowledge of the good, and to know the good is
to act it out). 31 is also 'out of space' and 'eternal,' since
geometrical and temporal relations are, and are what they are,
as a consequence of >/'s e.xisting and being what it is. Thus
the conception of 31 TOth which we began as ' the one real
being ' passes into the conception of the almighty and eternaJ
God, and the close of our historical retrospect brings us back
very close to the position of Neo-Platonism again. It calls for
remark that, though Lotze's initial account of 3f, taken by
itself, would suggest a pantheistic or immanence theory, the
doctrine, as fully worked out, is definitely theistic. Lotze is
careful to guard himself, even when he says that 31 is the
world, by adding that ' is ' here has a unique sense which it has
in no other judgment, and is consequently not the ' is ' which
occurs in an ordinary identity. Later on we find that each
soul, being aware of its own unity, is a real individual distinct
from God and from every other soul, though it is from the
creating and sustaining activity of God that the soul derives
this character. And mere inanimate things are held to be a
superfluous hj'pothesis. There are, according to Lotze, only
the one living God and His acts. Some of these acts are souls
with a real spiritual individuality of their own. In this way,
while avoiding the customary theistic language about the tran-
scendence of God, Lotze secures the same result by maintain-
ing not that God is immanent in the world, but that the world
is ' immanent in God.' The limitation of real individuality to
souls naturally reminds us of the Neo-Platonic view that souls
hold the lowest place in the system of oiTa, bodies being not
ovra but ■ytyvo/xevo, ' what becomes,' or elxdi'es tuiv ovt<i>v,
' images of oyra..' The resemblance with Neo-Platonism is even
more marked when Lotze uses his view of 31 as the metaphysical
priw of universal laws or eternal truths as a ground for
urging that life, truth, and goodness are not, as the Aristotelian
phrase has it, ' naturally prior ' to God ; God is Himself the
concrete Life, Truth, and Good.

17. Logical pluralism. — The foregoing statement
of the theistic argument as presented by Lotze
provides an opportunity for considering the type of
ultimate pluralism of which we have spoken as
the most serious philosophical alternative to
theism. This type of view is best represented in
contemporary English philosophy by the v/ritings
of G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, though, as
neither of these authors has ever directly attempted

1 It will be clear from these last sentences why the present
writer regards Lotze's argument for the unity -in-multitude of
itf as in principle identical with Kant's pre-critical arg^ument for
a ' necessary existent ' as the foundation of real possibility.

the construction of a metaphysical system, we
must be content to indicate the general view to
which their studies in logic, ethics, and the philo-
sophy of the exact sciences seem to point. A
pluralism of the type in question would take issue
with Lotze over the validity of the ground on
which he maintains the existence of such a being
as M. It would insist on precisely that form of
' dualism ' which Lotze assumes to be unthinkable
— the ' dualism ' of actual existence and hypo-
thetical universal laws. It would be maintained
that what we actually find the ' world ' to consist
of is a plurality of existing things standing in a
complicated network of relations of all kinds with
one another. These relations, it would be further
said, cannot all be reduced, as Lotze assumes, to
reciprocal causal inter-connexions. Causal con-
nexion is only one of the many types of relation ;
there are others, such, e.g., as the mere 'together-
ness ' or ' compresence ' which language represents
by the word ' and,' the ' disjunction ' symbolized
by ' or else,' and so forth, in Avhich causality is not
a component at all. Relations are all ' universals,'
and no relation is an ' existent,' wliile 'existents'
are all individual. We have to accept it as an
ultimate fact which permits of no explanation that
specific individual existents stand in certain definite
relations to other specific individual existents. To
ask why this is so is to ask a question quite as
illegitimate as that which Lotze ascribes to the
purely mechanical philosophers whom he ridicules
for asking ' how being is made. ' More particularly,
the special problem which leads Lotze to frame
the concept of M — the problem how a change of
' state ' is brought about, how one thing can
exhibit a succession of different states or first
have a relation to a second thing and then lose
it — would be declared illegitimate. According to
the view which has been most elaborately developed
by Bertrand Russell,^ the proposition that at a
certain moment A changes its state from aj to 02, or
changes its relation to B from Bi to B^, if expressed
accurately, only means that the whole duration of
A's existence can be resolved into two mutually
exclusive classes of moments. In any moment of
the one class A has the state a^, or stands to B
in the relation B^ ; at any moment of the other
class A has the state a^, or stands to B in the
relation B2. And, further, every moment of the
one class a^ comes before any moment of the other
class Oj. There is no moment in the Mhole con-
joint class Oj-f-ag at which A has both states or
both relations, and no moment at which it has
neither. Thus, strictly speaking, there is no such
process as that which Lotze calls change, and we
live, in fact, ' in a changeless world. ' Fully thought
out, this view leads to the position, adopted of
recent years by Russell, that all existents really
exist only at a mathematical instant. What we
commonly call one and the same thing or one and
the same mind is an infinite succession of different
things or minds which we mistakenly regard as
one, because the thing or mind which exists at a
moment 771^ separated by a minute interval from a
preceding moment m^ is very much like its prede-
cessor. Thus Lotze's argument is invalidated by
denying the reality of the facts it is employed to
make intelligible. As there are no changes, in
the sense in which Lotze understands the word,
there is no ground to assert the existence of M
to account for them. All arguments for the
reality of a ' being which necessarily exists ' are
thus invalidated ; and it is, further, at least highly
doubtful whether we can even form the thought of

1 In The Principles of 3Iatheinatics, Cambridge, 1903. The
later work of Bussell and Whitehead, Prineipia Mathematiea,
Cambridge, 1910 and subsequent years, does not assume this
metaphysic.

THEISM

283

a ' being which cannot be conceived not to exist. '
Causality, as commonly understood by meta-
physicians, likewise disappears. The causal prin-
ciple reduces to the modest proposition that an
observed frequent sequence of an event of the
class j8 on an event of the class a affords ground for
the judgment that in cases not previously observed
an event of class ^ is likely to have been preceded
by an event of class a. How likely this conclusion is
is then a mere problem in the mathematical theory
of probability. Whether all events have causes or
not remains an open question, and must always
remain so. It is clear that such a theory leaves
no room for theism in philosophy. If it is really
the last word of metaphysics, belief in God loses
all rational foundation, though it is, to be sure,
still possible that the belief may ' happen ' to be
true. It must further be admitted that the theory
has its strong points. It is by no means obvious
that a philosopher is entitled to assume as axio-
matic such a conviction about the thoroughgoing
interconnexion of all events as Lotze makes the
basis of his argument. In what sense or to what
degree the * world ' is a unity is a question to which
philosophy must find the answer. The intercon-
nexion might conceivably be very much looser
than Lotze is willing to admit. And it seems
clear that the mathematical analysis by which the
particular puzzle about change is eliminated is, as
far as it goes, entirely justified. ^ Nor yet can it
be denied that the very modest statement to
which the principle of causality is reduced is all
that is required at any rate for the purposes of
natural science.

It still, however, remains a question whether we
could possibly be content with a logical pluralism
of the kind just described as the final answer to
our intellectual demand for a rational explanation
of the world. For the purposes of the present
article it must be enough to call attention to a
few of the considerations which suggest that such
a theory can only be provisional. One may fairly
doubt whether it can really be called an explana-
tion or interpretation at all. The system of inter-
related existents with which it presents us as the
solution of a perennial intellectual problem seems
to be simply the problem itself stated in an
unusually abstract way. And it ought to be clear
that, when it has been granted to the full that the
special problem about the meaning of change has
been eliminated, there is a more fundamental
problem which the theory has simply left out of
account. However true it may be that ' we live in
a changeless world ' — i.e., that there never is a
' moment ' in which anything is ' passing from one
state to another ' ^ — Lotze's main contention, that
the analysis of the universe into relations and
existents, which are the terms of the relations,
rests on the uncriticized assumption that the suc-
cessive steps of the logical construction by which
we try to make things intelligible correspond
exactly to the steps of the real process by which
'being,' so to say, constructs itself, has been
left unanswered. "Logical pluralism, no less than
the ' panologism ' of Hegel, simply a.ssumes that
the logically prior and the metaphysically prior are
identical. The only difference is that the logic of
Hegel is so much inferior as logic. To put the
point in the simplest possible way, we cannot
avoid raising the question whj', out of the infinity
of relations open to the study of the logician, some

1 The question is how far does it go ? Is an ' instant ' more
than a mathematical ' limit ' ? The ' Theory of Relativity '
becomes important at this point (consult A. N. Whitehead,
Enquiry into the Principles of Natural Knowledge, Cambridge,
1919).

^ Yet it is surely true, as maintained, e.g., by Whitehead, that
' passage ' is just the fundamental fact about Nature, however
we choose to analyse it. ' Nature ' is, as Plato called it, a
yi.yv6it,€vov.

and only some are actualized — have existents as
their terms. Logical pluralism has no answer to
this inevitable question except that ' it happens
to be so.' And this is really no answer at all. It
amounts to saying not merely that the world might
have been wholly different from what it is, but
that there might equally well be no actual exist-
ents whatsoever. The theory fails to satisfy us
for the same sort of reason as that which prevents
the ontological proof from producing conviction.
Just as that argument assumes that ' there must
be something,' so the theory we are now consider-
ing assumes that ' there might just as well be
nothing.' Now, we cannot prove that there must
be something, nor can Ave prove that there might
have been nothing ; we have to start from the fact
that there is something and that this something has
a definite character. Hence, to the present writer,
Lotze seems right in contending that it is the
character of this something that accoimts for the
range of logical possibilities itself being what it is,
and Kant in arguing that there is an actual ground
presupposed by the very distinction between the
possible and the impossible. In fact the logical
pluralists themselves seem to admit as much when
they rightly insist that the so-called laws of
thought are laws not of thinking but of things.
It is therefore by a rightful exigence of the intel-
lect itself that we are driven to conceive of the
structure of the world as explicable only by the
metaphysically ' first ' character of the ' necessary
being ' ; and, when once we have taken tiiis step,
it is not hard to show that the ' necessary being '
must have the character of the ens realissimum. It
must be its own justification, its own raison d'etre.
If so much be granted, it follows at once that,
though we can form no adequate positive concept
of such a Supreme Being, the least inadequate
way in which to think of it is in terms of the
highest values known to us— i.e. by analogy with
the human spirit at its best. How inadequate
such an analogy is has always been patent. Even
of the human spirit at its best we can only form
very inadequate notions from what we see of its
actual achievements, and our notion of the Supreme
Reality which is the source of our estimates of
worth, as of all other possibilities, must needs be
doubly imperfect when it has to be framed in so
unsatisfactory a way. But we can at least say
that such a being must be all that we mean when
we think of perfection in ourselves, and infinitely
more. If we are not satisfied with theories which,
under a disguise, offer us the unexplained detail
of the world as its own explanation, it is only in
the thought of the detail as throughout conditioned
by the living Good that the intellect itself can
finally acquiesce. Of course we cannot expect to
know in particular how each constituent of this
detail is consequent on the character of the Good
— why, e.g., it is 'best' for us in particular to be
living on the particular planet on which we do
live, rather than any other ; why there should be
just the number of members of our planetary
system there are ; why the range of colours we
can perceive should be neither more nor less ex-
tended than it is ; and the like. But the convic-
tion that all this detail is as it is ' because it is
best ' gives an adequate reason why it is what it is,
even tnough we may be quite unable to see why it
is best.^ And it is only the thought of the depend-
ence of the world on the absolute Good whicli, by
removing the artificial severance between the
realm of fact and the realm of values, can achieve

1 It would be a superficial objection to say that ' because it is
worst' would be also an answer to our question. Good (no one
has done more to insist on the point than Moore) means some-
thing definite and positive. So 'best' has a meaning, but
' worst ' has none, any more than ' so crooked that nothing
can be crookeder ' has.

284

THEISM

the solution of the supreme intellectual problem,
the reconciliation of science with life.

These considerations suggest certain further re-
flexions on the limitations of logical pluralism.
The whole theory has manifestly been thought out
in the exclusive interest of pure mathematics and
the application of mathematics in the natural
sciences, and for that purpose it works admirably.
But there is more in heaven and earth than these
sciences take into account. Even within their
limits it remains to be seen whether the theory as
it stands will really do all that a philosophy of the
sciences should. The fundamental difficulty is
that it is a consequence of the theory that, as has
already been said, the establishment of scientific
laws by induction comes to be simply a problem in
the tlieory of probabilities. But the theory of
probabilities, taken by itself, seems to give us no
ground whatever for attributing to the conclusion
of an inductive generalization any finite probability,
however small. ^ Science would thus seem to be
impossible in principle unless some as yet un-
discovered premiss for induction, which is not
included in the theory of probabilities, can be
unearthed ; and it remains to be seen whether
such a premiss, if discovered, is consistent with
the rest of the theory. Again, the replacing of
the individual existents of popular common sense
and ordinary science by infinite series of momentary
individuals seems an absolutely necessary conse-
quence of the initial assumption of the theory,
and, so far as the things of the external world as
conceived by common sense, or the constituents of
the physical order as conceived by the physicist,
are concerned, there might be no difficulty about
it.^ But it is quite another question whether the
substitution does not destroy the whole significance
of the moral realm, the system of intelligent spirits.
It is not merely that it creates a difficulty in
psychology, though surely it does create such a
difficulty. The immediate witness of consciousness
to our identity as subjects of experience is a real
fact which no logical theory about the constitution
of the world has a right to ignore. It may be that
' the mind thinks not always,' that there are
intervals in which each of us is wholly unconscious,
though such evidence as we have does not seem
favourable to the supposition ; but, at least when
we are conscious, every conscious act fills an actual
interval and yet has its absolutely unitary char-
acter. A 'duration,' though a brief one, is neces-
sary to think the simplest proposition, and much
more to draw the easiest inference. Yet the
thinking of the proposition or the making of the
inference is a unitary act only intelligible as
the act of a unitary intelligence. It is nonsensical
to say that, when I think ' God is,' this thought,
as a mental event, is really made up of an infinity
of momentary ' mental states ' of similar but
numerically different minds, or that the ' I ' which
resolves on a given act and the ' I ' which carries
out the resolve are each an infinity of different
' I's ' with a further infinity of still difl'erent ' I's '
between them. Only the elementary blunder in
analysis of resolving activity into mere succession
can account for the promulgation of such a view.
It is a still more serious matter that the doctrine
is wholly incompatible with the fundamental pre-
requisites of ethics. This point is capable of being
developed in great detail and from more than one
side, but in principle it should be enough to say
that the denial of permanent personality is fatal
to the conception of personality as having moral

1 See the acute discussion by C. D. Broad, in Mind, new ser.,
cvjli. 389-404, and the criticisms of P. E. B. Jourdain, Mind,
new ser., ex. 162-180. Jourdain's criticisms do not seem to the
present writer to affect the soundness of Broad's contentions.

2 But the philosophical interpreters of the ' Theory of
Relativity ' would have something to say on this point.

worth. If we analyse any act upon which a moral
judgment would normally be passed into an infinitj'
of momentary phases, no moral predicate can be
ascribed to any one of these stages. The moral
judgment for approval or condemnation has no
meaning if it be applied to any such single stage ;
to be significant, it must be passed on the whole
act, considered as one, and as an expression in act
of the inner will of a subject who is one and the
same from its first inception in thought to its com-
pletion. Similarly the notion of duty loses all its
meaning with the relegation of permanent selfhood
to the realm of illusion. That an act is my duty
in the present situation means that it is something
not yet done, but which ought to be done and to
be done by me. But if ' I ' only exist at a mathe-
matical punctum temporis, the proposition that I
ought now to do a certain act has no longer an in-
telligible significance. A merely momentary ' I '
can do nothing and can be nothing except just
what it is ; ' ought ' is a category which has no
application to it. It is no mere accident that
Russell should have dropped significant hints in
his latest writings of conversion to the view that
moral judgments are only ' subjective,' mere ex-
pressions of fundamentally irrational moods. The
real outcome of a logical pluralism, put forward as
the ultimate truth about what is, is not even that
standing dualism of what is and what ought to be
of which Lotze complains ; it is rather the pro-
nouncement that categories of value (there can be
no reason to confine the conclusion to specifically
ethical values) are one and all devoid of any real
application. For those who cannot accept this
result, Kant's moral argument for theism seems to
the present writer unanswerable. For it is only
if the Good is also the supreme principle of all
existence that it becomes possible to understand
how what is and what ought to be can form one
' world,' and from the recognition of the Good as
the Supreme Being theism follows directly. This
seems to be illustrated by the present state of
philosophical opinion in our own country. Through-
out the thirty years or so, from the seventies of
the last century onward, in which Hegelianism,
interpreted with a marked Spinozistic bias, was
the dominant philosophy in academic circles, there
was a natural tendency to make it almost the test
of a man's philosophical capacity that his attitude
towards the problems raised by the religious life
should be an emotional pantheism ; atheism was
in discredit as indicative (as indeed it is) of lack of
interest in or understanding of the whole realm of
personal values ; theism as a supposed mark of want
of logical thoroughness. In the present generation
the issues seem to be clearing. _ Philosophers are
certainly tending, though not without exception,
to range themselves into two camps. Those to
whom the business of philosophy seems to consist
mainly, if not exclusively, in providing a logical
basis and a methodology for exact science appear
to be identifying themselves with the doctrine of
logical pluralism and taking up a definitely athe-
istic attitude which involves the denial of the
objectivity of judgments of value ; those, on the
other hand, who are convinced that the business
of philosophy is to make life, as well as science,
intelligible, and consequently find themselves
obliged to maintain the validity of these categories
of worth apart from which life would have no
significance, are, in the main, declared theists.

i8. Objections to theism.— It may be desirable
to add some brief observations on certain types of
objections which are often quite sincerely raised
against a theistic interpretation of the world. In
principle none of these difficulties are novel ; most
of them find their expression in Hume and may be
traced back far behind Hume to the literature of

THEISM

285

the ancient world. Popularly these objections are
often called 'scientific,' though their only con-
nexion with modern natural science is that its
discoveries enable some of them to be stated in
a more impressive way. For the most part they
are all summed up in the antitheological assertion
of Lucretius that the existing world is too bad to
have been created or to be administered by a divine
intelligence, 'tanta stat praedita culpa.' Thus it
is urged that the suffering of the animal creation
is too great, the cost of the ' struggle for existence '
too painful, for us to ascribe a world like that we
know to a benevolent Creator. Or, again, it is
said that an almighty Creator might have made
the human race, in particular, such that it would
not be exposed as it is to suffering, to constant
struggle with its environment, to the consequences
of its own mistakes and wrongdoing. It is then
inferred that, if there is a superhuman intelligence
behind nature, that intelligence is either deficient
in wisdom or wanting in goodness. Now, obviously,
criticisms of this kind rest upon premisses which
may be fairly called in question. One might
reasonably doubt whether the pessimistic interpre-
tation of the facts which sees misery predominant
everywhere in animal and human life has any real
warrant. To an unbiased observer an animal
does not seem normally to give signs that it finds
its existence miserable, and it is notable that
suicide is not common among men, and, unless the
stories of the scorpions which kill themselves when
surrounded by fire are true, apparently as good as
non-existent among the lower animals. The mis-
use of the metaphorical phrase which describes the
process by which species are selected for sui'vival
as a ' struggle ' is too glaring to need more than a
word of comment. If competition plays a promi-
nent part in the economy of the animal and
vegetable kingdoms, as it does in the economy of
commerce, it no more follows that the life of every
animal, or most animals (and ? vegetables), is one
of wretchedness than it follows that all or most
business men are hopelessly miserable.^ Still, of
course, it may be said that there is, at any rate,
some suffering in the world and that perfect good-
ness would have permitted none at all. Such an
argument, however, tacitly assumes that perfect
goodness can have only one end, a hedonistic one,
and thus permits of the answer that whatever the
end which perfect goodness conjoined with omni-
potence would propose to itself — and we clearly
are not in a position to say what that end would
be — it is at least unreasonable to suppose that it
can be the mere promotion of agreeable feeling, an
end which even we ourselves regard as a low one.
If we could know the purpose of creation, it might
Avell be that we should see that it is entirely good
and at the same time could not be attained without
the presence of an element of hedonic evil in things.
Similarly, with respect to the objection based on
the view that it would be ' better ' that human
beings should have been placed in a world where
there were no unfriendly or intractable environ-
ment to master, and should have been ab initio
infallible and impeccable, it is obvious that it loses
its force if we decline to assume ( 1 ) the hedonistic
identification of good with pleasure, and (2) the
proposition that the good of the human race must
be the sole or at least the principal design of God.
If God's aim in dealing with us is to educate us
into noble character — a much wortliier aim than
that of making us comfortable — it may well be
that such an end could not be obtained except by
the discipline of struggle with our surroundings,
with our own mistakes and our own misdeeds.

1 And is it possible, in the present state of knowledge, to
regard ' competition ' as playing anything- like the part Darwin
assigned to it in determining the fate of ' varieties '?

Nor have we the right to assume that the human
race must necessarily be the sole or even the chief
object of the divine care ; we do know, unless
ethics is a delusion, that a human soul is a thing
of absolute worth ; that it is of higher worth than
everything else which God has created is more
than we can know. Indeed there is a rival objec-
tion which proceeds on the opposite assumption.
We are asked to think of the enormous spaces
revealed to us by astronomy and the number and
bulk of the heavenly bodies, and then to reflect on
the absurdity of supposing that the fate of the
inhabitants of one petty planet can count for any-
thing in the scheme of the universe. Yet it is
clear that here, too, the antitheist is reasoning (if
it can be called reasoning) upon a false assumption.
He is assuming that we know that the absolute
worth of a member of the universe is estimated by
its bulk and duration. Man must be of little value
in the scheme of things because his body is tiny
and its lifetime short. Plainly we have no right
to make serious objections to the theist's belief in
God's care for man on such flimsy grounds. If we
do not know that man is the thing of highest worth
in the creation, neither do we know that he is not.
The one thing which a theist can affirm is that the
absolute worth of moral personality must be re-
spected in a system which is the work of God.
' Justorum animae in manu Dei sunt ' ; that is all
we can say, but surely it suffices. If the Good is
the principle of actuality, that means that we can
say that a thing has come to be because it was
better that it should be than that it should not ;
it is where and when it is because this is better
than that it should be otherwhere and otherwhen ;
that befalls it which does befall it because it is
best that it should befall — i.e., God is alike Creator,
Providence, and Judge of His creatures. Of course,
if we had no grounds at all for our theistic con-
viction, difficulties like those mentioned might
forbid us to entertain it as a mere ' extra ' belief.
But, if it is true, as has been urged in this article,
that speculation and practice alike point to the
eternal nature of God as the object in which both
find their completion, we have a double exigence
of the practical and the speculative reason on the
side of theism, and in the presence of such an
exigence we are justified in applying Newman's
remark that ' a thousand difficulties do not amount
to one doubt.' One might add that there is a third
exigence — the specifically religious. It would be
perhaps a more serious objection to theism than
any we have yet considered to urge that our whole
procedure in looking for a First Cause is vitiated
by one obvious fallacy. The world, it might be
said, even if it has attained its present structure
as the result of processes which are in the last
resort reducible to mere redistributions of un-
intelligent primary constituents, directed by no
mind and having no end, still must, of course, have
a perfectly determinate structure, and, as we our-
selves happen to be included in that structure, of
course we inevitably discover adaptations in our
environment to our special needs, and are led to
fancy that such ada})tations are evidence of the
direction of the world by an intelligence which
aims at supplying our needs. But the real fact is
simply that it is not the world that has been
adapted to us, but we who have learned and are
learning to adapt ourselves to the world. If we
did not so adapt ourselves, we should not be here,
and, if a time ever comes when our capacity for
such 'adjustment' of our 'inner relations' to the
'outer relations' is exhausted, we sliall cease to be
here. If the actual course of events had been
different, all the reactions which we now call
good, because they further adaptation, might have
hindered it, and those which now hinder it might

286

THEISM

have furthered it. If in such a state of things
there had been reflecting beings at all, they, judg-
ing from their standpoint, would have called good
all that we think evil, and evil all that we think
good. They would have inferred benevolent divine
activity from the existence of conditions which we
should regard as indicating the control of nature
by malignant ' diabolical ' intelligences ; and their
inferences would have just as much foundation as
ours. These considerations, it might be said, are
a reductio ad absurdum not merely of all attempts
to reason from ' Nature up to Nature's God,' but
of the moral argument itself, since they show after
all that standards of valuation are and must be in
the end purely subjective. Since the human race
exists, and so long as it continues to maintain
itself, there must, of course, be no irresoluble dis-
cord between human estimates of value and the
actual conditions of existence. But, as the illus-
tration shows, we have no right whatever to argue
from this simple and obvious fact to the dependence
of existence on an absolute ' Good.' In fact, any of
the races which have ' gone under ' in the struggle
for existence would be equally justified in asserting
that existence depends on the absolute 'Evil.'
Here, as it seems to the present writer, we are
confronted by the real ultimate difficulty for
theism. If there is, after all, no realm of absolute
values, a line of thought which is throughout
determined by the conviction that the realm of
facts and the realm of values cannot be separated
must manifestly be futile. It is just the recurrent
fear that the ' realm of values' may turn out to be
a fiction of our imagination that is, in speculation,
the last enemy to be overcome. How is it to be
met ? The answer, it may be suggested, is the old
one, given in the memorable utterance of Pascal :
' Tu ne me chercherais pas si tu ne me poss^dais.
Ne t'inquifete done pas.'^ The sentences may be
applied to ultimate doubt about the reality of
every kind of human value. Is a man tempted to
doubt whether there really is any absolute and
certain truth, whether all our ' truths ' may not be
mere ' human ' or even ' personal ' points of view,
^poTwv S6^ai ah oiiK ivi irlcms oKrjdTfjs ? Let him be-
think himself that it is only because he is not un-
acquainted with truths that he can frame the
notion of the absolutely true, and only because he
has framed the notion that he can raise his doubt.
So it is only because we are all along secretly aware
that there are things which we ought uncondition-
ally to do that the question whether any given
accepted obligation is really unconditional can so
much as be put. If we knew no beauty, we could
not even ask ourselves whether our judgments
about beauty rest on illusion. In like manner it
is only because the absolutely Good and utterly
Adorable has not left Himself without a witness
in our hearts that we feel the need of an object to
worship and are driven on from the worship of
trees, or streams, or animals, or mighty men, or
anthropomorphic deities, towards an object in
which our adoration can at last find rest because
that on which it is directed is adequate to sustain
it. Prayer and adoration need no more justifica-
tion than the questioning attitude towards things
which leads to science, or the impulse to make
things of beauty which leads to art, or the desire
to do right which leads to morality. It is not for
nothing that man, as the Greeks said, is the only
animal who has a god. If we look at the matter
from this point of view, we may fairly say that
the Stoic appeal to the consensus gentium, though
no formal demonstration, still contains a thought
which goes to the very root of things. There are,
of course, individual men who do not feel the
impulse to seek for Him whom they may worship
1 Pensies, vii. 555 (ed. Brunschvicg, Paris, 1906).

with a rationabile obsequium, as there are men
■with no sense of humour, or men to whom music
means nothing, or men who cannot be made to see
that the difierence between right and wrong is
anything more than the difference between what
society will allow them to do and what it will not
let them do without making them uncomfortable.
The existence of such individuals is about as im-
portant in any one of these cases as in any other.
Nor does the number of such men without a religion
seem to be on the increase. In our own day the
only efi'ect of persuading men that the Most High
is a dream appears to be that they transfer their
worship to the demonstrably not most high ; we
get such quaint aberrations as the Comtist worship
of ' humanity,' or the elevation of Marxian Social-
ism into a faith. The one real question is not
what certain individuals are unable to feel the
necessity of searching for, but what those who do
seek find, sed quid invenientibus ? The lives of
the ' saints ' are the real answer of theism to the
last insistent perplexities of the doubter who lurks
in each of us. Others, without the theist's faith,
have often led noble lives ; they have fought a
good fight with the untowardness of a world which
they have believed in their hearts to be stupid or
malignant ; yet the most clear-sighted among
them, like Huxley, have confessed that mortal
heroism is a losing game, a battle with the cosmic
forces. Such heroes, after all, do but apply to the
universe the saying of the Emperor Marcus about
base men : ' The finest revenge is not to become
like them ' ; they have revenged themselves on the
world. What they lack — and one does not see
how the lack is to be made good — is the secret of
spiritual joy which belongs to those who are
assured that it is the Good which is supreme in
heaven and in earth. It would be tempting to
develop this argument farther, from a slightly
different point of view — that of love. To love, no
less than to worship, it may be said, is an ultimate
human need. At least, if a man does not feel the
imperativeness of the need, we should probably
say there was something ' inhuman ' about him.
And love too, like worship, seeks its adequate
object — that which, without any yielding to
illusion, a man can love with all his heart and
mind and strength. Love, with no limitations, if
it is clear-sighted, for us at least must be an amor
ascendcns, and, as it has its source in good (for real
love is always for what is good, not for what is
evil, in its object), so, unless it can at last rest in
the supreme Good, which is good altogether, it
must remain unsatisfied. But we cannot here
pursue the point farther. Only one thing more
will be said in conclusion, and that for the believer
in ' science ' who scruples at admitting the reality
of the Good. Why do we believe in science at all ?
Why do Ave, as we must if we have this belief,
refuse to entertain the possibility that the ' pro-
gress of science' is only bringing us nearer to a
point at Avhich the whole construction would be
found to culminate in manifest and hopeless con-
tradictions ? As a mere logical possibility there
seems to be nothing absurd about the suggestion.
If Ave dismiss it, as Ave do, it is because we
believe that knowledge is good, and because in
our hearts, whatever we may say with our lips,
we believe that the Good is real. Therefore,
little as we knoAV of the facts of the world, Ave
Avork on in confidence that, however drastically
the discovery of new facts may compel us to
modify our statements of truth and to supersede
as provisional results Ave once thought established
for ever, no noAv fact of the infinity which might
be discovered in an endless 'progress' Avill ever
show that ' science ' has been a secular nightmare
of the race.

THEOCRACY

287

L:tkraturb. — Besides works mentioned in the text, the
following may be recommended out of an enormous literature
(it is, of course, impossible to make any attempt to ensure com-
pleteness, and only recent works have been named) : S.
Alexander, Space, Time and Deity (Gifford Lects.), 2 vols.,
London, 1920; A. J. Balfour, The Foundations of Beliefs,
do. 1901 ; B. Bolzano, Wissenschaftstehre, vol. i. (1S37 ;
reprinted Leipzig, 1914); B. Bosanquet, The Principle of
Iruiividuality and Value (Gifford Lects.), London, 1912, The
Value and Destiny of the Individual (Gifford Lects.), do. 1913 ;
F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, 2nd ed. revised, do.
1908, Essays on Truth and Reality, Oxford, 1914 ; R. Flint,
Theism^, Edinburgh, 1885, Agnosticism, do. 1903 ; A. Campbell
Fraser, Philosophy of Theism^ (Gifford Lects.), 1899; E.
Gibson, ie Thomisme, Strasbourg, 1920; P. Hinneberg:, Die
Kultur der Gegenwart, pt. i. div. 5, Allgemeine Gesch. der
Philosophies, Leipzig, 1913, esp. pts. B 2, 'Die patristische
Philosophie,' by C. Biiumker, and B 4, ' Die christliche PhUo-
Sophie des Mittelalters,' by O. Baumker ; F. von Hugfel,
Eternal Life, Edinburgh, 1912 ; W. R. Inge, The Philosophy
of Plotinus (Gifford Lects.), 2 vols., London, 1918; H. H.
Joachim, A Study of the Ethics of Spinoza, Oxford, 1901 ;
J. M. E. McTaggart, Some Dogmas of Religion, London,
1906 ; J. T. Merz, Hist, of European Thought in the Nineteenth
Century, 4 vols., Edinburgh, 189&-1914, A Fragment on the
Human Mind, do. 1919 ; A. S. Pringle-Pattison, The Idea
of God (Gifford Lects.), Oxford, 1917; B. RusseU, Critical
Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, Cambridge, 1900, The
Principles of Mathematics, i., 1903, Philosophical Essays,
London, 1910, The Problems of Philosophy, do. n.d. [1912],
Our knowledge of the External World, Chicago and London,
1914 ; J. Royce, the World and the Individual (GiBord Lects.),
2 vols., London and New York, 1900-01 ; J. Royce, J. Le
Conte, G. H. Howison, S. E. Mezes, The Conception of God,
do. 1897; A. D. Sertillanges, S. Thomas d'Aquin (in ' Les
Grand es Philosophes' ser.), 2 vols., Paris, 1910 ; W. R. Sorley,
Moral Valves and the Idea of God (Gifford Lects.), Cambridge,
1918 ; W. Temple, 3fens Creatrix, London, 1917 ; B. Varisco,
I Massimi Problcmi, Milan, 1910, Eng. tr.. The Great Problems,
London, 1914, Conosci te Stesso, Milan, 1912, Eng. tr.. Know
Thyself, London, 1915 ; J. Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism
(Gifford Lects.), 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1899, The Realm of Ends,
Pluralism and Theism (Gifford Lects.), Cambridge, 1911;
C. C. J. Webb, Studies in the Hist, of Natural Theology,
Oxford, 1915, God and Personality (Gifford Lects.), London,
1918, Divine Personality and Human Life (Gifford Lects.),
do. 1920 ; T. Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists^, Cambridge, 1918.

A. E. Taylor.

THEOCRACY. — The term 'theocracy' was
coined by Josephus,^ upon the analogy of ' aristoc-
racy ' and ' democracy,' to denote a certain kind
of national polity. Any tribe or state that claims
to be governed by a god or gods may be called a
'theocracy.' History has many difl'erent types;
e.g., the theocratic idea underlies Brahmanism,
Islam, the papacy, and the theory of ' kingship by
divine right.' Yet there is probably no historical
instance of a ' pure ' theocracy. Just as the British
constitution to-day, while predominantly demo-
cratic, has monarchic elements, so of old time the
Hebrew commonwealth, for example, while pre-
dominantly theocratic, had democratic elements.
Different polities are distinguishable historically,
not because a single principle exhausts them, but
because some one principle is dominant within
them. The idea of government by God was the
dominant one in Israelite polity. In this way it
was unique, as Josephus claimed, among the
polities of his time. It is the leading instance
of theocracy for all times. It is the only one
discussed here.

Theocracy came to Israel by survival. The
earliest form of human society, so far as anthrop-
ology has yet discovered, was the clan or kindred-
group. This appears to have been world-wide.
In religion it was 'henotheistic,' a particular god
belonging to a particular clan. He was part of
it, as much a part as any human member. His
relation to it was too many-sided to be summed up
in any one word. In some ways a tribe's god was
like a father, in some like a captain, in some like
a king, and so on. But, as monarchy developed
among the Semitic races, the relation of the god to
the tribe came to be chiefly like that of a king.
So, among them as well as elsewhere, there arose
the early ' henotheistic ' type of theocracy. Its
best-known examples are Biblical : Chemosh ruled

1 C. Apion. ii. 16.

Moab, Milcom ruled Amnion, Jahweh ruled Israel,
and so on. Sooner or later, however, this kind of
theocracy perished in every settled land except
one. The gods of such tribes as Edom and ISIoab
passed away, with the tribal independence, before
the attack of Assyria, or Babylon, or Persia. In
other lands polytheism supervened on henotheism.
There the gods slowly became rather an appendage
of the state than its rulers. But in Israel the idea
of the sole rule of a single God survived all the
vicissitudes of history. It survived by develop-
ment. Its history is the history of the way in
which Hebrew thought about Jahweh's rule evolved
to meet the varying challenge of national need.
To set this out fully would be to write the whole
story of Israel. Here a narrower question is in
place : the idea of government by Jahweh being
constant in Israel, how did the idea of its method
evolve ?

The study of the method of any kind of polity
turns largely on the nature of its organs, for almost
all civilized governments rule through organs. This
is peculiarly so with theocracies, since it is only in
legend that gods speak directly to their peoples.
Josephus himself, in the very passage where he
coins the word 'theocracy,' speaks, not of Jahweh,
but of Moses, as 'our law-giver.' In Israel, as
elsewhere, the organs of theocratic government
were long associated with sacred shrines. Horeb,
Shiloh, and Bethel are instances.^ The shrine, so
to speak, gave the organ authenticity. When
doubt or dispute arose about Jahweh's Law, appeal
would be made to the guardians of some great
shrine. 2 These came to form a priestly class. At
the great shrines, too, there soon began to be books
of Jahweh's toroth ; ^ here as well there were the
few men who could write and read books. Tradi-
tionally, at least, the original Law had been given,
and its first edicts written, at the shrine of Horeb
or Sinai.* In later times, no doubt, when a Hebrew
visited a shrine to learn Jahweh's will, its authorized
exponent, the priest, would not only read the
appropriate law, but explain it. Sometimes, again,
he would need to extend an old principle to meet a
new 'case.' So, little by little, the 'Law of Jahweh'
would insensibly grow. For early Israel three things
were indissoluble — Jahweh's shrine, Jahweh's book,
Jahweh's priest. The three together formed the
normal organ of theocracy.

The history of pre-monarchic Israel, however,
has traces of two other theocratic organs — the so-
called 'judge' and the 'prophet.' Of these a dis-
tinctive phrase is used : ' the spirit of the Lord
came upon ' so-and-so.^ The phrase has variants,^
but this is its usual form. It is the earliest explana-
tion of the method of theocracy.'' There are
some hints that the ' judge ' was usually connected
with a sacred s})ot.^ If so, this theocratic organ
also cohered with the shrine. There was perhaps
a similar connexion at first between the shrine and
'prophesying.'* Before the days of Samuel the

1 The ' Ark of God ' was originally a kind of movable shrine.

2 Cf. Ex 216 and parallels ; 1 S 225 7i5fl-..

3 Cf. Jos 242S, Dt 319- 24ff., 1 s 1026. 4 Ex 344. 12.

s E.g., Jg 1129, Nu 242, 1 s IQio. 6 Cf. esp. Jg 6".

7 It is possible that historical study will at length speak of
three organs here instead of two, distinguishing the 'judge'
from the warrior-' saviour.' For it has been implied above tiiat
to judge, in the ordinary sense of the word (cf. 1 S Sl-5), was
a function of the priest in Israel ; and this was not confined to
priests (e.g., Jg 44ff-, 1 S 4^8 76). Such 'judges' wore thou^lit
of as organs of the ' spirit of Jahweh ' (cf. Nu ll'"ff). One who
had ' saved Israel ' (cf. Jg 331 61* etc.) was also such an organ.
Not infrequently a ' saviour ' became a judge as well, and later
Hebrew writers, used to the constant union of the captain and
the judge in the king, treated it as constant in the leaders of
early times too (e.g., Jg 21'J ti 39f.D). Yet there seem to have been
judges who were neither priests nor 'saviours' (Jg 103 \oi.\i .
cf. 1 S 7i6f. 8'). To ' save Israel,' to judge, to serve at a shrine,
were distinct theocratic functions, tliough two of them might
unite in a single man.

8 Jg 48 827, 1 S 228 715^-. » Cf. 1 S 320f. 919.

288

THEOCRACY

Hebrew ' prophet ' was probably hardly more than
the wandering saint of other Eastern faiths^ — a
man who lived a separate and so a ' holy ' life. In
all lands these have frequented shrines, for, even
where they have no ' official ' connexion with the
ritual, temples offer the best opportunities for
the alms by which they live. The first band of
'prophets' named in the Hebrew records appears
as ' coming down from the high place.' ^ Primitive
thought does not readily isolate the different organs
of a god's activity.

Scholars differ about the degree in which the
religion of pre-monarchic Israel surpassed other
tribal faiths, but all allow that within the period
of the monarchy Hebraism became unique. In
that period all the theocratic oi-gans named above
persisted, but in persisting changed. Every other
Hebrew shrine was eclipsed by the Temple in
Jerusalem, and at length disappeared. So, too,
the Temple became at last the depository of the
one recognized book of Jahweh's Law.^ In Jeru-
salem, again, the priesthood of Israel ultimately
concentrated. At crises in the history of the
Southern Kingdom the high - priest sometimes
played a decisive part,* and there is evidence that
the Temple had a succession of priest-preachers
who surpassed all contemporary priesthoods in the
loftiness of their teaching and the purity of their
lives.^ Their permanent memorial is the book of
Deuteronomy. It was only at the close of the
monarchy that they became utterly corrupt — a
fate that also befell the ' sons of the prophets ' —
and even then Jahweh's great witness, Jeremiah,
Avas bom a priest. Of the three other theocratic
functions found in the times before the kings, two
— leadership in war and judgment in peace — which
had previously often united in a single person"
now permanently blent in the king. While, of
course, there were inferior captains and subordin-
ate judges, he was both supreme captain and
supreme judge. And he was effectively both. A
king, unlike the earlier 'saviour,' held permanent
office, and, unlike the earlier judge, had power to
enforce his decisions. And he was king by the
will of God. He was Jahweh's ' son,' as having
His mind and acting under His guidance.'' He
was 'the Lord's anointed.' At times even a
wicked king fell back upon Jahweh's help at the
pinch of his people's need.^ It is true that one
king after another ' did that which was evil in the
sight of the Lord,' and so repudiated the righteous
God of Israel, but the ideal of a king who, like
David, did the will of Jahweh remained a part of
the hope of Israel. Ideally the Hebrew monarchy
was theocratic.

The chief glory of monarchic Israel, however,
was its prophets. They were different indeed from
all other ' prophets ' ! With them the connexion
of theocracy with shrines, maintained by the
kings,** began to loosen. At times, again, the
prophet must perforce denounce the priest. Yet
the prophets, more than any else, were the true
organs of theocracy. ' Thus saith the Lord ' was
their watchword. They spoke under the impulse
of the Spirit. In a sense they kept God alive. It
is true that, from the time of Elijah, Israel began
to refuse their guidance, that at last the Northern
Kingdom rejected it altogether, and that even
in Judah they became the leaders only of a
'remnant.' But it was just this 'remnant' that
meant so much for the future of the world. Israel

1 E.g., 1 S 10. 2 1 s 105.

3 2 K 228 (' the ' book). 4 2 K 11, 22.

5 Of. G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, London, 1908, ii. Ill f.

6 See footnote 7 on p. 287.

■? Cf. 2 S 71-*. The idea of a Divine monarch with an earthly
vicegerent was quite common in the Semitic world (W. Robert-
son Smith, Religion of the Semites, lect. ii.).

8 E.g., 1 K 2013. 9 2 S 6, 1 K 1226ff..

is unique among theocracies because of its
prophets.

The Exile was a signal proof of their greatness,
for no other ancient people survived exile. ' To
be carried captive ' destroyed, as it was meant to
destroy, nations and their gods together. Even in
exile, however, Israel believed in the rule of its
God. Of this creed the unknown prophet now^
called ' Deutero-Isaiah ' was preacher par excel-
lence. The Hebrew of the Return re-crossed the
desert under the definite conviction that his God
was leading him, as He had led Abraham.^ In
consequence a decisive change in the Hebrew idea
of theocracy became complete. From Isaiah on-
wards the primitive notion that there were as
many gods as there were nations had been gradu-
ally making way for the belief that there was but
one God, and He the master of all nations. Only
so could Jahweh save Jerusalem from Sennacherib,
or redeem Judah from Babylon. Monotheism now
entirely supplanted henotheism. While Israel
was still Jahweh's ' peculiar treasure,' His theoc-
racy was no longer limited to Canaan, but
swayed the world.

Yet the immediate sequel was disappointing.
' Judaism ' — to use the name appropriate after the
Return — set out to be a pure theocracy. It rebuilt
the old shrine ; it gathered the ancient books ; at
length it made the ancient priesthood paramount.
Yet it gradually became a splendid failure. The
line of prophets dwindled away. The Jews looked
in vain for kings like David. At last no priest
dared, in the Lord's name, to add to His Law.
And it seemed clear, besides, that the Lord did
not rule the world. Theocracies tend to become
hierarchies, and hierarchies tend to stagnate.
Israel was now a hierarchy, and it looked as
though Jahweh would sink to the level of the
gods who had done great things in the past, but
who did nothing in the present. The Jewish
theocracy threatened to ' fossilize.'

Yet it escaped this fate. As the Psalms of the
period show, there were always Jews who practised
the creed that their God was still alive, and they
knew that His time would come. The book of
Daniel bears the same witness in a different way.
It is the first apocalypse, and all apocalypses are
theocratic. So, again, in its own way, is the book
of Esther. The distinctive note of this epoch is
not really its consummated ritual or its completed
law, but its unextinguished hope. Israel believed
that the future, as the past, was its God's and its
own. There would be a perfect theocracy yet !
The Kingdom of God would come !

There were two leading opinions about the way
of its coming, readily separable in thought,
though not always separated in fact. The one
opinion found its aptest expression in the apoca-
lypses. Broadly speaking, these expected a
kingdom based on force, in which the Jew would
rule all other nations — a kingdom won and main-
tained by a superhuman organ of God. This
opinion laid hold of the external form of the old
theocracy, kingship. It had an element of truth
in it, for the NT has an apocalypse. In the in-
terval before the perfect kingdom comes Christ
does ' over-rule ' all things and men, and this is a
theocratic idea. Yet the other opinion is final for
Christianity. Its earlier exponents were some of
the later Psalmists ; it lived in the quiet circles
that ' waited for the consolation of Israel ' ; its
perfect preacher was Jesus. He accepted the
phrase ' the Kingdom of God,' and so looked for a
theocracy, but He gave the phrase His own ex-
position and laid down the true method of the
Kingdom's coming. It has been seen above
that from the first a man who was the organ of

1 Cf. Ezr 8^2.

THEODICY

289

Jahweh was thought of as ' filled with ' His Spirit.
This was why and how he knew God's will. More
than once it had been discerned, even by OT
thinkers, that a perfect theocracy, therefore,
could come only if all its citizens, and not a few
only, had the Spirit of Jahweh. ^ This idea is
really central in Jesus' teaching, though He was
able to teach it only as men were able to bear it.
With the Acts of the Apostles it became explicitly
the master principle of Christianity. At the same
time there began the evolution of the Christian
doctrine of the personality of the Holy Ghost.
There can be a perfect theocracy only when every
man acts always under the guidance of the Spirit
of God. Here is the culmination of Biblical
theocratic doctrine. Yet here also is its euthanasia.
For this kind of ' theocracy ' does not satisfy the
definition given above. It is not a ' theory of
national polity.' The Christian doctrine of the
Holy Spirit is naturally individual, and as natur-
ally universal, but it is not naturally national.^
Again, the term ' polity ' implies government and
its coercions, and one of the marks of the Spirit's
sway just is that it is incoercive. Yet the husk of
Israel's theocratic idea held a kernel of ' eternal '
value. The last human society will be a Kingdom
of God.

Literature. — For Josephus's use of the term ' theocracy ' see
HDB, S.V., vol. V. [1904] p. 337 (V. H. Stanton); for the facts
about the general Semitic notion of theocracy see W.
Robertson Smith. The Relirjion of the Semites, London, 1894,
lect. ii., and The Prophets of Israel, do. 1897, lect. ii. ; for the
development of the idea in Israel and in the apocjiljTDtic
literature see the standard authorities on the reIig:ion of Israel,
the theology of the OT, and the extra-canonical Jewish books ;
the corresponding authorities on the NT discuss the relation of
the idea of the Kingdom of God to the earlier theocratic
doctrine. Separate treatment of the subject is unusual.

C. Ryder Smith.

THEODICY.— I. The term,— Theodicy (Germ.
Theodizee, adapted from Fr. thiodkee, which is
compounded of Gr. debs, 'God' + dlKt}, 'justice')
means literally the (or a) justification or vindica-
tion of God. Leibniz appears to have been the
first to use the word in its distinctive sense. In a
letter written in 1697 he spoke of employing it as
the title of an intended work,* and in 1710 the
work duly appeared. The complete title was,
'Es.sais de Theodicee sur la bonte de Dieu, la liberte
de I'homme, et I'origine du mal.' Since Leibniz's
time the word ' theodicy ' has been in common
use.

2. The concept. — In modern usage the scope of
the term is vague and ill-defined. Sometimes it
is employed, as by P. Janet and G. Seailles,* as
equivalent to natural theology or philosophy of
religion. For those writers theodicy comprises the
general problem of religion, though it is also
understood by them in a more particular sense, as
comprising only the central problems of the nature
of God aiid the relation of God to the world. In
either of these senses it may escape the charge of
being a theory put forward ' to save the situation.'^
But in the usual sense it does not so readily escape
such a charge. For as a rule the use of the term is
more in keeping with its literal meaning, and
theodicy is understood as the (or a) vindication
of the divine providence or government in view
of the existence of evil. The ' theodicean ' assumes
the validity of the theistic conception of God as
powerful, wise, and good, and on this basis seeks
to defend the divine administration : he would

1 E.g., Nu 1129, jer 3134, Ji 2=8.

2 E.\cept in the sense that every true nation, being an organic
part of mankind and set to minister to the whole, is meant to
be ' filled with the Spirit' for this office.

:'Cf. J. T. Merz, Leibniz, Editilnirsrh, 1884, p. 101.

* A Hist, of the Problems of Philosophy, Eng. tr., 2 vols.,
London, 1902, vol. ii. pt. iv.

5 Cf. Plato, Republic, 380 A ; and A. S. Pringle-Pattison, The
Idea of God, p. 400.

VOL. xn. — 19

' assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.' 1

3. Origin of the concept.— The need of such a
defence and vindication is not felt in primitive
religion under polydoemonism, with its animistic
or spiritistic view of nature, because under poly-
dseraonism the world is subject to a multitude of
spirits both good and evil, who limit each other
and are themselves limited by the natural order.
Nor is the need felt even at the polytheistic stage
of religious belief, with its multitude or hierarchy
of gods as distinguished from spirits or godlings,
because at this stage thought, if no longer naive
and instinctive, is still uncritical, and the gods are
conceived as being subject to fate or necessity or
as governing a world already given and never
properly under their control. At the monotheistic
stage of religion, however, where thought is be-
come critical and reflective, the problem of theodicy
arises and calls for a solution. Sometimes, as in
Persian religion, a dualism in the divine nature is
postulated, and the world represented as the scene
of a grand coiiHict between the principles of good
and evil, in which good is destined to final triumph ;
and obviously a dualistic philosophy of religion,
if it could be otherwise satisfying, would ease
the problem. Under a monistic philosophy of
religion, again, the tendency is actually to get rid
of the problem, by minimizing evil or even by re-
ducing evil to illusion. This tendency is observ-
able in the cosmic and acosmic pantheisms of
Stoicism and Brahmanism respectively. Only in
a philosophy of religion in which God is recognized
as wholly good, and evil as truly evil, is the
problem of theodicy felt in all its insistence.
Si deus bonus, unde malum ? Christianity, theisti-
cally interpreted, supplies such a philosophy, and
in the course of Christian history the problem of
theodicy received distinctive treatment in the
ecclesiastical doctrine of the Fall. Whatever may
be said as to the form of that doctrine, it stands
for a principle which should be acknowledged in
theistic interpretations of the world, namely the
principle of human freedom and responsibility.
It is not without significance that the classical
theodicy or theistic apologia of Leibniz bears in its
title not only ' the goodness of God ' and ' the origin
of evil,' but also ' the freedom of man,'

4. Leibniz's Theodicee,^ — {a) In the problems
of theodicy Leibniz had been interested since his
boyhood, and he claims to have given more atten-
tion to them than most.* There are many
references to them, certainly, in his correspondence
during the last decades of the 17th cent, with
Pellisson, Bossuet, and others ; and the Essais
itself also bears ample witness to his long-continued
interest in them. It should be remarked, however,
that the Essais is not, properly speaking, a
systematic.presentation of the questions involved
in theodicy. It is, in Leibniz's own word, a ' tissu ' *
of what he had said and written in the course
of the theological and philosophical discussions,
centred in Pierre Bayle's works and especially
his Dictionnaire historique ct critique, which he
carried on with Sophia Charlotte, queen of Prussia.
From a letter of Leibniz's written to Sir Thomas
Burnett in 1710 it appears that the Essais was
compiled at the request of his friends and as a
memorial to the deceased queen." The book was
extraordinarily popular, and apparently the author
finds satisfaction in recording that it was welcomed

1 Milton, Paradise Lost, bk. i. 1. 25 f.

2 See also art. Pessimism and Optimism.

3 Diephilnsophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,
ed. C. J. Gerhardt, 7 vols., Berlin, 1875-90, vi. 43.

* Ih. vi. 11.

B lb. p. 10. Sophia Charlotte died in 1705 ; a common but
erroneous impression is that the TModicie was compiled during
her lifetime.

290

THEODICY

by Catholics as well as Lutherans and Evan-
gelicals.i No doubt the Essais served its purpose
well in an age of theological rationalism, and
helped to stem the tide of scepticism which was
now beginning to threaten the foundations of
religion itself.^ But Leibniz's theistic apologia
does not commend itself so readily in our time.

(b) It will be sufficient for the purposes of this
article to indicate a few salient points in Leibniz's
theodicy, for the sake of illustrating the differ-
ence between the older and the newer theism in
apologetic method and outlook.

(1) God. — Unlike most recent exponents of a theistic philo-
sophy of religion, Leibniz was of the belief that the being or
existence of God could be demonstrated by purely logical or
rational processes. Though he recognized, he did not make
much use of, the ontological proof, and the proof, so peculiarly
his own, from the ' pre-established harmony ' is bound up very
closely with his monadology ; but the cosniological or etio-
logical proof and the proof from the eternal truths are both
characteristic of his theology or religious philosophy and
independent of his ontological scheme. In accordance with
the principle of the cosmological or aetiological proof, Leibniz
starts from the world of finite existents as contingent and
infers an Existent which is not contingent but metaphysically
necessary. There must be a sufficient reason or cause, he says,
for the existence of the whole collection of contingent things
which composes the world, and it is to be found in the Substance
which carries with it the reason or cause of its own existence,
and which is consequently necessary and eternal ; and that
Substance can only be God. 3 It may be objected to this
argument that it is logically fallacious, as containing more in
the conclusion than is contained in the premiss : as the premiss
is contingent, so must also be the conclusion. ■* As for the
proof from the eternal truths — i.e. truths which involve no
reference to time or to the world of existents in time— it is
largely dependent upon Leibniz's notion of possibilitj'. For
Leibniz, as not for Spinoza, the possible was wider than the
actual, essence than existence ; and he argues that, if the
eternal or metaphysically necessary truths are real, and
founded on something existent, that existent something must
be the metaphysically necessary Being of God, in whom essence
involves existence, and to be possible is to be actual. Without
God not only would there be nothing existent, but there would
be nothing possible. 5 Against this proof, as handled by Leibniz,
it may be urged that it is inconsistent in one who regards the
possible as wider than the actual, the essential than the existent,
to regard truth as dependent upon existence ; and that in any
case we cannot on the premisses reach a necessary Being separate
from the existent and actual world. In all such arguments
indeed, as B. Russell points out, there is difficulty in avoiding
Spinozism.6

(2) The world. — In presenting what may be named his teleo-
logieal optimism Leibniz still moves on the high plane of
metaphysical notions and a priori verbal proof, nor condescends
to the lower empirical world, to which Bayle would bring him
down. Founding upon the principle of sufficient reason and
the idea of divine perfection, he holds that this is the best of all
possible worlds ; for, were a better world than this world possible,
God would have chosen it. God is absolutely powerful, wise,
and good ; and His goodness moved Him to create and pro-
duce all possible good, His wisdom led Him by a moral
necessity to the choice of the best, His power enabled Him to
execute His great design. 7 It is curious to reflect that the
Leibnizian optimism may be associated with the most diverse
ethical valuations of life, optimistic, pessimistic, melioristic ;
which gives point to Schopenhauer's objection that, even if this
is the best possible world, it does not prove that it is a
world good enough to have been actualized. 8 An objection,
this, on philosophical grounds, thus meeting Leibniz on his
own plane, but it is on empirical grounds that the Leibnizian
optimism has been most frequently challenged, from Voltaire's
Candide down to the present. Nor could Leibniz himself
ignore the empirical aspect of the problem of theodicy.

(3) Evil. — Accordingly — apart from his metaphysical theory
of evil as necessary limitation appertaining to fwiite existence
and the source of both mora] and physical evil— we find him
emphasizing the instrumental theory, "according to which evil,
especially physical evil, is to be interpreted as an instrument
or means of good. In advocating this theory he sought to

1 Die philosophitjchcnSchriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,
p. 12, note.

2 Cf. R. Flint, Agnosticism (Croall Lecture), Edinburgh, 1903,
p. 115.

3 Thiodicie, 7 (Gerhardt, vi. 106 f.).

4 Cf. B. Eussell, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of
Leibniz, Cambridge, 1900, p. 175.

5 Thiodlc^c, 184 (Gerhardt, vi. 226 f.); cf. also Philosophische
Abhandlnngen, ix. 45 (Gerhardt, vi. 614)

6 A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, pp. 181,
186.

7 Thiodio^e, S (Gerhardt, vi. 107), 116 (Gerhardt, vi. 107), 228
(Gerhar.lt, vi. 253 f.).

» Cf. II. Huffding, A Hist, of Modern Philosophy, Eng. tr., 2
vols., London, 1900, i. 364.

counter Bayle's contention that the strength of Manichajism
was due to its conformity with an empirical rather than a priori
conception of tlie world. Even from the empirical standpoint,
Leibniz would reply, physical evil may be reasonably accounted
for by the theory of instrumental value ; and, as for moral
evil, it could not be prevented by God without the subversion
of the freedom of self-determination which belongs to spiritual
lieings and makes morality possible. By other empirical
arguments also Leibniz supports his doctrine of optimism,
but enough has been said to show that, while his theodicy
is forced to recognize the standpoint of experience, it rests
prini;>rily — like his theistic proofs — on metaphysical con-
siderations.

(c) The dillerence between Leibniz's theodicj'
and the modern attitude in theodicy may now
be briefly stated. Leibniz approached the problem
of evil with a God whose existence had already
been proved, as also His character of absolute
perfection in power, wisdom, and goodness ; and
it was therefore an altogether reasonable pre-
supposition on Leibniz's jiart that this world as
being the creation of such a God was the best
possible. No matter what exception might be
taken to the case as presented, the case itself
was excellent. But nowadays, with the spirit of
pessimism abroad in society, and the spirit too —
not unakin — of anti-religious agnosticism, the
I)roblem of evil has become more acute, and one
has learned to sympathize with W. James and
others in their impatience with Leibniz's optimism
and the complacency of his attitude towards, e.g.,
a dogma like eternal punishment. The ' charmingly
written Theodic6e' is even described by W. James
as a piece of 'superficiality incarnate' ; as a 'cold
literary exercise, whose cheerful substance even
hell-fire does not warm.'^ Such strictures are
too severe, but let them be a reminder of the
difference in spirit between the old and the new
approach to the problem of evil. It would be
quite untrue to say of modern exponents of theism
that they compose theodicies ' with their heads
buried in monstrous wigs.'^ The modern theist
is conscious of the failure of rationalistic or purely
speculative theology to establish its claims, and
of the necessity of fundamentally empirical
methods in theology if scientific results are to
be gained, and he therefore examines tlie world
of experience in face of evil as an empirical
problem, with the view of testing the reasonable-
ne.ss of the theistic faith in God as just, holy, and
loving. And he is led to recognize that the
observed facts of nature and history do not afford
an unexceptionable argument for the goodness of
God, and that after all the most solid ground of
belief in the divine goodness lies in tlie needs and
claims of the religious consciousness.* No doubt
there would be a circulus in arguendo involved
here if such considerations were put forward as
a solution of the problem of evil.'* On the one
liand, it is by the faith of religion that God is
affirmed to be perfectly good, despite the evil to
be found in the world of His creation and govern-
ance. On the other hand, religious faith is based
on the power of religion as a solvent, or at least
a partial solvent, of the problem of evil : in
religion men seek refuge from the various evils
that assail, from without and from within — which
shows that a non-rationalistic theism could not
otter a real solution of the problem of evil. Nor
does it profess to do so.

S. Theodicy and philosophical reflexion. — It is
not necessary that this article should enter into
a comprehensive discussion of the problem of
theodicy from the side of philosophical explana-
tion. This will be found in the art. Good and
Evil, where it is affirmed with most students of
the subject that ' every proposed solution either

1 I'ragmatism, New York and London, pp. 23, 27.

'- 'ike Will to Believe, New York and London, p. 43.

s Cf., «.<;., G. Galloway, The Philosophy of Relii/inn, p 440.

4 Cf. G. T. Ladd, The Philosophy of RelMjion, \\. 147.

THBOGNIS

291

leaves the old question ' — si dezis bonus, unde
malum? — 'unanswered or raises new ones.' None
the less we should like to express our sympathy
with a type of solution — partial as it must be — whic^h
is on the lines of Leibniz's theology, but which
goes beyond Leibniz in its recognition of human
freedom as real, in the sense of implying self-
limitation on God's part. Self -limitation does not
mean finitude, nor freedom unqualihed indetermin-
ism. Such a solution is not only consistent with the
moral and religious consciousness, but alleviates
also the burden of the mystery of evil ; and it
lends itself to attractive exposition in the specula-
tive sphere, as in the humanistic or personalistic
idealisms which arouse so much interest at present.
Yet it still leaves God, as indeed must every
theodicy, ultimately responsible for both physical
and moral evil. At the same time the recognition
of the instrumental worth of evil somewhat relieves
the weight of the divine responsibility. Take it
first in connexion with the problem of physical
evil. Pain and suttering are no doubt largely
retributive and to be accounted for as the wages
of individual and racial sin. But retribution is
not an end in itself, and the positive rather than
the negative purpose of physical evil is being more
and more emphasized. Through pain, hardship,
and loss moral energy may be stimulated and
character moulded and shaped to liner issues. In
this aspect of it sufiering may be twice blessed,
blessing those who suffer and those brought into
contact with them. Take it also in connexion
with the problem of moral evil. Here again the
instrumental theory applies, and evil may be
regarded as for education and discipline. In fact
many theists regard moral evil or sin as having
been always under the divine control, and interpret
it as necessary like physical evil to human develop-
ment. It is the discord without which tliere could
be no harmony, the shade without which there
could be no light. Through sin man learns his
weakness, and his need of strength from on high.
Through sin, and its direful effects in society, he
learns the meaning of brotherly service and the
measure of the sacrificial love of God.^ Christi-
anity looks for the time when man's moral
education shall be brought to completion, and
his suffering and sin have served their purpose.
Yet, when all is said, the proljlem of evil
remains.

6. Theodicy and the religious consciousness. —
The discussion of the problem of evil on empirical
grounds, and in particular of the instrumental
theory of value, leads us to a consideration of the
religious solution. There is a pl)ilosophical
theodicy, and there is a religious theodicy. In
the first, evil is explained — or an attempt is made
to explain it — in the light of the divine goodness ;
in the second, evil is not explained, nor is there
any attempt to explain it — it is simply to be
overcome. As Eucken has remarked, 'religion
does not so much explain as presuppose evil';-
and, as P. T. Forsyth so well insists, a religious
theodicy is not ' an answer to a riddle but a victory
in a battle.' ^ In a religious theodicy it is not man
who justifies God's w.iys, but God who justifies
His own ways, and that not by accounting for
tlie world's evil, but by saviiig men from it.
While this is said, religion can no more than
philosophy escape the problem of evil. For the
individual believer in God and His goodness the
problem receives a practical solution through the
victory of his faith : he estimates life no more
by hedonistic standards, but discovers tlie Supreme

• Of. W. Adams Brown, Christian Thvoloijy in Outline,
Kdiiiburgh, 1907, p. 209.
2 The Truth of Religicm, p. 500.
a P. T. Forsyth, Thi- Jiistificatim of God, p. 220

Good in moral and spiritual union with God.
From tiie universal point of view the religious
solution of the problem may be stated broadly
in terms of the teleoiogical idea. The end or
purpose revealed in the universe is the creation
of free ethical j)ersonalities capable of personal
intercourse with God and of reflecting as in a
flawless mirror the divine image and likeness.^
To that purpose the presence of evil is subservient,
and there are traces of it even in animate nature,
which we have too often regarded as merely a
field of struggle and carnage.

'There is a legitimate scientific sense,' saya J. Arthur
Thomson, 'in which it may be said that Man is part o( the
system of Nature and the crown of its evolution ; aiul it is
assuredly of some significance that he can find in Animate
Nature far-reaching correspondences to his ideals of the True,
the Beautiful, and the Good. '2

We might therefore be content to state our
theodicy in the following terms, which give due
regard to the fact — made clear in modern science
— that our world is still in the making, and which
also illustrate the newer empirical as distinguished
from the older rationalistic way of approach to
the problem of evil, as well as the pragmatic
tendency in modern theology and religious philo-
sophy :

' While this world is far from being as yet the best possible
world, nevertheless in view of its general constitution it may
be regarded as the best possible ki7id of world in which to
have man begin his development, and . . . the evils which
exist in the world furnish no good reason for abandoning
belief in a God who is both good enough and great enough to
meet every real religious need.' 3

LiTRRATURE. — References to the problems of theodicy nia^
be found in works on the history and philosophy of religion,
dogmatic theology, and general philosophy. See in particular
the literature mentioned in the artt. Good and Evil, Pessimism
AND Optimism. Useful discussions will also be found in the
following works, selected chiefly from recent philosophical
and theological literature : O. Pfleiderer, The Philosophy of
Reli(jion'\ Eng. tr., 4 vols., London, 1886-88, esp. iv. 1^5 ;
G. T. Ladd, The Philosophy of Religion, 2 vols., do. 1900;
G. Galloway, The Philosophy of Religion, Edinburgh, 1914 ;
J. Miiller, The Christian Doctrine of Sin, Eng. tr., 2 vols., do.
1877, 1885 ; H. Siebeck, Lehrbuch der Religionsphilosophie,
Freiburg i. B., 1893 ; J. Kremer, Das Problem der Theodizee
in der Philosophie und Literatur des 18 Jahrhunderts, Berlin,
1909 ; O. Lempp, Das Problem der Theodizee in der Philosophie
und lAteratnr des IS Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1910 ; J. Martineau,
A Study of Reli/jion^, 2 vols., Oxford, 1S99 ; J. R. lUing-worth,
in Lux Mundi^i, London, 1904 ; C. F. D'Arcy, God aiul
Freedom in Human Experience, do. 1915 ; B. H. Streeter
and others, in God and the Struggle for Existence, do. 1919 ;
J. Arthur Thomson, The System of Animate Sature, 2 vols.,
do. 1920 ; D. S. Cairns, The Reasonableness of the Christian
Faith, do. 1918 ; A. S. Pringle-Pattison, The Idea of God
{Gifford Lectures), Oxford, 1917 ; W. R. Sorley, Moral Values
and the Idea of God, Cambridge, 1918 ; C. C. J. Webb, God
and Personality, London, 1918 ; J. Caird, I'he Fundameiital
Ideas of Christianity, 2 vols., Glasgow, 1899; H. G. Wells,
God the Invisible King, London, 1917 ; W. S. Urquhart,
Pantheism and the Value of Life, do. 1919 ; D. C. Macintosh,
Theology as an Empirical Science, do. 1919 ; P. T. Forsyth,
The Justification of God, do. 1916 ; R. Eucken, The Truth of
Religion, Eug. tr., do. 1911. WiLLIAM FULTON.

THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA.— See

Adoptianlsm, Antiochene Theology.

THEOGNIS.— Theognis is the name attached to
a collection of some 1389 erotic, convivial, reflective,
.and hortatorj' elegiac verses whose chief interest
for this .article is that tiiey are the fullest extant
repertory of Greek ethical commonplace in the
half-century preceding Plato and the tragedians.
Tiie collection begins with invocations to Apollo,
Artemis, and the Muses, and a dedication to a
young friend Cyrnus, to whom many of the
quatrains and cou[)lets are addressed, and whose
name m.ay be meant by the seal that perhaps
marks their genuineness.'* But many verses lack
this certification. Some are addressed to other

1 It is here that, in a more extended treatment, the ' theodicean '
aspei-t of the doctrine of inunortality might be considered.

'■J The System of Animate Nature, lef^t. xx. f.

'■> D. C. Macintosh, Theology a^ an Empirical Science,
London, lOlit, p. 217. " ^ i-ine 19.

292

THEOGNIS

friends, including a Simonides who may be the
poet.^ After the first 100 lines there is little
sequence or cohei'ence of ideas. There are many
repetitions, and some of the verses occur in the
fragments of Solon, Phocylides, Tyrtaeus, and
Mimnermus. These considei'ations, and the fact
that quotations in Plato ^ and in a passage attri-
buted by Stobfeus ^ to Xenophon are susceptible of
various interpretations, raise many problems about
the composition of the poem, if it is in any sense
a unity, and have given rise to an extensive German
literature of hypothesis most conveniently surveyed
in E. Harrison's Studies in Theognis.* Harrison
argues plausibly, if not always quite convincingly,
that the poems as they stand form a connected
sequence. His book concludes with an excellent
chapter on the life and times of Theognis. He
was a noble of Nisaean Megara, who apparently
at one time was also a citizen of Hyblaean Megara
in Sicily. He spoke of the terror of the Medes,^
and is therefore conjectured to have lived to see
the invasion of Xerxes. He lived in a time of
social and political revolution at Megara, vaguely
known to us from three references in Aristotle's
Politics^ and from one passage in Plutarch.'' His
temper was embittered by the temporary triumph
of the popular partj',^ the loss of his property,^ and
the exile, ^^ which was perhaps the cause of the
travels in Euboea, Sparta, and Sicily to which he
refers. 1^ To these experiences we may trace his
pessimism,'^ his cynicism, ^^ his harping on the
hardships of poverty that constrains a man to deeds
to which his will does not consent,^* his complaint
that money makes the man and that mercenary
marriages corrupt the breed of men,^^ his emphasis
on the virtue of faith ^^ or loyalty to caste, club,
and mates ^^ in times of trial, and his frequent use
of ' good ' and other ethical terms in the political
or social sense. ^^

Too much has been made of this last idea by
Theognis's translator J. H. Frere,^^ by Nietzsche,
whose own philosophy is largely based upon it, and
by Grote, who, however, admits that the ethical
meanings are not absolutely unknown.^ Theognis
is merely the chief example, the conveniently quot-
able locus dassiczis, so to speak, for a natural human
tendency. We still speak of the better classes as
they did in Aristotle's time,-^ and Homer character-
izes menial tasks as the services that the worse sort
perform for the good.^ "We cannot infer that the
ethical idea was lacking."^ We can only say that
before Plato it was easier to confound pure or
absolute ethics with prudential, conventional,
tribal, caste, or political morality than it has been
since. Much the same may be said of the naive in-
consistency between Theognis's general commenda-
tions of truth, justice, good faith, and kindliness,
and his passionate prayers for vengeance,-* his (per-

1 469, 667.

3 Flor. Ixxxviii. 14.

8 764.

7 Qucest. Grcec 18.

9 346, 1200, 667 ff.
n 783.

2 Meno, 95 D ff.

4 Cambridge, 1902.

6 1302 B, 1304 B, 1300 A.

8 53ff., 1013-1016.
10 219, 332.
12 165-169, 425-429.

13 129 f., 161-164, 209, 275, 299, 360, 375, 615, 621, 653, 857-861,
1135 ff.

14 391, 155, 175, 267, 384, 620, 649, 667 ff., and pa .mm.

15 190 ; cf. H. Spencer, The Principles of Ethics, 2 vols.,
London, 1892-93, § 233.

16 TTicrros, 77, with Plato, Laws, 630 ; cf. SO, 88, 121, 209, 283,
416, 529, 861, 1137, and passim.

17 erarpos, 79, 91, 95, 97, 98, 113, 115, 411, 416, 643, 851, 1169
(the abstract Kax^Taipi'ij?).

18 28, 32, 43, 57. For apeTi? (often in the Elizabethan sense of
' virtue ')cf. 129, 147-150 (ethical?), 402, 654, 699. In 865 and
1003 it is courage in battle. For a-ui(f)p<ov, ' sober,' politicallv,
intellectuallv, or morally, cf. 379, 431, 437, 454, 483, 497, 665,
701, 754, 1138, and Shorey in AJPh xiii. [1892] 361.

19 Reprinted in the vol. containing Hesiod, Callimacbus, and
Theognis, in Bohn's Classical Library, London, 1856.

20 A Hist, of Greece, new ed., London, 1888, ch. 9, in fin.

21 I'ol. 1282. •-- Od. XV. 324.

23 Cf. 11, 147-149, 315 ff., 465. 24 337-340, 344, 348, 362, 872.

haps ironical) counsel to set your iieel on the empty-
headed demos,^ to be all things to all men,* to
adapt yourself to your environment with the pro-
tective resemblance of the polyp which takes the
hue of the rock to which it is clinging,^ and to
flatter and cajole your enemy well till you have
liim in your power and then take your revenge.*
The last precept appears almost as nakedly in one
of the noblest Greek poets, Pindar.' Plato first
laid it down that the good man will not wrong
even his enemy, and Plato did not apply the prin-
ciple to international politics in the Tolstoyan way.
Lastly, the erotic verses of Theognis — most of
them, to be sure, in a separable and perhaps
spurious part of the collection,^ dealing with
themes repugnant to modem feeling — seem to
us incompatible with the conception of him as a
moralist and still more with the use of his elegies
as a school-book. They were indeed, on the hypo-
theses of R. Reitzenstein,'' mainly banquet songs.
But, however that may be, Theognis's own use of
the verb ' admonish ' ^ classes them in some sort
with the literature of prudential precepts and
moral admonition known by the name of \nroOr)Kai.^
And no less a moralist in his own esteem than
Isocrates recommends the study and excerpting of
them as entirely edifying. At any rate, whether
in excerpts for school use or otherwise, they were,
like Solon and Hesiod, learned by heart by edu-
cated Greeks of the 5th cent. , and so provide many
texts for amplification in Pindar and the Greek
drama, and for discussion in Greek pliilosophy.'*^
An exhaustive dissertation on this subject would
be of interest, but would require the nicest dis-
crimination. Harrison " collects the parallels in
Pindar and Bacchylides, some of them perhaps
overstrained. It is not easy to determine how
many of the resemblances in tragedy are conscious
reminiscences. The chorus in Sophocles, (Ed. Col.
1226 if., is clearly an expansion of the melancholy
lines 425 ff. :

'Not to be born into life were the best for us, creepers on
earth's face.

Never to look on the sun's burning and pitiless rays ;

Happiest lot of the living is theirs who come quickest to
Hell Gate

Laid out quiet and stark, wrapped in a mantle of earth.' 12

Jebb on Antigone, 622, quotes Theognis, 403, as
one of the anticipations of the untraced ' quern
Juppiter vult perdere demon tat prius.' Antigone,
297, echoes Theognis, 221, in the sentiment that
the man who thinks that he alone is wise is him-
self void of wisdom. Soph. frag. 356 repeats the
commonplace that health is best and justice
fairest of things ; ^^ frag. 525 the humorous fancy
that even Zeus cannot please all, whether he rains
or holds up." But these are only conspicuous
examples of an indeterminate list. When Euri-
pides praises the man who is as true to absent as
to present friends,^' we cannot be certain whether
he is or is not paraphrasing Theog. 93-95, and the
same holds of the coincidence between PhoenisscB,
438-440, and Theog. 717 f. in the .sentiment that

I 847. 2 63, 213.

S 215-219, a passage much bespoken and imitated. Cf. A. O.
Pearson, The Fraijnvnts of Sophocles, London, 1917, frag. 307.
L. Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, Berlin, 1882, ii.
224, takes it of the traveller who is to do at Rome as the
Romans do. Ion, frag. 36, Plutarch, and Pseudo- Phocylides,
47, reprobate the sentiment.

4 303 ; see J. Girard, Le SerUirnent religieux en Grice
d'Eomere d Eschyle^, Paris, 1887, p. 157 ; Schmidt, ii. 312.

5 Pyth. ii. 84. 6 1230-1389.

7 Epigram und Skolion, Giessen, 1893.

8 vjrofr^o-o/iai, 27, 1007, 1049. 9 See Isoc. ad Nie. 43 f.
10 Antisthenes is said to have written a commentary in five

books (Diog. Laert. vi. 16).

II P. 314.

12 Cf. R. C. Jebb, on Bacchyl. v. 160, in Bacchylides, the Poems
and Fragments, Cambridge, 1905 ; and P. Decharme, Euripide :
I'esprit de son tMdtre, Paris, 1893, p. 119 ff.

13 Theog. 255. " lb. 24 and 801.
15 Supp. S67, Hippol. 1001.

THEOLOGY

293

wealth is all-powerful. Plato's saying^ that a
spirit of reverence (alSJis) is a better inheritance
than great riches is, the present writer thinks, a
distinct reference to Theog. 409. Isocrates, i. 19,
equals Theog. 72, and i. 29, Theog. 105.

Among the chief commonplaces of Greek ethics
expressed by Theognis^ are man's dependence on
the gods.^and his ignorance of what the future has
in store,^ his duties to the suppliant and the guest,*
and to parents,^ the doctrine of the mean,'' of noth-
ing too much,* of Kdpos and v^pis,^ the late punish-
ment of the wicked,'" the dangers of slander^' and
of light oaths, 12 the admonition that all true gains
are costly," that ill-gotten gains do not abide,"
that the lust for wealth is insatiate,^* and that the
boastful word (^ttos fi^ya) ^^ or the forsworn forecast "
provokes the gods and invites nemesis, the com-

Slaint that shame and reverence are e.xiled from a
egenerate world," and that men value nothing
but wealth. 19 Other commonplaces, whether of
ethics or of criticism of life, are the immortality
of song,2o the praise of patience, ^^ the Anacreontic,
Epicurean, or Horatian 'Carpe diem,' evil com-
munications,^- ' in vino Veritas,' -^ there is no perfect
man,-* the ingratitude of children,^ the foible of
censoriousness and self-praise,^ and the generalized
metaphor of the 'counterfeit' man.^^ His convivial
and social precepts, his slight anticipations of later
motives of satire,^ and his somewhat cynical, politi-
cal,^9 or worldly wisdom^ do not further concern us
here. Lines 823 and 1181 are in apparent contra-
diction on the justification of tyrannicide. Theog-
nis apparently does not mention the confounding
of the innocent with the guilty, or the jealousy of
the gods except as involved in the nemesis that
attaches to the too confident oath.^i

As an aristocrat he, like Pindar, emphasized
nature against teaching. ^2 No teacher can put
sense into a man,'*^ or make a bad man good.
Plato 3^ finds a contradiction between this and the
admonition to associate only with the good because
from them you will learn good only. But it is
Theognis's belief that it is easier to corrupt the
good than to reform the bad. In lines 155-159
there is a suggestion of the noblest thought of
mature Greek ethics, the idea that the mutability
of fortune and our common frailty impose the duty
of leniency and compassion upon all men.^

Especially interesting are Theognis's direct
appeals and protests to Zeus. He complains that
the prosperity of the wicked casts doubt upon the
moral government of the world.^e This, however,
is rather a development of the motive of Menelaus's
speech in the Iliad^ than the startlingly new
thought wiiich Croiset finds in it.»8 Theognis's pro-

1 Laws, 729 B.

2 See Schniidc, i. 10 ; A. and M. Croiset, Hist, de la litt.
greeqve, Paris, 1887-99, ii. 148 f.

1 134, 165, 171, 687. 4 535, 1075-1078. 5 143 (

6 131, 821 ; cf. Hesiod, Works and Days, 185 f.

7 220, 331, 335, 559 f. 8 219, 335, 401.

9 151, 153, 603-606, 693. 10 203. U 324

12 399 ; cf. 1195.

IS 463 f., 1027 f. ; cf. Hesiod, Works and Days, 286 ff.
14 198-202 ; cf. 329. is 227, 596, 1158. 16 159.

17 559, ' il ne faut jurer de rien ' ; cf . Archil, frag. 76 : Sonii
4n«(V7. 388 f. ; Pindar, OZ. xiii. 83.

1» 291 ; cf . 86, 635, 647.

19 523f., 621, 1116ff., 699ff. 20 237 flf.

21 320, 355, 445, 555, 591, 637. 1029.

22 31, 305 ; cf. Schmidt, i. 272. 23 99.

^ 79". 902. 25 275-278. 28 611.

27 117, 119, 965 ; cf. Plato, Laws, 916 D.

28 295, 453, 595, 1215.

^ 43, 233, 283 £f., 331, 367 £f., 341, 603, 671 (the ship of state),
793^ 805, 833, 845, 947. • > > v v ^^^^h

?9 303 f . , 423, 575 , 903 ff. , 963. 31 660.

32 Schmidt, i. 160 ; Shorey, TAP A, 1910, p. 188.

33 430 (evecfj.ev), 435 ( €v9(tov); cf. Arist. Eth. X. 9. 3; Plato,

^ Meno, 95 Off.

^?.M"P^- ^'^- Co«. 565-569; Isoc. i. 29.

S373ff 743ff. 37xiii.631.

oj /cV *'^ Hesiod, Works and Daps, 270 (f. ; and Arcliil. frag.
84 (6).

test against the visitation of the sins of the fathers
upon the children, which results from the late
punishment of the wicked, 1 invites illustration
both from the OT and from later ethical literature. 2

LiTERATORE. — The fullest recension of the text is in the
latest ed. of T. Bergk's Poetce Elegiaci, Leipzijc, 1915. The
edd. of Immanuel Bekker (Leipzig:, 1815) and F. Q. Welcker
(Frankfort, 1826) and the critical literature of the subject are
discussed in Harrison's book referred to above. Cf. also
T. Hudson Williams, The Elegies 0/ Theogms, London, 1910.

Paul Shorey.
THEOKRASIA.— See Greek Religion, vol.
vi. p. 421 f .

THEOLOGY.— I. Definition,— Theology may
be briefly defined as the science which deals,
according to scientific method, with the facts and
phenomena of religion and culminates in a com-
prehensive synthesis or philosophy of religion,
which seeks to set forth in a systematic way all
that can be known regarding the objective grounds
of religious belief.

According to its etymological meaning, the
word 'theology' denotes 'discourse or doctrine
concerning God.' In this sense it was used among
the Greelfs to describe the work of poets like
Homer and Hesiod when they wrote of the gods
and their doings, and that of philosophers like
Plato and Aristotle when they speculated regard-
ing the supreme reality or ultimate ground of all
things. In early Christian literature the distinc-
tive appellation of ' theologian ' is applied to the
author of the Apocalypse, probably because he
maintained the divinity of the \6yos, asserting the
identity of the \6yos that became flesh in Christ
with God (9e6s). In this sense the terra is applied
to orthodox Greek Fathers like Athanasius and
Gregory Nazianzen, who distinguished themselves
in defending the personality and divinity of the
\6yos. But doctrine concerning God — His being
and attributes — is only one branch or department
of theology, as that is now commonly understood.
Man's knowledge of God is part of the content of
that matter of human experience which is termed
' religion,' and which includes other content also,
referring to the world of nature and of man, to
sin and death, to salvation and immortal life.
And, as science in general deals Avith some definite
department of human experience, it is more in
accordance with the proper conception of science
to regard theology as that branch of science
which deals with tlie department of human experi-
ence known as religion, from which experience
man's knowledge of God and divine things is
obtained. Theology is tlie science which, by right
use of reason, in accordance with proper scientific
method, correlates, systematizes, and organizes
the matter of human religious experience in such
a way as to reach a unified body of coherent doc-
trine, fitted to satisfy the mind's demand for truth
and to furnish guidance for the practical life.

As the science of religion it deals not merely
with the subjective contents of the religious con-
sciousness, or the opinions, emotions, and actions
of men in the religious sphere, but also with the
ol)jective gi-ounds of religion and the ultimate
truth or reality whicli underlies and explains the
religious experience of mankind. It is not merely
the science of religions dealing with the various
historical religions which have developed among
men (though that is a part of it), but the science
of religion regarded as an important department
of huiii.ui experience, whicli claims to be no mere
sul)jective delusion, but to have a real and rational
foundation in objective reulity or fact.

2. Theolog-y and religion. — As theology is the
science of religion, religion precedes and is wider

1 731 flf. ; cf. 203-208.

2 Cf. Jer 3129f- ; Spencer, Principles of Ethics, § I40 ;
Schmidt, i. 71 flf.

294

THEOLOGY

than theology and furnishes it witli tlie matter
with which it deals. In all departments of human
life and activity experience, in which feeling,
intuition, and volition are the predominant factors
and reason or intellection is as yet implicit, precedes
theory or science, which seeks bo exhibit and make
explicit the reason, thought, or principles of truth
and reality underlying and accounting for the
experience. Thus the use of numbers in the rela-
tions and activities of the practical life precedes
the science of mathematics : the practical use of
speech precedes the science of language ; the iLse
of reasoning in practice precedes the science of
logic ; and the sailing of the seas in ships precedes
the science of navigation. So too the experience
and use of religion as a practical factor in life's
activities precedes the science of religion, or theo-
logy. And, as men may attain considerable effi-
ciency and success in various departments of life
without having rationalized or reduced their ex-
perience to system and exhibited its underlying
principles, so men may live a truly religious life
and have a rich and full religious experience with-
out having attained to any very clear or coherent
system of theology. But, while a man may be
religious without being a theologian, religious
experience is necessary to enable a man to be a
competent theologian ; and the fuller and richer
his religious experience has been, the more likely
is he to prove a trustworthy and satisfactory
theologian.

Schleiermacher was so impressed with the im-
portance of the part played by feeling or emotion
in religion that he gave it not merely the pre-
dominant but the exclusive place. Over against
the long prevailing definition of religion as consist-
ing in ' knowing and doing homage to God,' he
defined religious piety as in its essence consisting
neither in knowledge nor in action but in a deter-
mination of the feeling. The root of all religion
he held to be man's feeling of absolute dependence
on some power or powers other than himself. But
this dictum, while it emphasizes the important
truth as to the large part played by feeling in
religion, if strictly taken, is one-sided and exagger-
ated, in that it ignores the part played by the
cognitive faculty in forming some conception," more
or less definite, of the power or powers on which
we depend, and the part played by the will in
choosing and adopting means for getting into
harmony with that Supreme Power or Being,
which are elements characteristic of all religion.

In theology, as distinct from religion, the cogni-
tive faculty, or reason, is predominant. It succeeds
religion, and seeks by a right use of reason on the
matter of experience furnished by religion to
evolve out of it a system of connected and coherent
truth to which the term ' science ' can be properly
applied.

3. Theology and science. — The aim of science
in any of its departments is to apply reason, with
its powers of analysis and generalization and its
laws of inference, induction, and deduction, to the
data of experience in that department in such a
way as to discover the laws or principles under-
lying and relating the given facts and phenomena
and to unify the entire content of experience in
that department into a coherent systematic whole
or body of truth such as may be described as
knowledge of reality. Inasmuch as theology seeks
to do this as regards the data of human experience
in the realm or department of religion, it is rightly
described as a branch of science. The instrument
which the scientist makes use of in ascertaining,
analysing, and systematizing the facts or data of
experience in the department selected for scientific
investigation is the reason with its powers and
laws of perception, conception, evidence, inference,

etc. And reason is the insfrumuiit u;.::ic use of l)y
the scientific theologian in investigating the facts
and phenomena of religious experience and build-
ing up a science of theology not less than is the
case in other departments of science. Lack of
clearness as to the place and function of reason in
theology is apt to lead to confusion and disagree-
ment as to what theology is and what are its aim
and scope. Thus in some quarters it is maintained
that theology differs from other sciences inasmuch
as the matter with which religion is concerned is
given to us by revelation and not by reason a.s
in the other sciences. But this contrast between
reason and revelation as sources of knowledge is
unsound. Reason is not the source from which, in
any case, we get the matter which we build up
into science, but merely the instrument by nieans
of which we grasp, analyse, classify, co-ordinate,
and systematize that matter which is given to us
by revelation from without in experience. This is
as true of otlier sciences as it is of theology. As
a matter of fact, tiie material which we build up
by use of reason into the natural sciences, as they
are called, such as mechanics, chemistry, biology,
etc. , is given to us by revelation from without in
experience not less than the matter which we seek
to build up bj'^ use of reason into a systematic
scientific theology. The latter is just as much
matter of experience, which the reason must seek
to apprehend and co-ordinate into a coherent
whole of knowledge of the truth, as is the former.
The knowledge got by using reason to grasp, co-
ordinate, and systematize the given matter of
experience is of the same kind in both cases. In
both cases it rests ultimately on a foundation of
faith — faith in the reliability of our faculties of
knowledge (perception, cognition, inference, etc.)
and on the ultimate reasonableness or cognizability
of all that is given to us in experience. We go on
using our powers of perception, cognition, infer-
ence, etc., in reference to what is given to us from
without in experience, never doubting that the
knowledge thus reached is real knowledge or
knowledge of truth and reality, even though we
may know and realize that our knowledge in any
department of experience is incomplete and leaves
room for progress. Thus the physicist may realize
that he does not know the ultimate nature of
matter, the mathematician may be puzzled to
explain what space and time are, and the biologist
may feel that he does not know what, at bottom,
life and consciousness are.

But the fact that there remain unsolved
questions of an ultimate kind, in regard to the
data of experience in various departments, does
not nullify or render valueless the results of scien-
tific investigation and systematization in those
departments. It merely shows that our knowledge
of what is revealed to us in experience is as yet
incomplete, and that an adequate synthesis of
knowledge or metaphysic of being has not yet
been reached by us, not that such a metaphysic is
unattainable. So too with the data of religious
experience. It is the function of theology as a
branch of science to collect, examine, analyse,
compare, classify, co-ordinate, and systematize all
that is revealed to us in this department of experi-
ence, so as to reach a whole of scientific knowledge
in this sphere, as in other departments of experi-
ence and knowledge. We must use our reason as
far as it will go in synthesizing or giving us
rational knowledge of what is given in experience.
And, if there are problems of an ultimate kind in
this science, as in other sciences, which still remain
obscure or inadequately solved, this does not in-
validate the knowledge reached by the apjilication
of sound scientific method to the data of experi-
ence, nor deprive it of the right to be regarded as

THEOLOGY

296

science or knowlecl<re of truth. It merely sliows
that our science in this spliere is incomplete and
spurs us on to reach out towards a more compre-
hensive synthesis of all our knowledge in an
adequate metaplij'sic or philosophy of being.

4. Theolog"y and philosophy. — It is here that
the science of religion passes over into the pliilo-
sophy of religion, that liighest form of knowledge
which is the consummation aimed at by theology.
Science in all its departments is limited and in-
complete as knowledge of reality. It leaves un-
.solved ultimate questions as to the natui'e and
relations of matter and mind or spirit, space and
time, life and consciousness. It is the function of
philosophy, as the ultimate form of knowledge, to
grapple with these ultimate problems and seek a
satisfactory solution of them. And it is along the
lines of moral and religious experience, and the data
furnished thereby, that light on such ultimate prob-
lems may most hopefully be looked for.

Kant, in his Critiqite of Pure Reason, began a
movement in philosophy which has had far-reacli-
ing influence on modern theology as well as on
philosophy. His contention is that in unifying
the given matter of perceptive experience into an
ordered and coherent world-knowledge the mind
or reason of the percipient subject makes use of
forms of perception and cognition which are sub-
jective (i.e. belonging to the nature or constitution
of the knowing mind), not objective (i.e. belong-
ing to the object or reality as it is in itself apart
from its being known or cognized). Kant thus
concluded that the world of which we have definite
knowledge, through grasping and unifying the
given matter of experience by means of the sub-
jective forms of perception and cognition, is but a
phenomenal world or a world as it appears to a
conscious subject endowed with powers of percep-
tion or cognition like man, not a noumenal world
or thing-in-itself existing exactly thus apart from
being perceived or known. Thus exact scientihc
knowledge, according to Kant, is limited to know-
ledge of the phenomenal world and cannot reach
to ultimate reality. The use of those very forms
of perception and cognition which give definiteness
to our knowledge makes it knowledge of the
phenomenal as contrasted with the ultimately real
or thing-in-itself. All scientific or theoretic know-
ledge is thus knowledge of the phenomenal only.
If there be a noumenal world of reality, and if it
be in any way accessible to us, this must be in
some other way than that of rational knowledge.
Kant maintains that access to a noumenal world
of reality is gained by us, not through the pure
reason but through the practical reason or moral
consciousness, by means of which we may and do
reach a kind of faith-knowledge of God, freedom,
and immortality, Avhich, though not rational
theoretic knowledge, such as we have in science, is
yet of value for the moral and religious life. This
demarcation of the limits of valid, rational, scien-
tific or theoretic knowledge, and differentiation
from it of the kind of knowledge got through
moral and religious experience or through super-
natural historic revelation is characteristic of
many theological writers .since Kant. The argu-
ment of the Critique of Pure Reason is supposed to be
conclusive against the possibility of our ever reach-
ing any rational metaphysic or valid theoretic
knowledge of ultimate reality. Huxley and
Spencer pressed Kant's conclusion into the service
of their doctrine that God or ultimate reality is
and must remain unknown and uTiknowable by
man, and that therefore a science of theology is
impossible. Hamilton and Mansel endeavoured to
reconcile the agnostic conclusions of Kant in re-
gard to a rational metaphysic with the acceptance
of traditional Cliristian doctrine as grounded on

revelation, not on reason. The Ritschlian school
accept Kant's conclusions as to the impossibility
of a rational, theoretically valid, knowledge of
God or ultimate reality, and so rule out all natural
or rational theology as incompetent ; but, while
eliminating all metaphysic from Christian theology
as untenable, they seek to retain in large measure
the tratlitional Christian theology as grounded on
a divine historic revelation culminating in Christ,
of which Scripture is the record. As with Kant,
they seek to find a grounding for this in the im-
mediate deliverances of the moral and religious
consciousness, which furnishes them with a basis
for 'value-judgments' where valid theoretic know-
ledge fails. This sharp differentiation between
the kind of knowledge got by making use of
reason, our cognitive faculty, in grasping, analys-
ing, and systematizing the data of perceptive
experience in the sphere, say, of physics or
chemistry and the kind of knowledge got by using
reason in the same way — call it practical reason or
what you will — in grasping, co-ordinating, and
systematizing the data of moral and religious
experience is arbitrary and unconvincing. The
world of reality revealed to us in exjjerience —
whether the ordinary perceptive experience which
grounds our common knowledge or the moral
and religious experience which grounds our
religious knowledge — is one whole, and our know-
ledge of it, however acquired, should be cap-
able of being synthesized as one coherent whole.
The attempt of the Kantians and Ritschlians to
rule out all metajthysic and natural theology as
going beyond the proper limits of the reason, and
yet to build up a theology of value-judgments
founded on the needs of the moral con-sciousness or
practical reason or on the data of a historic divine
revelation, is not satisfying to the inquiring mind
that seeks for unity and coherence and consist-
ency in its knowledge. Theology, as the philo-
sophy of religion, is to be looked upon, not as
the rival or opponent of rational science, but rather
as its copestone and completion.

True theology can never come into conflict with
true science. For it includes all the data and
verified results of true science among its material
or postulates. It seeks to co-ordinate or synthesize
all our knowledge into a comprehensive and
coherent whole of truth or knowledge of reality,
based upon the data of human experience regarded
as a whole, tested, analysed, co-ordinated, and
systematized by sound scientific methods.

5. Reason and intuition. — Akin to the dis-
tinction which Kantians draw between tlie theoretic
reason, which gives us definite knowledge of a
phenomenal world, and the practical reason, which
gives us vague knowledge of noumenal reality, is
the distinction which more recent philosophers
such as Henri Bergson draw between reason, or
intellect, and instinct, or intuition, as sources of
knowledge. Intuition, it is alleged, brings us
more immediately into touch with the living
llowing stream of reality, of which as individual
persons we form a part, and enables us to adapt
ourselves thereto more surely and satisfactorily
than reason or intellect, whose forms of thought
and processes of inference are adapted to matter
that is fixed or static rather than to the ever-
changing creative llux of actual reality or real
time. But this contrast or antithesis between
intuition and intellect, like that between faith and
reason, is unsound. The intuitions of a rational
being are just an implicit form of reason. And it is
better in every way for a rational being such as
man that what is iiiqilicit in consciousness should
be made explicit and fitted into the comprehensive
synthesis of rational cognition, which alone de-
serves the name of knowledge. The only supreme

296

THEOLOGY

autliority and court of appeal for rational conscions
beings is reason based on an ultimate ineradicable
faith in the reasonableness of our experience,
which is the underlying assumption of all science,
including theology. To subject reason to intuition
or instinct as instrument of knowledge is to incur
moral and intellectual bankruptcy which is un-
worthy of a rational being such as man. It is to
take a step downwards towards the brutal con-
dition, not upwards towards the goal of true
personality.

For conscious rational beings the only reality
which has or can have any meaning is reality
which is or may be apprehended by rational
consciousness. In the case of reality of which we
are, or suppose ourselves to be, dimly aware in
subconscious apprehension or intuition, it is as-
sumed tliat to a more perfect or adequate conscious-
ness this would evidence itself as real. Reality
for us means reality apprehended or apprehensible
by a conscious being. To affirm an unknown
reality may mean simply that we are dimly aware
of the existence of some jiower or force which we
have not yet been able to adjust to our incomplete
syntliesis or scheme of knowledge. But to affirm
a reality which is, and which must ever remain,
inaccessible to every conscious apprehension is to
affirm a contradiction in terms or to use woixls
without meaning.

Practical reason, faith, intuition or instinct, to
which some would point as the proper guides in
theology rather than what they call the pure or
theoretic reason, are all forms of conscious appre-
hension which enable us to build up the data of
experience into some more or less coherent wliole
of knowledge. Tlie data to be unified and syn-
thesized in a science of systematic theology are
not indeed given to us by reason from witiiin, but
by revelation from without. Reason, however, is
our only proper instrument for the apprehending,
co-ordinating, and systematizing of these data.

6. Theology and the Bible. — Some theologians
conceive of the task of theology as that of setting
forth in coherent systematic form the content of that
revelation concerning God, the world, and man of
which the Bible is the inspired record. But, while
this points to a very important department of
theology, it is too narrow a view to take of the
scope and function of theology as a whole. There
are other materials or data for theological con-
struction besides those furnished by the Bible,
which cannot be overlooked or ignored liy tlie
scientific theologian wlio takes a \\dde and com-
prehensive view of his subject. The revelation of
ultimate reality given in the natural world around
us witii its varied facts and phenomena, which it
is the function of natural science to investigate,
furnishes material wliich the theologian must in-
terpret and construe. So too the course of general
human history, which it is the function of historical
science to present and elucidate in the light of
general principles or laws, affords data of experience
which are of value for theological construction.
And the moral consciousness of mankind generally,
the investigation of which is the special task of tiie
science of ethics, furnishes important material to
the scientific tlieologian to help in the ujibuilding
of a system of theology. But the revelation given
in the history and religious experience of Israel as
a nation and of the outstanding personalities
among that people, culminating in the fact of
Christ and the foundation of the Christian Church,
is of such supreme importance and unique signifi-
cance in the religious sphere that it is customary
and convenient to distinguish betAveen the general
revelation to mankind as a whole in nature and
history and conscience, which is treated of under
the heading of natural theology, and the special

historic revelation culminating in Clirist, which is
treated of under the heading of specifically Christ-
ian theology, and which may be regarded not as
something entirely different from natural theology,
but rather as its crown and completion.

7. Classification of theological sciences or dis-
ciplines ; theological encyclopaedia. — Having such
a vast and varied material to deal with, theological
science has many branches or disciplines with aims
and methods differing according to the material
dealt with and the purpose kept in view. To
elucidate and classify these various disciplines is
the function of what is known as theological
encycloppedia, which itself constitutes a brancli of
theological study.

Religion as an object of investigation has two
aspects : (a) a historical aspect, under which it is
to be regarded as a historical phenomenon appear-
ing under various forms among various peoples
with characteristics which furnish ample material
for historical inquiry and investigation ; and {b) a
normative aspect, under which it apjtears as a
l)resent inner power of life making claim to truth
and to the right to regulate individual and social
life. This twofold aspect of religion furnishes us
with guidance for classifying the branches of
theology, which is the science of religion, into two
main divisions : (a) the historical or 2Jhenome?io-
logical branches, including all those sciences which
deal with religion on its phenomenological side as
an actual appearance in history ; and (h) the
7iormative or construct ive branches, including those
sciences which deal with religion as a present-day
reality and power, claiming to be truth by which
the practical life of man should be moulded and
regulated. The distinction already referred to
between natural theology and specifically Christian
theology furnishes ground for suitable further
subdivision of the material falling to be dealt M'ith
under these two main divisions, thus affording a
basis for a convenient classification of theological
disciplines or branches of study.

(«) The investigation of religion in its phenomeno-
logical aspect may be conveniently subdivided into
(i. ) a general branch dealing with the phenomeno-
logy of the ethnic religions other than Christian
that have appeared in history, which will include

(1) history of religions, with a descriptive account
of the distinctive features and characteristics of
religious beliefs as they have appeared in history,

(2) comparative study of religion, and (3) psychology
of religion in so far as historical investigation can
tlirow light on that; and (ii. ) a special branch
dealing with the phenomenology of the Christian
religion. This will embrace, under the general
heading of Biblical science, (4) linguistics, or a
study of the Bible languages and the princijiles of
interpretation and exegesia ; (5) Biblical introduc-
tion, or investigation into text, date, authorsliip,
and historical setting of the various books of the
Bible ; (6) Biblical history and antiquities, and
(7) Biblical theology, which aims at setting forth
by means of impartial exegesis the ideas as to God,
man, and the world and their relations set forth
in the different Biblical writings ; and, under the
general heading of ecclesiastical history, (8) Church
history, or tiie history of the spread of the Church,
(9) history of doctrine, and (10) symbolic, or the
history of the difl'erent creeds and confessions in
wiiich Christian doctrine has been embodied.

{b) The investigation of religion in its normative
and constructive aspect may be subdivided into
(iii.) a general branch dealing with the presenta-
tion, defence, and application of the truths of
natural religion, including (11) the apologetic of
religion generally, (12) natural theology, (13) philo-
soi)hic ethic; (iv. ) a special branch dealing with
the presentation, defence, and application of the

THEOLOGY

297

truth of Christianity as the highest and final form
of religion; this embraces (14) the apologetic of
the Christian religion ; systematic theology, which
includes (15) Christian dogmatic, and (16) Christian
ethic ; and practical theology, which includes
(17) homiletic, (18) liturgic, (19) catechetic, or
paideutic, (20) pastoral theology, (21) ecclesiastical
polity, and (22) evangelistic theology, or the theory
of missions ; (v.) the final synthesis of the truths
reached in the various theological disciplines,
historic and theoretic or normative, which is the
aim of (23) the philosophy of religion, in which
theology reaches its consummation.

8. Method in theology. — The method to be made
use of in dealing Avith the data of theological
science in its various branches -will vary with the
matter dealt with and the purpose or end in view.

In the historical or phenomenological branches
of theology the end in view is simply the ascertain-
ment and accurate presentation of historic fact,
and the methods to be made use of ai'e those which
are appropriate to historical inquiry in general.

(1) Thus in setting forth the history of religions
the investigator must make himself acquainted as
widely as possible, by observation and inquiry,
with the features and characteristics of extant
religions as they now appear and are practised
among men. He must further acquaint himself
with the histoiic origin and development of these
religions by the study of such books, monuments,
and other records of the past as are available.
Careful observation and industrious inquiry and
research are thus the methods most needful for
success in this department of theological science.

(2) In the comparative study of religion the
investigator must use the material furnished by
the history of religions, and seek by analysis,
comparison, and spiritual insight to show the
relations of the various religions to one another
and tlieir grading as manifestations of the common
spirit of religion. This calls for more of specula-
tive thought and philosophic reflexion, as regards
method, than the previous discipline.

(3) In psychology of religion the investigator
must discuss the origin and form of religion
generally from the psj'chological point of view, and
seek to show what part the various mental faculties
and capacities — intelligence, feeling, desire, will,
imagination, etc. — have in religious experience,
and how they enter into and manifest themselves
in religions. The methods appropriate to scientific
psychology — observation, renexion, induction, and
deduction — have proper application in this disci-
pline.

(4) Biblical linguistics, which is the study of
the languages in which the Bible was originally
written, is just a branch of philology, and the
metliods of philological study and inquiry have
here their proper application. Hermeneutics and
exegetics, which deal with the interpretation of
the text of Scripture, may be brought in under
linguistics.

(5) In Biblical introduction the methods of the
lower or textual criticism and of the higher or
historical criticism have a proper place. Textual
criticism investigates the various manuscripts of
the Bible that have come down to us and the
various readings in the texts of these manuscripts,
and seeks by rational principles to get as nearly
as possible at the true original text. Historical
criticism investigates tlie evidences of composite-
ness in diderent books of the Bible and seeks with
the help of tradition and of a knowledge of contem-
porary history to gain reliable knowledge as to the
composition, date, authorship, and historical setting
or circumstances of the various books of the Bible,
and to estimate their place and function as elements
in a progressive revelation.

(6) Biblical history deals with the histoiy of the
Jewish people and the rise of the Christian Church
as recorded in the Bible, while Biblical antiquities
has to do with the archaeology, chronology, and
geography of the Bible.

(7) Biblical theology (including Biblical psycho-
logy) aims at unfolding and presenting in a clear
and orderly form the doctrinal conceptions or ideas
presented by the various writers of the OT and NT.
It is the crown and completion of Biblical science,
and, for those who accept the Bible as the inspired
record of a divine revelation, it is of supreme im-
portance for furnishing material towards the up-
building of a comprehensive, normative, systematic
theology. But of itself it is a purely historic dis-
cipline, aiming at the accurate presentation of
historic fact and recorded thought in an impartial
objective way, without meantime taking into
account the bearing of that on permanent norma-
tive religious truth. The methods to be used in
Biblical theology are those of sound philology and
impartial scientific exegesis or interpretation, so
as to make sure that the ideas or doctrines set
forth are those of the various Bible writers them-
selves, unmodified by any subjective theological
bias of the interpreter. The work of adjusting
the scheme of thought faithfully gathered from
the Scriptures by sound impartial exegesis to a
comprehensive scheme of normative systematic
theology is the important task of the Christian
systematic theologian.

(8) ChxLrch history, or the history of the spread
of Christianity, aims at recounting accurately the
gradual enlargement of the area known as Christ-
endom, the conflict of Christianity with anti-
Christian forces, and the growth of the Church's
constitution and cultus, showing how the polity
and worship of the Christian Church developed as
time went on, and how divisions over questions
of constitution and government and cultus arose
among Christians.

(9) The history of doctrine describes the dogma,
or body of doctrine, accepted by the Christian
Church, and traces its development along the
centuries.

(10) Symbolic gives a more detailed attention to
the various ' symbols ' — creeds or confessions — that
have been formulated from time to time in the
Church's history than can be given in a general
history of doctrine. These are obviously purely
historical disciplines, aiming at the ascertainment
and accurate presentation of historic facts, for the
achievement of which the proper methods to be
used are the methods of impartial historical re-
search and inquiry.

(11) The apologetic of religion in general has as
its function to inquire into the nature and essence
of religion generally and to establish the truth of
the religious view of the world over against all
irreligious, antitheistic, or agnostic views. It aims
at discussing and exhibiting (a) the nature and
essence of religion in general ; (^) the nature and
validity of religious belief and the relation of the
knowledge got thereby to the knowledge of natural
objects gained through perception and rational
cognition ; (7) the truth and reality of what is
postulated and affirmed in religious belief, as
against atheism, materialism, agnosticism, and
other forms of unbelief ; (S) the rational proofs for
the existence of God or the ways in which the
human mind by valid process rises to the appre-
hension of supreme personal Spirit as the ultimate
reality, from reflective contemplation of tlie chang-
ing natural world and its phenomena, of the course
of human history, and of the facts of the moral
consciousness ; (e) the evidence contained in the
general revelation given to all men for the immor-
tality of the soul and a future state.

298

THEOLOGY

(12) Closelyassociated with the general apologetic
of reiiiiion is that systematic presentation of the
truths underlying natural religion to which the
name of natural theology is usually given. Its aim
is to set forth in a methodical orderly way all that
may be known concerning God and the world and
man, and their mutual relations, from that general
revelation which is given in nature, mind, and
history. It is the dogmatic of natural religion,
as philosophic theism is its apologetic.

(13) Akin to natural theology is philosophic
ethic, whose aim is to ground a science of practical
conduct on the immediate deliverances of the moral
consciousness and the knowledge of God and duty
derivable therefrom. The ethic of Kant, associated
with what he described as a ' religion within the
limits of jiure reason,' may be taken as illustrative
of the aims and methods of philosophic ethic,
defective though it may be as a presentation of
the results of such ethic, even as his ' religion
within the limits of pure reason ' is defective as a
presentation of the tiTiths of natural theology. In
this region of natural theology and philosophic
ethic the aim is to reach not merely historic but
permanent normative truth, in which the mind of
the rational thinker can find rest and by which

1 practical conduct can be regulated. The methods
)y which alone, if at all, such results can be reached
are those of speculative thought and philosophic
reflexion on the data of moral and religious experi-
ence— not merely of our own personal experience,
but of the experience of mankind generally as far
as that can be ascertained, analysed, and used as
the basis of rational inference, induction, and
deduction. A great accession to the material or
data of experience, on which a comprehensive and
satisfactory philosophical theology and ethic maj^
be grounded, is given us when we take into account
the special revelation, culminating in the fact of
Christ, of which the Bible is the record. Apart
from this, indeed, the data on which natural
theology and philosophic ethic seek to build are so
incomplete that the probable conclusions reached
are lacking in fullness of content and convincing
power. The new data of experience furnished by
this special revelation not only add cogency to the
probaole conclusions reached by philosophic theism
and ethic, but also bring a greater fullness of con-
tent to constructive normative theology, by which
it is enriched and made more satisfying to the
mind and heart of man.

(14) Christian apologetic has as its function to
indicate the nature and essence of the Christian
religion, grounded on the historic revelation of
which the Bible is the record, and to set forth in
order the eviilences of its truth. It deals with
such questions as these : (a) the idea of revelation,
its spheres and modes, and the manner of its ajipre-
hension ; (/3) the idea of inspiration and its results ;
(7) the trustworthiness of the Bible as a reliable
record of fact and experience ; (5) the evidences of
a progressive revelation of divine things given in
the Bible and the significance of the fact of Christ
as consiimmating and completing that revelation ;
(e) the evidences of the truth of the gospel pro-
claimed by Christ and its fitness to meet human
need and to bring salvation and .satisfaction to
mankind. Christian apologetic clears and prepares
the way for

(15) Christian dogmatic, which aims at setting
forth in accurate and systematic manner, and in
such a way as to show its consistency with all our
other knowledge of truth, the intellectual content
of the Christian life as that becomes our inward
possession on the ground of divine revelation
through the receptivity of faith. It presupposes
and includes the conclusions reached by philosophic
reflexion in the sphere of theism and natui-al theo-

logy, and gives added cogency and convincing
power to them and greater richness and fullness
of content to our knowledge of God the supreme
reality, as not only intelligent personal Spirit but
holy loving Father. It is usually subdivided into
(a) theology proper, or the doctrine of God involv-
ing an exposition and justification of the Christian
conception of God as triune, which was the promi-
nent feature of Greek Christian theology in the
4th cent, when various forms of unitarianism
(jMonarchianism, Sabellianism, Arianism) were
combated by Athanasius and the Cappadocian
Fathers ; (/3) Christology, or the doctrine of the
Person of Christ, to which the attention of the
Church was particularly directed after the Council
of Nicaia (A.D. 325) by the theories propounded
by ApoUinaris, Nestorius, and Eutyches, which
were condemned at the Councils of Constantinople
(A.D. 381), Ephesus (A.D. 431), and Chalcedon (A.D.
'*51) ; (7) pneumatology, or the doctrine of the Holy
Spirit, to which attention was first prominently
given by the Church when the views of Macedonius
were condenmed by the Council of Constantinople ;
(5) anthropology, or the Cliristian doctrine of man ;
(e) hamartiology, or the doctrine of sin, which first
came to the front in the controversy between
Augustine and Pelagius in the 5th cent. ; (f ) soterio-
logy, or the Christian doctrine of salvation, which,
through Augustine and Pelagius, became an import-
ant feature in Western theology, receiving fresh
development at the hands of Anselm, Bernard of
Clairvaux, and Thomas Aquinas, who devoted
attention to the redemptive work of Christ and its
application to sinful men, and engaging promi-
nently the thoughts of theologians in the Reforma-
tion period when the doctrines of justification by
faith and reconciliation with God came into promi-
nence ; [t]) ecclesiology, or the doctrine of the
Church and the sacraments, which first received
prominence in the early Church at the hands
of Cyprian of Carthage (A.D. 250), was further
developed by Augustine (in his City of God) and
Thomas Aquinas (in his Sitmma Theologies), and
received much attention from Lutheran and Cal-
vinistic theologians at the Reformation and from
Ritschl and Anglican High Churchmen in modern
times ; and (0) eschatology, or the doctrine of the
last things, which has occupied a foremost place
in recent theological discussion.

(16) Christian ethic has as its aim to set forth
the content of the Christian life as it works itself
out in disposition and action on the ground of the
self-activity that is rooted in Christian faith. It
looks upon the Christian life from the view-point
of man and his duty, while dogmatic looks upon
it rather from the view-point of God and His will.
Both deal with the same subject-matter, viz. God
and man and their relations to one another, but
under different aspects or from difi'erent view-points,
so that, while they belong together to sj'stematic
theology, they are most conveniently treated as
separate or distinct branches of that science.
Cliristian ethic presupposes the conclusions of
philosophic ethic, just as Christian dogmatic pre-
supposes those of natural theology. But it adds
new fullness and richness of content and new
power to philosophic ethic through the new data
of moral and religious experience, centred in the
fact of Christ, which it contributes. The first
attempts to formulate Christian ethic in separation
from Christian dogmatic were made by Lambert
Daneau, a F'rench Protestant, in 1557, and G.
Calixtus, a Lutheran, in his Epitome Theologim
moralis in 1634. Since the time of Schleiermacher
this separate treatment of Christian ethic as a
branch of theology has been generally followed in
Germany, Britain, and America ; and numerous
works on Christian ethic have appeared in which

l-HBOLOGY

299

the relevant inateriul is dealt with under dillerent
<livisions. A convenient division followed in the
main by Martensen and other writers is (i.) general
introduction, dealing with (o) the definition and
scope of Christian ethic, its relation to other dis-
ciplines, and its place in a classification of ethical
systems ; (/3) fundamental conceptions of the science
— end, norm, and motive ; (7) postulates of the
science, theological, anthropological, cosmical, and
eschatological ; (5) the source of our knowledge of
the Christian moral ideal, the content of that ideal,
and the means of its realization ; (ii. ) individual
ethic, dealing with the origin and progress of the
Christian life in the individual soul and its mani-
festation in the virtues and graces of the Christian
character ; (iii. ) social ethic, dealing with the
realization of the Christian ideal in the various
spheres of society — the family, the Church, the
State or nation.

Practical Christian theology in its various
departments treats of the Christian religion from
the point of view of its power to expand and to
build up Christian life in the Church. It includes
those disciplines that are concerned with the
application of Christiau theology in the practical
sphere. It is art rather than science.

(17) Homiletic deals with the art of sermon-
making.

(18) Liturgic deals witli worship and its forms.

(19) Catechetic, or paideutic, deals ■with the
religious instruction of the young.

(20) Pastoral theology deals with the duties of
the pastoral office.

(21) Ecclesiastical polity deals with Church
government, law, and procedure.

(22) Evangelistic theology, or theory of missions,
deals with the best methods of propagating the
Christian religion at home and among heathen
peoples abroad.

The methods appropriate for use in the upbuild-
ing of a scientific normative Cliristian systematic
theology, into which the content of Biblical theo-
logy as a historical discipline is taken up and
adjusted, are in part the methods commonly made
use of by science in general — analysis, classifica-
tion, inference, induction, deduction, etc. — but
partly also the less easily applied methods of
philosophic reflexion and speculative thought, by
means of which the philosopher must seek to bring
unity and consistency into his entire knowledge of
the real. The God revealed in the Bible and
through Christ and Christian experience — the
triune God of Christian revelation — must be related
and harmonized through rational thought with the
God of the theistic proofs and natural theology, if
our theology is to be at once Christian and philo-
sophic.

(23) Philosophy of religion, which is the highest
stage or form of theologj', has for its data the
results reached as truth l)y the use of scientific
method in the previously mentioned theological
disciplines ; and its aim is to combine these ele-
ments of truth in a comprehensive synthesis of
knowledge, such as Avill exhibit the relations of
the various aspects or parts of truth and their
harmonious cohesion in an organic whole of trutii
or reality. Its special function is to harmonize the
results reached by reflective thought along the
line of philosophic theism and natural theology
with the results reached through believing appro-
priation of the Christian revelation.

If reason is indeed the means whereby we appre-
hend and know truth and reality, then we should
not rest satisfied until what we accei)t as true or
real is shown to commend itself to our reason as
reasonable, and so ' worthy of all acceptation.' We
must therefore strive to make our theology rational
or reasonable, if it is to be the expression of truth.

If, again, the Christian revelation concerning God
and tlie world and man and their relations be true,
as Christians believe it is, then the Christian philo-
sopher must strive to make his philosophy and
metaphysic religious and so adequate to embrace
and express the truth of religious, and si)ecifically
of Christian, experience. Only when theology be-
comes rational and philosophy becomes religious
can there be hoi)e of such a union between the
two as will yield a satisfactory philosophy of
religion which will also be the most adequate and
satisfactory metaphysic of being. To reach such
a philosophy of religion is the worthy aspiration
of the Christian speculative theologian who, while
not ignoring the importance of faith alike in
science, theology, and philosophy, strives to secure
that the faith on which he rests shall be a reason-
able faith.

LiTERATURK. — 1. Theological Encyclopcedia : A. Hyperius,
De ralione Studii T/ievluyici, Bastl, 1556 ; S. Mursinna,
Primce LinecB Encyclopcedice Theologicoe, Hallo, 1764 ; F.
E. D. Schleiermacher, Kurze Darstellung des theologischen
Studiums, Berlin, 1811; K. R. Hagenbach, Encyklopddie tmd
Methodologie der theolorjii<chen Wissenscha/ten^-, Leipzig, 188U,
Eng. tr., New York, 18S4 ; J. F. Rabiger, TkeJlogik vdcr
Encyklopddie der Theologie, do. 1880, Eng. tr., 2 vols., Edin-
burgh, 1SS4-85 ; R. Rothe, Theologische Encyclupddie, Witten-
berg, 1880 ; K. F. G. Heinrici, Theologische Encyklopddie,
Freil)urg, 1893 ; James Drummond, An Introd. to the Stndy
of Theology, London, 18Si ; Alfred Cave, An Introd. to
Theology^, do. 1896 ; E. O. Davies, Theological Encyclopcedia,
do. 1905.

ii. History of religion. — F. B. Jevons, Introd. to the Hist,
of Religion^, London, 1904 ; C. P. Tiele, Outlines of the Hist,
of Religion^ Eng. tr., do. 1896; G. F. Moore, Hist, of
Religions, i., Edinburgh, 1914.

iii. Comparative study of religion. — Tiele, Elements of the
Science of Religion {Giyord Lecturer), 2 vols., Eiliiiburgh,
1897-99 ; L. H. Jordan, Comparative Religion, Edinburgh,
1905 ; P. D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, Manual of the Science
of Religion, Eng. tr., London, 1892; F. Max MiiUer, Anthro-
pological Religion (Gijford Lectures, 3rd ser.), do. iS92 ; A.
Kuenen, National Religions and Universal Religions (HL),
do. 1882 ; J. Estlin Carpenter, Comparative Religion, do.
1913.

iv. Psychology of religion. — S. Baringf Gould, Origin and
Development of Religious Belief, 2 vols., London, 1SG9-70 ; R.
Alliott, Psychology and Theology, do. 1855 ; W. James, The
Varieties of Religious Experience {Giford Lectures), do. 1902 ;
Newman Smyth, The Religious Peeling, New York and
London, n.d.

v. Linguistics. — (a) Hebrew : A. B. Davidson, An Intro-
ductory Hebrew Grammar'^^, Edinburgh, 1900, Hebrew Syntax,
do. 1894 ; S. G. Green, Handbook to OT Hcbreic, London,
1901 ; M. Adler, Student's Hebrew Grammar, do. 1900 ; S. R.
Driver, Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew^, Oxford,
1892 ; W. Gesenius, Hebrew and Enqlish Lexicon of the OT,
ed. F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and 0. A. Briggs, do. 1906.

(6) Greek : G. B. Winer, A Treatise on the Grammar of
NT Greeks, tr. W. F. Moulton, Edinburgh, 18S2, Grammatikdes
NT Sprachidioins^, ed. P. W. Schmiedel, 2 vols., Gotlingen,
1894-98; F. W. Blass, Grammar of NT Greek^, Eng. tr.,
London, 1905 ; NT Greek Lexicons by C. L. W. Grimm,
J. H. Thayer, and H. Cremer ; J. H. Moulton and G. Mil-
ligan. The Vocabulary of the Greek NT, London, 1914- ;
R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the NT'-\ do. 1876.

vi. Biblical introduction. — (a) OT : Driver, An Introd. to
the Lit. of the OTS, Edinburgh, 1909 ; C. H. Cornill, Introd.
to the Canonical Books of the OT, London, 1907 ; J. E.
McFadyen, Introd. to the OT, Edinburgh, 19u5.

(6) NT ; J. Moffatt, A7i Introd. to the Lit. of the NT3, Edin-
burgh, 1911; A. S. Peake, A Critical Introd. to the NT,
London, 1909 ; G. Salmon, A Hist. Introd. to the Study of the
Books of the NT\ do. 1889 ; B. Weiss, A Mamuil of Introd. to
the NT, Eng. tr., do. 1896.

vii. Biblical history. — H. P. Smith, Old Testament History,
Edinburgh, 1903; A. C. McGiffert, A Hist, of Christianity in
the Apostolic Age, do. 1S97.

viii. Biblical archceology. — Driver, Modem Research a.s
illustrating the Bible, London, 19u9 ; F. Delitzsch, Bubcl and
llible, Eng. tr., do. 1903; H. V. Hilprecht, Explorations in
Itible Lands during the 19th Century, Edinburgh, 1903 ;
C. H. W. Johns, Ancient Assyria, Cambridge, 1912 ; E. Kbnig,
The Bible and Babylon, Eng. tr., London, 1905 ; A. H. Sayce,
The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia ((lijford
Lecture.'!), Edinburgh, 1902 ; E. Schrader, Lie Keilinschriften
tend das AT^, Berlin, li«i3.

ix. liiblical crilici.-<in. — (a) Textual: C. E. Hammond, Out-
lines of Textual Criticism apidicd to the NT'', Oxford, 1902;
E. Nestle, Introd. to the Textual Criticism (f the Greek NT~,
Eng. tr., London, 1901; F. G. Kenyon, Handbook to the
Textual Criticism of the NT^, do. 1912.

(b) HisUirical : S. R. Driver and A. F. Kirkpatrick, The
Higher Criticism^, London, 1012 ; T. K. Cheyne, Founders of
O'l} Criticism, do. 1893; McFadyen, OT Criticism and the

300

THBOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

Christian Church, do. 1903 ; W. Robertson Smith, The OT in
the Jewish Church^, do. 1902.

X. Biblical theology.— (a) OT : G. F. Oehler, Theology of the
OT, Eng. tr., 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1874-7.'i ; H. Schultz, OT
Theology, Eng. tr., 2 vols., do. 1S92 ; Davidson, The Theology
ofthebT, do. 1904; C. F. Burney, Otttlines of OT Theology,
London, 1899 ; W. H. Bennett, The Theology of the OT, do.
1896.

(b) NT : G. B. Stevens, Theology of the NT, New York,
1899 ; B. Weiss, Lehrbuch der bibl. Theologie des NT, Berlin,
1868, Eng. tr., 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1882-83; W. Beyschlag,
NT Theologie'i, Berlin, 1896, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1896 ;
Moffatt, The Theology of the Gospels, London, 1912.

xi. Church history.— J. K. L. Gieseler, Lehrbuch der Kir-
chengesch., 5 vols., Bonn, 1828-57, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1853-65 ;
J. A. W. Neander, Allgemeine Gesch. der christl. Relig. und
Kirche, 11 vols., Hamburg, 1825-53, Eng. tr., London, 1850-58 ;
G. P. Fisher, Hist, of the Christian Church, New York, 1888 ;
P. SchafiF, Hist, of the Christian Church, new ed., 12 vols.,
Edinburgh, 1883-93; H. C. Sheldon, Hist, of the Christian
Church, 5 vols., New York, 1894.

xii. History of doctrine.— Hagenbach, A Hist, of Christian
Doctrines^, Eng. tr., 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1880-81 ; A. Hamack,
Hist, of Dogma^, 7 vols., Eng. tr., London, 1894-99; Sheldon,
Hist, of Christian Doctrine, 2 vols.. New York, 1S86; G. P.
Fisher, Hist, of Christian Doctrine, Edinburgh, 1902 ;
W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 3 vols., Edinburgh and
New York, 1889-94 ; L A. Domer, A System of Christian Doc-
trine, Eng. tr., 4 vols., Edinburgh, 1880-82 ; J. Orr, Sidelights
on Christian Doctrine, London, 1909 ; R. Seeberg-, Lehrbuch
der Dogmengesch. , Leipzig, 1908; F. Loofs, Leitfaden zum
Studium dsr Dogmmgesch.*, Halle, 1906 ; H. B. Workman,
Christian Thought to the Reformation, London, 1911 ; A. C.
McGiffert, Protestant Thought before Kant, do. 1911; C. E.
Moore, An Outline of the Hist, of Christian Thought since
Kant, do. 1912.

xiii. Symbolic— P. Marheineke, Christliche Symbolik, 3
vols., Heidell)erg, 1810-13 ; Winer, Comparative View of the
Doctrines and Confessions of the Various Communities of
Christendom, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1873; J. A. Mohler, Syvi-
bolik^O^ Mainz, 1889; Schaff, A Hist, of the Creeds of Christen-
dom, 3 vols., London, 1877; K. J. von Hefele, Conciliengesch.,
10 vols., Freiburg, 1855-90, Eng. tr. , Edinburgh, 1871-96 ; W. A.
Curtis, A Hist, of Creeds and Confessions of Faith, Edinburgh,
1911.

xiv. Apologetic.— {a) General : A. Campbell Fraser, Philo-
sophy of Theism'^ {Gilford Lectures), Edinburgh, 1899 ; R.
Flint, Theism'^, do. 1878, Antitheistic Theories, do. 1879 ;
G. P. Fisher, The Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief^,
London, 1902 ; J. Iverach, Theism, do. 1900 ; J. Ward,
Naturalism and Agnosticism^, 2 vols., do. 1903 ; B. P. Bowne,
Studies in Theism, New York, 1880 ; J. Martineau, A Study of
Religion, 2 vols., London, 1888.

(6) Christian : Butler, Analogy, London, 1736 ; A. B. Bruce,
Apologetics, Edinburgh, 1892 ; H. Schultz, Outlines of Christ-
ian Apologetics, New York, 1905 ; J. Wendland, Miracles and
Christianity, Eng. tr., London, 1911; A, C. Headlam, The
Miracles of the NT, London, 1914.

XV. Dogmatic— (a) Natural theology : Plato, Aristotle,
Origen, John Scotus Erigena, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas,
Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel, Paley, Chalmers, A. B. Bruce, A. J. Balfour.

{b) Christian dogmatic : (1) Earlier Alexandrian : Clement,
Origen, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa ;
(2) Antiochene : Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, Chry-
sostom ; (3) Later Alexandrian : Cyril of Alexandria, John
of Damascus ; (4) Latin : TertuUian, Cyprian, Augustine,
Gregory the Great; (5) Middle Ages: Isidore, Peter Lom-
bard, Anselm, Aquinas, Bernard of Clairvaux, Albertus
Magnus, William of Occam ; (6) Reformation : Luther,
Melanchthon, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox ; (7) Counter-Refonna-
tion : Bellarmine, Petavius, Moehler, Hunter, Rosmini,
Gioberti ; (8) Puritan : Baxter, Owen, Thomas Goodwin,
John Goodwin, John Lightfoot ; (9) Arminian : Arminius,
Limborch, Grotius, John Wesley, Richard Watson, W. B.
Pope ; (10) Cahinistic : Jonathan Edwards, C. Hodge, A. A.
Hodge, W. G. T. Shedd; (11) Modern German: Schleier-
macher, Ritschl, Herrmann, Kaftan, Reischle, Hamack,
Haering, Pfleiderer, Lipsius, Biedermann, Domer, Frank,
Martensen, Luthardt ; (12) British and American : R. W.
Dale, J. Denney, J. Orr, J. Candlish, H. R. Mackintosh,
W. N. Clarke, W. Adams Brown, T. B. Strong, H. C. G.
Moule.

xvi. Christian ethic. — Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics^,
Edinburgh and New York, 1893 ; R. L. Ottley, Christian
Ethics, London, 1889 ; A. B. D. Alexander, Christianity and
Ethics, do. 1914 ; H. L. Martensen, Den Christelige Ethik,
3 vols., Copenhagen, 1871-78, Eng. tr., London, 1893; Domer,
System der christl. Sittenlehre, Berlin, 1885, Eng. tr., London,
1887 ; T. von Haering, Das christl. Leben (Ethik)^, Stuttgart,
1907, Eng. tr., London. 1909; J. Gottschick, Ethik, Tubingen,
1907.

xvii. Practical theology. — W. Gladden, The Christian
Pastor and the Working Church, New York, 1898 ; A. V. G.
Allen, Christian Institutions, do. 1897 ; J. J. van Oosterzee,
Practical Theology, Eng. tr., London, 1878; A. Vinet, Homi-
Utique, Paris, 1853, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1853, often republished ;
Christian Palmer, Evangelische Pastoralthenlogie, Stuttgart,
1860 ; P. Fairbairn, Pastoral Theology, Edinburgh, 1875 ;
Shedd, Homih'ties and Pastoral Theology, New York, 1876.
xviii. Philnxophy of religion.— O. Pfleiderer, The Philo-

sophy of Religion on the Basis of its History, Eng. tr., 4 vols.,
London, 1886-88 ; B. Piinjer, Hist, of the Christian Philosophy
of Religion, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1887 ; Hegel, Vorlesungen
iiber die Philosophic der Religion, 2 vols., Berlin, 1832, Eng. tr.,
3 vols., London, 1895 ; K. C. F. Krause, Zur Relig ionsphilo-
sophie und speculativen Theologie, Leipzig, 1893, Die absolute
Religionsphiiosophie, 2 vols., 1835 ; H. Lotze, Grundziige der
Religionsphilosophie^, Leipzig, 1882, Eng. tr., London, 1892;
G. Teichmiiller, Religionsphiiosophie, Breslau, 1886 ; J. D.
Morrell, Philosophy of Religion, London and New York, 1849 ;
J. Caird, Introd. to the Philosophy of Religion'^, do. 1889 ;
E. Caird, The Evolution of Religion, 2 vols., Glasgow, 1893 ;
G. S. Morris, Philosophy and Christianity, New York, 1883;
G. Galloway, Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Edin-
burgh, 1904 ; J. Lindsay, A Philosophical System of Theistic
Idealism, do. 1917 ; A. M. Fairbairn, The Philosophy of the
Christian Religion'^, London, 1902. J). S. ADAM.

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.— i. Definition
and scope. — Every great religion has two parts,
an inner and an outer, a spirit and a body, ' the
knowledge of God,' which 'is Eternal Life,' and
its dogmas, rites, and ceremonies. The inner
part, ' the wisdom of God in a mystery,' spoken
of by St. Paul as known to ' the perfect,' is that
which has, since the 3rd cent., been known in
the "West as ' theosophy ' ; in the East it has been
known for ages under its Sanskrit equivalent,
Brahma-vidya, ' God-wisdom,' ' God-knowledge,'
or 'God-science.' Such theosophy, or mysticism,
the direct knowledge of God by man, belongs
equally to all great religions, as their sustaining
life, and may be possessed by any individual,
even outside any religious organization. The
Brahmavadins, ' knowers of God,' in Hinduism ;
the Gnostics, the ' knowers,' who, Origen declared,
were necessary to the very existence of the
Christian Church ; the shaikh in Islamic Siifism —
these are typical theosophists from the standpoint
of the modern Theosopiiical Society. No man
is truly a theosophist who has not direct know-
ledge of God, but he may win this through any
religion or by his own unaided efforts.

Theosophy, in the modern as in the ancient
world, proclaims the possibility of such knowledge,
as the inevitable result of the immanence of God.
Man is essentially a spiritual being, his self, or
spiiit, being an emanation from the Universal
Self, or Universal Spirit, God, as a ray is an
emanation from the sun. Hence, to know himself,
his deepest self, is to know God ; he can sink in
consciousness into the depths of his own being,
beyond the body, the passions, the emotions, the
mind, the reason ; these are all his, but they are
not he ; he can pass beyond them all, and realize
himself as separate from them, the pure ' I,' pure
being. This is the universal experience of those
who, successfully, seek the Kingdom of Heaven
within, and it is followed by the recognition that
this Universal Being into which the self opens
transcends all the beings in which it is manifested,
and is alike in all. Out of this experience,
repeated for every one who becomes a knower
of God, or theosophist, are built the two funda-
mental truths of theosophy : the immanence and
transcendence of God, and the solidarity, or
brotherhood, of all living beings. The realization
of the first truth, man's identity of nature with
God, as a fact in consciousness, and the subsequent
realization of the second, his identity of nature
with all around him, by a blending of his self
with their self, a conscious dwelling in their forms
as in his own — these sum up theosophy in its fullest
and deepest sense. The man who has thus reached
self-realization in God and in all beings is a theo-
sophist ; those who deliberateij' aim at such self-
realization are also generally calleil theosophists.

The word ' theosophy ' has further, historically,
a second meaning : it denotes a body of truths,
or facts, concerning God, man, and the universe ;
and these may convenientlj' be classified under
three heads : religion, philosophy, and science.

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THEOSOPHIOAL SOCIETY

301

On these truths is based its system of etlucs,
rational, inspiring, and compelling. In consider-
ing this body of truths -we are not studying a
system invented and published in modern days ;
we have to do with what has aptly been termed
the Wisdom-Tradition, handed down in all civilized
countries, ancient and modern, by a long succession
of prophets, teachers, and writers. It may be
traced in the Upanisads, Purdnas, and epics of
the Hindus, and in the six systems [darianas)
of Hindu philosophy ; it underlies many of the
Chinese systems, especially Taoism, and is seen
in such books as The Classic of Purity and in the
writings of Lao-tse ; it is found in Egypt, as in
The Booh of the Dead and the papyri from which
its religion has been re-constructed ; it appears in
the fragnientary records of Assyria and Chaldsea ;
in the Gathas and other scriptures of the Parsis ;
in the Hebrew Scriptures as expounded by the
^abbala and the Talmud; in the Christian, as
treated by the early Fathers of the Church, and
by such Gnostic writers as Valentinus, Basilides,
and a host of others ; in Pythagoras and Plato,
with the Pythagorean, Platonic, and Neo-Platonic
schools, with Plotinus, lamblichus, and the
theurgists ; it is taken up from these by the
doctors of Islam and the Sufi mystics ; appears in the
Kosicrucian students of alchemy and astrology, in
Rosenkreutz, Paracelsus, Bruno, Eckhartshausen,
Boehme, Eckliart, Vaughan, Bacon, More, Fludd
— all these and scores of others have assimilated
and handed on the Wisdom-Tradition ; it has lent
its symbols to masonry, and hidden some of its
mysteries in masonic ceremonies ; it peeps out of
Scandinavian and Celtic folk-lore, out of the
Hawaiian legends and Maori traditions, the un-
buried temples of the Mayas and Quiches, the
magic of the Zunis and other N. American Indian
tribes. Its revival and its systematization into
a coherent and inter-related body of doctrines,
separated from non-essential and irrelevant teach-
ings—this is modern, and is the work of the
Theosophical Society, a modern association. But
the doctrines tliemselves are scattered everywhere,
through all times, in all places.

The test to be applied to a religious doctrine
which claims to be theosophical is catholicity.
'Semper, ubique, et ab omnibus' — such is the
test. For all religions come from a single source,
the Divine Wisdom, and have as founders divinely
inspired men — men who have climbed up tlie ladder
of evolution till they have reached perfection in
humanity, and have entered on the superhuman
evolution. Such men we call ' masters,' and we
regard them as tlie guides and directors of the
evolution of humanity ; the similarities in doctrines
and ethics, pointed out by comparative mythology
and comparative religion, we regard as due to the
fact that all the founders of religions are members
of the one lodge of masters, possess the same
knowledge, and are guided by the same principles.

The universal — i.e. theosophical — doctrines of
religion are : the unity of God ; the manifestation
of God as a Trinity for the building of a universe ;
the existence of graded orders of intelligences,
a vast hierarchy of beings, forming the inhabit-
ants, visible and invisible, of a universe, or a solar
system. The doctrine of reincarnation, taught
in every religion, though in some temporarily
overlaid, belongs to the domain of philosophy
rather than to that of religion ; the immortality,
or rather the eternity, of the spirit belongs also
to philosophy more than to religion, when dealt
with intellectually ; the law of action and reaction
—harma—iaA\s under science, as do the constitu-
tion of a solar system and of man.

2. Religious teachings.— (a) The xinity of God,
the universal one Existence wiiich is the source of

all existences actual and potential, the super-life
and super-consciousness in which all lives and
consciousnesses inhere, eternal beneath the
transitory, changeless beneath the fleeting, un-
supported but the support of all, all-embracing,
all-containing, the One without a second — this is
the central teaching of theosophy as of all religions,
the first universal truth of religion.

(6) The Trinity of the manifested God is the
second great and universal truth of religion, and
therefore of theosophy. Theosophy speaks of the
manifested God as the Logos, borrowing the term
from Plato, Philo, and the Fourth Gospel.

' Coming forth from the depths of the One Existence, from
the One beyond all thought and all speech, a Logos, by impos-
ing on Himself a limit, circumscribing voluntarily the range
of His own Being, becomes the Manifested God, and tracing
the limiting sphere of His activity, thus outlines the area of
His universe. Within that area the universe is born, is evolved,
and dies ; it lives, it moves, it has its being in Him ; its matter
is His breath ; its forces and energies are currents of His life ;
He is immanent in every atom ; all-pervading ; all-sustaining ;
all-evolving; He is its source and its end, its cause and its
object, its centre and circumference ; it is built on Him as its
sure foundation, it breathes in Him as its encircling space ;
He is in everything, and everything in Him. Thus have the
Sages of the Ancient Wisdom taught us of the beginning of the
manifested worlds. From the same source we learn of the
Self-unfolding of the Logos into a threefold form ; the First
Logos, the Root of all Being, the Will which outbreathes and
inbreathes the worlds ; from Him the Second Logos, manifesting
the two aspects of life and form, the primal duality, making
the two poles of nature between which the web of the universe
is to be woven — life-form, spirit-matter, positive-negative, active-
receptive, Father-Mother of the Worlds— the Windom, or Pure
Reason, " mightily and sweetly ordering all things," sustain-
ing the universe ; the Third Logos, the Universal Active or
Creative Mind, that in which all archetypically exists, the
source of beings, the fount of fashioning energies, the
treasure-house in which are stored up all the archetypal forms
which are to be brought forth and elaborated in matter during
the evolution of the universe, the fruits of past universes,
brought over as seeds for the present.' i

(c) The hierarchy of beings is the third truth
universally accepted : the ' seven spirits before the
throne of God ' ; the primary emanations of the
Supreme Trinity; the ranks of secondary Logoi,
who rule congeries of solar systems, down to the
Logos of a single solar system. In such a system
the vast hosts of spiritual intelligences (the devas,
archangels, and angels of religions), the grades
of spirits encased in human bodies, the sub-humau
intelligences and those not yet even awakened
to intelligence — all these, with the solar Logos
at their head, form the ladder of lives, and evolve
within the system. The sub-human intelligences
include all nature-spirits, the gnomes, fairies, etc.,
who play so great a part in folk-lore, the living
though limited intelligences who make all nature
a living responsive organism instead of a soulless
mechanism, whom little children sometimes see,
and who are visible to the ordinary seer.

(d) The fourth truth in theosophy is that of
universal brotherhood, the inevitable deduction
from the preceding ; since there is but one life
in all forms, all forms must be inter-related,
linked together, and, however unequal they may
be in development, they none the less make one
huge family, are 'of one blood.' The universal
brotiierliood of theosophy diti'ers from the political
conception of 'equality,' the foundation of modern
democracy, in that it postulates identity of origin
and of potentiality, but recognizes varying degrees
of development, the latter yielding the hierarchy
of beings, or ladder of lives. In this freemasonry
resembles it, with its broad diWsion of mankind
into the enlightened and the profane, and the
subdivisions of the enlightened into degrees and
graded otticers, uniting the essential equality with
a hierarchical order and due sul)ordination. In
this both theosophy and freemasonry are in har-
mony with nature, increasing power going hand-
in-liand with increasing knowledge and increasing

1 A. Besant, The Ancient Wisdom.

302

THBOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

responsibility. Wisdom, supported by strength
and made manifiest in beauty, rules in a true
brotherhood, as in nature.

It is interesting to note that these four primary religious
truths of theosophy, of universal religion, are but the intel-
lectual formulation— for the instruction of the people — of the
two primary spiritual truths directly contacted by the knower
of God, the gnostic, the theosophist. The first three are
religious dogmas, expressing intellectually the first spiritual
truth ; the fourth is the expression in the outer life of the second
spiritual truth. The spiritual truths can be known only by
individual self-realization ; they may be intellectually taught
and believed as the fundamental dogmas of universal religion,
theosophy. Aldogma is the intellectual presentment of a truth
known by the spirit, and believed on external authority.

3. Philosophical teachings. — Philosophically,
theosophy is idealistic ; consciousness is primary,
the one indubitable fact, which can neither be
strengthened nor weakened by argument. ' I am '
is the testimony of consciousness to itself, and
naught can disprove its witness, since every
disproof, every argument, must be addressed to
that same consciousness, and imply its existence.
To tlie All-Self, matter is but the limitations
imposed by Himself on His thoughts ; to us,
evolving in a universe which is the manifestation
of our Logos, matter is His thought, limitations
imposed on us by His thought and activity —
limitations which we cannot transcend until we
can realize ourselves in Him. Human thought,
though feeble and undeveloped, is of the same
nature as divine thought, and increases its power
over matter with its increasing growth ; thought
is the one creative and moulding power, and, as
evolving man realizes this, and so clarities his
lower nature that this aspect of the self can work
through it, he becomes the master of that lower
nature and of his surroundings, the creator and
controller of his destiny. By thought, mastering
the science of physical nature, he bends it to his
will and utilizes it ; by thought, mastering the
science of the emotions, he builds virtues and
destroys vices ; by thought, mastering the science
of mind, he subdues its turbulent energies into
orderly obedience ; by thought, directing will and
controlling activity, he brings all things, within
and without, into subjection to the self, ' the inner
ruler, immortal.' Only by such tit rule and due
subjection can man attain perfect health of body,
emotions, and mind, and reach the highest good.
Hence many of the practical theosophical teachings
deal with this power and control of thought.

The eternity of spirit — more loosely spoken of
as the immortality of the soul — is an integral part
of theosophical philosophy. It is an inevitable
deduction from the identity of nature of the human
and the universal Self ; ' unborn, undying, per-
petual,' it is eternal as God Himself. The con-
tinuity of consciousness is equally inevitable, since
the self is conscious and continuous, and in the
.self must consequently abide all its experiences,
of which a successive survey is memory. The ex-
tent to which these memories are carried on by
the material sheaths, or bodies, of the self — i.e.
the survival of the individual and the person —
will be better considered under the constitution
of man.

The method of the unfolding of this continuous
and conscious self in the human kingdom is by re-
incarnation. Keincarnation is, in fact, the only
doctrine of immortality that philosophy can look
at, as Hume said.^ It means that the self, having
unfolded to the liuman stage, appropriates matter
from the three worlds (see below) and builds it
into bodies, suitable for life in those worlds, be-
ginning in the stage of barbarism, as a savage of
a low type. During eartli-life he gathers experi-
ences, pleasant and painful ; after death he meets
the results of these exjieriences — the lower in the
-' Jn his Jissay 'Of the Immortality of the Soul.'

intermediate world, where he suUers in the appro-
priate body of matter belonging to that world, and
the higher in the heavenly world, where he enjoys
in the appropriate body of matter belonging to that
world, and converts all these experiences into
mental and moral capacities. When all are thus
converted, he returns to earth-life, bringing with
him these capacities wrought out of experiences,
into new bodies built to express and utilize them.
In these he goes through a similar cycle, gathering,
.suttering, transmuting, and so on and on ; each
birth brings the fruitage of the preceding lives to
start the new pilgrimage, and this is the inborn
character and temperament mental, moral, phy-
sical. Step by stejj he climbs the ladder, working
under inflexible and inviolable laws, until he
reaches the stature of the perfect man ; he passes
through all the classes of the school of life until
he has mastered all that this world has to teach,
and is asekha — he who has no more to learn. He
is then a man, beyond birth and death, ' titted for
immortality,' ready for work in the larger life.

4. Scientific teachings. — Tlieosophy differs from
modern science in the fact that it includes under
' science ' investigations into superphysical worlds.
Its methods are the same : investigation by ob-
servation of objective phenomena, reasoning on
observations, framing of hypotheses, discovery of
invariable sequences (i.e. of natural laws), re-
peated experiments to verify deductions, and
formulation of results. It uses the senses for
observation, but the senses intensified — super-
senses, in fact — responding to vibrations of matter
finer than that which affects the physical senses.

As with modern science, so with theosophical —
' occult science,' it is usually called — there is a
body of accepted facts, laid down by recognized
experts and largely reverified by later experiments,
and a fringe of modern discoveries, constantly added
to, revised, and modified. The accepted facts have
been established by generations of occult experts,
and their existence is often referred to in the
scriptures of various religions ; the more accessible
of these are being constantly reverified by occult
students to-day, but the larger cosmological facts
are beyond our reach. Any discoveries made by
students are subject to revision and modification,
as observations are repeated and the instruments
of observation are improved.

(a) The constitution of the universe. — The broad outline of
this comes from the seers of the past, and is largely confirmed
in the scriptures. It appears reasonable to us, and is congruous
with the observations which we are able to make. The laws
of analogy and recapitulation confirm it, for we see its outlines
repeated in miniature within our own range of observation, and
we see sequences rapidly repeated in miniature which the seers
have described as occurring in a universe — as the asonian evolu-
tion of the kingdoms of nature is mimicked in the growth of
the embryo in the womb. A universe consists of seven kinds
of matter, or planes, of which the densest is called physical or
solid; the next finer, astral, or watery; the next, mental or
fiery ; the next, spiritual or airy ; the next, superspi ritual or
ethereal ; and the two finest, divine. What are called solar
systems are all on the phvsical plane of the universe, and a
solar system repeats within itself the seven kinds or states of
matter, these subdivisions of the vast cosmic plane forming its
planes, or worlds.

Within a solar system these subdivisions can be mostly
studied by less developed seers, and we are in a field of research
open to the occult student of our own day. We find in relation
to our own earth : ' physical matter," all formed by aggregations
of similar phvsical atoms, similar except that some are positive,
some negative ; these aggregations are grouped into solids,
liquids, gases, and three kinds of ethers ; ' .astral matter,'
formed by aggregations of astral atoms, differing from physical
atoms in shape, and grouped into states corresponding to the
physical; 'mental matter,' formed by aggregations of mental
atoms, again distinguishable by their form, and again grouped
as before; the 'spiritual' and ' superspirilual worlds' are
formed on the same plan, each having its own type of atom and
its own corresponding states of aggregation. Of the 'divine
worlds' we cannot directly speak.

{b'i The constitution of man is analogous to that of the solar
system, and hence the possibility of knowledge concerning it.
As said, he is a fragment of the Universal Self, and he is clothed
in the matter of his system. In the divine world dwells his

THBOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

303

true self, the monad, and liis consciousness appropriates matter
from each of the five worlds below in order that he may know
and conquer them; as the continuing; ' I," he uses matter from
the superspiritual, spiritual, and the finer regions of the mental
world; this is the 'spiritual body' of which St. I'aul speaks;
it grows and evolves through the whole cycle of reincarnation,
and beyond, but is not changed or lost in birth or death ; prob-
ably St. Paul refers to this when he speaks of our ' house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens,' which he says ' we
have.' It is this spirit in the spiritual body which is the re-
incarnating Ego, or individual, though the term is often used
to imlicate only the consciousness working in the finer mental
matter, in what is termed 'the causal body,' a subdivision of
the spiritual taken seiiarately. When the reincarnating Ego
takes a new birth, he appropriates some of the coarser matter
of the mental world for his • mental body,' some of the matter
of the astral world for his ' astral body,' some of the matter of
the physical world for his ' physical body ' ; his consciousness,
in thinking, uses mental matter ; in desiring or sensating, uses
astral matter; in a -ting in the physical world, uses physical
matter; these are 'the three worlds' in which his evolution
goes on, and in which he is affected by birth and death, and is
a persoiiality, or person, i.e. the individual, as limited in ex-
liression by grosser matter ; the mental body is closely related
to the brain, though not dependent on it, save for activity in
the physical world ; the astral body is mainly correlated v^ith
the cerebro-spinal and sympathetic ganglia and nerves, and the
glands; the three bodies interpenetrate each other, mutually
acting and reacting throughout waking life. In sleep conscious-
ness withdraws from the physical body, clothed still in its astral
and mental garments, living then in the astral world, and
sometimes, on its return, impressing on the physical brain some
of its experiences in vivid and coherent 'dreams'; it keeps in
magnetic touch with its physical body. In death this magnetic
touch is broken oflf, and the consciousness dwells for a while
in the astral world, called often 'the intermediate world,' in
rL'Iation to those who have passed away from earth. After a
while the astral body dies, and the man passes in the mental
body into the mental world, or heaven, where he abides for a
period extending to many centuries, the length depending
chiefly on the richness of his intellectual, emotional, and
artistic past life on earth. When he has assimilated all the
experiences of this nature accumulated on earth, the mental
body disintegrates, the consciousness \vithdraws to the spiritual
body with all it has gathered to enrich the Ego. Then the Ego
builds a set of new bodies for a new pilgrimage in the three
worlds, and returns to them by birth. "Thus the evolution of
man is carried on in three worlds, brooded over by the spirit—
himself — the spirit garnering the results and unfolding thereby ;
he is an inhabitant of the three during waking life ; of two
during sleep and for a period after death ; of one during his
heavenly life. The lowest, the physical body, is at present the
most perfectly organized, and therefore the most capable of
receiving impressions from without and transmitting them to
the consciousness. The astral body is rapidly becoming
organized, and its proper senses are developing, so that it is
receiving and transmitting many impressions from the astral
world, though generally with a lack of sharpness and accuracy ;
these include the phenomena of second-sight, premonitions,
warnings, visions, perception of phantasms of the living and
the dead, etc. — the phenomena to wliich modern psycholog3' is
paying so much attention. An increasing number of people are
'sensitive,' or 'psychic,' and are using the supersenses, i.e. the
senses of the astral body, more or less consciously. The mental
body is becoming well organized in educated people, but more
in relation to its organ, the brain, than as an independent
vehicle of consciousness, active in its own world. Conscious-
ness, in the mental body, is in-turned rather than outward-
turned. The occultist, having by the practice of special
methods — meditation, concentration, etc. — artificially forced
the evolution of the astral and mental bodies beyond the
normal, is, as regards these, many centuries ahead of his time ;
he uses the supersenses for life in the astral and mental worlds
in his waking consciousness, and thus carries on his investiga-
tions in them as the physical scientist does in the physical
world. The dying of the three bodies, and the building of new
ones for each successive life-period, is the cause of the loss of
memory of past lives; that memory is in the reincarnating
Ego, and is shared bj' the consciousness when animating the
lower bodies only if, in those bodies, the man has realized
himself as one with the higher.

(c) The law of action and reaction is imiversal, and exists in
the worlds of emotion, thought, and spirit as much as in the
physical world. Hence a man can build his character as
scientifically as he can build up his body, and disregard of the
mental and moral laws is as destructive of mental and moral
health as disregard of physical laws is destructive of physical
health. The studj- and utilizing of the laws, summed up as
karma, forms an important part of theosophical work.

(d) Evolution. — The monad gradually unfolds his powers by
coming into touoli with matter and appropriating portions of
it; he thus p.asses throiigh the mineral, vegetable, and animal
kingdoms, until in a highly developed animal the intelligence
reaches the human stage; thenceforward reincarnation under
karma is his means of unfolding. Humanity, on our globe,
takes on a fresh type — more delicately organized as to the
nervous system— that of a root-race," when a considerable
number of reincarnating Egos are ready to develop a higher
quality of consciousnes.>i. The third, or Lemurian, race, was
the first to assume the really human type in the middle period
of its evolution— the previous types being embryonic; the

surviving remnants of the Lenuirian are the negroes and the
many negroid peoples scattered over the world. The fourth, or
Atlantean, race with its seven sub-races — of which the Toltec,
Akkadian, Turanian, and Mongolian peoples are typical — is still
the most numerous. The fifth, or Aryan, race has already five
sul)-races— the Aryans of India, the Mediterranean Aryans
(Arabs, the later higher-class Egyptians, etc.), the Iranians,
Celts, and Teutons— and has yet io develop two more. These
varying types afford to the reincarnating Egos the necessary
varieties for their evolution, each Ego taking birth in the races
and sub-races as often as is necessary for the unfolding of the
qualities characteristic of each.

(e) Human perfection. — By repeated reincarnations under
inviolable law, each man reaping exactly as he has sown, man
reaches his temporary goal — human perfection. At the present
stage of evolution it is possible for him to reach this goal in
advance of the evolutionary term, which will last yet for many
millions of years. By strenuous exertions and noble and un-
selfish living, he may attract the attention of the spiritual
guardians of mankind, who will teacli him how to quicken his
evolution, so that he may enter on ' the path of holiness,' pass
through its five initiations — or stages of widening consciousness
—and become a ' master,' the last of the five initiations opening
the gateway of superhuman evolution. He may then pass into
other worlds, or enter the ranks of the guardians of this world,
as he wills. From the hierarchy of these guardians have come
the founders of world-religions, the lesser prophets and teachers
being their disciples.

5. The ethics of theosophy. — These are not
(lelinitely formulated into any code, but consist
of the highest and purest teachings of the world's
noblest saints, prophets, and founders of religions.
All that is sweetest and most lofty in the world's
Bibles, all that is most inspiring and ennobling in
the writings of its philosophers and moralists,
forms the ethics of theosophy. As man lives by
the highest ethic he can grasp, he becomes capable
of appreciating ethic yet sublimer ; the theosojjhist
strives to live by the .spirit of Christ rather than
by any legal code, and, cultivating love, he hopes
to be enlightened by the lords of love. Broadly
speaking, that which works with the Divine Will
in evolution is right ; that which works against it
is wrong ; and the best examples of that Will are
found in such divine men as the Buddha and the
Christ. These the theosopliist looks up to as
examples, and strives to reproduce their likeness
in himself.

6. The Theosophical Society. — This association
was founded on 17th Nov. 1875, in New York City,
U.S.A., by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry
Steele Olcott. The former was a Russian noble-
woman, of extraordinary psychic endowments, and
these had been trained and cultivated to the
highest point by her ' master,' an Eastern occultist ;
she gave up social rank, wealth, and family to
seek him in Tibet, and spent some years with him
near Shigatze, after wliicli, returning to tlie Avorld,
she gave the rest of her life to carrying out his
directions. In America she met, at the famous
Eddy farmhouse, a man who had won high dis-
tinction during the Civil War, Colonel Henry
Steele Olcott, and he became her pupil. She
endeavoured first to collaborate with the American
spiritualists, but, failing in this, she, with Olcott,
founded the Theosophical Society ; she became its
corresponding secretary, an office which slie held
for many years, and he its president ; its organiza-
tion is due to him and he remained president until
his death in 1907, when the present writer was
elected as his successor.

The unit of organization is a lodge, of not less than seven
members ; when a number of lodges, not less than seven, exist
in any territory, they may group themselves into a section, or
national society, which is self-governing, within the wide limits
of the general constitution. The central ruling body consists
of president, vice-president, treasurer, recording secretary, a
general council consisting of the general secretaries, each
elected by his own national society, with not less than five
additional councillors, chosen by the general secretaries. It
meets once a year and deals only with matters affecting the
whole Society ; but it may not meddle with the business of the
sections, unless there be a transgression of the general constitu-
tion. The annual report of 1917 showed 19 national societies,
1074 lodges, with 28,673 active members. Round each lodge
are gathered a considerable number of sympathizers and
helppi-s, but these are not entered on the rolls. The head-
quarters of the Society were first in New York ; in 187!) the

304

THEOSOPHY

founders left America for India, and fixed the headquarters in
Bombay ; in December 1882 they moved to Adyar, a suburb of
Madras, and there the headquarters have since remained. The
Theosophical Society owns there an estate of 266 acres, with
several fine buildings, and a library vphich is known aU over the
world of scholarship as possessing: the finest existing collection
of Upanimds, as well as some unique Sanskrit MSS.

Wliile the Society exists for the purpose of
spreading the ideas formulated above, it does not
impose belief in them on its members, who, pro-
viding they accept the principle of universal
brotherhood, are absolutely free to think as they
will. Admission to membership is obtained on
recommendation of two Fellows of the Society,
and the acceptance of the following objects :

' To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity,
without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour.

To encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy,
and science.

To investigate the unexplained laws of Nature and the powers
latent in man.'

The following, written many years ago by the
present president, states the general position of
the Theosophical Society :

'The Theosophical Society is composed of students, belonging
to any religion in the world or to none, who are united by their
approval of the above objects, by their wish to remove religious
antagonisms, and to draw together men of good will, whatsoever
their religious opinions, and by their desire to study religious
truths and to share the results of their studies with others.
Their bond of union is not the profession of a common belief,
but a common search and aspiration for Truth. They hold that
Truth should be sought by study, by reflexion, by purity of hfe,
by devotion to high ideals, and they regard Truth as a prize to
be striven for, not as a dogma to be imposed by authority.
They consider that belief should be the result of individual
study or intuition and not its antecedent, and should rest on
knowledge, not on assertion. They extend tolerance to all,
even to the intolerant, not as a privilege they bestow, but as a
duty they perform, and they seek to remove ignorance, not to
punish it. Thej' see every religion as an expression of the Divine
Wisdom, and prefer its study to its condemnation, and its
practice to proselytism. Peace is their watchword as Truth is
their aim.

Theosophy is the body of truths which forms the basis of all
religions, and which cannot be claimed as the exclusive posses-
sion of any. It offers a philosophy which renders life intelli-
gible, and which demonstrates the justice and the love which
guide evolution. It jiuts death in its rightful place as a recur-
ring incident in an endless life, opening the gateway of a fuller
and more radiant existence. It restores to the world the
Science of the Spirit, teaching man to know the Spirit as
himself, and the mind and body as liis servants. It illuminates
the Scriptures and doctrines of religions by unveiling their
hidden meanings, and thus justifying them at the bar of
intelligence, as they are ever justified in the eyes of intuition.

Members of the Theosophical Society study these truths, and
Theosophists endeavour to live them. Every one willing to
study, to be tolerant, to aim high, and to work perseveringly,
is welcomed as a member, and it rests with the member to
become a true Theosophist.'l

There have been some oflshoots from the Theo-
sophical Society which have become independent
of the central organization, but which spread the
same truths. There are two international societies,
with headquarters in America, and some scattered
independent bodies in Germany and Austria.

LiTERATDRE.— i. TEACHINGS OF THEOSOPBY.—C. W. Lead-
beater, An Outline of Theosophy, London, 1902 ; Lilian
Edgar, Elements of Theosophy, do., 1903; Ethel Mallet,
First Steps in Theosophy, do. 1905 ; Annie Besant, Popular
Lectures on Theosophy, do. 1910, The Ancient Wisdom, do. 1897,
Seven Principles of Man, do. 1892, Re-incarnation'^, do. 1905,
Death and After, do. 1893, Karma, do. 1895, Man and his
Bodies'^, do. 1900 ; C. W. Leadbeater, The Astral Plane, do.
1895, The Devachanic Plane, do. 1898 ; H. P. Blavatsky, The
Key to Theosophy, do. 1893, The Secret Doctrine, 2 vols., do.
1888 ; A. P. Sinnett, Esoteric Buddhism, do. 1883, The Growth
of the Soul, do. 1896.

ii. OjV WORLD KEUaiON AND THE WiSDOM - TRADITION.

— G. R. S. Mead, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, London,
1900, Orpheus, do. 1908, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, do. 1906;
C. W. Leadbeater, The Christian Creed^, do. 1904 ; Annie
Besant, Four Great Religions, do. 1897, The Religious
Problem, in India, do. 1902, Esoteric Christianity, do. 1901,
Popular Lectures on Buddhism, do. 1907 ; Isabel Cooper-
Oakley, Traces of a Hidden Tradition in Masonry and
Mediaeval Mysticism, do. 1900.

iii. Etbica L.— Annie Besant, In the Outer Court, London,
1895, The Path of Discipleship, do. 1896 ; H. P. Blavatsky,
The Voice of the Silence, do. 1899 ; Mabel Collins, Light on the
Path^, do. 1896 ; Annie Besant, Bhagavac} Gifd, trans., do.

1 Theosophy, p. 91.

1899, Studies in the Bhagava(j,-GHd by a Dreamer, do. 1894,
The Doctrine of the Heart, do. 1899, The Wisdom of the Upani-
shats, do. 1906, Dharma, do. 1899.

iv. Scientific and occaLT.— Annie Besant and C. W.
Leadbeater, Occult Chemistry, London, 1909, Thought Forms,
do. 1905 ; C. W. Leadbeater, Man Visible and Invisible,
New York, 1903, Clairvoyance, London, 1899, Dreams^, do.
1903 ; Annie Biesant, Introduction to Yoga, do. 1913, The
Building of the Kosmos, do. 1894, The Evolution of Life and
Form, do. 1899, Some Problems of Life, do. 1900, Thought-
Power, its Control and Ctdture, do. 1901 ; Bhagavan Das,
The Science of the Emotions, London and Benares, 1900, The
Science of Peace, do. 1904, The Science of Social Organisation,
Benares, 1910. . A. BeSANT.

THEOSOPHY. — Theosophy has characteristics
which relate it closely to religion, and somewhat
more remotely to philosophy. It also attempts to
determine man's place in the universe and to solve
the riddles of life and of death. Like religion, it
aims at guaranteeing to its followers a more
favourable destiny by showing them the way of
healing and salvation. Like philosophy, it pro-
poses to have recourse only to the resources which
nature, on the one hand, and the human intellect
on the other, place at its disposal, and it is by
knowledge that it saves men. But the knowledge
which it obtains is not grounded on the observation
of facts which are within the reach of ordinary in-
telligences ; it is intuitive, dependent on the ex-
ceptional clear-.sightedness of men on a superior
level, and communicated by them to their disciples.
There is then a theosophical knowledge, just as
there is a religious and a philosophical knowledge.
Besides, it may well be that the content is through-
out materially the same. Such a concept, e.g., as
that of the immortality of the soul may be found
in all three. By what distinctive marks then can
we recognize that a doctrine is theosophical ? Now
we know that there is a criterion which makes it
possible for us, without risk of error, to distinguish
between what is philosophical and what is religious.
If a doctrine has been established by means of
observation, induction and deduction, it is philo-
sophical ; it is religious if there has been concerned
in its origination an intuition operating under the
influence of feeling and imagination ; it is only at
subsequent stages that the ordinary processes of
the human intellect intervene. Theosophy also
begins with affirmations having an intuitive basis,
and its constructions may have great emotional
and imaginative signiHcance. Having once secured
this foundation, it may proceed, like theology, to
construct, in accordance with the demands of
reason, a system of satisfying coherence. The
difference between theosophy and religion lies
neither in their ideas nor in their method. It is
in the attitude which the religious man, on the
one hand, and the theosophist, on the other,
assume towards the objects presented. The one
hopes to work, by fear, reverence, and adoration,
upon the will of powerful beings for his own
advantage ; the other depends upon himself, upon
the immediate efficacy of his own knowledge and
action ; religion is humble, whereas theosophy is
proud. 1

This self-reliance the theosophist has in common

1 It is to be noticed, however, that, though the suggestion of
pride is justifiable in connexion with the esoteric tendencies,
the prevailing intellectualism, and calm acceptance of grades of
religious capacity noticeable in modern theosophical teaching,
yet there is also an element of humility frequently to be found
in the modern theosophical attitude. There is a constant
reference to teachers or adepts, and it is urged that their
teaching should be accepted with implicit faith. The general
efficacy of knowledge in obtaining the desired results may
indeed be exaggerated and become an incentive to pride, but
the individual thinker is not encouraged to depend merely on
his own knowledge or even on the knowledge of his contem-
poraries. He, and they also, must look backwards with rever-
ence to the past and accept the teachings which have been
handed down from remote ages and are rediscoverable for men
of the present age when the more modern excrescences upon
religious systems have been removed.

THBOSOPHY

305

with the magician. Both — the one more con-
sciously than the other — admit the existence in
the universe of hidden forces, for the control of
which knowledge of them is sufficient. Both also
show individualistic tendencies. They detach them-
selves from the religious community and break
through the tradition officially recognized around
them. But we may notice at least this ditt'erence
between the magician and the theosophist : the
one aims at using his power in an external way —
he desires to control nature for the advantage or
the disadvantage of his fellows ; the other is a
contemplative, who acts but little except on him-
self and for his own sake.^ The theosophical spirit
has left a very deep mark upon Indian thought.
It is possible to trace its influence from its origin
to our own day. India would be for the investi-
gator a remarkable field for study if the chrono-
logical sequence of ideas and systems were not
enveloped in a darkness which up to the present
time has not been penetrated. It is impossible for
us to date the most important of the texts from
which we derive our information. Many of them
are much later than the period when the theories
which they set forth were formulated. Under
such circumstances it becomes exceediugly difficult
to settle the debit and credit side of the account
of each school. Perhaps, however, one result may
be considered to be now established : there has
been in India a continuity of theosophical tendency.
The systems interlace with and influence one
another. The intuition on which their authors
pride themselves consists in perceiving afresh the
' truths ' which a kind of heredity has tended to
fix in the Indian mentality. The task of the great
pjiilosopliical schools has to a large extent been
that of systematizing the ideas already worked out
in the Upanisads. Buddhism would be unintel-
ligible if the way had not been prepared for it, if
not in these very schools, at least in antecedent
groups bearing a very strong resemblance to them.
And the reformers who have apjieared in India in
such large numbers since the Middle Ages have
drunk at the same source. If, then, we cannot
yet dream of giving a strictly historical presenta-
tion of theosophical speculations, it is at least not
impossible to discern the order in which the prin-.
cipal s}'stems have appeared. We shall follow (1)
the development of this thought in circles which
are, if not, strictly speaking, Brahmanic, at least
closely related to Brahmanism (the Upanisads and
the Vedanta, the Sahkhya, and the Yoga) ; (2) the
transformation of theosophy into religion (into
Jainism and Buddhism ) ; (3) its incursions into
popular religions of long standing, with which it
has associated itself, not without a certain sacrifice
of its own character and significance ; and finally
[1 This statement should, however, be slightly modified when
applied to modern theosophy in India. On the one hand, this
shows an affinity to magic, in that it is greatlj' interested in the
details of existence upon planes other than the physical, and so
takes up a slightly materialistic attitude to those existences
which are ostensibly non-material. The inhabitants of the
astral and mental planes might for practical purposes be
described as materializations of spiritual entities. Again, a
distinct claim is put forward by theo.sophy to the discovery and
use of hitherto unknown laws of nature, and the power which
is thus put into the hands of the e.xpert occultist who is also
a theosophist is not altogether different from the power claimed
by the magician. But, on the other hand, it must be frankly
acknowledged that the modern theosophist in India does not,
like some magicians, separate himself from the community to
such an e.xtent as to desire to use his powers for merely selfish
purposes. Further, the ends at which he aims are ultimately
of a sinritual rather than of a materialistic character, and in
this he shows his superiority over the Christian Scientist in
respect of the excessive attention paid by the latter to the
claims of bodily health. It is thus undoubtedly true that the
modern theosophist is a contemplative, to the extent that he
places the spiritual far above the material, but he is perhaps
less inclined than his forefathers in India to be interested
merely in his own concerns, and he is more inclined to use for
social purposes the powers w hirh contemplation and thought-
ooncentration have secured for him.]
VOL. XII. — 20

(4) we shall see how modern theosophy in India is
dominated by ancient pliilosopliical tradition.

I. The Brahmanic theosophy. — (1) The begin-
nings. — The two tendencies whicli characterize
Hindu thought throughout its course appear early
in Brahmanic circles. The one is the spirit of
tradition : the rites and formulas do not show the
expected results unless they are repeated just in
the way in which the 'fathers' instituted them
at the beginning. Not only will every innovation
and every addition be avoided, but an even more
necessary requirement is that the sacred acts shall
be performed only by those who are in pos.session
of liturgical knowledge, viz. by the Brahmans.
The dharma, i.e. the rule, which derives its
authority simply from its antiquity, thus gradually
extends its domination over men's minds. It
becomes systematized in one of the six darianas,
the Purvd Mlmdmsd. Anxious care in observing
traditional forms has created the power of the
priesthood. The fathers of families have been
deprived of their religious importance to the
advantage of the Brahmans. The gulf between
sacred and profane makes itself more and more
evident.

Contrariwise, it is the spirit of novelty which
manifests itself in the other tendency. During all
the Vedic period the treasury of hymns and rites
is taking form and being constantly enriched. If
the gods have at first made use of these, it is
not the gods who have revealed the knowledge of
them. The rsis have ' seen ' and have communi-
cated their visions to men.^ The gods would have
preferred to have the exclusive proprietorsliip.

Signs of this double tendency are to be found
even in the same texts. We may be .sure that, in
circles as yet differing slightly from one another,
tradition and originality existed side by side with-
out oflence. Why should they have entered into
conflict ? Did not both of them find their point of
dejiarture in the same hymns ? Most of the Vedic
deities can scarcely be .distinguished from the
forces and elements in which they reveal their
power. They have almost no characterization,
and they represent vaguely the divine which per-
meates the objects and phenomena of nature. Out
of this naturalism, frequently rude in character,
there easily emerge the pantheistic conceptions
which were so soon to dominate Indian theosophy.
Besides, do not ritualists and innovators alike
make knowledge the essential condition of religious
efficacy? Are not both of them Brahmans, i.e.
the heirs of the magicians who were charged at
the beginning with the protection of the sacred
rite from the pernicious influence of evil s[)irits?
Finally — and most important of all — do not both
believe that there is in every being and in every
sacred act a mysterious energy which establishes
harmony and co-ordination between man and the
univer.^e? And are they not now on the earth,
like the ' fathers' of ancient times and the gods in
the heavens, the depositaries and the agents of
this mysterious force, creator of order and of life ?
When there is the thought of turning the secret
power of the sacrilice to the benelit of the in-
dividual, with a view to assuring him of happiness
beyond the grave and guaranteeing him against
a second death which would be final, there are
here the essential elements of theosophic doctrine
— desire for deliverance from suttering and death,
hoi)e to succeed by per.sonal elibrt, confidence in
tlie saving efficacy of knowledge.

(2) The (indent Upanisads. — Theosophical
thought, which is to be found in germ in the
hymns and in the Brdhmanas, obtains form and
tonsistencj'^ in the Upanisads (q.v.). Certainly
the authors of tliose old treatises were far from
1 See art. Inspiration (Hindu).

306

THBOSOPHY

liavin^;,' broken tlseir connexion with the traditional
cult. But they love to give the sacred actions a
symbolic interpretation which will relieve them
of their mechanical and formal character. A still
more significant thing is that they manifest a well-
marked esoteric tendency: usually a long time is
spent in apjiealing to the master before he consents
to reveal the supreme truth, and the disciple is
under obligation not to transmit it himself except
to a particularly dear and well-qualihed person.
The method of discovery is always intninon ;
thought proceeds by abrupt illuminations. Moving
impetuously and boldly, it puts assertions side by
side with one another without con<terning itself
about their contradictoriness. It does not demon-
strate ; it is content to illustrate by beautiful
metaphors and arresting similes.

In an as yet vague form the idea of the essential
unity of the universe was implicitly contained in
the Bralimanic, theory of sacrifice. There is now
posited the existence of a Being in which all that
is finds its reality. This Being is called Brahman,
the name of the energy whicli manifests itself in
the sacred action. It is also designated the dtman,
i.e. the self or the soul of all that lives.

' Let one worship Brahman, knowing that he is the reality.
Let one worship the dlman. The dtman has for body the life ;
for form, the lig-ht ; for essence space. It can take all forms
accordiHi;- to its incluiation. ... It permeates all the world.
... It is the essence of life ; it is the essence of myself.' 1
Thus the theme is stated which the Upanisads go
on to develop and repeat without intermission.

This Beiny: is one and absolute. He has no determinations.
One can say nothing of him except that he is. No definition is
possible. We may at least try to name him, so convinced are we
still that we know the Being of which we know the name. He is
' that,' tat. He is ' No, no,' for we deny every quality, which
would serve only to limit him. He is the reality — the reality of
realities, satya satyasya. Beyond the reach of all comparisons,
he is bliss, a negative bliss, and, in consequence, absolute. He
is without a second. He is my dlman, the reality of mc.
There is an identity between the dtman which I am and
Brahman. 'I am Brahman.' 'Thou, thou art that.' The
universal soul and the individual soul are one.

The world also is real. It derives its reality from Brahman,
the only reality. A parallel between the ps.^'chical and the
cosmical is founded upon the unity between the individual soul
and the world soul. The cosmos and the ipyxv are the two
aspects of the same reality, and the parallel elements which
constitute them sustain themselves upon each other.

Finally, Brahman is the reality not only of the individual and
of phenomenal existence, but also of transcendental existence.
For there are two forms of Brahma^i, the one coiporeal, the
other incorporeal ; the one mortal, the other immortal ; the
one mobile, the other immobile ; the one manifested (sat), the
other transcendent (tyat).-

In its individualized form the soul could not have the bliss
which is the exclusive prerogative of the Absolute Being. The
limited Ego is in contact with the non-Ego, and is unhappy
while experiencing the alternations of pleasure and of pain, the
impermanence and the vanity of finite thirjgs. In truth, 'he
who is another than himself is suffering.' This misery is born of
individuality and lasts equally long. The active self, the jiva,
is involved, through its activity, in a series of existences of
which each one is determined as to its quality by the quality of
the existence which has preceded it. ' According as a man
acts, according as he conducts himself, so is he reborn. '■*
' Through good work a man is reborn in a good state, through
evil work in an evil state,' ■^ and so on, indefinitelj'. If the life
is evil, it is because the man in his ignorance believes himself
a person and says, ' I am such and such a one, this thing belongs
to me.' This error and the activities which result from it
entangle him in the meshes of a life which ever begins anew.
Thus the wise man yearns after repose in the Absolute, in the
bosom of a Being in whom alone are permanence and truth
How shall a man succeed in quenching individuality, which is
the cause of all suffering? It is not by means of action, since
action on the contrary is a source of individual life. Even
asi'eticism has only the value of a propaedeutic : it tends to-
wards salvation, but it does not save. One way only is open
to the soul desirous of deliverance, and that" is knowledge.
Knowledge is necessary, not now of rites and their meaning,
but of Brahman himself. And since knowledge of Brahman
means realization of the identity of the self and the Being who
alone exists, one must be able to say to this Being: 'Thou,
thou art the dtman of all that exists. That which thou art, I
am that. . . . Thou art the Reality.' This saving knowledge
can be reached only through inner vision. The individual sup-

1 ^atapatha Brdhmana, x. vi. 3. 1 S.

2 Brh. Ar. Up. II. iii. 1. 3 /ft. jy. jy. 1.
•1 Jh. MI. ii. 1.3.

pressing his senses destroys all contact wth the outer world
and finds Brahman in himself. ' The eye would not flash forth
to meet him, nor word, nor sense, nor works, nor ascetic
practices. But if the mind is calm, it the heart is pure, then
one contemplates the indivisible Brahman. One cannot know
him except in the heart.' i If the AI)solute cannot be grasped,
one may at least approach him by intense meditation directed
towards the symbols of him, and very especially by meditation
upon the mystic syllable Om, for ' in truth this sj'llable is
Brahman ; in truth it is the supreme existence ; it is the best
fulcrum of existence ; it is the ultimate ground. ' 2 United with
Brahman, the individual self has no more a distinct conscious-
ness. ' It is when there are two existences that one hears,
sees, and knows the other, but when for an}' one everything has
become his own proper self, how could there be anything which
he could fee, hear, and understand?''* Moreover, absorbed in
the Being who is altogether happiness, he shares in this in-
finite bliss.

(3) The Veddnta. — Of the six philosophical
schools which claim connexion with Brahmanism —
more exactly, of the six schools which Brahmanism
has claimed as its own and which it has annexed
— -three only have given assistance to the elabora-
tioii of theosophical doctrine. They are the
Sarikhya, the Yoga, and the Vedanta (qq.v.). The
last school is the only one of the three which
devotes itself to an explicit continuation of the
ancient Upanisads. We shall therefore begin with
it, although, very probably, it did not attain its
full development until after the two others.

The name Vedanta does not designate a single
homogeneous school. There is a strictly monistic
Vedanta : reality pertains to Brahman alone ; all
outside of him is nothing but appearance (advaita) ;
this is the thesis of Sankara,'' at the beginning
of the 9th century. Other Vedantins ])rofess a
modified monism — the Visist9,dvaita of Ramanuja
iq.v. ; 11th century). Others finally abandon
monism altogether, not in the sense that they jnit
mind and matter over against eacli other, but
because they allow an essential difference between
the individual self and the universal self ; these
last attach themselves to Madhva (q.v. ; 12th
century). But, howe\'er great their differences,
the three teachers all invoke the authority of
Hadarayana, the reputed author of the Vedanta-
Sutras, and all three have written on this older
teaching a commentary which is the fundamental
text of their respective schools.

Ramanuja has more right than Safikara to claim
to continue the teaching of the Sfitras. But
Sahkara more than the two others, more even than
i>adarayana, is in the line of succession to the
(Jj^anisads. While Ramanuja and Madhva are
explicitly theistic and teach that God, the author
of all grace, saves those who give to Him the
worship of love and faith, Sarikara attributes to
God (Isvara) an apparent existence only, and an
accessory role in the genesis of salvation. Con-
sequently the history of theosophical doctrines in
India is directly concerned with Him alone.

The first sutra of Bfidarayana thus states the object of the
Vedanta: "Now comes the study of Brahman.' To know
Brahman, it is not enough to open the eyes and the ears and
search for Being in the world which surrounds us. Between
the Ego and the non-Ego there is an irreducible opposition : the
senses and the underst.anding which perceive and appreciate
the non-Ego either transfer to the object the qualities or
the subject or transfer to the subject that which they
believe they know of the object. In either case external cogni-
tion is vitiated by error ; the true name of this pretended
knowledge is 'nescience' (avidyd). Outside of us the senses
and the understanding give us only the cognition of the
phenomena of ' becoming.' Now Being, in reality, does not
' become ' ; it is. If it were ' becoming,' it would not ' be ' ; for
it is impossible to see how that which is not could come to he.
All becoming is only an appearance, an illusion.

This Being, the only reality, retains in the Vedanta the name
of Brahman. This is the absolute Brahman, without deter-
mination, or, as the Ved.antins say, _ without quality; beyond
time and space and causation, for time, space, and causation
Ixilong to the world of appearance, of avidyd. ' Being is one ;
all plurality results from false knowledge.' As it is impossible
for uie to doiibt the reality of myself— I could not expres.s thi.H

1 Muio4. Up. in. i. 8 f .
•■* Bfh. Ar. Up. IV. v. l.''..

a Kdtha Up. I. ii. 15-17.

■* See art. SANKARACifAitvA.

THBOSOPHY

30";

doubt except in affirming my existence — ' I am Brahman,'
provided that ' I ' am denuded of every quality and of all
contincrency, of evcr.vthin<r which constitutes my individuality.
Ill this way I am Brahman entire, for Brahman, being
absolute, could not have parts.

Nescience is not only a relation between the subject knowing
and the object known ; it is also the relation which emergen
between the absolute Brahman and the world of names and
forms. To this cosmic power, more particularly, the name
indya is given. Maya, (q.v.) signifies the alteration which takes
place in Brahman and in the self as both pass from the
category of the Absolute into those of time, space, and cause —
an illusory alteration, which affects the ultimate Being and the
self only in appearance. Maya modifies on the one hand
Brahman and thus creates tlie world ; but it modifies also
in the same way the Ego and creates the individual Egos. By
the existence of mdyd the unqualified Brahman becomes the
yu.ilified Brahman, the eSeat-Brahman, the lower Brajiman.
Sankara gives to this Brahman also the name of God, Wvara ;
but this God, His attributes, and the world which the lower
Brahman creates, preserves, and destroys, do not exist save in
virtue of nescience ; all is i>henoiiienal, illusory. From the
point of view of true knowledge, there is neither cause nor
effect ; neither Isivara nor world ; neither agent nor act ; but
only Being uncliaiigeable, indeterminate. Under the influence
of mdi/d, the dtiiutn becomes a ju'a. The jlcit bcc'omes in-
dividualized through everything which serves it as a substratum,
or iipddhi — the liody, the senses, the power of action, and the
faculties of knowledge. But the attributes of the jiva have no
more reality than those of I^vara. Truly speaking, the self is
not a product ; it is incorporeal, spiritual, immutable, infinite,
one.

For practical purposes and provisionally, bqth the world and
the individual exist. To both of them even Sankara pays con-
siderable attention. Both are subjects and objects of action.
Their destiny is determined by karma. 'An act cannot be
annulled ; this is the universal law ; or, at least it cannot be
annulled except through working out the result.' Action pro-
duces life, and life produces action. The self which acts will
be reborn for action, and, again, for rebirth. The chain of
causes and effects has not had a beginning. How could it have
an cud ? Fortunately, cause and effect, act and result, are the
work of nescience. And what nescience has produced, know-
ledge will destroy. ' As long as nescience has not been abolished,
the individuality of the self is not abolished, and the individual
soul continues to be the sphere of good and evil.' The in-
dividual can, by a knowledge of Brahman, escape from karma
and the miserj' of a limited life. If he has discovered how he
may attain this by a severe spiritual discipline, he can, through
concentrating his thought upon himself and by a kind of
spontaneous effort, reach the 'perfect vision,' i.e., he can
perceive the dtman in himself and thus have an intuition of
his identity with the supreme Bnihiriaii. This vision destroys
in him the remnants of personality and dissipates the mirage of
the empirical world. He is saved. He is Brahman, and in
consequence he is, in an absolute sense, being, thought, and
bliss.

(i) The Sdhkhi/a. — The Sankhya (q.v.) is of
ancient orij,'in, for its influence upon primitive
Buddliisni cannot well be disputed. The main
pronouncements of tlie school are, however, of
later date, and several centuries subsequent to the
birth of Buddha. Fortunately there are other
works — e.g., the Mahcibhdrata and some ancient
Buddhistic writings — which mark out the path of dii-
velopmentfrom the Upanisads to the classical form
of the Sankhya. As we now have it, the Sankhya,
realistic and atheistical, is Brahmanical. It has
no difficulty in including the Veda among the
standards of knowledge. It may be that, originat-
ing outside of Brahnianism, it was at a later date
recognized by the latter, and has paid for this
advantage by an adhesion, more or less nominal,
to the authority of revelation. Nevertheless, as
we find in works undoubtedly orthodox the ante-
cedents of several essential doctrines of this
system, it is more probalile that it has originated
from the same circles as tliose in whicli the ancient
Upanisads were elaborated. Its genesis can be
best explained if it is regarded as a product of
reaction against the radical idealism which is
iiniiUcit in the Ujyanisads and develops in the
Vcdatita.

The Saiikhya posits the absolute reality of the empirical
world. If it is said that the world of things is the theatre of a
perpetual becoming and that it is impossible to predicate being
of that which is impermanent, its answer is that a thing is not
real only at the moment when it manifests itself; it has also
a subtle state, in which it exists potentially in its cause. For
the effect is already to be found in its entirety in the cause :
'The effect and its cause are one.' To alfiriii the reality of
things when tliey are in the subtle state is to assert that they
are already substantial. The ordinarv man is unable to see

them in their causes because his senses are too gross. If, by
ecstasy or as a reward of exceptional merit, he intensifies his
power of vi.iion, he will perceive the subtle as easily as the
gross.

Whether subtle or gross, the world is essentially composite
and changing. Now every complex thing implies a simple
Being for the sake of whom it is formed ; everything tlriat
changes changes only for the sake of an immutable Being.
Thus, over against a substance composite and changing, the
Sankhya philosophy posits a simiile and stable substance ; with
the prakfti, which is the sphere of becoming, it contrasts the
purusa, which is Being. Everything that acts or is acted upon,
everything that changes and lives, the object known, the act
and the organs of knowledge, all depend upon prakfti. This
includes i/zux^ !is well as <^uVis, since, in the living being, the
^vx~n must nourish itself like the <^v<TLi, in order to sustain life
and growth.

The change which emerges in the physical and psychical
universe is a regular evolution, taking the form of a determina-
tion, a growing complexity, an increasing materiality. In its
creative aspect evolution brings the gross out of the subtle.
At the dissolution of the world the gross resolves itself into
the subtle. The Sankhya, which has minutely described the
successive phases of the evolutionary processes, posits 24 prin-
ciples (tattvas) which are arranged in order, from the 2'raki'ti,
the common foundation of all phenomenal existence, to the
gross elements and their combinations. It is because the
prakfti is not simple that it has been able thus to produce all
the things of the physical and mental world. It is threefold.
It is composed of three factors, themselves substantial, which
are called gui}.as. These are sattva, rajas, and tamas, goodness,
passion, and darkness. It is by their presence in infinitely
varying quantities that things affect men differently.

The 18 tattvas which in the evolution emerge between prakfti
at the one end and the gross elements at the other unite to
form the 'characteristic body,' the linga ^arira. The lintja
iarlra is subtle and is to the gross body as the cause is to the
effect ; it explains the differences, both physical and psychical,
which distinguish individuals from one another. \Vhilst the
gross body is destroyed by death, the linga §arlra passes from
birth to birth and constitutes the identity of the individual in
the series of its existences. In every life it becomes richer or
poorer according to all that a man thinks, does, or resolves. It
is like capital which bears as interest the quality of succeeding
existence. The characteristics of the purusa, or the soul, are
directly the converse of those of prakfti. The purusa is
simple, immutable, inactive, unproductive, without gui^ias. It
is also multiple. Because all the souls have not the same kind
of knowledge, and because some are free and others are still
bound, it follows of necessity that there is an infinity of souls.
But the purii^a is in itself independent of all individualization
to such an extent that we can always speak of it in the singular.
The purusa is light and understanding ; it is light without even
having anything to illumine ; it thinks without even having
any object of knowledge.

Being and becoming, both infinite, are not placed simply
over against each other. There is a relation established
between them which explains creation, knowledge, and salva-
tion. The neighbourhood of the purusa in fact causes in the
prakfti an excitation which leads in it to the formation of a
subtle body in connexion with each punisa. But the subtle
body is only the substratum of the conscious life. That
emerges in virtue of the immediate presence of the soul. It
is the form in which is expressed the relation between the
purusa and prakfti. Now this relation involves suffering for
the soul. It is real, but it is not inherent in the soul. Because
it is real, deliverance is necessary ; because it is not inherent,
deliverance is possible.

Both the purusa and the prakfti have to submit to certain
consequences of the relation in which they are bound. When
illuminated by the purusa, the modifications which take place
in the i//i;x>i of the individual become conscious. These again
are reflected upon the soul, which thus becomes subject to all
the interplay of the affections. It is in this roundabout way
that the soul arrives at a knowledge of itself. For, though it
is the subject of all knowledge, the purusa cannot know itself
directly. This knowledge becomes possible through a reflexion
coming from the mirror provided by the internal organ. The
purxisa, full of light but inactive, and the prakrti, active but
unconscious, stand to each other in the relation of the paralytic
to the blind. Their association is discovered to be beneficial
for both. In the service of the pxirusa, the prakfti is creative,
and this creation has no other end than to make knowledge
possible for the soul — which knowledge necessarily eventuates
in salvation.

A slow and elaborate process is necessary to break the bond
and suppress suffering. This is the main intention — not to
destroy actual suffering, which on other grounds would be im-
possible, but to make it abortive in its germ or in the persistent
dispositions stored in subtle form in the internal organ. A
slow internal struggle brings a man from the natural state —
i.e. the morbid state — to absolute healing. Works and asceti-
cism may prepare the ground, but it is knowledge whioh is truly
efllcacious. By means of study, self-contemplation, and medi-
tation, we may arrive at an assertion of the truth : ' I am not ;
nothing is mine ; this is not me.' One thus gets a direct per-
ception of the distinction between the Kgo and the prakfti.
To establish this distinction is to destroy the bond and to see
the purusa in its absolute purity. Henceforth the soul has no
, other substratum than itself; there is no further association
with the subtle body, no reflexion cast by it ; the soul is healed.

308

THBOSOPHY

The prakfti also derives advantage from a deliverance which,
in effect, suppresses suffering for it, inasmuch as suffering is
not felt except for so long as the pratfti is illumined by the
soul. As it would not be creative except in relation to the soul
and its salvation, it ceases to be active and returns to the
original equilibrium of the gunas. Moreover, this healing has
no value except for the liberated soul. ' Since, notwithstand-
ing the infinity of time, there are still souls not liberated, there
will be such to all eternity.' i

(5) The Yoga. — It might be asked if in the
history of Indian theosophy the place of the Yoga
(q.v.)is truly next to the Vedanta and the Sahkhya,
if its affinities are not in an altogether different
direction and with the group of systems which,
though they adojated manj' theosophical ideas,
are obviously theistic and devotional in tendency.
Does it not make a place for God, for that Isvara
who is a ' soul apart,' a unique Being, eternal, all-
powerful, all-good, all-knowing, exposed to no
suffering, to no desire or change ? Does not this
God show an infinitely benevolent activity on
behalf of men desirous of salvation ? Does He not
vouchsafe spiritual vision to His elect ? Does not
the yogi, to obtain salvation, surrender himself to
God with that feeling of complete abandonment
which is called prcmidlidna ? Finally, is not salva-
tion obtained by means of a discipline in whicii
the strictly intellectual processes have little place ?
What have the recognized means for purifying the
body and delivering the soul from the organ of
tiiought to do with the pursuit oijfldna, the know-
ledge which brings salvation ?

It is easy to answer these objections. First of
all we may remark that the role attributed to
Isvara in the scheme of salvation is really second-
ary. After the preliminary process is gone
through, there is no further intervention of divine
assistance to second the efforts of the yogi, antl
everything happens as if he had only his own
powers to rely upon. Further, the supreme end
is not, by any means, as in theistic religions,
eternal life in God or near God ; what is desired is
the absolute isolation of the individual soul. It
follotvs that, probably, when the Yoga cauie to be
systematized, Isvara was merely a survival of a
period when practices of asceticism and sorcery
were associated with Siva, a god whose vigorous
personality might seem incompatible with an
exclusively human conception of salvation. In
fine, Isvara was no more an inconvenient intrusion
in the Brahmanical Yoga than in the monistic
Vedanta ; it is even possible that his presence was
indirectly the sign of the penetration of the Yoga
by the theosophical .spirit.

The Yoga, desirous of specially emphasizing the
practical conditions of 'meditation and saving-
ecstasy, would naturally disregard study and
reflexion, since neither of them was of service in
securing the marvellous powers for which the
yogi was ambitious. But, as in Brahmanizing
itself it had adopted very nearly in its entirety
the doctrine of the Sankhya, there was really no
need to indicate the acquisition of knowledge as
among the demands imposed by the need for salva-
tion. This acquisition could have been considered
as implicitly prescribed from beginning to end.
In any case it is interesting to point out that in an
Upanisad greatly influenced by Yoga ideas, the
Maitri Upanisad, the examination of reflexion
had a place among the members of Yoga. Perhaps
we have in this a proof dra%vn from a period before
the Yoga became entirely allied to the Sahkhya.

In other characteristics the Yoga shows itself
faithful to the theosophical spirit. It rests upon
very ancient beliefs closely related to magic. The
remarkable manifestations of patience, will-power,
and intelligence reveal the presence of supernatural
faculties and imply in their possessors a new
acquisition of energy. Besides, the accomplish-
1 Snfikhya Sutras, i. 15S.

ment of salvation depends entirely upon personal
effort. There is no possible doubt that the Yoga
belongs legitimately to the same spiritual family
as the Sahkhya and the Vedanta.

Properly speaking, the Yoga is the act by which
the senses and the understanding are held in
restraint ; turned resolutely in one single direction,
the mind acquires greater force and certain new
faculties. The processes regarded as efficacious
had already been employed for a long time when
Patahjali formulated his theory of them. If, as
is probable, the author of the Yoga Sutras is the
same as the illustrious grammarian of the same
name, then this spiritual discipline was systemat-
ized in the 2nd cent. B.C. But, in the influence
which from the beginning it exerted upon Buddh-
ism, we have proof that it goes much farther back.
The proper object of the Yoga, as supplied with
doctrines by the Sahkhya, is, as the first of the
Sutras says, ' the suppression of the modifications
of the thinking principle,' i.e. of the understand-
ing. Freed from all chitta, the purusa regains its
own nature. We are not concerned, as in the
Vedanta, with recognizing by an ettbrt of thought
the identity of the Ego and the universal self ; nor
with distinguishing, as in the Sahkhya, the self
from that whicli is not the self ; the aim is to
bring about the integration of the soul, in which
consists her salvation.

The yogi pupil has difficult conditions to fulfil. A long and
painful process of preparation is imposed upon him, so that he
may trmmph over all the obstacles inherent in the feebleness
of man. It is in the first phase of this process that devotion
and the practice of mortification have their parts to play.
Whenever this propaedeutic has fulfilled its functions, the adept
may proceed to exercises which lead to the suppression of the
intellectual functions and the detachment of the soul. Accord-
ing to the authoritative scheme, the programme of this gym-
nastic is divided into eight members. Five of these rubrics aim
at the bringing of the body under control. They comprise
interdictions and injunctions, prescriptions relative to the
positions to be taken in meditation, and others which have for
their aim the control of breathing, and, finally, the procedure
which has to be followed in restraining the senses and destroy-
ing communications between the mind and the external world.
There is special insistence upon the regulation of the breath,
on the ground that individual life and thought are bound up
with respiration, and that to control the one is to dominate the
other. When, finally, the body has been purified, it becomes
possible to exercise control on thought ; three kinds of exercisea
lead it progressively towards unification, the destruction of
individuality, and isolation.

Another method, more violent and more complicated, is
founded upon a most bizarre kind of physiology. Through
modifying and even stopping the circulation of the vital spirits
in the channels of the body, the yogi succeeds in suppressing
the natural functions of the understanding and in exalting the
power of action and of vision. Strange phenomena accompany
the last phases of this spiritual process: colours appear which
are invisible to the ordinary man ; sounds are heard ; the yogi
sinks into a ' mystic slumber.' Sometimes also the strain of so
much effort ends in madness. The texts expatiate at great
length on the manifold advantages which Yoga brings to its
disciples. First of all there are benefits of an entirely mundane
character: health, youth, and beauty. Especially there is
obtained a 'sovereign power' which enables those who possess
it to realize immediately all that they desire, to make them-
selves at will exceedingly small or big, light or heavy ; to control
the elements ; to guide the will or sentiments of another ; to
change the nature of substances, to distribute their personality
amongst several different bodies, etc. But for the yogi the
spiritual results have more value. In seven stages the soul
obtains liberation, first of all from the external world, then from
the hindrances which come to it through its association with the
organs of the intelligence and the will. Liberated from the
world of results, the soul rejoices in pure tranquillity ; dissociated
from the internal organs, it tastes the ineffable delights of
ecstasy, and reaches without any distraction the state of in-
tegration (kaivalya) in which is its salvation.

Before leaving Brahmanic theosophy, we may
point out that in more than one characteristic it
is very closely connected with Western occultism
iq.v.). Our theosophists have, like the Vediintists,
a marked tendency towards monism ; their anthro-
pology has borrowed much from the Sahkhya
philosophy ; they authorize exercises which are
not without analogy to those prescribed by the
Yoga.

2. Theosophy as the germ of new religions. — In

THBOSOPHY

309

Brahinanisni the theo!soi>liical doctrines are placed
alongside of the old tradition, and religious society
remains confined to the old framework. When
theosophy is transformed into a religion, the con-
ditions are altogether altered. Henceforth a man
becomes a member of a community, not because
of his birth, but because of his adherence to a
certain belief ; the idea and the group are co-
extensive. Moreover, theosophy ceases to be a
mere intellectual doctrine ; it takes entire pos-
session of the individual, and aims at maintain-
ing among its adherents the unity of discipline
and of life.

Two religions have sprung from the movement
of thought which Ave tind permeating the old
Upanisads, viz. Jainism and Buddhism, Seeing
that they are born in the same spiritual environ-
ment, it is not strange that they should have many
characteristics in common. Their doctrines, their
legends, their rules of life, have an unmistakable
air of family relationship. The worship itself, in
its outer forms, is so similar in various particulars
that from the outside one might easily confuse the
two systems ; witness only the tale of Asvaghosa
in which one finds King Kaniska worshipping a
Jain atupa under the impression that it is Buddh-
istic. Jainism and Buddhism are both products
of the process of crystallization which was a feature
of the period of the ancient Upanisads. Besides
Bralimans practising strict observance of rites and
a solitary asceticism, India has been familiar with
what one might call wandering cenobitism. The
teachers, accompanied by their disciples, go from
place to place, not settling down anywhere except
during the montlis of the rainy season. These
parivrdjakas, in the course of insti'ucting their
pupils, discuss the most diverse subjects. The
groups are not closed. Kound about a knot of
faithful disciples there gathers a numerous body of
adherents and friends. If Jainism and Buddhism
have been able to transform themselves into
Churches, the reason is that they have understood
better than some other sahghas how to attach the
laity by solid bonds and to organize the community
by fixed rules. There is now no doubt that Jainism
is prior to Buddhism. Buddhists themselves do
not hesitate to admit the fact. But Jain writings
are certainly posterior — and very much so — to
those of Buddhism. It may well be that, if there
has been borrowing, the Jains have been the
debtors. If we begin with them, it is not in order
to lay stress on the relative dates, but rather
because, on the whole, the Jainist Church has
remained more faithful to the theosophical tradi-
tion of the Upanisads.

(1) Jainism. — Jainism {q.v,) has all the char-
acteristics of a theosophical religion. It puts at
the centre of its teaching the doctrine of karma
(q.v.), and shows itself chietly interested in human
destiny. It aims at delivering men from the
misery of the sarhsdra. It demands that the in-
dividual should be the instrument of his own
regeneration. It searches for the saving truth
beyond phenomena and sensible perception, and,
as a consequence, asserts the authority of persons
endowed with exceptional faculties of vision and
knowledge. It places itself outside the Brahmanic
tradition. Nothing more is heard of Isvara. Jain-
ism is a ' human ' doctrine, ^ahkara sees in this a
reason for its condemnation. Because it opposes
to Vedic tradition a new rule, this theologian
accuses it of not being 'revealed.' And yet Jain-
ism also makes it a duty for its disciples to have
faith in the words of an onuiiscient master, who
made known the way of emancipation, who has
triumphed over the world of death, and who,
because of this, has received the surname of Jina
(' the Victorious ').

Perliaps because the Jains appeal to omniscient teachers, they
have; pioumljjateil a Ihcorj- of knowledge which forbids any
absolute aflirniation or denial. Everj' proposition has a relative
value only (anekdntaudda); a thing is not thus ; in a way it is
this ; I can say that a thing is not, that it is, and that it is not,
that it 'cannot be spoken of," etc., only if it is understood that
these predicates are true merely relatively and under certain
reservations (syddvdda). As far as one can conjecture from the
examples which illustrate the various dialectic 'refractions'
{bhanga), the aim of the syddvdda is to show that nothing can
be known except in relation to the totality of the universa,
where birth, duration, and death rule together, and that,
relativelj' to this indeterminate universe, things are themselves
indeterminate. ' Everything is indeterminate by the very
fact of its existence.' i The aim of this doctrine was to destroy
at one and the same time the monistic dogmatism of the Vedante
and the negations of the sceptical schools.

Everything in the universe comes under one or other of the
five categories of substances (dravya) : soul (better, life), space,
merit, non-merit, and material molecules. Souls (jiva) and
molecules (jnidgala) are infinitely numerous ; space, merit, and
non-merit are single. Merit (dharvia) has the effect of f \irther-
ing the progress of the soul ; non-merit (adharma) leaves it
stationary. The progress of the soul is the consequence of its
karma.

In fact, the soul is by its nature limited and active. Aa
limited, it has the dimensions of the body, which serves as its
substratum ; it is lessened and increased along with the body.
As active, it receives in virtue of its terma an influx of material
molecules, which, according to their quality, are Islack, blue,
grey, yellow, rose-colour, and white, and wiiich affect the jlva
by giving it various colours. This influx of karmic matter is
the bond which links the soul to the saihsdra. The individual
who aspires to salvation has the task of purifying his soul. By
asceticism he eliminates the pudgala which stain it. By drain-
ing off the acquired karma, asceticism is the essential factor in
nirjard, or the burning up of the effects of karma. Thus one of
the characteristics of Jainism is the extreme importance which
it assigns to tapas. It is not sufficient to annul the past ; it is
also necessary to prevent the formation of new karma. And
this desirable result is produced by discipline, by sarhvara. In
its two principal forms it prevents the entrance of the karmic
pxidgala into the jlva ; the two forms are control (gvpti) and
good behaviour {samiti). By gupti the soul represses the activ-
ity of the body, of speech, and of the mind ; by samiti it so
behaves as not to injure or offend any one. Reflexion and
meditation are also efficacious means of discipline and of defence
against the pernicious influx. Right vision {i.e. right faith),
right knov^iedge, and right conduct complete the way of de-
liverance. And, just as an elixir does not heal an3- one except
him who knows it, has faith in it, and applies it properly, so
the Three Jewels cannot produce deliverance unless they are
united.

Henceforth, liberated from the sarhsdra, the zealous .Jain is
a siddha, a perfected being. He is disburdened of all karmic
matter. He is without colour. His soul, lightened of every
hindrance — like a flame which rises by its own strength — begins
its course upwards towards the higher regions of the universe.
There he enjoys a happy and eternal existence. Mok^a has the
effect of rendering the jivas detached and free.

(2) Buddhism. — Buddhism also is a theosophy
which has expanded into a religion. If the ' high
priest' of Ceylon can give his approval to the
catechism drawn up by Colonel Olcott, and, still
more, if the communities of Cejdon, Burma,
Japan, and Mongolia give their adhesion to the
fourteen articles in whicli the same writer gathers
together the fundamental beliefs of Buddhism, the
reason lies in the unmistakable athnity between
the tendencies of present-day Buddhism and those
of Western theosophical societies. But we have
no need of external proof to enable us to as.sert
the fundamentally theosophical character of the
teaching of Gautama Buddha.

' As the ocean has only one savour, the savour of water, so
the doctrines whicli I teach and the rule which I establish
have only one savour, that of salvation.'- Buddha wishes to
save men, not from sin, but from suffering and death.

He summons all men to salvation. ' The gate of immortality
is open for all beings. Let him who has ears come, hear the
Word and believe.' 3

He rejects the authority and traflitional knowledge of the
Brahmans. 'In a line of blind men who attach themselves to
one another, the first does not see, the man in the middle does
not .see, the last does not see. Such are the discourses of the
Brahmans. Their faith is without foundations.' •*

He makes salvation a personal matter for each individual.
' Be your own lamps ; be your own refuge. Po not search out-
side yourselves for a lamp or a refuge.' ^ ' You must yourselves
make the necessary effort. A Buddha is only a counsellor.' 6

Finally, the framework of the building erected by Buddha

1 Sarradarsaiia Sutras, p. 29. - Vlnilltxriujiia, IX. i. 4.

■'• Miiji/iiiiiK .Mkiiyn, i. 170. •» lb. ii. lliSlii.

s Digha Nikdya, Ii. 101 {= !Hahdpannibbdna,sutta, eh. ii.).
6 Dhammapada, v. 270.

310

THBOSOPHY

is constructerl almost entirely from materials borrowed from
the Rralunanical schools, nurtured in the teaching of the
dpani^ads.

The method of salvation which Buddha preaches
to men incliules rules of life and truths of an
intellectual character. But since it is well under-
stood that his teaching has but one savour, there
is no hint that men shuuld practise virtue because
it is virtue, or search for knowledge because of the
practical or intellectual satisfaction which know-
ledge brings. Morality and learning, in intention
at least, are looked at only from the narrow point
of view of .salvation. Thence come the limits
within which they move. In fact, Buddha did
not wish to teach either morality or science, but
only a therapeutic of the will and a therapeutic
of the intelligence. When once a man is healed
from moral evil and from error, he may work
onwards towards salvation.

(a) Therapeutic of the cmid net. —Only a soul purified by
moral discipline can receive with profit the teaching of the
Law. The most formidable enemy of salvation is the desire for
sensual enjoyment. Sensuality figures in all the lists of de-
praviiies, infections, obstacles, and hindrances. It is against
sensuality that men have chiefly to struggle. Hence tho
imperious necessity of exercising constant control over the
senses. Of all the virtues vigilance is most characteristic of
Buddhistic moral teaching.

(b) Therapeiitic of the intellect. — Knowledge is not less
necessary than good conduct. Like good conduct, it has
chiefly a negative value. In theosopliies closely connected
with Brahmanism know-ledge is a working out of deliverance in
a positive manner, because upon the topics of God, tlie world,
the soul, and human destiny there is a body of knowledge
directly efficacious for salvation. But the point of view of
Buddha and his earlier disciples is quite different. That which
tliey want is to deliver the mind from unfavourable thoughts
which may hinder the individual or at least lead him in a falte
way. It can be understood how different are the conditions
under which the spiritual struggle presents itself according as
one admits or denies the existence of eternal and immutablr
beings, whether inuuanent or transcendent or both. Buddha's
aim was to show that in the succession of phenomena no cause
was revealed which was not itself phenomenal, and to deduce
from this proposition the consequences affecting the moral
life of the individual. The earliest Buddliisni neither knew
nor wished to recognize anything other than phenomena.
Phenomena, both physical and psychical, constitute dharma.
In us and outside of us we reach nothing but dharma, not
because of our mental incapacity, but because neither in us nor
outside of us is there anj'thing but dharma. The constituents
of dharma are not hung, as it were, upon a substance of which
they are the momentary phases ; they are themselves the whole
reality. Primitive Buddhism is thus at the opposite pole from
the Ved.\nta, which abstracts from phenomena and regards
Absolute Being as the only reality.

Whether subjective or objective, phenomena are incessantly
changing, and things are involved in a perpetual flux.
Phenomena are just those states of individuals and objects of
which the essential characteristic is complexity. Now only
the simple and homogeneous can be permanent. The human
individual is an assemblage of five kinds of aggregates, and
this composite is modified from moment to moment. What is
called the individual (pudffala) is a series, more or less lengthy,
of the phases of composites continually altering. The move-
ment of aggregates, or of combinations of aggregates, does not
lake place by chance, or witliout any system. One cause
determines tlie condition of every new combination, and this
cause is the quality of the antecedent combination. With
conscious individuals, who alone are interested in the theory
of salvation, the causal combination is an agent, and his action
produces results of two kinds; it manifests itself externally
as the immediate cause of phenomena, and internally as a
modification of the doer himself of the action. Karma may be
defined as the reaction of the act upon the subject. This
reaction takes place generally at 'the dissolution of the body
after death,' in such a way that the binding force of one
individual life reappears in another individual life. As Buddhism
has discarded every hjpothesis not connected with visible
forms of existence, it does not posit a subtle body as the vehicle
of karma, or an Isvara as the controller of resultants. Even at
a distance karma is a force whicli works mechanically. More-
over, it fulfils in Buddhism the function of explaining the
congenital differences whicli are found among men, and of
awakening in the hearts of the faithful adherents the feeling
of their moral responsibility.

Karma is far from being a doctrine specifically Eudilhistic.
The same cannot be said of the two sets of rules tlie discovery
of which transformed the potential into the actual bnddha:
the Four Noble Truths and (he Twelve Causes. These Buddh-
ism has always claimed as its own. The Truths are sufteruig,
its cause, its suppression, and the way which leads to suppres-
sion. ' What is impermanent, that is suffering.' i ' 'Tlie craving

1 Saihyutta Nikdya, iv. 26.

for existence and for the cessation of existence are the causes
of suffering.'! 'The suppression of suffering consists in the
destruction of the craving by the complete suppression of
desire."^ We arrive at suppression by following the Noble
Eightfold Path — right knowledge, right willing, right speech,
etc. The ultimate significance of the Twelve Causes is to
explain suffering without having recourse to any principle
except those recognized by Buddhism, viz. the aggregates,
karma, and the Noble Truths. Through one causal link after
another, the life of suffering is connected with its deepest
source, viz. ignorance. In t!.:s way there is excluded the
notion of a soul which would be essentially and incurably
suffering. There is eliminated also the interference of a God
who imposes the suffering upon His creatures ; if the misery
came from outside, it would not be in the power of man to put
an end to it. It does not belong to the Ego as a permanent
substance, and, since the older theosophy had shown that man
cannot find God except in and through the Ego, Buddhism, iii
denying the atman, is compelled also to deny Brahman, the
orig'inal and immanent cause of the universe.

If Buddhism is a theosophy, it is m\ich more a
religion, lieligion aims at satisfying much more
varied needs than does an essentially intellectual
doctrine. Religion is a manner of living, and not
only a manner of thinking. The necessities of
life and of controversy soon compelled Buddhism to
extend considerably the range of its practical and
dogmatic teaching.

In ethics Buddhism was far from confining itself
to the limits imposed by the demands of salvation.
In seeking to give the greatest possible efl'ective-
ness to its moral pronouncements, Buddhism does
not take the trouble to co-ordinate systematically
the lessons which circumstances suggest. When
it addresses itself to the laity — as frequently
happens — it disregards the special conditions of
the strictly religious life, and its precepts obtain
a universal significance. The exclusive interests
of personal salvation are then so far from its
thought that the virtues which it enjoins have a
social and human value — compassion, charity,
humility. Similarly there is an expansion of
doctrine. Questions kept in reserve at the begin-
ning soon had to be investigated, and the reason
for this was that facility might be obtained foi-
discussing them with rival schools. Ontological
and epistemological topics soon became the order
of the day. It was inevitable that, even within
the limits of Buddhism, some divergent solutions
would be proposed. Hence the appearance of sects
in which tendencies showed themselves which had
hitherto remained latent : the realistic schools
of the Sarvastivadins, the idealistic schools of
the Yogacharas, the nihilist schools of the
Madhyamikas.

The later disciples of Buddha deliberately
abandon the prudent agnosticism of their Master.
Their speculations are concerned with the tran-
scendental world (lokottara). Even the funda-
mental unity of the universe is affirmed (doctrine
of the tathnta). It is noteworthy also that Buddha
himself, who from the earliest times had been
regarded as the perfect example of humanity,
comes to represent, in the theory of the Threefokl
Body, at one and the same time, phenomenal
existence, non-sensible existence, and absolute
existence — the body of creation, the body of bliss,
and the body of the Law.

But, even when considerably amplified, conduct
and knowledge are not given more tliau a negative
imjiortance as regards salvation. Upon the soil
cleared by them the problem is now to con.struct
the properly religious life. On what plan will
this building be erected ? It will be no matter of
astonisliment that, being at once theosophical and
rc^ligious, Buddhism has conceived a double ideal
of life and has projwsed two difl'erent methods.
To become arhats and accomplish their own
salvation was the aim of the sthavirus of the
ancient Church ; they are the adherents of tht'
Lesser Vehicle. Those of the Greater Vehicle

1 Mahavagga, i. vi. 20.

- lb. I. vi. 21.

THBOSOPHY

311

aspire Lo I;cc(j;i;o builiusativas arid believe in
religions solidarity.^ It was enough for the first
to transform a sinner into a saint ; the others
have more ambition ; they desire that the sinner,
following in the footsteps of Buddha, should
become a saviour. It can easily be understood
that the way of the arhat and the career of the
bodhisattva separated themselves perceptibly from
one another.

(a) The way to arhatship.— Conversion makes of the Buddhist
?. new num. He 'enters into the ciiirent.' By an energetic
:uid long-continued strugfrle he destroys in himself the adverse
principles. Two roads to the goal now open up before him.
The one is through a series of spiritual exercises. Meditation
and intense concentration secure in him serviceable tranquillity
(^amatha). No more of attachment, no more of desires ; the
very residues of desire are destroyed. The results of the
liberation of the heart are clear vision (vipasyand) and wisdom
(prajild). The other way is that of enfranchisement (oimofcsa).
The path to the awakening is by ecstatic contemplation
(dhydna). From ecstasy to ecstasy the monk rises in eight
stages (the samapatti) to a state of being which is neither
thought nor the absence of thought. It is the suppression of
voluptuous ideas, of discursive ideas, of joy, of breathing — the
abolition of the world of forms by that of space, and of the
world of space by that of knowledge ; of the world of knowledge
by that of the non-existence of things, and of the last by that
in which there are neither ideas nor the absence of ideas.
Arrived at this already very elevated stage, the arya enters
into possession of superior powers (the six abhijnd). But it
is necessary to go even higher. A ninth and last samapatti
leads to the 'dissolution of all conscious perception,' to 'the
awakening,' to sambodhi. When one has taken the way of
wisdom or of enfranchisement, one becomes an arhat (q.v.), a
saint. The arhat has done ' that which he had to do.' When
his karwa is drained off, he will be extinguished without his
last thought or his last aggregate giving rise to a further
thought or a further combination.

O) Tlie way to BuddhaMp.— As the ideal is higher, the method
is; more complicated. The career of the bodhisatfra, (q.o.)
demands a long preparation and solemn pledges. There must
emerge in the man the ' thought of illumination ' (bvdhichitta),
that he should take the vow to do everything to arrive at the
goal (pranrdhdna) ; that by an act of will he should ' assign ' to
the advantage of another his actions and the fruit of his actions
(parindmand). Then commences the struggle properly so
called. In order to obtain illuminntion, the bodhisattva must
provide himself with a double equipment, merit and knowledge.
The programme which has to be followed includes acts of
worship, rules of conduct, and the practice of meditation.
The object is to acquire successively the ten perfections (para-
mita), each corresponding to a spiritual world (a bhumi). At
the end of this long ascent the bodhisattva obtains finally the
illumination which makes him a buddha, i.e. a liberator of
creatures, an ultra-phenomenal being still sojourning for a time
ill the phenomenal world.

For arhat and bodhuattva the eventuality is the
same — nirvana (q.v.), extinction. WJiat does it
matter that neither Buddha nor his authorized
disciples have said what iiirvdna is ? If one knows
that it is the abolition of suffering and death, of
relative and individual existence, that is enougii
to make it an infinitely de.sirable state. If Buddha
has gained control over natures of the most diverse
qualities, it is just because he has left them the
liberty of imagining a nimana conformable to
their needs and their aspirations.

Let us take a look backwards. We may agree
that Buddhism has certainly characteristic marks
of a theosophical system. It regards ignorance as
the source of all the evil of living, and knowledge
as the panacea of suffering. It seeks to deliver its
adherents from the fear of death. It endeavours
to upset the Brahmanical methods of salvation.
It denies that texts or doctrines liave any direct
value for salvation, and it affirms the value
of 'vision,' of intuition arrived at by internal con-
centration and ecstatic meditation. It demands
that every man should be the architect of his own
salvation, and, even though it multiplies the
'saviours,' it no less (M))]ihasizes for the individ-
ual the necessity of jtersoiial ollort. It teaches
that knowledge is ])ower, and that spiritual excel-
lence manifests itself outwardly in extraordinary
faculties. It breaks through the Iraililiunal frame-
work and urges the individual to WDrk without
procraslination towards his regeneration and so to
1 See artt. I1i.\a,.\n.\, Mau'-v.^na.

arrange matters tiiat this labour shall fill his wliole
life.

3. Introduction of theosophy into sectarian
religions. — Bralimanism in its diii'erent aspects was
only one of the forms of the religious life ; in
every period there was also the popular current,
powerful, infinitely varied, and mobile. Just as
in the sacerdotal tradition minutely elaborated
rites occupy the principal place, gods and demons
are central in the po^iular religion, and the wor-
sliip which is given to them, mixed throughout as
it is with superstitions ami gross practices, answers
more fully to the idea which is generally held of
devotion and of piety. These two religious con-
tents have not existed side by side without exert-
ing an influence upon each other. We have here
to do only with the influence exerted by the theo-
sophy of Brahmanism. This iniluence is only a
particular illustration of the growing preponder-
ance which the sacerdotal caste obtained in all the
moral life of India, and of which the Buddhistic
writings themselves give unmistakable evidence.
Nothing is more natural than this primacy. The
Brahmanical families had at their disposal two
powerful forces, tradition and coliesion. In a
society which was crumbling to its foundations
they formed a solid group, cemented by com-
munity of interest and of ambitions and reinforced
by the habits of knowledge and of virtue. Popu-
lar forms of worship, legal and social rules, and
secular poetry no doubt flourisiied to a large
extent outside of Brahmanical circles ; but the
influence of the latter has none the less suc-
ceeded in filtering through at every point. Just
as Sanskrit, the scholastic idiom of the Brah-
mans, invaded the epic and the drama, the popular
style, and the literature of business, so the IJrah-
mans made themselves the theologians of the
sectarian religions. They ajiplied to them the
methods of their systematizing temperament.
They also introduced into them their conceptions
of being, of the world, and of destiny, hesitating
less to popularize these conceptions since Buddh-
ism had already deprived them of their esoteric
character.

We have in the I\Ia.h(lbhdrata [q.v.) excellent
evidence of the appropriation by Brahmanism of
materials which were without doubt independent.
This document is all the more significant because
it shows clear traces of successive accretions, and
because its slow elaboration was carried through
during the many centuries when the Brahmans
were gradually estabiisliing their spiritual domina-
tion. We may regard the poem as completed, in
the form in which we knoM' it, at tlie time when
neo-BiTilimanism was triumphant, i.e. in the 4th
or oth cent. a.d. And this voluminous encyclo-
panlia of the traditional knowledge of the Hindus
is something more than a witness ; it was also one
of the agents, perhaps the most cliective of all, in
the expansion of Brahmanism in India. Before,
during, and after the composition of the great epic,
a mass of writings emerge to illuminate or supple-
ment its evidence — sectarian Upanim(h, Dhar-
i)i(tsd,stras (as the first of which we may regard
that which bears thenameof Manu),P«r«»f<5, books
written in prose or in verse by the numerous
reformers of Hinduism or under their influence.
Unfoi'tunately the investigation of this rich litera-
ture has not yet been coiupletetl.

!'>y gaining entrance into works definitely jiopu-
lar, tlie ideas whose develu])ment w(> bave iiitiierto
l'ollo\\ed in the texts of a .sehool or in I lie monastic
literature beg.au to exert a powerful iniluence upon
the general tliought of Indin, ; and not liing jiroves
more cllectively the plasticity of religious thought
than the faithfulness with which conceptions
originally monistic and antitheistic persist, almost

312

THBOSOPHY

unchanged, in sects permeated with the most
ardent devotion.

As in the ancient theosophy, the soul is haunted by the
thought of death : 'Every being is in fear of death.' i 'Some
men in their fear of death have died of fear.' 2 'Xhe world
is under the attack of Mrtyu. How dost thou not think of
it?' ' Do to-day that which you will have to do to-morrow:
do this morning what you will have to do to-night. Death
does not trouble itself with what one has done or with what
one has not done. It seizes a man as a wolf carries off a lamb.' ■*
There is not a moment to lose : ' the days pass away ; life
wears to an end. Rouse yourself and run.' 4

The new religious conceptions bring home to men the neces-
sity and the way of salvation : ' Let a man search for a remedy
through the suppression of suffering and let him apj)ly it with-
out murmuring. Then he will be free from misery.' 5 It is the
individual life which is full of suffering and death ; it is neces-
sary to get deliverance from it : ' Death has two syllables, for it
is mama, everything that I consider as my own. Brahman
has three syllables, na mama, for in it nothing is mine.'*'
There is always the same hate of the body and its fugitive
pleasures : ' Let one becoming an ascetic, abandon this stinking
body, full of filth and urine, subject to old age and disappoint-
ment, the abode of maladies, burnt by passions and perishable.' '
' All the joys which arise from contact with the world are a
source of suffering ; they begin : they end ; the wise man does
not find in them any pleasure.' 8

How is man to be saved ? The means of salvation have
become more numerous and more varied. There is nothing
more interesting than to mark the persistence of the ancient
ideas and the traditional formulas. The new has not destroyed
the old. Salvation is the result of an effort entirely personal.
' Strengthening your soul by your soul, vanquish the enemy who
reclothes the forms of desire, and who is difficult to strike.' ^
' The yogi is he who finds within himself his hajipiness, within
himself his pleasure, within himself his light.' lu 'Let a man
establish the self by the self and suffer not the self to be over-
whelmed, for no man has any other friend than himself, or any
other enemy than himself.' ii Salvation is still the result of
knowledge, a knowledge which is acquired by concentration of
thought and meditation : ' Knowledge is the best vessel (for
traversing the sea of the saihsdra).' ^"^ To know Brahman is
to obtain peace ' which has as its final result nirvdi^ci ' ; 13 it is
oneself to become Brahman.

As may be seen from the last passages, it is the
solution of the Vedanta which obtains most favour
of all those proposed by the Brahmanical schools.
Kecourse is had readily to the Sankhya when one
wishes to analyze the universe and the soul, or to
the Yoga for teaching as to the practice of con-
centration and ecstasy ; but the theory of molcsa
remains essentially monistic and pantheistic. As
far as the evidence gathered from the great epic is
concerned, the doctrine which is adhered to is not
the radical monism of Saiikara (which was indeed
later than the centuries during which the Maha-
bhdrata was finally redacted), but the monism of
the U2X(7iimds and of Badarayana : the world of
names and forms is real, but it is Brahman who is
the reality of its reality. The Bhagavad-Glta does
not leave any doubt on this point :

' others offering me the sacrifice of knowledge, give to me
worship as to a being at once universal and individual, wlio,
under various forms, extends himself in every direction.' I'l
'The knowledge of goodness is that through which is seen in
all beings the one imperishable Being, a whole in every par-
ticular being.' 15 ' One portion of me has entered into theworld
of living beings, as the soul of the individual, the imperishable
portion.' 16 'The knowledge by which thou wilt perceive all
beings without e.xception in thyself and then in me, will for
ever give thee a refuge from error.' iv ' In the Brahman, in the
ox and the elephant, in the dog and also in the eater of the
flesh of the dog, the wise man sees only one and the same
being.' 18 'He who sees me in everything and everything in
me, is never far from me, and I am never far from hini.'ia

God is immanent in all beings, but He is not con-
fused with them ; He is the principle of life which
animates them, the principle of all spirituality.

Finally, He is not only immanent ; He is also
transcendent. Things are in Him, but He is not
in them. The world of phenomena does not ex-

1 Mahdbhurata, iii. 2. 40.

3 lb. xii. 2S3. 9 ff.

« lb. iii. 219. 28.

7 Laws of Mann, vi. 76 £.

9 lb. iii. 43.
11 lb. vi. 5.

^3 Bhag.-GUn, ii. TOff.
15 lb. xviii. 20.
17 lb. iv. 3.-1.
iw lb. vi. 30.

2 lb. iii. 101. 15.

* lb. xii. 329. 8.

6 lb. xiv. 51. 29.

« Bhagavad-Glta, v. 22.
10 lb. V. 24.

1- Mahabh. xii. 291. 44.
" lb. ix. 15.
16 lb. XV. 7.
18 lb. v. 18.

haust His nature. He has an inferior nature which
reveals itself in names and forms, and a superior
nature which is also a living soul. He is distin-
guished from the immortal and imi)erishable
Brahman of which He is the foundation, just as
He is the foundation of eternal law and perfect
blessedness. Thus, without going beyond the
limits of the Bhagavad-Gitd, we can see theism
substituting itself for the original i>an theism, and
a personal God taking the place of Brahman. The
evolution completes itself in the modified monism
of Kamanuja, and the spiritualistic dualism of
Madliva. The worship of the guru, which is so
persistent a characteristic of the modern sects, has
its source in the same conceptions. God, who is
the essential excellence in all beings and in all the
categories of being, specially manifests His ador-
able nature in the persons who behold and who
reveal the truth.

When, in a passage from the Bhagavad-Gitd
which has just been quoted, the god alludes to the
'others,' who otter the sacrifice of knowledge, he
puts them over against those who render the wor-
ship of love. At once pantheistic and theistic,
the poem places on the same level the two methods
of salvation — knowledge and bhakti. The explana-
tion is that in Hindu thought nothing which has
once been acquired is ever altogetiier eliminated.
Tradition and novelty, animism and ritualism,
naturalism and theosophy, scholasticism and
mysticism — in short, the most contrary ideas —
live together in the same minds and in the
same writings. In theory the advaita may be
professed, but in fact the dvaita, and even a
plurality of co-eternal principles, is affirmed. It
is, as it were, tacitly understood that an affirma-
tion has value in itself, and that it is not annulled
by adjacent affirmation. In his everyday life
Sahkara was a Vaisnava — we could hardly imagine
this in reading his commentary on the Vedanta
Sutras. These men duplicate themselves with
wonderful ease. So it is vain to attempt to apply
to the Bhagavad-Gitd the critical processes devised
for Western works. In separating the disparate
elements and the successive layers, we should
succeed only in ruining the unmistakable artistic
beauty of the poem. Works much later than the
Bhagavad-Gitd exhibit a character equally com-
posite. Theosophic conceptions and formulas are
mingled with ett'usions of an ardent and humble
piety. One marks this characteristic in many
writings attributed to the founders and poets of
the reforming sects, Kabir, Tulsi Das, Chaitanya,
etc. The most recent representatives of an en-
lightened Vedanta, llamakrsna and Vivekananda,
also unite the bhakti-mdrga with a phraseology
Avhich has become traditional since the period of
the older Uj^anisads. There has been formed in
India as it were a stock of words, ideas, and illus-
trations which belongs to every one and from
which every one has the right to draw and is in
the habit of drawing. One example will be sufK-
cient to show how heavy a weight this theosoj>hy
of the past lays upon a thought which in other
respects shows itself to be original and independent.

Nanak {q.v.), the founder of Sikhism, and his successors
connect themselves with the religion of bhakti. They teach
that a man is saved by the fervent worshi]) of God, or by the
worship of the gurus, the interpreters of God, and of the iiook,
the perpetual incarnation of the gurus. But the God of the
Sikhs is like the Brahman of the (fpanii<ads, and frequently
borrows His name from the latter. In His own proper nature He
is nirguna, without attributes ; when He creates the world by
means of mdyd. He is also immanent in the phenomenal world
and becomes sarvagmja, endowed with all qualities. In order
to be saved, one must discover God in the heart ; through self-
concentration the mind eliminates all duality. To know God
is to make oneself identical with God. God unites with Him-
self tlie man who knows Him, and this man is not reborn. As
regards this life, salvation wins for him who is assui-ed of it
unbounded happiness, and death ha.s no more terror.s for him.

THEOSOPHY

313

The j;rciit Vaiunavite and Saivite sects are, quite
as much as Sikhism, impregnated with theosophy.
Their appearance is in itself evidence of an indi-
vidualism in revolt against the excessive pressure
of a religious tradition. Those who assert the
authority of the Vedas are ridiculed. The frame-
work in which the divine is placed is broken ; no
great importance is any longer attached to the
name w'hich the gods bear — Siva or Visnu, the
label is difi'erent, but it is always the same god.
The human framework is also broken ; the religious
value of caste is denied, and all men are called to
salvation. The distinction between the sacred
and the profane is abolished. Generally the first
concern of the reformers is to put Sanskrit on one
side in favour of an exclusive use of the popular
language.

' The whole world for me,' says Nanak, ' is a sacred enclosure.
Whoever loves the truth is pure.' ' All food and drink which
come from God aire pure.' i

The mechanical and the excessively ritualistic
elements in the old religion are removed. Religion
tends to become more human, more closely con-
nected with ordinary life ; the Bhagavad-Gitd has
already expressed something approaching a senti-
ment of human solidarity, then an idea new in
India. Moreover, religious tolerance becomes
almost universal. Royal inscriptions prove that
Brahmanism, Jainisni, Buddhism, Saivism, and
Vaisnavism have their representatives in the same
families, and the sovereigns extend their favours
to all the communities. Is it not clear that re-
ligion has become an affair of the individual, and
that the son is not in this respect bound to follow
the example of his father ?

Unfortunately the sects which were originally
the boldest very soon fall into the old errors, or,
rather, a new tradition, also altogetlier tyrannical,
is established in place of the ancient tradition ;
or, still more frequently, the older safeguards are
restored and most weighty concessions are made to
the prevailing ideas. The popular language takes
on, in its turn, a sacred character. Caste and re-
strictions about food recover all their influence.
One returns to the old formalism and to the
grosser superstitions ; and the work of reform, to
which men constantly address themselves, has
alwaj's to be done over again.

Tlieir admission into the popular religions was
not a clear gain for theosophical ideas. They
remain in the outer courts, in an altogether sub-
ordinate position. In the Bhagavad-Gltd every-
thing that is merely a heritage from the past, a
survival, is theosophical. The elements Avhich
are truly living and fruitful are of an entirely
different origin. The religious emotion and the
fervour of feeling which spring up in hearts full
of adoration do not come from the Upnnisads
or their derivatives. Far from celebrating the
triumph of theosophic ideas in India, the sectarian
writings rather indicate their failure, since they
make salvation depend on the love and grace of a
personal and transcendent God.

4. [Theosophy and ancient Indian philosophy.
— In dealing with the introduction of theosophy
into sectarian religions we have been tracing what
might be described as a waning of the influence
of theosophy. In the GltCi and in the sectarian
writings theosophical elements are largely overlaid
by materials gathered from other sources. But
the last few decades have witnessed a remarkable
revival of theosophical teaching. Tliis is to a
great extent connected with an incursion of
influences from the West and especially with the
teachings of Madame Blavatsky and Mrs. Besant.
The authority of Madame Blavatsky has been
largely discredited, but Mrs. Besant is still a living

' Cf. M. A. MacauIifTe, The Sikh lieliijinn, i. 243 ; cf. i. 43.

force and her followers are numerous. Indeed
India can claim a larger number of theosophists
than any other country in the world. The latest
available report (1917) shows 385 Indian lodges,
with a total of 7344 members, among whom are
some outstanding personalities. Their literary
activity is great, at least in quantitj', and the
flow of publications from the headquarters at
Adyar, near Madras, is unceasing and influential.
The implicit influence of theosophical ideas is even
more important than that which is explicitly
allowed, and theosophical literature is frequently
to be found in the hands of thinking men who
would disclaim any connexion with a theosophical
society. The popularity of theosophy is not,
however, always due to purely theosophical causes.
Theosophy in India glories in having no creed,
and thus claims to appeal to men of all creeds and
to interpret for them the hidden values of their
respective religions. But, though it is without a
creed, theosophy has a threefold aim which is
stated by Mrs. Besant, as follows :

(1) 'To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of
Humanity . . . ; ('-i) to encourage tlie study of comparative
religion, philosophy, and science ; (3) to investigate the un-
explained laws of Nature and the powers latent in man.'i

The popularity of theosophy at the present time
in India is largely due to a judicious combination
of those three aims. Unless we give a very wide
interpretation to the term, the two first are not
particularly theosophical, but they are universally
acceptable, and they thus strengthen the appeal of
the third — the only properly theosophical enter-
prise. The flrst aim aflbrds an opportunity for an
easy transition from religious to political activity
and a reinforcement of the former through the
popularity of the latter. The second sets itself
in seemingly attractive opposition to the harsh
judgments of certain apologists for particular
religions, and appeals to that specious liberality
of mind which flnds expression in the oft-repeated
assertion that one religion is as good as another.
It calls forth the retrospective tendency which
seems to be inherent in all theosophy and thus
enables theosophy to serve itself as the heir of the
ages. Emphasis is laid upon the idea of a hidden
tradition which is traced through the magic of
mediaeval Europe, through the lore of the Knights
Templar and the mystics, through Freemasonry
and the speculations of alchemists and astrologers,
until the ultimate source is jjostulated in the Great
White Brotherhood, a vague and indeflnite society
which Madame Blavatsky alleges to have existed
from time immemorial in the mountains of Tibet
and to have delegated one of their number to act
as her Master during a period of many years.
This mystic brotherhood is believed still to have
operative power and to have charge not only of the
education and development of the human race, but
also of cosmic evolution. Their doctrines embody
the truths which are said to be at the basis of all
religions, but, on investigating the matter more
closely, we find that they are in a very special
manner the fundamental principles of Indian
thought. Theosophy thus gives a universal im-
portance to Indian philosophical speculation and
in so doing inevitably enhances its popularity in
India. It levies contributions from all the more im-
portant Imlian systems, taking from the Upanmuls
the doctrine of a fundamental unknowable and
characterless Unity, and the identity of the human
and the divine ; from the Sahkhya the idea that
spiritual advancement consists in a gradual detach-
ment from the processes of the phenomenal world ;
from Buddhism the idea of karma and transmigra-
tion ; and from Yoga the conception of various
occult methods by which freedom of thought and

I TheoK(r})h!i (' People's Books '), London, n.d. [lOl'i], p. S9.

314

THEOSOPHY

spirit may be won. l''iiitiier, by an apiilication of its
ideas of graded being and of development extended
over many generations, it is able to allow a moder-
ate amount of justification even to the grosser
forms of the popular religions, and thus carry
farther the process of infusing theosophical ideas
into the cults of the people which, as pointed out,
had but moderate success in earlier centuries.

As in Indian philosophy generally, so in theo-
sophy the ultimate Being is an unknown and un-
knowable ground of all things, acquiring character
as a Logos with the triple functions of will,
wisdom, and activity. This differentiates itself
into the human monads, having a similar triplicity.
The human monad descends through various grades
of being until it reaches the causal body, which
has also a slightly lower mental aspect, uniting it
with the grades of being of which even an ordinary
man may be aware, and forming the basis of
personality as we know it. The mental body has
as its appropriate sphere the heavenly world, but
the soul as it proceeds downwards enters also the
astral world or the world of emotion and desire,
and finally reaches the physical world. Over and
over again there is incarnation reaching downwards
ultimately to the physical world, and in each
incarnation new experiences are obtained, leading,
if rightly used, to the development of the soul.
The supreme aim of the soul is to rise
upwards to its original source, and the degree
of ascent will be proportionate to the use it has
made of the experiences of each incarnation. The
working of the law of karma is inexorable. A
man will receive the fruit of the deeds done in the
body, and according to his good or his evil will be
the duration of the period spent on each plane
before another incarnation takes place. The aim
of the whole process is to get rid of the separating
sheaths of personality and reach absorption in the
Absolute.

Theosopliy is thus definitely committed to the
doctrine of reincarnation and transmigration, with,
on the one hand, its plausible explanation of the
inequalities of human life, its stern insistence on
moral consequences, its distant prospect of negative
salvation, and, on the other hand, its ethical
weakness arising out of its tendency to fatalism
and encouragement of procrastination, and its
lonely outlook as it traces the succeeding phases
of individual development and promises reunion
with those we love only in a ' togetherness ' of
absorption in which the definite character which
was the object of our love altogether disappears.

The doctrines of theosopliy claim a scientific
basis in ex]ierience, but this experience is found
to be very difierent from the experience of the
ordinary man. It is dependent on the develop-
ment uf our latent powers, by the use of which we
may acquire that knowledge which is already
possessed by the masters of the human race, the
adepts or initiates, and which may give to us a
wonderful penetration into the hitherto undis-
covered laws of nature. It is at this point that
theosopliy differentiates itself most completely
from philosophy. Once make the initial assump-
tion that the operation of these powers is possible
and that the latent faculties can be exercised, and
all is easy. We may attain a wonderful amount
of detailed knowledge about the lower at least of
the super-physical planes. We may discover, e.fj.,
that even during physical life tlie astral body
proje(;ts a few inciies beyond our [thysical body,
and that it is shaped like nn egg ; also that various
nstral bodies are formed by the vibrations of
tliought and desire, the vibrations of unselllsli
aflection i>roducing bodies of j)ale rose colour, in-
tellectual effort resulting in yellow bodies, devo-
tional feeling in blue, etc. We may discover also

facts on a liigiior ethical lc\i.-! — c:.//., lliat oiu
prayers produce beings functioning as guardian
angels and that our thoughts eventuate in actual
astral existences, fulfilling the purposes into which
our vague wishes would have been transformed,
had opportunity waited upon our desires. In
short, with an almost total disregard of tlio law
of parsimony and of the rule against the multi})li-
cation of entities, we may explain many of the
mysteries of our present life and many of the
hitherto unex])laiiied problems of nature by simply
transferring the difficulty to a higher plane and
' discovering ' beings personally responsible for
what previously appeared to be a mysterious
occurrence. It is at least doubtful whether modern
theosophy in India distinguisiies sufficiently be-
tween subjective imagination and the controlling
power of objective facts, and this considerably
lessens the force of the rebuke which it administers
to our materialism, diminishes the value of its in-
sistence upon the power of thought and prayer,
and weakens its encouragement to explore farther
than has yet been done the phenomena of spiritual-
ism and telepathy as well as the more weighty
experiences of the mystics of all ages.]

Conclusion. — The history of theosophical ideas,
far more than that of religious ideas, allows us
to establish the spiritual unity and continuity
of India. Moreover, we have here an excellent
field of observation for any one who wishes to
know the meaning of theosophy, its principles, its
aspirations, its method, and its influence upon life.
With the idea that Indian theosophy is typical of
this form of thought, we shall rapidly pass in
review its principal characteristics.

{a) The most obvious quality is its concentration
on the self, which not only occupies the first place
in its scheme of thought, but also concerns itself
with the Ego as if it were the only existence — as
if everything else existed only for it and in refer-
ence to it. This theosophical individualism is
both proud and exclusive. The vulgar intellig-
ences, concerned with superstitions and traditional
practices, are despised, and with jealous care the
precious truth is guarded for a small number of
the elect. ' There is nothing in common between
popular religion and knowledge.'^ As if to show
clearly the existence of a double current in religious
thought, a verse in the MahCihhdrata'^ says that
the gods, women, and the worlds have only one
divinity, one guru only, but that the Brahmans
have tM'o, Agni and Brahman, the god of sacrifice
and the Being without a second.

(b) It is always flattering to belong to a privi-
leged group ; esotericism was an attractive element
in theosophy. And there were others. Those
who were terrified by threatening death and
mysterious destiny, those who were shocked by
the spectacle of physical and social injustice, found
in the doctrine of karma, samsdra, and moksa just
the solution fitted to give them moral serenity and
courage to live. All the theosophical systems
teach some way of salvation; they deliver their
followers from "the painful prospect of a second
death, from an interminable series of lives poisoned
by the expectation of death.

(c) Another advantage : truth is not arrived at
slowly and patiently by study and reflexion ; it
is grasped by sudden internal vision. Once the
premisses have been given by intuition, a rigorous
dialectic can construct a system whose scientific
appearance has an element of attractiveness for
persistently intellectualistic minds eager to ' know.'

{d) The intuitive method is not only rai>i<l and
iijiparently trustworthy ; it is also very frnitful.

1 Sankara, paasim ; cf., e.g., Comm. on the VetUlnt.a-SMran,
p. 820.

2 Mahdbh., i. 95. 7.

THBRAPEUT^

3K

IL reveals that wliicli ucitlier anulysia nor induction
could discover — the supersensible world. Theo-
sophy thus gives satisfaction to the mystical needs
in human nature. Then, when one knows that
the sensible world is only an insignificant part of
being, and that, side by side with the very limited
realm of knowledge, there is an infinite transcen-
dental world, one resigns oneself easily to the
most glaring logical impossibilities.

(c) Finally, the laws of material nature are not
valid except for material bodies. Theosojihy has
been also a discipline of sublimation and de-
materialization. Marvellous perceptions and an
indefinite enhancement of intellectual and active
powers are also privileges which India has always
held in the highest esteem.

If now we ask what theosophy in fact did for
individual and social life in India, we shall see
that it has had some results which are excellent
and others which are harmful. On more than one
occasion it has vindicated the rights of the indi-
vidual and struggled against authorities altogether
dependent upon tradition. Theoretically at least,
it has placed itself outside of social distinctions.
It has uiade salvation a personal affair of the in-
dividual. It has opened the eyes of men to the
foolishness of their futile occupations and the
vanity of sensual pleasures and temporal posses-
sions. It has taught them to seek for happiness
in the contemplative life and in peace of heart.
But it has also taught contempt of the ordinary
life and of finite existence. It has ignored the
possibility of progress in human affairs. It has
been a school of pessimism. Its followers have
searciied for the absolute and the whole, when life
can give only the relative and the partial. They
have thought it possible to ari-ive by a leap at
truth, when in fact nothing has really been secured
liy this intuitive method and everything has to be
begun over again. It has lowered the dignity of
virtue by making it a means and not an end. In
condemning action and individualizing salvation,
it has shown itself dangerously anti-social. Fre-
quently, it is true, these bitter fruits have not
been produced, for it has, on occasion, neglected
its fundamental principles. Buddhism, e.g., has
preached the highest virtues without making them
the instruments of salvation. This is intelligible,
for in Buddhism, side by side with theosophy,
there is a large dose of humanity.

LiTKRATiR,i5. — A. Barth, Quarant.i; Aiis dHndianisme, 4 vols.,
Paris, 1914-18; A. C. Lyall, Asiatic Sttulie.<^, 2 vols., London,
1907; E. W. Hopkins, Tlie Religions of India, do. 1896; M.
Monier- Williams, hrdlimanism and Hinddism'*, do. 1891 ;
P. Deussen, Allgcmeine Geschichte dcr Philosophie, Leipzig,
1894-190S, i.-iii. ; P. Oltramare, L'nistnire des idies thio-
Kophirjues dans Flnde, Paris, 1906, i.. La Thiosophie brah-
maniinie.

H. Oldsiiberg-, VorwissenschaftUehe. Wissenschaft ; die Welt-
itnschauiing der Brdhmana-Texte, 1919 ; P. Deussen, Sechzig
(Ipanishad's des Veda^, Leipzig, 1905; A. E. Gough, Thr
Philosophy of the Upanishads and Ancient Indian Meta-
physics, London, 1882 ; P. Deussen, Das System des Veddnta",
Leipzig, 1906; R. Garbe, Die SAnikhya-Philosophie, do.
1894, Saifikhya und Yoga (GIAP), Strassburg:, 1896 ; L. Suali,
Introduzionc alio Studio delta Filosofia indiana, 1913 ; B.
Faddagon, The VaUesika- System, 1918 ; H. Oldenberg, Die
Lehre der Upanishaden und die Anfiinge des Buddhisinus, 1915.

Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson, 2'he Heart of Jainism, London,
1915.

H. Kern, Hist, du bouddhisme dam I'Inde, tr. G. Huet,
2 vola., Paris, 1901, Manual of Indian Buddhism (GIAP),
Strasshurg, 1S96 ; H. Oldenberg, r>uddha, Eng. tr., London,
1882; L. de la Valine Poussin, Bouddhisme, Paris, 1909; T.
Suzuki, Outlines ofMahiiydna Buddhism, London, 1907.

E. W. Hopkins, The Great Epic of India. New York, 1901 ;
R. Garbe, l->ie Bhagavadgitd, Leipzig;, 1!"I5; P. Deussen,
Vier philoiouhi-'sche Texte des Mnliablmralain, do. liiuc. ;
F. Otto Schrader, Jul rod net! nn to the Pavcurittra, ]91(i;
M. A. Macauliffe, The S,kh Hrlrji.on, 0 vols., Oxford, 1909;
R. Schmidt, Fakire und l-'d/.irtnm. im alien vnd modernen
/<i(//c/(, I'.erlin, 19US ; J. C. Oman, The Myi^ties, Ascetics, ami
.'faints of India, London, 1905, The Brahinans, Theists and
.Muslims of India, do. I'iOl. PAUL OlTUAMARE.

[Additions in brackets by W. S. Urquiiart.]

THERAPEUT.^.— The Thera[)i>uta3i were a
radical oli'slioot of llie movement in pre-Cliristian
Judaism which threw up an order like the Essenes
(q.v.) ; but, unlike the Essenes, they were purely
an Egyptian phenomenon, a religious confratern-
ity, or dlaaos, residing in the neighbourhood of
Alexandria, and particularly on tlie low hills to
the south of Lake Mareotis, leading tiie life of
studious recluses and organized on semi-monastic
lines. Outside Egypt, indeed outside this district,
they are never heard of. They were a local
development.

I. Source of information. — The <mly authority
for the subject is a short treatise de Vita Contem-
plativa (irepi ^iov dewpririKOv rj iKerwu [dpeTuJc], or,
better, <J>tXwi'os iK^rai ^ wepl dp^Tujv rbS'), included
in the works of Philo. It is first quoted by
Eusebius.^ The rise of the monastic movement in
the Church drew his attention, and evidently the
attention of others, to a tractate which offered
striking precedents and parallels for the cocnobitic
discipline of Christians, and the general o])inion
came to be that the Therapeutse were really Chi'ist-
ian monks. This anachronism can be traced from
Eusebius and Epiphanius onwards ; it flourished
right down to the beginning of the 18th cent.,
when the French scholar, B. de Montfaucon,
published his Livre de Philon de la vie contempla-
tive, etc., traduit sur Voriginal grec, avec observa-
tions, oil Von fait voir que les Therapeutes dont
il parle etoient Chrestiens (Paris, 1709). So com-
pletely had the Therapeutae been identified with
the origin of Christian monachism that even by
the 6th cent, vita therapeutica had become the
Latin equivalent of aaKrjTiKos /3tos.

This unhistorical interiiretation did one service ; it preserved
the Philonic treatise. But it was responsible for vehement
discussion between Protestants and Roman Catholics— dis-
cussion which was so prejudiced that it threw next to no light
upon the Therapeutae (except, of course, to disprove the
Eusebian ecclesiastical contention) ; it was also responsible for
an avenging scepticism in the 19th century. To suppose,^ on
the evidence of Eusebius and Jerome, 4 that Philo re-visited
Rome c. a.d. 44, was impressed or converted by St. Peter, and
returned to join this ascetic comnmnitj' of St. Mark's Christian
converts near Alexandria, was to expose the de Vila Con-
templativa to unjust suspicion in a more critical age. The
naive theory provoked an equally naive scepticism. It is not
creditable, but it is hardly surprising, to lind that in the 19th
cent, the Therapeutae were almost blotted out of existence.
Some Jewish scholars, especially Graetz.s seemed as anxious to
disavow any connexion with the poor Therapeutas as Roman
Catholics were to dub them monks ; they attempted to rid
Judaism of these recluses by relegating them to the 3rd cent.
A.D. as Christian monks, the treatise being assigned to some
Encratitic, semi-heretical source. Other writers 6 also dated
the de Vita Conteinplativa in that period, although they more
prudently regarded it as a Jewish sketch of some ideal, ascetic
community. It was reserved for P. E. Lucius ^ to twist the
stray threads of this scepticism into a stout denial that the
Therapeutae had ever existed except in the imagination of a
Christian c. a. d. ;W0, who ingeniously used Philo's name and
authority to create a monastic community in the first half of
the Ist cent. a.d. This aberration of criticism carried away
many writers great and small. French and English scholarship,
however, came to the rescue, in L. Massebieau's study, s llenan's
decisive judgment, 9 and V. C. Conybeare's work.io P. Wendland
reinforced the defence, n and the historical authenticity of the

I See ERE viii. 782b. 2 HE ii. 17, ii. 18. 7.

3 As the de Vit. Con. was indubitably Philo's, the only logical
way of explaining this panegyric on Christian monks was to
make Philo himself a Christian when he wrote it.

■1 de Vir. III. 8. 5 GVl- iii. [18631 463 f.

s E.g., M. Nicolas, RThPh, 3rd ser., vi. [1868] 25-52, and
A. Kuenen, The Religion of Israel, Eng. tr., London, 1874-75,
iii. 217-22.?.

7 Die Therapeuten vnd ihre Stellung in der Geschichte der
Askese: eine kritische ITntersuchung der Schrift : De vita
eontemplatiitii, Strasslmrg, 1879.

s ' Le Traitt' de la vie c()ntcmi>lative et la <|ue.stion des Thira-
liiulos," BUR xvi. [1887] ITn His.

n.foiirn'il des Snimnis, U,9:, pp. 8.S-93, as already, //'. 1.S71,
]>. 798 f.

»> /'hilti ahnut the Ctrnteiitpii-Lt cc Life, or th, Faiirlh Boo.K-
of the Treatise concerning ViTrtues : critically edited, tmth a
befeiu^e of its Gennincni-s^, Oxford, 1895.

II Die Therapeuten und die philnnixche Schrift von heschav-
lichen Leben : ein Beitrag zur Gesch. des lieltenistischen Juden-
thuins, Leipzig, 1896.

316

THERAPBUT^

treatise was finally vindicatod. WhetlK-r ic was composed by
Philo or by some contemporary Jew is another and a subordinate
question. The important point is that the treatise is a pre-
Christian or non-Christian description of actual recluses in
the Judaism of Egypt about the end of the 1st cent. B.C. or
the opening of the 1st cent. a.d. Conybeare's edition is the
standard authority on the Greek text. His translation! is
followed in this article. Both he and Massebieau have made
out a g-ood case for the hj-pothesis that the de Vita Con-
templativa originally was a sequel to the lost Philonic account
of the Essenes in the airoKoyia. v-rrip 'lov&aCon', from which
Eusebius drew his information. But their interpretation of
details in the account of the Therapeutse is sometimes open to
serious criticism.

2. Characteristics. — According to Philo, tlie
TherapeuttB are part of a movement wliicli is known
outside Egypt ^ — the more or less organized semi-
philosophical, semi-religious retreat from cities
and a corrupting civilization to the simple life of
retirement. Though the movement is not conhned
to the environs of Alexandria, it is there that the
Therapeuta* are most numerous.^

They are Jewish recluses who reside in simple huts, at a short
and suitable distance from one another (i.e., they resembled the
coenobites of Pachomius in a later day, instead of being hermits
and anchorites). Each hut has a sacred chamber (fiucrr^pioi' or
ij-ovaa-rnpLov trc/xi/eiov), reserved for their sacred books (the Law,
the Prophets, the Psalms, and other writings, ots eTrio-TTj/un; xal
evcre'/3eta crvvav^ovTai. Kal TeXeioOi/Toi, ' by means of which religion
and sound knowledge grow together into a perfect w-hole ').
After praying at dawn, they devote the day to meditation upon
the Scriptures ; these include writings or commentaries (crvy-
ypoLixfj^aTo.) ' drawn up by the ancient founders of their sect,' by
which Philo probably means the literature current under the
names of men like Enoch and Abraham, whom he regarded as
the primeval ascetics and recluses, the ideal progenitors of the
Therapeutic movement. The method of study is allegorical
interpretation (riji' iraTpiov <j>L\o(ro4)(av aWriyopovvTe^), and one
outcome of it is the composition of sacred hymns. Prayers at
sunset close the day. Such is the life in each hut.-* On the
seventh day the various members meet for common worship ;
they arrange themselves according to age, sitting on the ground
with ' the right hand between the chest and the chin, but the
left tucked down along the flank.' The senior recluse then
delivers an address, to which all listen in silence, merely nodding
assent. A partition, ten or twelve feet high, separates the men
from the women, so that the latter can hear the speaker without
being seen by the male recluses.

The seventh day 5 is their day for relaxation. On the other
days no one eats before sunset, and some go fasting almost
entirely for three or even six days, in their contemplative
raptures. But all use oil (as a physical refreshment, unlike the
Essenes s), and on the seventh day all ' propitfate the mistresses
hunger and thirst, which nature has set over mortal creatures ' ;
the diet is simply water and cheap bread, flavoured with salt,
and occasionally supplemented by hyssop. None 7 of your
drunken Greek symposia ! Philo anticipates Lucian in his
scorn of these rowdy gatherings.

Once every seven weeks * they assemble for their supreme
festival, 'which the number fifty has had assigned to it,''*
robed in white and with looks of serious joy. At a given sign
from one of their leaders they arrange themselves in ranks,
raising eyes and hands to heaven (' their hands, because they
are pure from unjust gains, being stained by no pretence of
money-making ') and praying for a blessing on the festival.
Then the senior members recline, in order of seniority, upon
their cheap, rough couches ; on the left side of the room the
women also recline. The younger novices wait upon the older

1 In J(JR vii. [1895] 755-769.

2 Philo is trying not oiil.y, as he does elsewhere, to show that
the recluse tendency is Greek as well as Jewish, but to link the
Therapeutae to the wide-spread phenomenon of eultores dei
(deorum), as their name of ' devotees ' (ffepanevTaC) permitted.
In this waj' he seeks to interpret them to his readers, just as he
had already {de Vit. Con. 1-2) contrasted them with the inferior
'philosophers' of Greece on the one hand, and with the silly
Egyptian worshippers of animals on the other. His attempt to
explain eepanevTaC as possibly meaning 'healers ' of the soul is
equally unhistorical. So far as it is not the official title of the
community, it means what it meant in the case of the Essenes,
whom Philo himself had called BepanevTal deov. The variant
title iKerac meant ' suppliants.'

3 De I'it. Con. 3.

^ So constant is their sense of God's presence that even in
their dreams they have visions of nothing hut the divine dperwi'
(cat Svvdixfojv, while many men talk in their sleep of what the}'
have been studying.

5 De Vit. Con. 4. 6 Cf. ERE v. 398^.

^ De Vit. Con. 5-7. 8 Jb. 8.

9 This seems to have been a festival, partly modelled on the
five weeks or pentecostal t\"pe (for here as elsewhere the Tliera-
peutse show distinct affinities with Palestine) but celebrated
seven times a year, at the expiry of every 49 (7 x 7) days. On
the resemblances between this periodical festival and the Feast
of Weeks in the book of Jubilees see A. Epstein in REJ xxii.
[1891] 14 f., 20 f., as well as on the similar institution among the
Abyssinian Jews (Falasha).

member';, fur the TlK'rapeuta3 (like the Essenes) l decline to be
served by slaves ; ' they deem any possession of servants what-
ever to be contrary to nature,' which makes all alike free at
birth. It is not a banquet of luxuries ; no wine, only cold
water, heated for those who are delicate ; no meat — for the
Therapeutaj are vegetarians, living on nothing but bread and
salt, with hyssop for the more delicate palates, the hyssop
being added ' out of reverence for the holy table of offering in
the sacred vestibule of the temple,' 2 to signify that the Thera-
peutas are too humble to emulate the unlea\ened bread reserved
for the priests. But, before this Spartan meal is eaten, a quiet
address or allegorical exposition of Scripture is delivered by the
president. The rest listen in breathless silence ; but, if the
speaker does not make his meaning clear, they are allowed to
indicate their perplexity by a slight movement of the head and
a right-hand finger. When he is considered to have spoken
long enough, all clap their hands three times. A hymn then
follows, sometimes composed in honour of God by the singer
(cf. 1 Co 14-''), ' either a new one which he has made himself, or
some old one of the poets that were long ago.' Each member
has to sing a hymn in rotation, while the rest join in the chorus.
Only after this religious service of an address and praise —
nothing is said of prayer 3 — does the banquet proceed.

The final act of the festival ^ is the famous ffavnix''5> o"" ^■"-
night celebration of a sacred singing dance,5by men and women
in two choruses, each headed by a chosen leader. Each of the
choirs, the male and the female, begins by singing and dancing
apart, partly in unison, partly in antiphonal measures of various
metres, 'as if it were a Bacchic festival in which they had
drunk deep of the divine love.' Then both unite to imitate the
choral (E\ loi- 20-21) songs of Moses and Miriam •> at the Red Sea,
sung as thanks eis toi^ o-uT^pa 6zov(ct. Rev 15^). It is a thrilling
performance, this choric dance and exulting symphony ; ' but
the end and aim' of it all ' is holiness' (the exodus symbolizing,
of course, the mystical release of the soul from material bond-
age). Instead of being drowsy after this all-night ecstasy, the
Therapeut»are more wide-awake in the morning than they were
at the beginning of their vigil ; they turn to the East, ' and, so
soon as they espy the sun rising, they stretch out aloft their
hands to heaven and fall to praying ^ ' for a fair day, and for
truth and for clear judgment to see with.' Then they separate to
resume the ordinary day's contemplation in their separate cells.

Such, says Philo, is the method of life practised
by these true ' citizens of heaven and of the uni-
verse.' The term ' citizens' is deliberately chosen.
They abjure cities, he means, but none the less,
indeed all the more on that account, tliese recluses
belong to a higher polity.

3. Religious significance. — A complete renuncia-
tion of tiie world, resembling that demanded by
Jesus in Lk IS-", lay at the foundation of the
Therapeutic society. What they abjured was
money rather than matter. In the austerity of their
zeal they voluntarily handed over tlieir property
to others,^ since absorjjtion in money-making and
the cares of life not only took up too much time
and thought but also fostered injustice. Having
divested themselves of their possessions, ' they flee
without turning back, having abandoned brethren,
children, wives, parents, all the throng of their
kindred, all their friendships with companions,
yea, their countries in which they were born and
bred.'** Philo describes this with a wistful
entliusiasm, as he had described the renunciation
of Enoch 1" and of Abraham." But he is careful to
explain why they prefer solitude to cities. It is
only because intercourse with the unsympathetic
world would injure them, ' not from any harsh
and deliberate hatred of mankind ' — a disclaimer ^'^

1 ERE V. 396''. 2 De Vit. Con. 9.

■* Is this omission accidental? Or was prayer regarded as a
part of private devotion (cf. ERE x. 19U')?

■1 De Vit. Con. 10.

5 A trait of popular religious worship in Egypt (cf. ERE v.
23Sa ; and, generally, x. 359»).

•> Miriam, in some quarters of early mystical literature, is the
counterpart of Isis, and she plays an important role in Gnostic
speculations, as Reitzenstein points out (Poitnandres, Leipzig,
1904, p. 136 n.). Her popularity among the Therapeutae is
probably another Egyptian touch.

' Lightfoot {Saint Paul's Epistles to the Colosm'ans and to
Philemon'i, London, 18S4, pp. 85, 372) took this to mean sun-
worship ; but the Therapeutae did not practise sun-worship anj-
niore than the Essenes did (see ERE v. 398^', note 4).

8 Unlike the Essenes, and the primitive Christians (Ac 2-15),
with whom Eusebius {HE ii. 17) would fain connect them on
this account, the Therapeutai did not pool their funds for the
benefit of the communilv.

9 De Vit. Con. 2. 10 De I'neni. et Poen. 3.
11 De Ahrah. 3.

1'-' lie had made the same disclaimer of luisantliropy in speak-
ing of Abraham {de Ahrah. 4).

THERAPEUT^

317

of the odium humani generis for which Jews were
blamed by the outside world. Philo always pro-
tested against the people who withdrew into seclu-
sion, simply because they lacked public spirit.
He also anticipated the criticism which might be
passed on the Therapeutte, that they acted from
a morbid misanthropy. Hence his defence and
admiration of them. The TherapeutiB, in fact,
realize for Philo what he had always dreamt of, a
small (only a small) number or Oiaaos of spiritual
athletes, acting from the highest of motives, carry-
ing out a counsel of perfection, and capable of
making the supreme renunciation in order to
attain the highest vision of God and truth. ^ To
them he applies his favourite Platonic metaphor
of the wealth with eyes [i.e. the mystic rapture of
the soul enriched with the vision of truth) ; no
wonder, when they possess this inward treasure,
that they abandon their blind wealth {rbv rvtpXbv
vXovTov) - to blind worldlings ! For their renuncia-
tion does not empty life. It is not a mere nega-
tion ; it is the soul surrendering to a higher passion
for God (inr' ipujros apwaadivres ovpaviov), which
enriches life past dreams of avarice. The Tliera-
peutaj are recluses and students, but their spirit
is an ecstatic yearning for the positive vision of
Truth. 'It is as easy to close the eyes of the
mind, as those of the body,' Bishop Butler wrote ;^
it is still more easy, Philo felt, to let the eyes of
the mind be closed by luxury and money-making,
and he applauds the Therapeut;© for sacrificing
their gi'eat possessions and position in order to
keep the higher vision unimpaired.

Another feature of the Therapeutae which goes
to Philo's heart is that their allegorical interpre-
tation of the OT does not render them indifferent
to the actual rites and institutions of Judaism.
He disliked the ultra-spiritualists'^ who evaporated
the historical element in religion, and dropped all
adherence to the forms of their faith. But he
delighted in people like the Therapeutse who, e.g. ,
attached, as he did, in his own enthusiasm, a high
mystical sense to the number 'seven,' and yet not
only kept the seventh day strictly but also cele-
brated a special festival after every 49 days, out
of their reverence for that perfect number and its
multiple (7 x 7). This appeared to him to be a
healthy form of mysticism. The Therapeut:©
appealed to Philo more than the Essenes did,
because they were on old Jewish lines, adherents
of the Mosaic law, respectful to the Temple at
Jerusalem, and capable of attaining the heights
of contemplative ecstasy without abandoning the
lowly duties prescribed by the Torah.

A third feature which evidently pleased the
gentle Philo was their freedom from angry contro-
versy and flashy rhetoric. With his eye not only
upon the quarrels of Greek sages at their symposia
but also upon the rabbinic disputants at Jerusalem,
he tells of the unostentatious style practised by
the Therapeutic speakers, of the rapt attention
shown by the audience, and of the respectful
demeanour of the gathering — exalting the very
virtues which Paul reconmiended to the showy,
noisy Christians at Corinth (cf. 1 Co 14^'-). Philo
loves them for their quiet demeanour. The
TherapeutiB never wasted their time over rabbinic
exegesis of the letter of Scripture. They gazed
placidly through that, as through a glass, into the
mystical signilicance which held them spellbound.
Their wisdom was pure and peaceable ; it com-
bined plain living and high thinking, and the
sages never lost their tempers.

All this, added to their philosophic aspirations

1 Cf., e.g., de Mxd. Nom. 4.

2 De Vit. Con. 2.

^ Sermons (ed. W. E. Gladstone, Oxford, 1S96), x. § 13.
■•Cf. EREi. SlOb.

and their distaste for luxury, moved Philo to
write his panegyric. He professes that it is
nothing but the bare truth. Certainly it is not a
Defoe-like work of fiction. At the same time, his
enthusiasm probably leads him to idealize the
Therapeutu; ; a disjjroportionate amount of space
is surrendered to a scornful criticism of the Greek
symposia, in which Plato as well as Xenophon is
censured ; and he forgets to explain how the
Therapeutaj lived, if they did no work and held
no property. Did they depend, like Buddhists, on
charity? It is one of the questions which Philo
forgets to answer. The main outline of the sketch,
however, has all the marks of accuracy. Though
he was not a member of the community, it was so
near to Alexandria that he could easily have heard
of its life and even visited it. His admiration
may have heightened the colours, but it did not
invent the content, of his delineation. The tone of
his account resembles that in which Izaak Walton,
in his biography of George Herbert, speaks of the
little settlement of recluses at Little Gidden, under
the spiritual guidance of Nicholas Ferrar.

The Xherapeuta were orjranized on lines resembling the later
lauras of monasticism in Ey:3pt, i.e. in a group or encampment
of separate residences, wnth a common hall for special gather-
ings ; they lived in huts, set close enough for fellowship and for
mutual protection against an attack of robbers (which was a
common experience of such communities). Plainly, they acted
in self-defence when occasion required. The diflferences between
them and the Essenes are patent. The Therapeuta confined
themselves to a life of contemplation ; they were a small com-
munity of men and women who had been well-born and wealthy, i
and who lived in a Chartreuse-like retreat ; they were not
religious communists, and they had no interest in prophecy
(their dreams being not of the future but of the celestial order) ;
they fasted, as the Essenes did not, and their relation to women
was quite different. Both the Therapeutae and the Essenes
were 'holiness' movements, but the former displayed some
unique features, especially the combinalion of individual con-
templation with a periodical outburst of emotional fervour in
the common song and dance.

Nothing is known of their history. They are one of the
local, transient phenomena of the age that baffle modern
curiosity. A single ray of light falls on this tiny community,
at the bridge between B.C. and a.d., but we do not know who
founded them or what became of them. Philo's description
was never followed up by any subsequent writer. Gibbon 2
thought it ' probable that they changed their name, preserved
their manners, adopted some new articles of faith, and gradu-
ally became the fathers of the Egyptian Ascetics.' This is
guess-work, however. A community which was recruited
like the Therapeutae could not survive like the Essenes ; so
nmch is clear ; and Therapeutism probably was an ephemeral
product, an anticipation rather than an ancestor of the later
Christian monasticism in Egypt. Abraham E. Harkawy, the
Petrograd scholar, in his edition of Kirkisani, the 10th cent.
Karaite savant,3 points out that Kirkisani includes among the
Jewish sects one called the Margarites, to whom the ' Alex-
andrine ' belonged ; this sect practised allegorical interpreta-
tion, as a rule abjured laughing, and were called SIarg.^rit«s,
or 'cave-folk.' Harkawy identifies the 'Alexandrine' with
Philo, and the Margarites with the Therapeuta;, as a branch
of the Essenes— a view shared by Bacher,-* but doubted by
Poznai^ski.s It seems an interesting, if vague, recollection of
the Therapeutse, lingering in the Judaism which had sur-
rendered its interest in these recluses to the Christian Church.

4. Compositions. — The Therapeutse were not
only ascetics but also students ; yet no trace of
tiieir literature has survived, (a) The \6yos, or
hymn, coloured by Jewish Hellenism, which is
discussed by A. Dieterich," has been sometimes
assigned to them. But it shows euhemeristic
syncretism ; there is nothing specifically Thera-
peutic about its language or ideas, and, although it
does refer to the rescue of Israel from the Red Sea,
this is too general to serve as an identification-mark
for the choric song of the Therapeutaj (see above).
The TherapeutiB are less analogous to the circle of
this hymn than an anticipation of the Encrutites
{q.v.) in their aversion to marriage and their avoid-
ance of wine and animal food.

1 avflpuirois evyfyeVt xal durreiois (rfe Pit. Con. 9).

'■2 Decline and Fall of the Roma/i Empire, ch. xv. note 163.

3 Memoirs of the Oriental Section of the Archaeological Society
at St. Peterstnirg, viii. [1894] 247-319.

4 ./Qli vii. 703. 5 HEJ 1. [1905] 19-23.
6 AOraxa.s, Leipzig, 1891, pp. 138 f., 145 f.

318

THERAPBUT^

(6) Nor is the book of Wisilom distinctively
Therapeutic, as some ^ thought.

The emphasis on ocrtos and on 6o-iot»js, rather than on the more
outward evcrc'Peia, certainly snu'^rests that Wisdom emniiated
from some inner circle or set of Jewish pietists, but there are
no indications that point decisively to the Therapeutse, not
even the casual use of eepaneveiv in 109-16. 3i3f. is not in praise
of celibacy, and, even if it were, the tendency to exalt celibacy
in the later Judaism was not confined to the ascetic cohabita-
tion of the sexes among the Therapeutae.2 47-9 simply echoes
the common reflexion that life is measured by its content of
wisdom, not by len_; th of years ; it has nothintr particularly to do
with the Therapeutic reffulation » that seniority was reckoned by
the years spent within the society. The allusion in T^-S^ to the
wise man beins^ wedded to Wisdom (Tor cro<j)ia o-in'otKoOi'Ta . ._.
Tavrqv e<|)i'A.->)cra Kol . . . e^»)TT)0-o vvix(lr>i)V ayayeirOai eixavrio)
resembles the description of the nun-like recluses in the de Vita
Contemplativa, 8 (for the most part ' aged virgins, that have
preserved intact their chastity . . . because of their zeal and
longing for Wisdom ; with whom they were anxious to live,' in
order to bring forth not mortal children but ' the immortal
progeny which the God-enamoured soul is alone able to bring
forth of itself ')-■* But this metaphorical description applies in
the one case to men, in the other to women, and it is too
general and common (cf., e.g., Sir 152, Pr 217) to be confined to
the Therapeut;e ; in ile VHta Contemplativa, S, Philo Ls spealiing
as he spealis elsewhere.5 Finally, the Tlierapeutic custom of
offering prayer at sunrise (see above) was not peculiar to them
atnong the Jews, so that Wis 1628 ('one should be before the
sun in giving thanks to thee, and one should plead with thee at
the dawning of light ') need not be a glimpse of these recluses—
the less so, that nothing is said about their eastward position
by the writer of Wisdom, who is simply moralizing about tlie
story of the manna.

5. Origin. — In view of the various Oriental and
Hellenistic influences which were playing upon
the later Judaism towards the close of the 1st
cent. B.C., a phenomenon like the existence
of the Therai)eutaj, with their celibacy, their
aversion to social life, their absorption in a
divine depawela, and their mystical speculations, all
carried out ' in accordance with the most holy
counsels of the prophet Moses,' ® is not altogether
surprising.

' The societies of the Essenes and the Therapeutse . . . belong,
just as the mediaeval and modern Hassidic asceticisius belong,
to Judaism quite as much aa do any of its more normal
institutions.''?

It is still less surprising to find such a gild
or monastic settlement in Egypt. The soil of
Egyptian popular religion was full of ' monastic
germs ' ; there were men and women recluses in the
Serapeum at Memphis, whose depdirevcns embraced
both study and mystical dreams ; the very name
of Otpairevral was connected with the worship of
Isis,^ which also had its mystic raptures, combined
with an emphasis on asceticism and celibacy ; the
climate itself, and the gaunt deserts, stretching
away from the cities and townships, invited those
who had recluse tendencies. It was in Egypt that
the monastic movement of the Church first
developed its varied and most distinctive forms
three centuries later, and the development was no
more surprising upon the basis of primitive
Christianity than that of the Therapeutas or of the
Essenes upon the basis of orthodox Mosaism. One
of the most suggestive parallels to the Therapeutic
discipline is to be found in the contemporary
account of the Egyptian philosopher-priests which
is given by Chaeremon, the Egyptian lepoypaixfiaTeis.
It is quoted by Porphyry, ** and some sentences

1 E.g., Ewald, Tke Ilist. of Israeli, Eng. tr., London, 1880, v.
377, and A. Gfrorer, Krit. Gench. des (Irchristentliums, Stutt-
gart, ISol, ii. 280 f.

2 ERE i. 179 ; K. Lake, The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul,
London, 1911, p. 188 f.

3 De Vit. Con. 8 : ' For they do not regard as elders those
who can count their years and are merely aged, but, on the
contrarj", account these to be still mere infants, in case they
have been late in embracing the vocation.'

4 This is the Pliilo wfio liad written so extraordinarily about
Tamai- (Quod Deus immut. 29).

5 E.g., in Cherubim, ]3f. ^ De Vit. Con. 8.

7 1. Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and tlie Gospels,
Cambridge, 1917, p. 121.

s See the Cyzicus insctription, e.g., quoted by A. Mordtmann,
in RA xxxvii. [1879] 2.-)S f .

!' De Abstin. iv. G-S.

deserve to be quoted here for the light they throw
upon ' monastic ' lines of development in pre-
Christian Egypt.

' They chose sanctuaries (lepa) as the place in which to study
philosophy, since to dwell with the statues of the gods was in
harmony with their utter longing for \ isioii (-riis Oecuptas). Be-
sides, this gave them securitj', owing to the reverence felt lor the
gods, since all men honoured these philosopliers as if they were
sacred creatures. They also lived in solitude, only mixing with
other people at the sacred assemblies and festivals. . . . Having
renounced every other employment and all human toils
(wovovs a.i'6pMT7Li'ov;), they gave up the whole of their existence
to the contemplation and vision of things divine . . . for to be
in constant association with divine knowledge and inspiration
delivers men from all lust (n\eove^ias), subdues the passions,
and rouses lite to intelligence (a-vvecnv). They were also
studious to be frugal in food and clothing. . . . Tlieir hands
were always inside their garments. . . . When they were not
engaged in purification, thej- ate bread cut up along with
hyssop, as tliey declared hyssop was extremely potent in
purifying bread. . . . Thej- trained thetnselves to endure hunger
and thirst and scanty food through all their lite. . . . The day
they spetit in the worship of the gods (eis BepaTrdav tmv O^iav),
singing hymns to them three or four times, at dawn and at
eventide.'

The origin of the Therapeutre lay in Jewish
Hellenism, as that was specially affected liy its
Egyptian environment. Nothing more is required
to explain the ascetic and mystical habits of these
recluses beside Lake Mareotis. But it would be
uncritical to dismiss this problem without some
reference to the question which has repeatedly been
asked : Do not several traits of the Therapeutic
discipline recall Buddhistic monasticism — e.g., the
combination of a ccenobitic life with study and
devout contemplation, and the vegetarianism ?
The latter is one of the marks which sharply dis-
tinguish the Therapeutte from the Essenes, who
were not vegetarians. But there is at least one
feature of the Essenes themselves which is analo-
gous to Indian practices,^ and it is open to con-
jecture whether some Buddhistic influence had not
])enetrated Egyptian Hellenism by the 1st cent.
B.C., as it is sometimes held to have penetrated the
later Gnosticism."

Robertson Smith,* after observing that ' in Egypt, the
doctrine that the highest degree of holiness can only be
attained by abstinence from all animal food, was the result of
the political fusion of a number of local cults in one national
religion, with a national priesthood that represented imperial
ideas,' added that ' later developments of Semitic asceticism
almost certainly stood under foreign influences, among which
Buddhism seems to have had a larger and earlier share than
it has been usual to admit.'

The Therapeutic avoidance of animal food need
not, of course, be Buddhistic ; the practice of the
Orphic societies in Egypt or of the Neo-Py tliagorean-
ism which affected the Essenes in other ways ^ may
account for it as well as for the stress on liymns,^
the TravvvxU, and some other features. Indeed, so
far as our scanty data go, with regard to the
Therapeutse or the Essenes, the evidence does not
appear to warrant any lij'pothesis of direct Bud-
dhistic influence, althougli the Orientalism which
had filtered into Jewish Hellenism, even in Egypt,
by the 1st cent. B.C. may have contained some
elements of Buddhistic religious tendency. The
trade connexions between Alexandria and India,
and the intercourse of both countries ever since
the 3rd cent. B.C., make it quite possible to suppose
that Indian merchants reached Egypt by the 1st
cent. B.C. Rohde points this out in another con-
nexion, detailing the Indian and Buddhistic
elements in Greek fiction.® But the interaction

1 Cf. ERK V. 398b, note 5. 2 Cf. ib. ii. 432, vi. 234.

3 Rel. of the Semites'^, London, 1894, p. 302 f.

■i ERE V. 401a.

5 This again distinguishes them from the Essenes. C. A.
iJugge, in his recent iitudy of the Essenes (ZNTW xiv. [1913]
107 f.), argues that the Palestinian Essenes must have culti-
vated song and music like the Egyjitian Therapeutce ; but there
is no ' must' about the matter. H.ui hy.nns been a promineiU
feature of the Essenic cultus, they would have lieon mentioned
by I'hili) or Jose|ilius.

*> Der qriech. Unman und seine Vorlii.ufer'^, Leipzig, 1900,
p. 581 f. '

THEURGY

319

was not marked.' A trait like the presence of the
'nuns 'is almost sutiicicnt by itself to justify dis-
agreement with the verdict of Mansel :

' The Therapeute . . . appear to have spran;j: from an union of
the Alexanilrian Judaism with the precepts and modes of life of
the 15uddhist devotees, . . . in their ascetic life, in their mortifi-
cation of the body and their devotion to pure contemplation,
we may trace at least a sufficient affinity to the Indian mystics
to indicate a common origin.'^

On the other hand, even after allowing for the
Neo-Pythagorean and Orphic environment, as
well as for the fact that certain phenomena of this
recluse life spring up independently on any soil at
the touch of organized nionasticism,* we may leave
open the possibility tliat the Therapeutae and
pei'haps the Essenes more or less unconsciously
developed features which owed their original
suggestion to Buddhistic sources. One of the
main reasons for hesitating to admit even this
possibility is the fact that Buddhistic influence on
Gnosticism, two centuries later, appears to be
almost unrecognizable, although Gnosticism might
be expected to show distinct affinities with this
line of Indian religious practice and speculation.

Literature. — Besides what has been noted in the course of
the article, the following may be chi-onicled as among the few
significant contributions which the interminable discussions of
the subject have thrown up : the notes of H. de Valois(VaIe-
sius), the great 17th cent, editor of Eusebius ; Thomas Browne,
Dissertatio de Therapeutis Philonis adversus Hen. Valesium,
London, 1695 (Therapeut;e = converts of St. Mark, who after-
wards became the monks described by Palladius); two critical
letters by J. Bouhier {Lettrex pour et contre, sur la famevse
question, si les solitaires appeles tMrapeutes dont r. parU Philon
le Juif, itoient chritiens, Paris, 1712), which Conybeare calls
' the best commentary on the de Vita Contemplativa ever
written'; A. F. Gfrorer, Erit. Gesch. des Urchristenthums,
Stuttgart, 1831, vol. i. pt. 2, pp. 280--J9i) ; and A. Neander,
General Hist, of the Christian, Jieligion and Church, Eng. tr.,
London, 1850-58, i. 81-85.

None of the older dictionary or encyclopaedia articles deserves
mention. The main help has been given by critics of Philo —
e.g., H. P. Deiaunay, JiA xxii. [1870-71] 26Sf., xxvi. [1873]
12 ff., and in Moines et sibijUes dans I'antinuite ju-ddn-grecque^,
Paris, 1874, pp. 10-57 ; B. Tideman, Th.T v. [1871] 177-188 ;
A. Edersheim, DCB iv. 3(5S-371 ; L. Cohn, JQR v. [1893]
38-42 ; J. Drummond, ib. viii. [1896] 155-172 (reviewing Cony-
beare's ed.) ; and E. Schiirer, G J ]■'■*, iii. 687-691 (still reluctant
to give up his scepticism) ; or by writers like E. Renan, Hist,
du peuple d'Israi'l, Paris, 1887-95, v. 366-380; O. Zockler,
Askese und Monchthum, Frankfort, 1897, i. 128 f. ; E. Zelier,
Die Philosophie der Griecheiv^, Leipzig, 1876-1903, iii. ii. 377 f. ;
M. Friediander, Die religibsen Bewegungen innerhalb des
Judenthums iin Zeitalter Jesu, Berlin, 1905, pp. 197 f., 265 f. ;
W. Bousset, Die Religion des Jtidentums tin NT Zeitalter'^,
do. 1906, p. 536 f. ; E. Brehier, Les Idees philosophiqttes et
reiigieuses de Philon d'AUwandrie, Paris, 1908, pp. 321-324 ;
W. M. Flinders Petrie, Personal Religion in Egypt before
Christianitt/, London, 1909, p. 63 f.; O. Pfleiderer, Primitive
Christinnitii, Rni. tr., 1906-11, iii. 1-S, IS f. ; and H. Leclercq,
UAVL ii. ;>Uoo-.JiJ75. ,JAME.S MOFFATT.

THERIANTHROPISM.— SeeLYCANTHROPY.
THEUDAS.— See Messiahs (Pseudo),

THEURGY. — Theurgy (devpyia) — i\\G direct
worlcing of God — is ch)sely connected with certain
systems of mysticism and tlieosophy. The word
itself is not often used by those who claim that
supernatural ed'ects are produced through them
by divine action ; they more often a.scribe the mir-
aculous effects to good ' spirits,' wliom God uses for
His purposes, and they call this sj'stem of divine
workiiig ' magic,' frequently ' white magic,' as dis-
tinguished from ' black magic,' which is supposed
to be the work of diabolical spirits. Vaughan
has given a good definition of it. He say.s :

'I would use the term theurgic to characterize the mysticism
which claims supernatural powers generally, — works marvels,
not like the black art, by help from beneath, hut as white magic,
by the virtue of talisman or cross, demi-god, angel, or saint.
Thus theurgic mysticism is not content, l^ke the theopathetic,
with either feeliiig or pro^'.'lylising ; \\ r. ii..e Mie tlieosop'.U'',

1 See G. Faber's cautious survey and verdict in his Dad-
dhislische und Neutestamentliche Krziihlungen, Leipzig, 1913,
pp. 10-29.

2 Gnnxlic Heresies, London, 1875, p. 31 f.
:' HUKx. ';j9f.

with knowing ; but it must open for itself a converse with the
world of spirits, and win as its prerogative the power of miracle.
This broad use of the word makes prominent the fact that a
common principle of devotional enchantment lies at the root of
.all the pretences, both of heathen and of Christian miracle-
mongers. The celestial hierarchy of Oionysius and the benign
d;emons of Proelus, the powers invoked by Pagan or by Christ-
ian theurgy, by Platonist, by Cabhalist, or by saint, alike reward
the successful aspirant with supernatural endowments ; and so
far Apollonius of Tjana and Peter of Alcantara, Asclepigenia
and St. Theresa, must occupy as religious magicians the same
province. The error is in either case the same — a divine etiicacy
is attributed to rites and formulas, sprinklings or fumigations,
relics or incantations, of mortal manufacture.'!

Some form of belief in theurgy is at least as old
as history and literature. Homer's heroes are con-
stantly raised beyond themselves and perform
deeds which seem to be done through tliem by
the Olympian divinities who come to tiieir aid.
Oriental as well as Grecian mythology everywhere
assumes theurgic powers. The eclectic Gnostics,
who drew upon many popular religions and sacred
books as the sources of tlieir divine gnosis, also
believed and taught that great divine [)owers
became available to those who were initiated and
who thus received something of the fullness — the
Pleroma — of the Godhead.

The Neo-Platonists, especially in their later
periods, gave new impetus to theurgy and were
unwittingly the transmitters of it into Christian
circles. Plotinus, the founder of the movement,
was a metaphysician of high rank and a noble
mystic whose influence on Christian mysticism can
hardly be overestimated, but he was not interested
in occult knowledge or in theurgic phenomena.
His Syrian successors, however, Porphyry and
lamblichus, were concerned with the problem of
discovering and applying divine powers or energies
in the sjihere of human action. lamblichus, who
strongly reveals Gnostic influences, turns the ideas
and hypostases of Plotinus into divinities, i.e. per-
sonified beings, and he holds that these ' intellig-
ences ' work wonders in tiie macrocosm outside and
in the microcosm within man. These divine powers
come into the soul of the mystic on high occasions,
possess it, and enable it to do works beyond human
capacity. There are, accoi'ding to lamblichus,
hierarchal orders of these divine powers in vary-
ing ranks, and it belongs to mystical wisdom to
know how to invoke the higher and more benign
powers and to gain their theurgic assistance. This
theurgic system is set forth in lamblichus' treatise
de Mysteriis. Proelus, the last important name
among the Neo-Platonists, was a mucli greater
philosopher than lamblichus, but he also expounded
a system of theurgy and encouraged belief in hier-
archal powers, arranged in triadic orders, who
work divinely and mysteriously through those
who are raised into union with these higlier powers.

Through the Gnostics, through the Neo-Platon-
ists, especially through the Christian Neo-Platonist
who wrote under tlie pseudonym Dionysius the
Areopagite, and above all through contact with
the pagan world and its wide-sjiread belief in
magic, the Christian Church unconsciously absorbed
a multiform faith in tiieurgy. Angels of many
orders, saints who have been glorified, the Virgin
Mary and her divine Son, can and do work wonders,
it is believed, for faithful worshippers. AVater and
bread and wine and other elements of nature are by
miraculous divine grace transformed into spiritual
substances, become, in fact, the real divine presence,
and supply to the recipient supernatur.al powers,
wliich work miglitily within the soul. Many
Roman Catholic saints and many 14tii and 15th
cent, mystics believed themselves possessed of
special tiieurgic powers. Stigmata of nail-prints
were believed to be divinely produced in the h.ands
and feet of Francis of Assisi and of Catharine of
Siena. Otliers liad the power to ' levitate' tliem-

1 Hours Willi the hfi/stics, i. 36.

320

THOMISM

selves and to soar above the earth in moments
of possession. Others had the miraculous gift
of shedding tears in extraordinary measure or of
emitting fragrant odours from their body in periods
of ecstasy, while still others underwent profound
physical transformations or radiated light like a
self-luminous body. The entire field of theurgie
phenomena is thus intimately bound up with the
psychology of hysteria and auto-suggestion. Auto-
matism of many types is now scientifically recog-
nized. It seems to the ' subject,' wlien parts of his
own body perform functions without his conscious
volition, as though some foreign person had entered
and possessed him and were using his hands or his
feet or his lips. Where the results are beneficent
and constructive, it seems natural to believe that
divine power has come to his assistance and is
working a miraculous work througli him, so that
theurgy appears, to persons of tliis type, to rest
upon facts of experience.

An immense revival of theurgy came in with the
rise of humanism and during the period when
science was emerging from the stage of superstition
and pseudo-science. Tliis revival was due, in large
measure, to the influence of Neo-Platonism and
of the Jewish Kabbala, both of which the early
humanists studied with zeal and enthusiasm. Pico
ilella Mirandola (1463-94) gave great prominence to
the symbolical, mystical, theurgical Kabbala, and
lie also glorified the writings of the Neo-Platonists.
W. R. Inge quotes the following passage from
Pico's Apology which illustrates the mental atti-
tude of the first humanists :

' One of the chief charges against me is that I am a magician.
Have I not ni.yself distinguished two kinds of magic? One,
which the Greelts call -yor/Teia, depends entirely on alliance with
evil spirits, and deserves to be reg,arded with horror, and to be
punished ; the other is magic in the proper sense of the word.
The former subjects man to the evil spirits, the latter makes
them serve him. The former is )ieither an art nor a science ;
the latter embraces the deepest mysteries, and the knowledge
of the whole of Nature with her powers. While it connects and
combines the forces scattered by God through the whole world,
it does not so nmch work miracles as come to the help of
working nature. Its researches into the sympathies of things
enable it to bring to light hidden marvels from the secret
treasure-houses of the world, just as if it created them itself.
As the countryman trains the vine upon the elm, so the magician
marries the earthly objects to heavenly bodies. His art is bene-
ficial and Godlike, for it brings men to wonder at the works of
God, than which nothing conduces more to true religion.' i

Reuehlin (145.5-1522) carried the study of the
Kabbala and of Neo-Platonism still farther and
laid the basis for the theurgy and magic which
swarm in the writings of Cornelius Agrippa of
Nettesiieim, Paracelsus, Valentine Weigel, and,
in a distinctly less degree, Jacob Boehme. All
these theosophically-minded thinkers believed that
it was possible to come into possession of direct
divine wisdom or light and thereby to discover
the secret of the universe and to use the secret in
marvellous theurgie ways, Reuehlin expressed
this view, in 1517, in a passage which is translated
in the appendix to the Three Books of Occult Philo-
sophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa.^ He says :

' God, out of love to his people, has revealed the hidden
mysteries to some of them, and these can find in the dead letters
the living spirit. For Scripture consists of single letters, visible
signs, which stand in a certain connection with the angels as
celestial and spiritual emanations from God. By the pronuncia-
tion of the one, the others also are affected ; but with a true
Cabalist, who penetrates the whole connection of the eartlily
with the heavenly, these signs, rightly placed in connection with
each other, are a way of putting him into immediate union with
the spirits, who through that are bound to satisfy his wishes.'

A still better account of the theurgie operations
which are believed to work through those who
catcli the divine secret and find the light is given
in the words of 'J. F.,' wlio translated Agrippa's
Occult Philosophy into English in 1651. The pass-
age is in tlie 'Preface to the Judicious Reader,'
and is as follows :

1 Christian Mystieism, p. 269, footnote 2.

2 Ed. W. F. Whitehead, Chicago and London, 1898, p. 251.

' This is true and sublime Occult Philosophy. To understand
the mysterious influences of the intellectual world upon the
celestial, and of both upon the terrestrial ; and to know how to
dispose and fit ourselves so as to be capable of receiving the
superior operations of these worlds, whereby we may be enabled
to operate wonderful things by a natural power— to discover
the secret counsels of men, to increase riches, to overcome
enemies, to procure the favour of men, to expel diseases, to pre-
serve health, to prolong hfe, to renew youth, to foretell future
events, to see and know things done many miles off, and such
like as these. These things may seem incredible, yet read but
the ensuing treatise and thou shalt see the possibility confirmed
both by reason and example.'

Once more in modern times there has appeared
a recrudescence of theurgy in spiritualistic and
theosophical circles. The element of fact in it
now, as of old in the days of humanism and of Neo-
Platonism, is due to the automatisms, i.e. to sub-
liminal action, emerging without the subject of
the action being conscious that it is initiated by
him. It seems to be done through him and not
by him and thus is attributed to God, or to spirits
who ' possess ' liim.

Literature. — Jules Simon, Hist, de V4cole d'Alexantlrie,
2 vols., Paris, 1S44-45 ; E. Vacherot, Hist, critique de. I'icole
d' Alexandria, 3 vols., do. 1846-51 ; Theurgia: or, The Egyptian
Mysteries, by lainbiicos, tr. Alexander Wilder, London,' 1912 ;
J. Reuehlin, De Verba Mirifico, Basel, 1494, De Arte Cabbalis-
tica, Hagenau, 1517 ; Agrrippa of Nettesheim, De Incertitu-
dine et Vanitate omnium Sr.ientiaruin et Artium, tr. J. F, ,
London, 1651 ; Franz Hartmann, Life and Teachings of
Paracelsiis, do. 1S96 ; R. A. Vaughan, ilours with the Mystics,
2 vols., do. 1860; W. R. Inge, Christian Mysticism, do. 1899;
R. M. Jones, Spiritual Reformers in the 16th and nth Centuries,
do. 1914, esp. chapters on Weigel and Boehme.

R, M. Jones,
THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. — See Con-
fessions.

THOMISM, — I. Name, — Broadly speaking,
Thomism is the name given to the system of philo-
sophy and theology founded by St, Thomas Aquinas
(q.v.). Strictly speaking, it is the name given to a
group of opinions taught by St, Thomas and held by
what is known as the Thomistic school, which is
mainly but not exclusively composed of Dominicans,

2. Historical survey.— The foundation of Thom-
ism is incontestably due to the per.sonal influence
of St. Thomas Aquinas, It should not, however,
be forgotten that Albert the Great did much to
prepare the way for the birth of the new system,
so that the names of both master and pupil will
ever remain inseparable in the great work.
Although there were many points of contact
between the minds of Albert and Thomas, the
genius of the one was entirely ditlerent from that
of the other. The mind of Thomas was more
critical than Albert's. The latter does not possess
his subject quite perfectly ; there is a lack of pre-
cision in details and a certain want of synthesis
necessary to unify his knowledge. On the con-
trary, Thomas possesses his matter perfectly ;
above all, he has a power for order ; his precision
is nicer and his analysis finer ; his vision is more
penetrating and more embracing ; and his power of
analy.sis is on equal footing with his power of syn-
thesis. Albert revealed to his age an intellectual
world unknown to it ; Thomas with the debris of
the intellectual world of the ancients created a
new one. Both aimed at incorporating Aristotle
into Christian philosophy and theology, Albert's
endeavour has the merit of initiative, but it
remained incomplete and only provisional ; Thomas
with a magician's hand forwarded the work and
produced a masterpiece Avhich he embellished with
a finish undreamed of by Albert.

Before the time of St. Thomas several attempts
had been made to synthesize the sum of human
knowledge, but nothing of any great value had
been the result. The work of reformation under-
taken by St. Thomas was so vast and complicated
that it is not surprising that he was at first a little
hesitating and diffident ; but, as he advanced in

THOMISM

321

years and learning, his vision became clearer, and
at the age of tliirty he took up a position that,
with regard to most things, was definite and final.
Being perfectly familiar with all the problems dis-
cussed by philosophy and theology, and having
carefully weighed the value of the respective solu-
tions and examined the systematic points of view
already attempted, he- saw that a jierfect system
necessarily demanded the unification of the whole
of knowledge. This perfect ordering of the whole
of knowledge which he bequeathed to the world
was due to his sublime metaphysical sense. It is
because St. Thomas surpassed the host of thinkers
of his time as metaphysician that he produced a
unique work.

In philosophy he is the first to proclaim the
autonomy of reason ; and he has produced his
philosophic works without once having recourse to
an authority other than experience and reason to
establish his conclusions and defend'them. Start-
ing from the ' sensible ' world as from a secure
basis, St. Thomas passes to the region of the
absolute, to the highest and purest intellectualism.
In theology he proclaims the autonomy of revela-
tion. At the outset he maintains the impossibility
of a real conflict between the natural and super-
natural orders whicli have the same source of truth,
viz. God. Thus he synthesizes natural and super-
natural, nature and grace, faith and reason. To
assimilate his thought it is necessary to under-
stand, above all, the functioning of his general
synthesis, and especially of his metaphysics, which
rules the whole economy of his work. Eclecticism
has no meaning with regard to Thomistic doctrines ;
their value and strength reside essentially in the
marvel of their unity and solidarity.

3. Progress of Thomism. — The Dominican
order gradually took up the teaching of St.
Thomas, but not without opposition ; some of its
members were still imbued with the doctrines of
Augustinism, and these could not be converted to
a new system in a day.

Robert Kilwarby, archbishop of Canterbury and
a Dominican, condemned St. Thomas's theory of the
unity of substantial form, on 18th March 1277.
A few years later, however, the English Domini-
cans were among the most resolute defenders of
this doctrine. In Germany Ulrich Engelbert de
Strasbourg (t 1277) inclined towards Augustinism
and the Neo-Platonism of the Arabs. Eckhart
(t 1327) was much inclined towards Neo-Platonism.
Thierry (t towards 1315) was an Augustinist
strongly influenced by Avicenna : the latter never
hesitated to combat the doctrine of St. Thomas.

In France the great adversary of the new system
was Durand de Saint-Pour^ain. In Italy Umber-
tus Guidi was punished by the Dominican Provin-
cial Chapter of Arezzo in 1315 for attacking St.
Thomas; and the General Chapter of Puy (1344)
cautioned Thomas of Naples for opposition to St.
Thomas. Many chapters of the Dominican order
encouraged and promoted Thomistic doctrines.
Worthy of mention are the General Chapters of
Paris (1286), of Saragossa (1309), of Metz (1313), of
Castres (1329), of Brive (1346). So great indeed
was the attachment of tlie Dominicans to the
Suminn Thcologica that the celebrated Spaniard
Arnatild de Villeneuve (t 1311) wrote a work against
the Dominicans in 1304 [Gladms jugulans Thomis-
tas), in which he accuses the Dominicans of pre-
ferring the study of the Summa to that of the
Bible. Two centuries later Erasmus formulated
the same reproach.^

4. Introduction of St. Thomas's writings as
text-books in schools. — At tin; end of the 13th
cent, the Bible was tiie principal text, and the
Sentences of Peter the Lomljard was the tlieologi-

1 Opera Omnia, Lcyden, 1703-06, iii. 51.').
VOL. XIl. — 21

cal text par excellence. The Dominicans intro-
duced the reading of the Sentences ' in via Thomae,'
i.e. according to the thought of St. Thomas. Otiier
schools following this example taught the Sentences
'in via Alberti,' 'in via Durandi,' 'in via Scoti,'
etc. Not until the end of the 15th cent, did the
Dominicans substitute entirely the Sumnut for the
Sentences.

5. Thomistic polemics. — The fights sustained by
the Dominican order during the end of the Middle
Ages in defence of their school were (1) to make a
good .stand against Augustinism, and (2) to defend
certain doctrines special to Thomism.

(a) General. — In favour of Augustinism a great
reaction was made by the Friars Minor in a work
compo.sed by William de la Mare. The Oxford
Dominicans replied in a work known as the Cor-
ruptorkim. A further work, Uorrectorium Corrup-
torii, was published by two Oxford Dominicans,
William de Makelsfeld and Richard Knapwell.
At the end of the 13th cent, another general
defence of Thomism was written by Robert de
Bologne, Apologeticum pro St. Thoma. Last of all
a great work (unfinished) was written by a cele-
brated Thomist, Herve Noel de Nedellec, master at
the university of Paris and master-general of the
Dominicans, Defensa doctrinm Sti. Thomm Her-
vceus Natalis.

other important works written towards the end of the
iliddle Ages are Dcfensiones theotogiiv dioi Thomae Aquinatls^
by John Capreolus (t 1444), who was called the 'princeps Tho-
inistarum,' and Clypi'its Thomistarum contra inodernos et
Scotistas^i by Pierre Niger (t 1481). Diego de Deza (t 1523), the
illustrious protector of Christopher Columbus, wrote two polem-
ical works in favour of Thomism, of which the more important
is : Novarum defensionum doctrince Angelici Doctoris beati
Thomce de A quinas super qimtuor lihros Sententiarxi/m qxiais-
Hones pro/undissimce et utilissimce (Seville, 1517).

(b) Special. — (1) St. Thomas formulated the
theory of the unity of the human person by mak-
ing the intellectual soul the only form of the
human composite. Against the Averroism (taught
at Paris) which held the unicity of intellect for the
human species, and against Augustinism, which
held the plurality of forms, several treatises were
written by Thomists — e.g., by Pierre de Taran-
taise, Gilles de Lessines, William de Makelsfeld,
Thomas de Sutton, Jean de Faenza, etc.

The General Council of Vienne defined the
Thomistic doctrine on this matter, which was
further confirmed by the 5th Council of Lateran
(1515), and by Pope Pius IX. in a letter to the
archbishop of Cologne (15th June 1857).

(2) The question of the nature of religious
poverty and its practice by Christ and the aj)ostles
was hotly discussed l)etween the Dominicans and
the F'riars Minor. The discus.sion became so dis-
astrous that Pope John XXII. condemned as errone-
ous and heretical the doctrine that Christ and the
apostles did not possess anything, or did not
perform acts of proprietorship, viz. buying and
selling ; etc. (12th Nov. 1323, Cum inter nonnullos).

(3) There was another theological combat
between the Dominicans and the Minors with
regard to the blood of Christ shed during the Pas-
.sion. The Minors said that it ceased to be united
to the divinity of Clirist, the Dominicans that the
union did not cease. Eventually Pope Pius II.
forbade both parties to discuss the question
further.^

(4) The Dominicans strenuously fought against
the nominali.'^m '' of the 14th cent, of which Durand
de Saint- Pour^ain and William Ockham were the
leaders.

1 New ed., 7 vols., ed. C. Paban and T. Pogues, Tours, 1900-OS.

2 Venice, 1481.

^ All the literature of this quarrel is to be found in a MS in
the Bibliotheinie of Pari.s {Cat. 1'2:«)0, fol. 1-78 ; also cf. Bene-
dict XIV., de Sernnruin Dei Beatificatione et beatorwn Canon-
izatione, bk. ii. ch. 30).

•• See art. Rkalism and Nominalism.

322

THOMISM

(5) The Averroism a.L^ainst which Albert the
Great and St. Thomas fought was renewed again
at the beginning of the 16th cent, in Italy.
Thomas de Vio, called Gajetan, published a com-
mentary on the ck Aniina of Aristotle (Florence,
1509). A few years later the Council of Lateran
(19th Dec. 1513) condemned the teaching of Aver-
roism on the point, and further exacted that
professors of philo.sophy should solve contrary
arguments, which Cajetan held only theologians
could do.

(6) In the 14th cent, disputes concerning the
Inmiaculate Conception arose. St. Thomas un-
doubtedly leaves the question unsolved, but he
wa.s at great pains to show that the Blessed Virgin
was not excluded from the redemption. St.
Thomas says that the precise moment of sanctifi-
cation is unknown ; he tlierefore never propounded
the question whether Mary was sanctified at the
very instant of conception. He believed it better
to be silent on this point, although, had he followed
his personal inclination, he had without doubt
concluded in the atlirmative, as his first declara-
tion witnesses in IV. Sent. I. dist. xliv. qu. 1, art.
3, ad 3. But his superior theological sense did not
let him, in presence of the silence of tradition and
the negative position of many theologians, and in
jiarticular the reserved attitude of the Church.
The endeavour to drag St. Thomas to the negative
or positive side is to force his meaning, since he
voluntarily abstained from either.

6. Renascence of Thomism. — In the 14th and
15th centuries tliere was an intellectual decadence
in pliilosophy and theology. Thomism could not
altogether abstract itself from the influence of the
time. However, even in the loth cent, there was
notable vitality among Tliomists like John Capreo-
lus, St. Antoninus of Florence, and Jean de Tor-
quemada. At the end of the 15th cent, the intel-
lectual life of Thomism received new vigour, which
manifested itself in the 16th cent, and continued
for two centuries afterwards. In 1551 tlie General
Chapter of Salamanca ordered the text of St.
Thomas's writings to be used as text-books in all
its schools. Hence at this time the great com-
mentaries began to be written. Cajetan wrote
from 1507 to 1522 ; Conrad Kollin on the Prima
sccundce (Cologne, 1512) ; Francois de Vittoria
(whose commentaries remained in MSS) and Bar-
thelemy de Medina from 1577 to 1578 ; Banez from
1584 to 1594 ; Sylvester Ferrariensis on the Sicmma
contra Gentiles (Venice, 1534). The humanist
movement of the 16th cent, had a great influence
on certain Thomists. Francois de Vittoria took
the lead ; of his disciples the most famous was
Melchior Cano (t 1560), whose work, de Locis theo-
logicis, is a tribute to the humanist movement by
its purity and beauty of style. Two new doctrines
issued from the humanist state of thought : Am-
brose Catharin (f 1553) put forward new theories
on predestination and grace ; and Barthelemy de
Medina formulated probabilism. Thomists com-
bated the former doctrine ; whilst in answer to
the desire of Pope Alexander Vll. they combated
strongly probabiJist doctrines.

7. Thomism and the Council of Trent. —
Thomists held an important part in this council.
The Thomistic school had grave interests at stake
on account of the dogmatic question regarding the
doctrine of justification. Of the five members of
the commission instituted by P.-uil III. to study tliis
question three were Dominicans, of whom Bartlie-
lemy Spina, master of the Sacred Palace, was
the most active. The decree on justification Mas
not drawn up without the help of St. Thomas.
The text of the decree as regards the mode of pre-
paration for justification' is taken in its every

1 Sess. vi. ch. vi.

detail from tlie Sunivia, III. qu. Ixxxv. art. 5. The
decree numbers six acts preparatory to justifica-
tion. They are the same in nature, number,
and order as in the Sumnia (loc. cit.). Also, in
the following chapter of the decree the causes of
justification are exactly those given by St. Thomas
in the Sumnia, I. ii. qu. cxii. art. 4, and II. ii. qu.
xxiv. art. 3.

The official catechism (published by the council),
in which the doctrine of the Catholic Church is
contained and which was compiietl for the use of
the clergy, was drawn up by three Thomists —
Leonard de Marinis (arclibishop of Lanciano),
Gilles F'oscarari (bishop of Modena), and Fran9ois
F'oreiro (theologian to the king of Portugal).

As soon as the Council of Trent was finished.
Pope Pius V. on 11th April 1567 proclaimed St.
Thomas a doctor of the Church.

8. Thomism and Molinism. — See art. MoLiNisM ;
also see below § 12.

9. Thomism and Jansenism. — In his posthu-
mous work Augnstinus (Lou vain, 1640) Jansenius
strove to prove that the new theology, es2)ecially
that of Molina and Suarez, was against tlie doc-
trine of St. Augustine and contrary to the doctrine
authorized by the Catholic Church. ^ The A iigtis-
tinus aroused much opposition among the Jesuits.
After an examination of the book, the Dominicans
found that it militated not only against Molinism,
but also against Thomism. Two Dominicans
wrote against Jansenius— Alexander Sebille (de
Augtistini et SS. Patrum de libera arhitrio interpres
thomisticus adversus Cornelii Jansenii doctrinam,
Mayence, 1652), and Bernard Guyard {Discrimina
inter doctrinam Thomisticam et Janseniarvam,
Paris, 1655).

10. Thomism and probabilism.— The theory of
probabilism (y.-y.) was unfolded by Barthelemy de
Medina, a Dominican, in liis ExjJositio in Primani
Secundce D. Thomcc (SalamaTica, 1577). The
Jesuits generally adopted this new theory. But,
since the ease with which any opinion could be
made probable, provided the contradictory was
probable, led to grave abuses, Alexander Vll.
asked the Dominicans to combat strongly the
probabilist doctrines. This they did, and from
that time no Dominican theologian has written
in favour of probabilism.

11. Neo-Thomism and the revival of Scholasti-
cism.— At the beginning of tlie 19th cent. Schol-
asticism iq.v.) began to revive, and there followed
a revival of Thomism. The encyclical ^terni
Patris of Pope Leo XIil. (4tli Aug. 1879) set up
St. Thomas Aquinas as tlie great model and
master of Catholic philosophy and theology.
F'rom that time all schools have studied the
works of the master and have endeavoured to
make his thougiit their own. The endeavour to
keep in touch with the progre.ss of modern science,
and to show that the fimdamentals of Thomism
are in perfect accord with the latest discoveries
of science, was set on foot, not, as is sometimes
supposed, by the Institut Superieur de Philosophie
of Louvain University, but hj the Thomist
Sanseverino, one of the most learned and vigorous
promoters of the movement. This is evidenced
by his work, Philosophia Christhnia cum antiqua
et 7iova comparata. This great movement has
been fostered and developed by the Institut
Superieur de Philosophie, founded by Cardinal
Mercier at Louvain. Certain lirvues are now
pultlished in which the teachings of Neo-Tliumism
and Neo-Scholasticism are consistently set forth.
The Jicrue 'I'homiKfe and the Revue nio-scolastique
de Pliih.siiphie are worthy of mention.

12. Essence of Thomism. — Tliomism is above
all a system of philosophy and theology. Now a

1 See art. Jansenism.

THOMISM

323

system necessarily implies luinnoiiy and solidarity
amonj,' the doctrines of which the system is built
up. In proportion as a system lacks unity, so
much is it less of a system. Many philosophers
and theologians have endeavoured to give systems
of knowledge to the world, but on examination
it is found that they lack the first essential of a
system, viz. solidarity of thought in every depart-
ment. If certain principles are laid down in
metaphysics, no doctrine in any department of
applied metaphysics (as, 6.7. , in psychology,
cosmology, natural theology, ethics, etc.) should
be at variance with those principles. Moreover,
if a sj'stem claims to be a system of the whole
of knowledge, both of that attained by human
reason and of that attained by revelation, then
no doctrine fornnilated by natural reason should
be at variance with the doctrines formulated by
faith ; and conversely. It is evident that, if there
be a system of this nature, it is eminently con-
structive or synthetic. Every stone in the structure
must be in its proper place, and, if the building-
is to stand firm, there must be some grand unify-
ing jirinciple or foundation upon which it is built
up. Now, just as in any architectural building
there cannot be several foundations, but only one
ultimate foundation, so in Thomism there is one
fundamental principle unifying the system and
imparting harmony and solidarity to every depart-
ment which it embraces.

13. The fundamental principle of Thomism. — An
examination of the various departments of Thomist
metaphysics, of applied metaphysics, and of the
whole realm of Thomist theology will show that
the fundamental doctrines of each department are
applications to various matters of a great principle
inculcated by Aristotle in his metaphysics. It is
the principle of the real distinction between act
and potentiality. One has not far to seek in order
to understand what is meant by 'act' and by
'potentiality.' ' Act ' means perfection ; 'potenti-
ality ' means absence of perfection. A thing in
the state of potentiality is in an imperfect state,
and is therefore capable of receiving what it lacks,
viz. some perfection or an act (as it is termed in
scholastic language), whereby it ceases to be in a
state of potentiality and is brought to a state of
having some perfection. There are, as is evident,
many kinds of states of potentiality and many
kinds of corresponding states of act, but it is not
necessary to enter into a discussion of them, since
the doctrine underlying them all is one and the
same. Furthermore, it is clear that the state of
potentiality must be really distinct from the state
of act ; for, if this be not true, then ' to run ' and
'to be able to run,' 'to know' and 'to be able to
know,' 'to be hot' and 'to be able to be hot,' are
one and the same, which is absurd. Hence there
must be a real (extra-mental) distinction between
the two states. This principle, then, may be
formulated thus : Between the state of potentiality
and the sUde of act there is a real distinction.
Further, the first unfolding of this principle
necessarily implies that that which is in a state
of potentiality cannot cease to be in that state
unless it be ' moved ' from that state by something
which is in the state of act ; e.g., cold water has
the potentiality to become hot, but it is imiiossible
for cold water to become hot unless it be ' moved '
from that state by somctliiiig that actually
posses.ses heat. It will be seen that this conclusion
IS an immediate inference of the real distinction
between potentiality and act. Hence the principle
in a more exi)licit way may Ite formulated thus:
Pofcnti'tlity, which is really ilistinct from act, can
never become act unless it be reduced to act by
.something which is in act.

This is the fundamental principle of the entire

Thomist system ; eslabli.slicd at the outset in
metaphysics, it is applied without exception to
the fundamental doctrines in every department
of Thomist philosophy and theology. Whoever
draws a single conclusion which is in any way at
variance with this principle, although he may
hold all other doctrines of the Thomist system,
ceases ipso facto to be a Thomist.

14. The application of the principle.— (r«) In
metaphysics. — The Thomist doctrine of real dis-
tinction between essence and existence in created
things, wherein essence is conceived as a jiotenti-
ality and existence as an act, is an ajiplication of
the principle ; likewise the real distinction between
substance and its accidents, wherein substance is
conceived as in jiotentiality to the accidents which
are its acts or perfections ; likewise the doctrine
concerning the nature of dimensive quantity, the
essence of which is not that it actually extends
the parts of a corporeal substance in place, i.e. in
triple dimension, but that it distributes the parts
of that substance within the substance itself (which
internal parts are only potentially distributed in
triple dimension by dimensive quantity), and that
it has the capability or potentiality of actually
extending those parts in place according to triple
dimension. Upon this doctrine of the nature of
dimensive quantity is founded the doctrine of the
real presence of the whole body of Christ in a
small consecrated Host ; also the doctrine of the
virgin birth of Christ, of His passing into a room,
the doors being shut, etc. Likewise the important
doctrine of cause and efl'ect, or the principle of
causality, is an application of the aforesaid funda-
mental principle. An analysis of ' that which
begins to be (effect) must have a reason (cause)
for its inception ' shows the underlying great
principle.

[b] In psychology. — The doctrine of the unity
of the human composite, viz. that the intellectual
soul is the substantial form of the body, and that
it is the only form, is an application of the same
principle. The ' prime matter,' a pure potentiality,
which is informed by the intellectual soul (or act)
receives from this act all that makes it body, and
human body, and living. Through the same
principle it follows that the faculties of intellect
and will are really distinct from the substance of
the soul, because they are the acts or perfections
of the soul, which in regard to them is a potenti-
ality. As a consequence it also follows not only
that every faculty is really distinct from its object
as potentiality to act, but also that, in regard to
it as object, every faculty is passive, not active.
Hence the important doctrine that the human
intellect is a passive, not active, power or faculty,
in that it receives, and does not make, its object
of thought as object.

Further (and this is most important from the
point of view of Thomism versus Molinism), the
human will, which is the faculty of choice, must
ultimately be moved to the very act of choosing
by something which is in act ; and the reasoTi is
that, before the act of choosing (given everything
necessary for this action .save this action itself),
the will is in a state of potentiality and must
therefore be 'moved' by something outside it to
the state of perfection which is ' choosing.' Only
-God, the actus piirus, can move the will to the
very act of choosing ; if aught else did this, the
will i/i.io farfn would cease to be free. This is
the Thomistic doctrine of physical premotion,
which is a rigorous application of the aforesaid
fundauHMital [irinciplc.

{c) III cosinoltigy. — In this dejiartment of applied
metaphysics the fundamental question concerns
the precise nature of body, as body. Applying
the aforesaid principle, Thomism concludes that

324

Thrace

body, as body, is a composite of two principles,
one of which is substantial form and the other
prime matter. Prime matter is a pure potentiality
of which the substantial form is the act ; and
between the two, as a consequence, there is a real
distinction.

{d) In natural theology. — The classic proof for
the existence of God, viz. from the existence of
motion in the world, is nothing more than a
rigorous application of the same principle. Motion
is here taken in its widest sense, embracing not
only local motion but every kind of ' passing
from potentiality to act.'^

(e) In ethics. — All the doctrines concerning
habits and their formation, of the passions, of
virtues and vices, of laws, etc., have their mainstay
in the same fundamental principle.

(/) In theology. — For the existence of God see
above (rf). It is only necessary to run through
the Suinina to see that the same principle is funda-
mental in the doctrines concerning revelation and
concerning inspiration (in which is implied the
doctrine of cause and effect, and in particular of
instrumental causality). By an understanding of
tlie same great principle it is concluded that God
alone is pure act with no admixture of potentialitj'
whatsoever, whilst everything created contains
both potentiality and act. It is further concluded
not only that God's essence is identically the same
as His existence, but that His intellect and His
will, His attributes of unity, goodness, truth. His
knowledge and love are likewise identically the
same as His essence. The same grand principle
underlies the whole of the doctrine concerning the
mystery of the trinity of persons in God. A
further application is to be found in the treatise
on the angels, Avhose existence is really distinct
from their essence, whose minds and wills are
really distinct from their substance, etc. Thus
through the whole of the Summa one finds the
same principle applied. It will be necessary to
take only two more cases in order to show the
solidarity of Thomistic doctrines. According to
St. Thomas, the sacraments are the instrumental
causes of grace; they are not mere channels
through which grace is infused into the soul ; they
are real, physical, instrumental causes which
produce or infuse grace into the soul. The soul
in regard to the sacramental grace that informs
it is a potentiality {potentia obedientialis), and
grace is the act.

The hnal instance we sliall take to illustrate
the application of the fundamental principle of
Thomism concerns the doctrine of actual grace.
Just as in the natural order it was concluded that
the human will is physically premoved by God to
the act of choice,^ so in the supernatural order an
actual grace is nothing more than a physical
premotion in that order. Hence the Thomists
speak of ' gratia efficax ab intrinseco,' a grace
intrinsically or of its very nature efficacious, and
not of grace, intrinsically indifferent, to be made
efficacious by consent of the will to accept, or to
remain inefficacious by refusal of the will to accept.
Thus Thomism, by a relentless logic, applies the
great principle to the doctrine of actual grace. To
the mind of St. Thomas, in spite of the apparent
difficulties, this doctrine is the only logical con-
clusion. For Thomism the theory of Molina or
Suarez bristles with more difficulties in that the
theory subverts the doctrines of God as the Prime
Mover of all things, of causality, and of the great
metaphysical principle : Potentinlity, v-hich is
really distinct from act, can nevci- become act tmlcss
it be reduced to act by something which is in act.
In short, for the sake of a difficulty in applied

1 Cf. Summa, i. qu. ii. art. 3, Pii.uia via.

2 See above (h).

metaphysics (i.e. the freedom of the will under
God's physical premotion), jNIolina and Suarez
gainsay a principle already established in meta-
physics, just as he who, on account of some
difficulty in mixed mathematics, gainsays a
principle of pure mathematics.

Any conclusion other than the one drawn above
wrecks a system of the whole of knowledge in the
mind of the Thomist. It is o^^^ng to the perfect
consistency of application of the grand fundamental
principle aforesaid to every department of know-
ledge that Thomas bequeathed to the world a
sublime system remarkable for its perfect unity,
harmony, and solidarity of thought.

Literature. — For the history of Thomism generally :
Dictionnaire d' Apologitique, s.v. ' Frferes Precheurs, Leur
doctrine' (P. Mandonnet); CE, s.v. 'Thomism.' For the
progress of Thomism : A eta capitidorum generalium ordinis
Pmedicatonim, Rome, 1S93-1904, ed. B. M. Reichert, ii. 196-391
(of the Dominican order).

For Thomistic polemics : Mandonnet, ' Premiers Travaux de
polemique thomiste,' in Revue des Sciences philosophiques et
thi>.olyiqw.s, vii. [1913] 46 ff.

Coticerniiin- the nature of religious povertj" : A. G. Little,
The Grey Friars in Oxford, Oxford, 1892, p. 32u ; Felice di
Tocco, La quesHoiu delta poverta nel secolo ziv., Naples.

Concerning the blood of Christ during the Passion : MS in
the Bibliothfeque de Paris, Cat. 12390, fol. 1-78 ; Benedict
XIV., de Seroorum Dei Beatificatione et beatorum Canoniza-
tione, bk. ii. ch. 30, in Opera, Venice, 1788.

For Thomism versus Nominalism of 14th cent. : C. Jourdain,
La Philosophie de S. Thomas d'Aquin, Paris, 1858, ii. 216 ;
K. Werner, Die nominalisirende Psychologic der Seholastik
des spdteren Mittelalters, Vienna, 1882.

For Thomism and the Immaculate Conception : IV. Sententi-
arum, i. dist. xlii. qu. 1, art. 3, ad 3 ; N. del Prado, Santo
Tomas y la Immaculada Vergan, Salamanca, 1909 ; F. Morgott,
La Doctrine surla merge Marie, ou Mariologi^ de saint Thomas
d'Aquin, Paris, 18S1, p. 139 fit.

For Thomism and the Council of Trent : A. Reginaldus,
Dissertatio de Catechismi Romani auctoritate, Toulouse, 1648,
Naples, 1765; A. Theiner, Acta gemiina SS. oecumenici
Concilii Tridentini, 2 vols., Agram, 1874.

For Thomism and Jansenism : Le R. P. Guillermin, ' De la
grace suffisante,' Revue Thomiste, ix.-xi. [1901-03].

For the revival of Thomism : G. Sanseverino, Philosophia
Christiana cum antiqua et nova comjmrata, 5 vols., Naples,
1862 ; Revue Thomiste and Revue nio-Scolastique de Philosophie,
passim.

For Thomism verstis llolinism : literature under art. MoLnfiSM.

For the essence of Thomism : Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologica and Summa contra Gentiles ; N. del Prado, de
Veritate fxindamentali philosophice chriatianoB, Fribourg
(Switzerland), 1889, new ed., 1911, de Gratia et libera arbitrio,
3 vols., do. 1907 ; artt. Aqdi.nas and Molinism.

^LRED WHITACRE.

THRACE [QpyfiKTi, QpaKi]). — Thrace was the
name given in classical times to the mountainous
region lying north of Greece proper. The in-
habitants (9/37^i/ces, Gp^iVes, Gpo/ces) wei'e a barbarous
{)eople, having no close affinities to the Greeks in
anguage, culture, or originally in religion. In
the last field, however, tlieir influence on their
more civilized neighbours was considerable, begin-
ning early and continuing fairly late. In particular,
theyapi)ear to have been partly responsible for the
remarkable change in the spirit of Greek religion
which took place about the beginning of the
classical epoch or shortly before it. This change
must not be thought of as something revolutionarj',
akin, e.g., to the conversion of most of N. Europe
from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism at the
Reformation; for the large majority, probably if
not certainly, religious beliefs and practices changed
little if at all ; it was rather the introduction of a
new element, M'hich rendered possible the holding
by many Greeks of ideas either unknown to their
fathers or existing among them in a very un-
developed form, and largely forgotten when first
we hear anything definite about the Greek race.

I. Origin and history of the Thracians. — The Thracian
inv.asion of the country which they occu|iied in historic il times
is part of a wider movement from the north into the hilly region
of the Balkans and the countries west and east of that district
(Bosnia and Herzego\'ina on the one side, the Caucasus and
Armenia on the other). The inv.iders were of Indo-European
stock, probably originally from the Carpathians. Driven
jierhaps by the pressure of Slo\ak tribes from the region of the
Vistula, or possibly' from sheer restlessness or desire for fresh

THRACE

325

territory, they occupied the country in successive waves. The
Phryjfians (q-V.) and tribes most closelj' related to them,
together with the Armenians, occupied the Asiatic district for
the most part ; the Thracians seized chiefly upon the European
sector. That Thracian and Phryijian were related stocks was
already recognized in antiquity,! and modern philology, to-
Rether with arguments drawn from their religious and social
organization, inclines us to believe that this is substantially
correct. Throughout Greek history the Thracians, or the
majority of them, remained politically independent, protected
both by their great courage and by the difficult nature of their
country ; Rome, after much trouble, succeeded in subduing
them, the ferocious Dacians finally yielding to Trajan. They
remained, however, an intractable people, little influenced by
the civilization of their rulers. Finally, about a.d. 400, their
ancient priestly tribe, the Bessoi, were converted to Christianity.
Some 200 years later a Slovak invasion swept over the country,
and from that time begins the history of what ultimately
became the Balkan peoples.

2. Ethnology. — The Thracian races fall, broadly speaking,
into two groups— a northern and a southern. The latter, in-
habiting the region of the Hainios and Stryuion, included,
besides the Bessoi already mentioned, the Bisaltai, Thynoi,
Bithynoi, Sakai, Dioi, Odrysai, and other tribes ; the former or
Getic group consisted of a smaller number of peoples, individu-
ally more important than the tribes just mentioned. Besides
the powerful Getai themselves, we must count among them the
still more formidable Dacians (Aaxoi, Aaicat, Atoi), who are often
confused with them, and the Agathyrsoi, whose name seems to
indicate that they were held in no great esteem by their
Scythian neighbours (the first two syllables are probably to be
connected with Zend agha, 'bad'), and who appear from Hero-
dotos 2 to have practised the very primitive custom of group-
marriage. On the whole, the northern group shows certain
cultural affinities with the Germanic tribes, the southern with
the Orientals, especially, as already mentioned, with the
Phrygians.

3. Langnagre. — As the Thracians seem to have had no know-
ledge of writing, the few inscriptions we have from Thrace are
late and never in the native tongue. There remain, however,
a number of glosses, some 36 of which we may take as genuine
Thracian words ; about 25 names of plants given as Thracian by
Uioscorides ; and a considerable number of proper names, both
of persons (including deities) and of places. From these it
appears that their tongue was Indo-Germanic, of the E.
European group, having as its nearest ancient congeners
Phrygian and Armenian. Traces appear of two distinct lin-
guistic stocks, the result presumably- of the blending of two
races ; and this we may consider along with the fact reported
by HerodotosS that the cult practised by their chieftains
differed from that of the conunon people.

4. Material culture. — It has been pointed out-* that Homer
does not consider the Thracian culture as an inferior one. In
the Iliad the Thracians are for the most part the allies of the
Trojans ; Priam's treasury includes a cup of their giving ;5 the
son of Antenor was brought up in Thrace and married there ;S
Rhesos comes to Priam's aid with a strong Thracian contingent
On the other hand, some of them at least trade with the Greeks.S
No hint is given that they are in any sense savages; in par-
ticular, the followers of Kliesos encamp in a soldierly manner.9
But there is no need to suppose, as Helbig does, that the
Thracians of that day, under Phoenician or other foreign in-
fluence, were enjoying a short period of ' hothouse ' culture
which brought them for a time to higher levels than they ever
afterwards attained. The true explanation seems to be that
Homer knows nothing of the later division between Greek and
barbarian, and that the Greeks of his day were not a highly
civilized people themselves. A race which lived under the rule
of feudal barons, practised the blood-feud, allowed wer-gelt,
occasionally mutilated or otherwise ill-treated a dead foe, was
not quite free from the custom of human sacrifice, and buried
its dead much in the fashion of the historical Thracians,io
besides keeping up the old custom of bride-price and having
only very rudimentary manufactures and handicrafts, was not
much superior to thu Thracians of historical times. The dilfer-
ence was that the Greeks developed with marvellous rapidity
in the next 300 years or so, while the Thraciaus remained
backward. 11

Passing to classical authors of the later periods, we find our
chief account of Thrace in Herodotos.i'-i His whole attitude

1 oi *piJyes &paKi>v aTroiKOt ctcri (Strabo, X. 471).

2 iv. 104. ' 3 V. 7.

* \V. Helbig, Das Homer. Epos, Leipzig, 1884, p. 9.

6 xxiv. 234 ; we are not told who made the cup.

6xi. 222flf. 7x. 434. 8 ix. 71 f.

9x. 471. 10 See below § 5 (A).

11 The present writer holds the view of Andrew Lang, van
Leeuwen, and other scholars that the Homeric poems are sub-
stantially the work of one man, and he would )>ut their date
about the 10th cent. B.C. For the Homeric customs above
mentioned see II. ix. 632, xxii. 371, xxiii. 175 (the poet clearly
disapproves strongly of the sacrifice), and xxiii. passim, Od. xv.
224, 272 ff., XX. 355, and many other passages. Elaborate
manufactures or works of art are regularly the work of gods
(as II. xviii. 468 ff.) or imported (as Od. iv. 615). Simple weaving
and the like are done at home, as Od. ii. 94. Cf. the account
of Thracian arts above.

12 Chiefly v. 2-8. References to other passages of Herod are
cited in the notes. For fuller authorities see Tomaschek, Die
alien Thraker, i. ill ft,

towards the Thracians, while not unfriendly, 1 is clearly that of
civilized man describing interesting barbarians; and this is
certainly justified. They are, he tells us, a numerous race, of
little political importance owing to their lack of unity ; their
culture is on the whole uniform. They despise agriculture,
counting it more honourable to be idle and to live by plunder.
They have, however, some arts, as they can weave very good
cloth of hemp fibre.''2 To this we may add, what sundry later
authors tell us, that they showed skill in making various tools
and weapons of iron. 3 "They were accustomed to dye their hair
and tatu their skin. They were, in some cases at least,
polyg3'nous ; that they lived under father-right, not mother-
right, is clear from the facts that they paid bride-price and that
marital jealousy was strongly developed, though the chastity
of an unmarried girl was quite disregarded — i.e., their women
were apparently thought of chiefly as valuable property, belong-
ing to their fathers so long as they were unmarried — hence the
light view taken of their immoralities, for any children that
they might bear out of wedlock would also belong to their own
family — but afterwards belonging to their husbands, who had
paid for the exclusive use of them. When we add that as a race
they were cattle-breeders and especially famous for their horses
from very early times,-* it is clear that we shall not be far wrong
in comparing them to some one of the principal Basuto peoples,
such as the Amazulu, before the latter attained unity of
government under T'C!haka. Physically, however, they were
at the other end of the colour-scale, being fair-skinned and
yellow-haired.

Finally, four points should be noted as giving the clue to
man}' features in their religion. According to the practically
unanimous voice of antiquity, (1) the Thracians were desperately
brave, having little fear of death ; (2) they wenj excitable, and,
in particular, had a bad name for unrestrainell indulgence in
sexual passion ; (3) they were heav.y drinkers ; and (4) they
were intensely fond of music, performing well on both flute and
lyre. In addition, their country was a mountainous one, in
which caves were no rarity.

5. Religion. — We may take as our starting-point
the famous passage of Herodotos, v. 7 : ' They
worship only the following gods, Ares, Dionysos,
and Artemis ; but their kings . . . reverence
Hermes above all other gods, swear by him alone,
and say that they are descended from Hermes.'
We must in the first place remember that the
names in the above passage are not to be taken
too literally. Whereas a modern ^\Titer, if he said
that a particular race worshipped Buddha, would
mean exactly what he said, and the Hebrew
prophet ^ who speaks of the name of his God as
being ' great among the Gentiles ' means his words
to be startlingly paradoxical, a Greek always
assumes that the gods of all nations are much the
same as his OAvn and never scruples to talk of the
Egyptian cult of Hermes or the Roman worship of
Hera, meaning thereby Thoth and Juno. We
shall see that, taken as it stands, Herodotos' state-
ment is true of one deity only.

(a) Ares. — That Ares is a Thracian deity is a
fairly wide-spread opinion. As far back as Homer®
we find Thrace mentioned as the home of the war-
god, and later writers echo Homer.'' Ares has,
moreover, certain non-Greek features ; his cult is
wholly without any of those higher forms which
distinguish, e.g., Apollo or Athene and remains
throughout that of a Avar-god pure_ and simple.
Homer's whole attitude towards him is one of
dislike ; he supports the Trojans throughout ; and
in his ritual we find one feature paralleled in
Thrace ^ hard to parallel in purely Greek cult — the
(log-sacrifice to him under the name of Enyalios at
Sparta.®

At the same time it must be confessed that none

1 Between Greeks as a whole and Thracians as a whole no
bitterness seems to have existed. The references to Thracians
as bloodthirsty savages are mostly in comparatively late
authors— ('.I/., Hor. Od. i. xxvii. 2. The writer is of opinion
that the detestable conduct of certain Thracian mercenaries in
the Peloponnesian War (Thuc. vii. 29) may have had something
to do with this, while later their savage battles against the
Romans prejudiced the latter against them.

2 Herod, iv. 74, vii. 75.

3 References in Tomaschek, i. 119.

4 Cf. Horn. II. X. 436. » Mai 1".

6 II. xiii. 301 and elsewhere.

7 E.g., Verg. ^En. iii. 35.

8 Vita Euripidis, 1. (vi.) ravrnv 5e {rr^v Kvva.) &paK€<;, is effos
dvcravrej ((payov.

9 Plut. Qtiwst. Rom. 290d ; Paus. iii. xiv. 9 ; Arnob. adv. Sat.
iv. 25. Such a sacrifice, however, is not wholly unknown else-'
where in Greece.

326

THRACE

of tlie above features are conclusive against his
Greek origin. Among a people brave enough, but
not fond of war for its own sake, the war-god
might well remain 'functional' — too important to
be altogether neglected, too unpopular to develop.
Among the traditional friends of Troy are also
Apollo, Artemis, and at times Zeus himself ; not
much can be made from a single feature of an
obscure ritual ; ^ and the references to Thrace need
mean no more tlian that tlie Thracians, being war-
like, had a popular cult of a war-god. And we
must remember that the cult of Ares is very old in
Athens and Boiotia, and that his name is not only
plausibly derived from an Aryan root, Avhich in
itself proves nothing, but has a characteristically
Greek formation.^

We conclude therefore, on the whole, that the
Thracians did not originate the Greek cult of
Ares, but had from very early times a war-god of
their own, about whose ritual we must be content
to remain ignorant. It is worth mentioning that
Herodotos seems to speak of him as an oracular
god in one rather obscure passage.^

(b) Dloni/sos. — The case of Dionysos is very
different, and there is little serious doubt that
here Herodotos and the numerous later authors
who speak of this god as Thracian are literally
correct.^ The chief arguments in favour of this
statement are as follows :

(i.) Philological. — The first two sj'llables of the name are
apparently to be connected with the Thracian tribe-name Dioi.
Further, a Phrygian inscription gives us the formula /xe Sitos xe
^efieXui, which almost certainly means ' By heaven and earth.'
We thus have a j,'od with a name of which the first part has
close Thraco-I'hrygian affinities, while the rest is certainly not
Greek, whose motlier is apparently the earth-goddess of the
Thraco-Phrynian stock. 5

(ii.) Traditional.— iitraho definitely calls the cult of Dionysos
Thraco-Phrygian.6 When first we hear of the god at all, it is in
connexion with the Edonian king Lykurgos;' and his cult is
called Thracian far more persistently than that of Ares by
authors of all ages. Moreover, all tradition is agreed that he is
not genuine Greek. It is true that the usual birth-legend (not
the ' Orphic' story ; see below) makes him a Theban ; but even
there he is disowned by his kin and has to win his way into
prominence against the vehement opposition of Pentheus;'*
while many similar tales indicate that his cult had to force an
entrance into Greece. It is true that many, if not all, of these
are misinterpreted ritual tales ; but that they were persistently
misinterpreted in the same way, as stories of persecution,
strongly suggests that a folk-memory of real opposition lies
behind the interpretation if not the stories themselves.

(iii.) Fact): of cult. — On the one hand, very early Greek
agricultural festivals either are not Dionysiac, like the Attic
Thesmophoria, or present Dionysos as an obvious intruder,
like the Anthesteria. On the other hand, the Tlnaoo-Phrygian
region is the home of all manner of orgiastic nature-cults, 9 and
one detail of the worship of Dionysos which we have good
reason to snpjiose primitive, viz. the oracle, is Thracian and
hardly Greek at all.i'' He seems always to have been a wine-god

1 The odd ritual of Ares TwaiKoSoCva^ (Pans. vin. xlviii. 4, 5)
maj' point to Amazonianism, which is not Greek. But this is
exceedingly doubtful.

- The forms 'Apriios (Horn. Ionic) and apevtot (Alkaios) indicate
a stem in -eiv- ; cf. Trpecr/^'iioi' and irpca^us. The root is akin
to Skr. ras, 'roar.' See C. A. M. Fennell in CIK xiii. [1899] 3UG.

<* vii. 76, ci* TOUTOio-i roio-i ai'Spaut 'Apeds effTi XP'?f t^P'^o''. The
context is corrupt, and it is uncertain who are referred to,
quite po.ssibly not Tliracians at all.

■* The counter-theory, that he is a Cretan deity, is supported
by J. E. Harrison {I'r'olegornena", ch. viii.). The arguments for
it reduce to (a) the fact that a cult of a god of this type did
exist in Crete from very early times and remained so powerful
that Zeus himself was absorbed by it ; (6) certain very primitive
features of Cretan Dionysiac ritual. But, in view of the over-
whelming arguments in favour o( Thrace, these phenomena are of
little weight. The former is common to many localities ; the
latter is naturally explained by supposing that the worship of
Dionysos, once it was imported, found favour in Crete because
it was so like the native worship, and so was but little modified.

5 COS V. 94. The attempts to make Semele a thunder-cloud
or the like are too absurd to deserve more than passing mention.
The syllables -vvcro- are unintelligible, but possibly connected
with the holy mountain Nysa, which is variously located but
apparently Thracian in Homer.

t* X. 471 ; cf. Plut. Alex. 2. ■? Hom. II. vi. 130 ff.

8 The best known form of the legend is that given in Euri-
pides, JJacchce. Even in this the final birth of Dionysos, from
the thigh of Zeus, does not take place in Tlicbes.

a Cf. art. Phrygians.
I" See F.ur. lire. 1207 ; Arist. ap. Macrob. Sat. i. xviii. 1.

as well as a god of nature in general, and a wine-god we find
him in Thrace, which was a wine-growing country very early.i
Further, he is connected in cult with Sabazios, who is probably
Phrygian.

From Thrace, then, his cult spread through
Greece some time, probably not very long, before
the dawn of Greek history. In Homer he is ap-
parently a foreign god, little known and not much
regarded; of the five mentions of him two ^ are
certainly interpolations, one* is unimportant, the
others come in the story of Lykurgos. When we
come to the Homeric hymns, however, he is a well-
known and important deity, and all later literatui'e
is full of references to him. It Avould appear then
that somewhere after tlie downfall of the Homeric
(Achaian) culture, and during the period of recon-
struction, of which very little is known, his wor-
ship crossed the border and was carried, it is no
longer possible to say exactly how, or by whom,^
to all parts of Greece, meeting with considerable
opposition, but finally establishing itself as part
of the state religion and becoming largely civilized
in tlie process, tliough recrudescences of its original
barbarism, such as the well-known one in Italy,*
were always possible.

No detailed description of the cult of Dionysos
in Thrace has come down to us from antiquity ;
but it is not ditticult to frame one from various
scattered notices,^ from the wilder and more savage
features of his Grecian cult, from the traces of the
ancient worship still to be found in N. Greece, and
from what we know of similar rites elsewhere.

We learn, firstly, that the most prominent
feature of the ritual was a wild orgiastic ceremony
held normally, if not always, at night. In this
the worshippers worked themselves up into a
state of frenzy by dancing and shouting (hence
the numerous names of the god, such as Euhio.s,
lakchos, and perhaps Bakchos,^ which are deriv-
able from ejaculations or from words meaning
' shout' or ' ciy '), to the accompaniment of savage
music. They were dressed in the skins of wild
animals — we hear especially of fawn- and fox-
pelts (v€[3pi5€s, paaffdpai) — and carried the thyrsos,
a spear-like implement covered with the sacred
ivy, or the narthex (fennel-wand). It is obvious
that for an excitable people, not highly civilized,
and susceptible to strong sexual emotion, and
therefore to nervous emotion of all kinds, including
religious enthusiasm, ^ the violent exercise under
the .stimulating surroundings of their mountainous
country in the clear night air would of itself pro-
duce an abnormal conilition ; and this seems to
have been further encouraged by the free use of
wine and perhaps other artificial stimulants. The
result was, at least in many cases, anil particularly
among their women, a condition of frenzy, involv-
ing anaesthesia, abnormal strength and entlurance,
and other such symptoms, followed by fainting and
exhaustion. The natural explanation, to any one
at that stage of culture, was that the worshippers
were possessed by their god {^vOeoL, Karoxoi) ; and
therefore we find them called by his name {^ixkxoi,
ISaKxai). That Dionysos himself was present was

1 Horn. II. ix. 72 ; Arist. loe. eit.

2 II. xiv. 325, and Od. xi. 325. 3 Qd. xxiv. 74.

4 It was an age of wandering prophets (see Rohde, Psyche*,
ii. 63 ff.). The favourable reception of the women may have
had a good deal to do with it also.

s Liv. xxxix. 8£f.

6 To save a multitude of quotations, we refer the reader for
detailed authorities to the authors cited in the Literature at
the end of this article.

7 The root is perhaps Fax- (Curtius), in both names, lakchoa
being FiFaKxo?. Euhios is derived from the well-known cry
fvot.

" The present writer holds religious and sexual emotion to be
essentially the same ; see, e.g., W. James, Varieties of Religious
Experience, London, and New York, 1002, passim. The fre-
quenc.v of 'conversions' and the like during adolescence and
the regular employment by mystics of all iiationaHtiea of erotic
met.aphors are among the f.acts su)iporting this view.

THRACE

327

a commonplace, familiar to us from many literary
and artistic representations of the rites, from
Euripides to Titian and Keats ; ^ the skins in
which the worsliippers dressed were those of
animal avatars of the god ; and the culmination
of the rite was the tearing in pieces and devouring
of one of these animals.

It is far from impossible that in some cases
the victim was a man or a child. That the
Getai practised a form of human sacrifice we
know ; 2 Themistokles sacrificed three captives
to Dionysos (i/iiyo-r^j ; ^ the legends of Tentheus,
etc., point the same way ; and in the modified
Dionysiac ritual of Tenedos ■* tiie cow whose calf
is to be the victim is tended like a woman, and
the calf when born has buskins put on it before
being killed.

We have so far a quite normal ritual of a vege-
tation deity, of the kind familiar from the Golden
Bough.^ The god visits his worshippers in early
spring (the time of most of the festivals)," is
welcomed by them, and is joined to them by
a sort of primitive sacrament. Of the death or
expulsion of the worn-out god, later in the year,
we do not hear so much, but there are traces of
it. In the legend of Lykurgos already referred
to the king pursues the god into the sea — the
throwing of the vegetation-spirit into water is
a very common rite ; there was a strong tradition
that he had died, and was buried at Delphi ; ^
and there is also a legend of his descent into
Hades to fetch up Semele.^ We are therefore,
in view of these facts and on the analogy of
all similar ritual elsewhere, justified in suppos-
ing that his death was part of the ceremonial
of his cult ; and this belief is strengthened by
the curious relic of Dionysiac worship found in
Thrace by li. M. Dawkins," in which the death of
one of the characters in the mummers' play is a
prominent feature. Closely allied with this went
the ceremony representing his birth and cradling
in the XLkvov, or winnowing-fan. The last detail,
however, marking him definitely as a corn-god, is
Greek rather than Thracian.^°

In the ritual of Dionysos the forms of the god
change bewilderinglj*. We have reason to suppose
him to have been conceived as bull, goat, kid,
sheep, serpent, stag, and even pig," for all these
animals, besides the fox and perhaps others, were
sacred to him, and, as he is at times said to have
taken the forms of some of them, notably bull and
serpent, we may conjecture that he was more or
less identified with the others as well. But in
iconography he is always human, and he had
human avatars, as might be expected from the
human sacrifices.

(c) Divine kings; Lykurgos, Pentheus, Rhesos,
Orpheus. — Several of the legends seem to indicate
that in Thrace, as elsewhere, there existed kings
of the type familiar from the investigations of
J. G, Frazer — i.e. incarnations of the local god,
who ended by being sacrificed, possibly devoured.
As the Greeks probably never had had this sort of
king — certainly had forgotten it — tliey naturally
misunderstood the legends. Tlius none of the

I Bacchce ; Endyinion ; the ' Uacchus and Ariadne ' in the
National Gallerv.

a See below, § (g). 3 piut. Them. 13.

^SeeiElian, Nat. Anim. xii. 34. The Thracian ritual seems
to have been toned down almost into a normal sacrilicc.

5 See for full references the index vol. to d'/J^, .s.v. ' Dionysus.'

* For a few examples see art. Fkstivals and Ka.sts (Greek),
ad fin.

7 See Plut. de Is. et Os. 3y.")rt.

SGB», pt. vii., The Spirits of the Corn a7id of the Wild,
London, 1912, i. 15.

9 Described in his art. ' Archseology in Greece (1906-1907),'
in JUS xxvii. [1906] 2S4 ff.

1" Hence Dion\sos' title XiKi'in)? (Plut. loc. cit.); cf. Serv. on
Verg. (lenni. i. im.

II A selection of the relevant passa^'cs will bo fonnd in OGS
V. 303 f.

above mythological figures exactly correspond to
the Frazerian type. Lykurgos persecutes Dionysos;
but the form which his persecution takes is a
pursuit (probably originally ritual) of the god and
his attendants and the flogging of them with the
(SouttXtj^, by which is po.ssibly meant, not .an ox-
goad, but a whip of bull s hide, a fertilizing
febrmim like the hide thongs of the Roman
Luperci. He is not torn in pieces by the god's
followers, but in one way or another (the legend
varies in detail) is punished, by blindness or other-
wise, and imi)risoned in a cave.' Pentiieus
opposes the Bakchai and is torn in pieces by them.
Orpheus is a royal priest of Dionysos and is torn
in pieces by the Mainades — an act for which late
mythologizers assign sundry fanciful reasons.-
Rhesos is a vague figure, but it has been urged
that his name may be connected with rex (Gothic
raiks) and the royal Thracian name Rhescuporis.
After his death he appears — the exact sense and
reading are matters of dispute — to be represented
by the author of the play bearing his name as
becoming an oracular deity or semi-deity {avdpuivo-
5alfi(i}v) of somewhat Dionysiac type.* Add to all
this the facts that the Getic priest-king was called
' god ' * and that we get as a royal name of frequent
occurrence the word Kotys, which is a by-form of
Kotyto, and it becomes at least plausible that the
cult of Dionysos and other gods of the same kind
in Thrace had at its head in early times '' a priest-
king who was the incarnation of the deity and
ended by being violently put to death to make
way for a fresh incarnation.

(d) Orphism. — Of the persons mentioned in the
last section one is of such importance as to deserve
separate treatment, viz. (Jrpheus. Concerning
this priest-king tlie tradition of antiquity is fairly
constant. He is a more or less historical figure ; ® he
existed some time before the Trojan War ;■* he was
a Thracian,^ son of King Oiagros and a Muse,
usually Kalliope, sometimes Polynmia. He was a
priest of Dionysos, founder of Dionysiac mysteries,
public and private, and originator of the Orphic
l^loi, i.e. way of life.^ He was also a seer, a
magician, a ' theologian ' in the Greek sense of the
word,'" a marvellous musician. His home, wiien
exactly localized, is generally said by our earlier
authorities to have been ISIt. Pangaion, tiie site of
an ancient and famous Dionysiac shrine, while
later writers locate him on the coast of Thrace,
near the mouth of the Hebros. After various
adventures, the most notable of which was the
descent into Hades, familiar in later literature
from Vergil's handling of it in the Georgics, he was

1 See Soph. A7it. 955 ff., and Jebb, ad loc. _

2 For examples see Serv. on Verg. Georg. iv. 519.

'■' See Rohde, i. ICl, who rather too confidently assumes
Rhesos to have been a faded god. W. Leaf (JUS xxxv. [1915]
1 ft.) goes too far in the opposite direction. On the whole the
present writer is of opinion that Hhesos may really have been
a half-forgotten king of some Thracian tribe, who after his
death was supposed to give oracles. The ancient evidence is
to be found in II. x. ; [Eur.] Rhes. 955 ft. ; Polyaen. vi. 53.

■4 Strabo, vii. 298.

3 Presumably not in historical times, as one can hardly
suppose that none of our authors would have mentioned it in
that case.

<> For an isolated expression of doubt see Cic. de Nat. Deor. i.
3S (108), ' Orpheum poetaiii docet Aristoteles nunqnani fuisse,'
which from the context is almost certainly a denial of Orpheus'
existence. But Aristotle may merely have meant to deny his
authorship of the ' Orphic ' poems.

^ Contemporary with the Argonauts, according to most
versions of their story — e.g., Pind. I'yth. iv. 170, and Apollonios
Rhodios.

t> ' Thracius Oi-pheus ' (Ver. Ec. iv. 55) is his stock epithet.

9 ^t'o! is perhaps the nearest Greek equivalent of 'sect 'or
' persuasion ' and greatly resembles the NT use of bS6? (Ac 9-).
It signilics a form of "life depending on certain religious or
philosophical principles and is applied especially to the Orphic
and Pythagorean bo<lie8.

10 I.e., not a writer on the theoretical basis of religion in
general, or of any particular religion, but one who describes
tlie nature, relationships, etc., of deities. In this sense Hesiod,
e.g., is a ' theologian ' (OeoXoyo?).

328

THRACE

torn in pieces by a band of women, possessed by
real or pretended Dionysiac frenzy. ^

From what is said above it is clear that all this
may have some historic foundation — i.e., that the
legends regarding him go back to some real happen-
ings in connexion with the ritual of Dionysos.
The death of an Orpheus, and consequently his
descent into Hades, and presumably also his
resurrection in a new incarnation, may have taken
place, not once but many times. ^ But tradition
crystallized all these forgotten personalities into
one jjicturesque figure, the founder and Messiah
of a religion of mystical other-worldliness.

The chief tenets, so far as we can reconstruct
them, are as follows.^ At the end of a long
succession of deities ■* comes Dionysos-Zagreus, the
son of Zeus and Pei'sephone.* This god, while an
infant, was beguiled by the Titans, who gave him
a mirror and other toys and then tore him in pieces
and devoured him, all but his heart, which was
saved by Athene. The god was re-created by his
fatlier, who swallowed the heart and re-bore the
child ; the Titans were destroyed by the thunder-
bolt, and from their ashes sprang man. Man is
therefore a creature of mixed origin, containing a
divine principle (Dionysos) and an evil one (the
Titans). Tlie main object of his existence is to
get rid of the latter element — a task which cannot
be completed in one lifetime. To further it, how-
ever, it is necessary to live in strict ritual purity,
avoiding the use of meat, wearing white garments,
sliunning the polluting pi'esence of corpses and of
women in child-birth,'' and practising chastity,'' all
these being observances well known in ancient
ritual and not peculiar to Orphism. In addition, it
seems that the higher class of Orphics practised a
more or less definite ethical code." Side by side
with all this went, as might be expected, a lower,
popular form, in which a sort of begging friars
drove a thriving trade in indulgences, so to call
them, ' persuading not only individuals but cities,'
says Plato, ^ ' that their sins can be purged with
sacrifices and pleasant merry-makings'; i.e., per-
forming quasi-magical rites, efiective ex opere
operato, quite independently of the moral condition
of the person concerned, at prices proportioned to
the wealth or superstition of their clients.

To return to the higher forms of Orphism.
After a life spent in moral and ceremonial purity
the soul of the Orphic believer was rewarded in
Hades, apparently for 1000 years,^** or ten times the
supposed maximum length of a human life, while
tho.se who had sinned, but not beyond remedy,

1 For full authorities, and variants of the myth, see Gruppe.
We give a few of the leading references : priest and founder of
mysteries : Eur. Hipp. 952 If. ; Aristoph. Ran. 1032 ; Herod, ii.
81 ; Plut. Qucest. Con. ii. 635« ; seer : Plat. Piot. 316d ; magician :
Eur. Ale. 966 (973), Cyd. 639 ; musician : Find. loc. cit., and
Verg. loc. cit.

2 Cf. Proclus, in Plat. Remp. 398 : 'Op<^evs are rdv Aiovvo-ov
reXerwi' r]yefxijv yevofx^uo^ to. 0)Lioia naOeli' Xeyerat to* a^erepui Q^oJ.

3 The details varied (see Rohde, ii. 115 ff. ; Gruppe, col. 1121 ff.').
The Orphic writings being largely lost, much has to be patched
together from various sources, many of them obscure.

•* The theogony does not differ from the Hesiodic in essentials ;
the chief departures are the insertion of the World-egg laid by
Night and of two vague deities, Phaues and Erikapaios.

^ I.e. slfy-god and earth-mother. Persephone = Zenielo = the
Semele of the Theban myth. The source of the name Zagreus
is doubtful.

« See esp. Eur. KpiJTe;, frag. 475a Dindorf, and Hipp. 952.

7 See Hipp. 1002. Hippolytos is apparently represented as
the ideal Orphist.

8 For reference to this see Hipp. 992 ff., and Pind. 01. ii. 76.

9 Condensed from Plat. Rep. ii. 364 E.

10 This is the figure given by Plat. Rep. x. 615 A, B ; cf. Verg.
^n. vi. 748 ; of these the former is probably Orphic-Pytha-
gorean, the latter contains the Orphic-sounding jihrase rotmti
uoluere. For other Platonic myths containing similar escha-
tology see J. A. Stewart, The Myths of Plato", London, 1905 ;
cf. A. Dieterich, Nekyia-, p. 84 ff. In Pind. frag. 98 (110) the
soul spends only eight years in Hades (i.e. an oktaeteris ; cf . art.
Calendar [Greek], § 3) before its final earthly life, after which it
attains heroic rank.

wei'e punished for the same period. After this
came reincarnation, not necessarily in human form.
Next came another period in Hades, and so on,
the process being known apparently as the kvkXos,
or cycle of reincarnations. ^ Release from this could
be obtained by a series of good lives on both sides
of the grave — for apparently each world was the
heaven or purgatory of the other. After a triple
good life on either side — three on earth and three
in Hades — the soul had purged itself from the
stain of ' original sin ' and was free to enter a
permanent {laradise, with no more jjrospect of
reincarnation, and in the enjoyment of divine
or heroic^ rank.

This theology, and much besides, was embodied
in a large literature, attributed either to Orpheus
himself or to his pupil Mousaios,^ the oldest parts
of which probably date from the 6th cent. B.C.,
while the latest representatives, the Hymns and
Orphic Argonatitica, are about 1000 years later. ^
Of this the greater part has perished, and especi-
ally the earliest and most valuable part ; and we
have of undoubted and fairly early Orphic origin
only one set of documents, the so-called Petelia
Tablets, gold plates found in Orphic graves in
S. Italy. It appears from these that a pious
Orphic was in the habit of burying with his dead
friend directions for his conduct in Hades, to aid
him to secure final bliss, since no doubt it was
charitable to .suppose that the life just completed
was the last of tiie series of good lives required to
qualify for escape from the circle.^

The tablets present the following picture of Hades. The soul,
apparently after long and thirsty wanderings, travels along a
road fianked on either side by springs. Avoiding the left-hand
spring,6 it addresses the guardians of the right-hand one,
declares itself to be of divine race, and begs for a draught of
' the cold water which floweth forth from the lake of Memory.'
The request is granted, and the soul is hailed as having ' en-
dured that whicli aforetime it had never endured.' It addresses
Persephone and the other deities of the under world and is
admitted into their society.

The poem to which all these tablets go back is
of unknown authorship and date, but it is evident
that it or something like it stands belund the
passages of Pindar and Plato already cited and
also behind much tliat is to be found in other
authors, mostly late. The connecting link is to be
found in Pythagoreanism, Avhich, it would seem,
found Orphism already established in S. Italy, and
incorporated much of its teaching. This results in
a confusion between the two systems so complete
that it is practically hopeless, with our imperfect
documents, to say definitely with regard to any
eschatological passage that it is purely Orphic or
purely Pythagorean. Through the l^ythagorean
exiles who reached Greece proper after the dis-
persion of their communities in Magna Grajcia the
higher forms of the doctrine became known to
Plato, in whom consequently we find side by side
strong Orphic-Pythagorean influence and hearty
contempt for Orphic charlatanism. Not dissimilar
is the attitude of Aristophanes, who, on the one

1 The word is found in the Petelia Tablets and elsewhere in
Orphic literature. This account of Orphic eschatology is put
together largely from Pind. 01. ii. and frag. 98-110. In the
latter we take the disputable words woivav naKaiov TreVfieos
as meaning ' atonement for her (Persephone's) ancient grief '
(at the murder of Zagreus).

- The tablets have aXAoieri ;u.e6' rip^eacri-v avd^sis and also 6\)3ie
Kal ixa.Ka.pL<7ri, Oeo^ &' i<rr] ai'ri /SpoToio. The confusion is natural
enough in a religion wliich has much to say of the beatified
dead (ripon';) and also claims divine ancestry for all men.
Ordinarily, a Greek sharply differentiated between a god, who
did not die at all, and a hero, who had been an ordinary man
but continued to live in some way after bodily death.

3 Plat. Rep. ii. 363 C, 364 E, and commentators.

4 Onomakritos edits and interpolates Musaios in the time of
Hipparcbos, son of Peisistratos, Herod, vii. 6 ; Oiphic writmgs
falsely called pre-Homeric, Herod, ii. 81.

5 Text and tr. by G. Murray in J. E. Harrison, Proleg.^,
appendix.

8 Probably Lethe, of which a soul drinks before reincarnation.
The finally purified soul has no need to forget.

THRACE

329

hand, parodies private mysteries of the Orphic
type in the Clouds and, on the other, draws in the
Frogs on the same type of ideas for his half-serious
picture of the other world.

Another problem which we cannot solve with
any great exactness is the amount of non-Thracian
thought which goes to the making of Orphism as
we know it. The very name of tlie founder is in
doubt, for, -while to some it appears a Thracian
name,^ others point to the occurrence of Greek
cognates^ as indicating it to be Greek. As to
the doctrines, it is unreasonable to suppose that
the Thracians produced so elaborate and quasi-
philosophical a system of reincarnation ; this is
rather the result of Greek reflexion on Thracian
Dionysiac material. Thrace, on the other hand,
is the likeliest claimant for the grotesque myth on
which the whole system rests ; but here again we
do not know how much was contributed by obscure
superstitions from backward corners of the Greek
world. The asceticism we may not unfairly call
Thracian, though the details of it are not definitely
non-Hellenic.

Exactly what form the Orphic religion took, in
its externals, and how long it remained a potent
force, cannot be very precisely determined, still
less what proportion of the Greek peoples was
seriously affected by it. With regard to the first
point, however, it would appear that Orphism had
but little organization. There was, and could be,
no Orphic state anywhere, and, though there was
no doubt a considerable number of Orphic congre-
gations (dlaaoi), there was no central authority to
connect them, nor have we any right to suppose
that they were identical with each other in doctrine
and practice. It was as if there existed a form
of Freemasonry in which each lodge was a law
unto itself, and there was no very definite common
ritual and no recognized means of communication
between the various lodges. Also, though many
of the greatest individual minds, notably Pytha-
goras and l*lato, and probably Socrates also, were
at one time or another affected by the cult, we
have no evidence that it was a particularly
numerous body. Pythagoreanism, which seems to
have been much more organized and had de-
cided political leanings, was still the faith of a
minority, as is seen by its helplessness when
popular feeling in Italy turned against it ; Orphism,
being non-political and probably still more the
religion of the few, was not persecuted. As to the
length of its existence, we have seen that Orphic
documents were still being written in the 4th cent.
A.D., but, like other productions of that epoch,
they show unmistakable traces of syncretism, and
of Orphism we have little or nothing outside of
literature. Therefore, on the whole, we are
disposed to attach less importance than Dieterich
does to the undeniable coincidences between
Orphic imagery, e.g., and that of certain Gnostic
and Christian writings ; we would look for the
source of that imagery, and the many common
points of ritual and belief in Christian and non-
Christian cults, to the numerous Hellenized
Oriental faiths rather than to Orphism proper,
holding that the language which once was chiefly,
if not peculiarly, Orphic had become common
property,* while Orphism itself had become very
unimportant. This, however, cannot be con-
sidered as settled beyond reasonable doubt.

1 See Tomaschek, ii. 52.

* Orphe, given as a Laconian name in Serv. on Verg. Bxtc.
yiii. 29 ; the Bueotian name 'Op<l>uiv&a.<; ; opi^o?, the name of a tish
in /El. Nat. Anim. xii. 1 ; and the root of the adj. opf^i/aioi.

2 Thus the ' cold water ' of the formula ahove quoted is
found again on Osirian tombs (G. Kaihcl, IG Siciliai et Italice,
Berlin, 1890, nos. 1488, 1705, etc.), and on at least one which
is traditionally Greek in its wording, ih. no. l;i42 ; finally
appearin',' as tlie Christian rcfriV/e (•(■«( j/i ; cf. the 'water of life'
of the NT. ' '

We may now consider brielly the moral value of
the Dionysiac and Or])hic cults. That they were
immoral in tlie obvious sense is not likely. It is
true that Livy,^ e.g., makes out Dionj'siac orgies
to have been horrible riots of lust and violence ;
but he is speaking of a late form of the worship,
far from its native place, and has all the Roman
prejudice against any secret conventicle — the same
prejudice which later gave rise to the same tales
about the early meetings of the Christians. But
in a broader sense we may say that all such cults
were immoral, for they were untrue to Hellenism,
replacing its clear envisagenient of tiie facts of life
with a misty other-worldliness, sure to lead to
intellectual decay, however brilliant the first
flowerings of its mysticism might be in such a
mind as that of Plato. Not till the nonage of the
ancient world did such doctrines really become
prevalent ; and the overthrow of the I^ytiiagorean
communities, primarily political, may be thought
of as also an unconscious revolt against a force
traitorous to Greek civilization.^

(e) Artemis. — Here we need have no doubt that
Herodotos is not to be taken too literally. All
we have any reason to believe — since of a Tliraciau
origin of the cult of Artemis properly so called we
have not the faintest trace — is that some great
nature-goddess was worshipped in that country.
We can give at least two names of such deities.
Kotyto, or Kotys, though generally spoken of as
Phrygian, was also Edonian.^ Another deity,
who was to some extent naturalized in Greece in
fairly early times,* was Bendis, whose cult is
mentioned together with that of Kotyto by Strabo.**
Of the details of her worship we know but little ;
the torch-race mentioned by Plato ^ hts well
enough with any deity equated with the torch-
bearing Artemis, but is by no means peculiar to her ;
and of the native worship of her we hear chiefly
that it was noisy.'' Probably enough there were a
score of such female personifications of the fertil-
ity of nature, worshipped with orgiastic rites not
unlike those of Dionysos himself, possibly in
connexion with him.*

(/) Hermes. — With regard to Herodotos' state-
ment that the Thracian kings especially venerate
Hermes, we are not aware that any very con-
vincing explanation has been offered, but, in view
of the facts mentioned in the next paragraph, we
suggest that he means Hermes Chthonios and
identifies with him some one of the deities after
the pattern of Zalmoxis.

(g) Zalmoxis.^ — Our chief authority for this
deity is again Herodotos, who informs us'" that the

1 xxxix. 10, and elsewhere in his description of the bac-
chanalian affair.

2 The above account of the origin and progress of Orphism,
while in our opinion the correct one, has been controverted by
R. Eisler (Weltenmantel und Himnielszclt, Munich, 1910, ch.
v.). He endeavours to prove that its origin is due to Asiatic,
particularly Persian, influences, and this theory is accepted by
some later writers {e.g., Mrs. A. Strong, Apothnosis and After
Life, London, 1915, p. 274). We hold that, with all deference
to Eisler's great learning and industry, his arguments are
wholly insufficient for the Orphism of the times of Pythagoras
or of Plato, whatever light they may throw on the mongrel
system which at the beginning of the Christian era went by
that name.

i -Esch. 'H^wvoi, frag. 55 Dindorf : <Ttii.va. Korvs iv 'llBiavol-: ;
cf. the common royal name Kotys.

4 419 B.C., see Plat. Rep. i. 237 A ff. ; cf. schol. ad loc. and
commentators.

6 Loc. cit. <j Loe. cit.

7 pap^apiKoi; kXvSiov, Procl. in Tim. 26e.

8 Or in conjunction with some of the other Dionysiac deities,
such as Sabazios (Thraco-Phrygian).

9 Also called Gebelei'zis (Herod. Inc. cit.). The name is
generally written ZoAMofi?, but with one exception the XISS of
Herodotos give SoA^o^w. As o- and ^ are often confused in
Thracian, both forn\s may be correct.

10 IV. xciv f. Part of this passage, xciv. 4, runs : oSroi ot
auTol &prjiKe<! Kal np'o'; Ppoi'Triv Tf »coi a(rrpain)v Tofevoi'Te? avia
Trpb? TOV ovpoivop aTretAeucrt toJ 6eu», ovSefa aAAoi' deov vofJ.i^ovr€^
elvat. ei jiij tov <T<j>eTepov. This has been oddly misunderstood,

330

THRACE

Getai worshipped him, and so exclusively that
they regarded no one else as a true god, even the
heavens themselves. What his nature was we can
gather in part from the rationalistic story told of
him, that he was a slave of Pythagoras, who,
returning home, taught a variant of his master's
philosophy, insisting especially on the immortality
awaiting the faithful. To prove this, he dis-
appeared for a time, hiding in an underground
room ; after three years lie returned, and so made
every one believe that he had been in Hades and
was come again. It is noteworthy that the same
story is told of Pythagoras himself,^ and it smacks
strongly of the tales, Greek and other, of super-
human persons who live in caves or under
mountains and thence return occasionally or in
some Avay intervene in human affairs.^ With this
story we must join the decided suspicion of Hero-
dotos himself* that Zahnoxis is a local divinity,
not a mortal at all, and the statement of Strabo^
that he was worshi[iped in an dvrpQdis x^P'-^" i'l
Mt. Kogaionon. He is clearly, like Dionysos
himself, a god belonging to the under world, but
not exchided from the surface of the earth, on
which, we may perhaps .suppose from the mytli,
he was thought to appear every year, as Dionysos
frequently did every second.^ As an infernal deity,
he received a curious sacrifice, if sacrifice is the
proper term to apply to what seems to have been
rather a sort of fantastic messenger service. Once
every four years the Getai chose a man by lot,
whom they tossed in the air and caught on spear-
points. If he died, he was deemed to have become
immortal ;^ if not, the god liad rejected him, and
he was disgraced. Before being tossed, he was
charged with the messages of tlie people to the
deity — a curious form of the idea, found among
many races, that the dying can take to the dead
the mandates of the living.''

(h) Other religious jiractices. — Besides the cult
of definite gods, we have a few facts relative to
the general religious attitude of tlie Thracians.
In particular, we have Herodotos'^ description
of a funeral ceremony, which sounds oddly like
Homer's account of the funeral of Patroklos. The
corpse, if of an important man, lies in state three
days, during which mourning and sacrificial feasts
go on ; finally there comes the actual funeral,
when the body is buried or burned, a mound rai.sed,
and games of various kinds, the principal one
being a single combat, are celebrated. This was
the usual rite, and it indicates at any rate high
honour paid to the dead." The duel especially
as if Tw Oeiu meant 'their god,' which would involve a contra-
diction in terms : ' They threaten the god they believe in because
they don't believe in him.' The correct translation is of course
' Heaven ' or ' Zeus ' ; cf. Ixxix. 1 f. : iirtOvixiqa-e Aioi-u'cra) Baxx^'V
TeAfo-eijrai ... 6 0ebs (Zeus, not Dionysos) iveaKruJ/e /3e'Ao<;, and
many other passages in which 6 flebs means 'sky ' or ' heavenly
bodies.'

1 Hermippos, ap. Diog. Laert. viii. 41. This story is perhaps
imitated from the one in Ilerodotos, which probably is an
invention of the Greeks of the Fontos.

2 Examples in Kohde, i 111 ft.

•* iv. 96. 4 vii. 298.

5 His festivals were regularly trieteric, i.e. in alternate years,
by the Greek (inclusive) method of counting. Did this originate
in a custom of shifting the cultivation every other year, vouched
for by Horace, Od. iii. 24, ' nee cultura placet longior annua,'
as occurring among the Getai ? Among a people backward in
agriculture the practice may well have varied, the period of
cultivation lasting for one, two, or three years in dilferent dis-
tricts according to the richness of the soil. The author owes
this suggestion to Farnell.

6 iv. 93 : TeVas tous adai/arC^ovTai (this becomes their stock
epithet) ; v. 3.

7 The idea is particularly common in modern Greek ballads.

8 V. 8.

9 The exact interpretation given to these facts depends upon
the view taken of the origin of aywi'es in general. The present
writer holds that they do not originate in funeral ceremonies,
or connote divine or (|uasi-diviiie honours, though they are
often associated with both. The duel, however, is, like tlie
Etruscan gladiatorial shows, delinitcly a sacrilicial rite in this
case.

may reasonably be thought to be a form of blood-
sacrifice. This, in some of the wilder tribes, was
no mere form ; bej'ond Krestone, Ave are told,
lived a race which practised sati ; the favourite
wife, chosen, it would seem, after careful examina-
tion of the claims of the whole haritn by the
surviving relatives, was sacrificed by her next-of-
kin at the tomb and then buried with her husband.^
The Trausoi again made a death a subject of re-
joicing, and mourned at a birth. ^ We see, then,
that the whole of Thracian religion was permeated
by the idea of the vast importance of the future
life.

{i) Summary : general characteristics of Thrac-
ian religioti. — We find in Thrace a religion of a
barbarous kind, but by no means incapable of
development into something higher and more
spiritual. The chief marks of barbarism, besides
the revolting character of some of the rites, were
{a) the largely magical character of much of the
ceremonial, unconnected with anything either
ethical or spiritual, and tending rather to excite
than to elevate ; and [b) the materialistic concep-
tion of the future life. Gods such as Zalmoxis live
underground, occasionally intervening for the
bodily good of their worshippers^ and rewarding
the faithful departed with drunken feasts ; or
so one gathers from the rationalizing story of
Zalmoxis already quoted, in which he is repre-
sented as feasting the Thracians, and the taunt of
Plato that the inferior sort of Orphics considered
eternal drunkenness the highest possible felicity.^
This is not to say that Thracian religion was
always of a sensual character. It is noteworthy
that the northern races, or some of them, had a
reputation not only for courage but also for virtue
and even for superhuman powers.

Thus the Getai are the ' bravest and most righteous ' of the
Thracians ; the holy Hyperboreans live somewhere near the
Thracian region ; in and near the neighbouring Scythian
country are the sacred and ascetic Argippaioi, the just
Issedones, and the Neuroi, who are all magicians, besides the
Sauiomatai, who are of Amazonian stock ; while the glorified
shade of Achilles haunts various localities of the Black Sea
region. 5

A great part at least of this persistent attribu-
tion of saintly or magical distinction to the
northern districts may well have for its justifica-
tion the natural complement of the strong
sexuality of those races — asceticism, which, as we
have already seen, was a strong feature of Orphism.
Another reason no doubt is simply the fact that
many of these peofdes were distant and unknown.^
Yet another is, quite likely, the existence, not of
whole nations, but of castes, which were priestly.
We have already seen that the Bessoi certainly,
and other tribes probably, had divine kings, aiid
this often enough, as in Egypt, means the domina-
tion of a sacerdotal clan or caste.

To sum up, therefore, Thrace had, so far as we
can learn from the observations of its nearest
civilized neighbours in classical times, a religion
predominantly chthonian, other-worldly, orgiastic,
gloomy, often cruel and barbaric, but not un-
spiritiial — a sharp contrast with the brightness of
the characteristic Greek cult of the Olympian
deities.

Literature. — (i.) Ethnology, etc., of Thrace : J. A. Toma-
schek, Die alien Thraker, pt. i. , ' Ubersicht der Stiimme,' SUA W
cxxviii. [1893] pt. ii., 'Die Sprachreste,' SBAW cxxx. [1893].

1 v. 5.

2 V. 4 ; cf. Eur. Kpea-^ovn)^, frag. 452 Dind.

3 Plato (Charm. 156 D) mentions ' physicians of Zalmoxis ' and
appears playfully to interpret airaSai-an'^eiv as referring to their
skill. They were probably a sort of sh.'imans or medicine-men,
who may, like their Siberian confreres, have combined medicine
and prophecy.

* Hep. ii. 363 D.

5 See Herod, iv. 13, 32-36, 23, 26, 105, 110 f., .05 ; cf. Lvkophron
Alex. 186 flf.
'■ (Jf. the piety of the Homeric Ethiopians (Tl. i. 42:!).

TIBET

331

The former deals chiefly with history and ethnolofry, the latter
with liiitfuistics.

(ii.) Thracian cults : L. R. Farnell, COS, Oxford, 1896-1909,
V. (Ares, Pionysos) ; J. E. Harrison, I'rnlegom-ena in the Studij
of Greek Reliijion-, Camlirid<,'-o, 1908 (Dionysos ; also Orphisiii);
see also the articles ' Bendis,' ' l>ioiiysii)s,' 'Kotvs,' in Roscher.

(iii.) Orphism and related cull.x : see esp. E. Rohde, PsycheA,
2 vols., Tiibingen, 1907; A. Dieterich, ISekyln", Leipziar, 1018 ;
O. Gruppe, art. 'Orpheus' in Roscher ;"E. Abel, Orphica,
Leipzifr and Prague, 18S5 (texts).

Further references to ancient and modern authorities will be
found in tlie above works. JJ, J, lioSE.

THRESHOLD.— See Door.

THUGS.— See Thags.

THUNDER.— See Prodigies and Portents,
Storm, Storm-gods.

TIBET.— The Tibetans are entitled to be re-
garded as one of tlie most 'religious' peoples in
the world, if by 'relij^ion' is understood not only
'the belief in spiritual beings,' ' but also the bind-
ing influence of tliat belief, as formulated by their
Church, for the better regulation of their worldly
actions in everyday life, and for procuring for
them by pious observance of the inculcated maxims
the satisfying hope of a higher position in the life
after death. Not only is the proportion of the
population in Tibet which devotes its life to
religion greater than that in any other country,
being at least about one to eight of the popula-
tion '^ — monks, nuns, non-celibate priests, and
neophytes — but the life of the laity is also domin-
ated and pervaded by their religion to an excep-
tional extent.

I. Climatic environments. — The peculiarities in
the climate and physical cliaracter of Tibet, and
its topoo^raphical position, between the two great
civilizations on either side, the Indian and the
Chinese, from both of which it has derived the
elements of its composite form of Buddhism,
explain to a considerable ext<::t the peculiarities
of its religdon. The vast awe-inspiring solitudes
with the rigorous nature of the climate have im-
pressed themselves visibly on the religion of the
country. And Nature has contributed, by the
massive physical barriers she has erected against
access to that land, to maintain to the present day
the isolation of that country from the rest of tlie
world, and thus to preserve the more ancient and
archaic forms of religion and superstitions.

Perched on the summit of the great plateau of
Central Asia, and sti'etching across over twenty-
two degrees of longitude, in the pala3arctic region,
from tlie Himalayas to the Kuen-lun mountains
and Western China, it includes the loftiest table-
land on the surface of tlie eartli. Although gener-
ally called a plateau, it is in fact covered with
innumerable hills and mountains, cut up by ravines,
the stretches of level land being relatively few and
far apart. The general elevation of the perma-
nently inhabited tract seldom falls below 11,000 feet
above sea-level, while a very great extent of the
country exceeds 16,000 feet, which is about the
limit there of perpetual snow. Its highest border
lies along the Himalayas, rising in mountains, tiie
highest on the globe, from which its surface slopes
gradually eastwards into China — a feature ex-
plained by the fact that in not very remote geo-
logical times the land of Til>et formed jiart of the
bottom of the China Sea of the PacKic ; and tlie
writer has picked up fossil shells on the Tibetan
side of the Himalayas which were of the same
species as those he obtained from similar strata-

1 E. B. Tylor, PC3 i. 424.

2 The census of the population hitherto taken was that by the
Chinese in 1737, which gave the proportion of the Lamas as one
to three of the total population. At the present day rJ)ont one
to eight appears to lie near the mark, in accordanre with the
jiresent writer's own observations and those of W. W. Rookhill.

formations on the outskirts of Peking. This also
explains why the Mongolic racial elements and
the Chinese forms of civilization predominate in
Tibet, and why China has maintained for so long
its suzerainty there.

Geographically, it is usual to divide Tibet lati-
tudinally into North (Chang) and South (Kham),
the North-land comprising all the Northern and
Central and much of Western Tibet, and the
South comprising South and South-Eastern Tibet.
This division is also generally followed by the
Tibetans themselves, though 'they erect Central
and South- Western Tibet (U-Tsang), with their
twin centres of Lamaism, at Lhasa and Tashilhunpo,
into a separate, and for them the chief, division of
their country, which they call JJod (pronounced
Pot). The former division they call sTod-Bod
(pronounced To-Pot), or 'Upper Bod,' which is
the origin of our modern name 'Tibet,' derived
from the phonetic spelling of mediaeval European
travellers to whom only this northern division was
accessible, and latterly applied by Europeans to
the whole of Bod, though wrongly so. This is also
the source of the Chinese name for the country of
T'u-Ean, or ' the land of the Tu barbarians of the
West.'

The northern division, or Chang, through its
extreme altitude, has a terrible climate and is un-
inhabited for the greater part of the year, being
mostly used as summer-grazing grounds by nomad
shepherds and traversed by miners and occasional
caravans of merchants at that season. It consists
of a series of parallel mountain-ranges running
east and west, with muddy valleys intervening.
In these depressions lie a great number of lake-
basins, many of which have no outlet, so that
their water is salt, and some of their shores are
white with borax crystals. It is an altogether
treeless region, interspersed with grassy tracts
used for summer pasturage. On the other hand,
Central and more especially Soutli-Eastern Tibet,
which are of considerably lower elevation, are
traversed by the Brahmaputra, and upper reaches
of the Irrawady, Mekong, Salween, and Yangtse
rivers and their tributaries are for a considerable
part wooded, enjoy a less rigorous climate, and
are the seat of most of the settled population.
But the total population of the whole country is
probably not more than 3,500,000'— i.e. a little
less than the entire population of Scotland. Snow
falls more or less, even at Lhasa, in every month
of the year.

2. Popular religion. — Living in such a rigorous
climate and isolated amidst such severe surround-
ings, the Tibetan builds his daily fears and hopes
on his religion, and, despite its inveterate devil-
worship, it is not without its elevating and inspiring
influence. The current of Buddhism which runs
through its tangled paganism has brought to the
Tibetan most of the little civilization which he
possesses, and has raised him correspondingly in
the scale of humanity, lifting him above a life
of semi-barbarism by setting before him higher
hopes and aims, by giving milder meanings to his
demonist mytlioiogy, by discountenancing sacrifice
of animal lives, and by inculcating universal
charity and tenderness to all living things. Their
Buddhism, unlike that of the Burmese, is not,
however, an educational factor in secular teaching
or in the mysteries of their religion ; for the Lamas,
wiiile living on the laity by tlieir ministrations as
priests, restrict their learning to themselves, like
the Brahmans and most priestly orders of old, and
they contemptuously call the laity ' the dark
(ignorant) jieople' (mi-7iag-pn) and 'the worldly
ones' (hjig-rten-pa), though they condescendingly

1 This is the estimate of W. W. Rockhill {Land of the Lamas,
1). '^rtfi), and it generally agrees with that of the jiresent writer.

332

TIBET

also call them ' the givers of alms ' (sbyinbdag), at
the same time making it understood that it is the
donors who benefit most by the exei'cise of this
charity. And certainly the last epithet is well
deserved, for the Tibetans, the most priest-ridden
people in the world, are among the most lavish in
their religious gifts.

Notwithstanding the large amount of non-
Buddhist elements in Lamaism, derived from the
pre-Buddhist slianianism of the Bon-cult,' it is
surprising to find how deeply the everyday life
and notions of the laity are leavened by the Bud-
dhist spirit. The doctrine of metempsychosis and
its karma and the potency of acquired merit by
good deeds enters into the ordinary habits and
speech of the people to a remarkable extent.
Their proverbs, folk-lore^ songs, and lay dramas
are full of it ; and they explain human as well as
animal friendships on this principle. Even prac-
tices which are clearly dishonest and sinful are at
times justified on the same principle, or rather by
its abuse. Thus the more sordid Tibetan recon-
ciles clieatisg to his conscience by naively convinc-
ing himself that the person whom he now attempts
to defraud had previously swindled him ' in a
former existence,' and that justice demands retri-
bution. Congenital defects, even such as blind-
ness, dumbness, and lameness, and also accidents
are viewed as retributions due to the individual
having in a previous life abused or sinned with the
particular limb or organ now aflected. Indeed
this is the orthodox dogma of Buddha's own teach-
ing and forms the basis of the Jatakas, or tales of
the previous births of Buddha, which are diffused
by itinerant or friar Lamas, and greatly impress
the people ; a few of the better-known Jatakas in
manuscript copy or in block-printed booklets form,
with the manuals of ritual and divination, the
chief books of tiiose Tibetan laity who are able to
read ; and they also form the subject of the chief
dramas enacted by the laity.

This wide-spread belief in metempsychosis also
influences tiie people in the treatment of their
cattle and other dumb animals. They treat these
exceptionally humanely, and life is seldom wan-
tonly taken. The taking of animal life unneces-
sarily, even for food, is largely prohibited, and,
although in such a cold climate animal food is
an essential staple of diet, the professional butchers
are stigmatized as sinners and are the most despised
of all classes in the country. Yet human prisoners
are at times cruelly tortured and mutilated,
possibly in some measure after the example set by
the Chinese, and possibly in some measure as a
deterrent from crime among a rather lawless
people. But nearly every crime, even the most
heinous, the murdering of a Lama, may be con-
doned by a fixed scale of fines ; and, when the fine
is not forthcoming, the punishment is inflicted, and
the prisoner, if not actually killed, is set free, muti-
lated or maimed (as there are no prisons), to serve
as a public warning to other evil-doers. Many of
the maimed and blind beggars who swarm around
Lhasa are criminals punished in this way.

The tolerant spirit of Buddhism has, however,
stamped more or less distinctly the national char-
acter, the mildness of which contrasts strongly
with the rough and semi- barbarous exterior of the
people. Testimony to tiiis trait is aH'orded by the
experiences of all intimate observers of the people
in their own country, as recorded by the present
writer and others. Hue, writing of the lay regent
of Lhasa, describes him as a man whose ' large
features, mild and remarkably pallid, breathed a
truly royal majesty,' ^^ hile ' liis dark eyes, shaded
by long lashes, were intelligent and gentle.'^

1 See below, § 3.

2 Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China-, Eng. tr., ii. 168.

Similarly Rockhill and others have described many
of the headmen and leading Lamas with whom
they came into intimate contact.' The spirit of
consideration for others expresses itself in many
grateful acts of genuine politeness and kindness.
Tibetans usually present a stirrup-cup of wine to
the departing visitor or traveller, bidding him
God-speed and adding, ' May we be able to present
you with another as welcome on your return.'
The seller of an article other tlian eatables usually
gives his blessing to the buyer in terms such as
these : ' May good come upon you,' ' May you live
long,' * May no sickness happen,' ' May you grow
rich,' to whicii the buyer replies with 'Thanks' —
^ Thug-rje-chhe,^ literally 'Great mercy,' which
recalls the French merci tendered on similar
occasions.

The personal names of both boys and girls are
largely borrowed from mystical Buddhism — e.g.,
Dor-je-tshe-ring, ' the thunder-bolt of long life,'
Dolma (spelt sgBol-ma, the Tibetan translation of
the Sanskrit name Tara, the Indian goddess of
mercy) ; and the influence of this religious habit is
also seen in the names of various places.

The common oaths or plights of asseveration are
mainly Buddhist in character. The oatli most
commonly used by merchants and the laity as an
asseveration in ordinary conversation is, ' By the
Powerful Saint' (Sakyamuni, i.e. Buddha), or 'By
the three Holiest Ones ' — the Buddhist Trinity.

The non-Buddhist features and practices of the
Tibetan religion, however, are also conspicuous,
and reflect their pre-Buddhist cult, the shaman-
istic Bon. The physical environment of their life,
in their rigorous climate where they see Nature in
her roughest mood, in pitiless fury of storms and
cold, terrorizing the brave as well as the timid,
has impelled tiiem to worship the more obvious
forces of Nature as malignant demons which seem
to wreck their fields and flocks, and vex them
with disease and disaster. Their inveterate crav-
ing for material protection against those malignant
gods and demons, as they thought them to be, has
caused them to pin their faith on the efficacy of
charms and amulets, which cherished objects are
seen everywhere dangling from the dress of every
man, woman, and child, not even excepting the
Lamas themselves. These charms, as we have
seen,^ are mostly sentences of Sanskrit texts
borrowed from mystical Indian Buddhism, and
they are supplemented by bodily and other relics
of holy Lamas, such as bits of their dress, crumbs
dropped by them, nail-parings, etc. ; and by these
charms the Tibetans believe that they muzzle or
bind or banish the devils.

A more cheerful and graceful side to their wor-
ship is seen in their popular practice of planting
the tall inscribed 'prayer-flags,' which picturesquely
flutter in the breeze around every village, and in
the strings of inscribed flaglets which flaunt from
house-tops, bridges, sacred trees, and passes, and
from other places believed to be specially infested
by malignant spirits or sprites.

As the people live in an atmosphere of the
marvellous, no story is too absurd for them to
credit, if only it is told by Lamas. Tiiey are ever
on the outlook for omens, and the everyday aflairs
of life are governed by a superstitious regard for
lucky and unlucky days and the influences of un-
propitious planetary portents. Although special
divinations are sought from professed astrologer
Lamas in the more serious events in life — in birth,
marriage, sickness, and death, and often in sowing,
reaping, building, etc. — each layman determines
for himself the auguries for the more trivial matters

1 See, e.g., the description by the present writer of the regent
of Tibet (Lhasa and its Mysteries, p. 401 f.).

2 See art. Charms and AMnLHTS (Tibetan).

TIBET

333

of his ordinary business, for travelling, buying and
selling, mending, etc.^ And yet we are apt to
forget that Confucius and Cicero — to mention only
these instances — believed in astrological auguries.

Pilgrimages to sacred shrines are very popular,^
and little is thought of the hardships and expenses
of long journeys for this purpose. Every oppor-
tunity is seized to visit celebrated shrines and to
circumambulate the numerous holy buildings and
sacred spots.

Prayers ever hang upon the lips of the people in
the intervals of their work and even during their
work. But the prayers are addressed chiefly to
devils, threatening them with punishment through
the saints and deified Buddhas, or imploring them
for freedom or release from their inflictions ; ^ or
they are plain, naive requests for aid in obtaining
the good things of this life. At all spare times,
day and night, the people ply their prayer-wheels
iq.v.), and tell their beads and mutter especially
the mystic Sanskrit six-syllabled spell, Om ma-ni
pad-me Hum .', ' Om ! the jewel in the lotus Hum,' "^
the sentence which, they are led to believe, gains
them their goal, the glorious heaven of eternal
bliss, the paradise of the fabulous Buddha of Bound-
less Light (Amitabha) or ' the Boundless Life '
(Amitayus [g'.v.]). Yet with all their strivings the
Tibetans seem never to obtain real peace of mind
in religious matters.

3. Bon or pre-Buddhist religion. — The aboriginal
pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet is called by the
people Bon (pronounced Pon) ; and those who pro-
fess it are called Bon-pa, i.e. 'the Bons.' The
meaning of the word is unknown. It is essentially
a shamanist, devil-charming, necromantic cult
with devil-dancing, allied to the Taoism of China,
and, like the latter, has become largely intermixed
with Buddhist externals. But it still retains its
essentially demonist character. It was actively
suppressed and its establishments were destroyed by
the Tibetan rulers on their conversion to Buddhism
from the 7th cent. A.D. onwards, at the instigation
of the Lamas, as it indulged freely in animal and
human sacrifices ; and it is still strictly forbidden
by the Lamaist hierarchy which holds the temporal
rule in Central and Western Tibet. But it is still
largely and openly professed over the greater part
of Eastern and South-Eastern Tibet, the most
populous part of the country, which for many
centuries has been under Chinese rule and outside
the domination of the Grand Lamas. Indeed it was
an appeal by the people of these provinces to
China to protect them and their Bon religion that
induced the Chinese to administer these provinces
on behalf of the Bons. This unsuspected fact of
the wide prevalence of the Bon religion there was
brought to light l)y W. W. Rockhill in his exten-
sive travels in these provinces,* where he found
it to be much more popular and prevalent than
Lainaism. It was especially popular among the
settled agricultural people, whilst the nomads,
whose business led them into the territory of the
Grand Lamas, were more attached to Lamaism.
So numerous Avere its adherents that Rockhill
estimated that about two-thirds of the population
of Tibet were Bons. In Central and "Western
Tibet, where the repressive policy of the Lamas
prevents the profession of the Bon cult, it is rare
to meet with any Bon priest. The present writer
has met only a few itinerant priests who were
clandestinely performing their demonist rites for
villages in remote places ; they were wliolly illiter-
ate and uncouth-looking men, exceptionally dirty,
\\\\\\ long shaggy hair, and bedecked with little

1 See art. Divination (BuddhiHt).

2 See art. Pilgiumaok (Buddhist), s (<1).

» See art. Praykr (Tibetan). 4 Sec art. .Tkwi'.i, (Buddhist).

■'■' Diarji of a Jminu'ii thnivijh Mduijoiiauiiil Tibet, pp. (>8, SOf.

tufts of wool and tiny flags ; and they indulged in
devil-dancing antics and incoherent chants.

In Eastern Tibet, however, where they are free
to practise their cult, the Bon priests live in large
flourishing monasteries, which they call gom-pas,
like the Lamaist establishments ; and they have
many images of gods and saints and demons
generally resembling in appearance those of
Lamaism, but bearing ditterent names. Their
chief god they call gShen-rabs Mi-bo, who is
reputed to be a deified priest analogous to thQ
Lamaist Padma Sambhava. They have bulky
printed and MS books of ritual, which Rockhill
found to consist of a Sanskritic jargon for the most
part interspersed with other meaningless words.
The present writer observed that the words in
some of their MSS, which are written in the
Tibetan script, were the Lamaist Sanskritic words
spelt backwards : the lotus-jewel formula of the
Lamas 1 was spelt ' Muh-em-pad-ni-mo,' thus, while
attesting their borrowing from Lamaism, emphasiz-
ing their anti-Lamaist character. The stvastika also,
which they use extensively, is invariably figured
with its ends or ' feet ' turned in the reverse direc-
tion to that of the swastika proper (the feet of the
latter turn to the right in the direction of the sun's
course), and thus indicate the Bon cult to be of a
lunar character, which is evident not only from
the bloody sacrifices, but also from the predomin-
ance of the dragon- worship therein.

A significant glimpse into the original character
of the Bon cult is obtained from the Chinese annals
of the 5th and 6th centuries A.D. {i.e. before the
introduction of Buddhism into Tibet), where the
rites of the Tibetans are described :

' The officers (Tibetan) are assembled once ever}' year for the
lesser oath of fealty. They sacrifice sheep, dogs, and monkeys,
first breakin^j their legs, and then killing them afterwards,
exposing the intestines and cutting them into pieces. The
sorcerers having been summoned, they call on the gods of
heaven and earth, of the mountains and rivers, of the sun, moon,
stars and planets, saying : " Should your hearts become changed,
and your thoughts disloyal, the gods vifill see clearly and make
you like these sheep and dogs." Every three years there is a
grand ceremony, during which all are assembled in the middle
of the night on a raised altar, on which are spread savoury meats.
The victims sacrificed are men, horses, oxen, and asses, and
prayers are offered up in this form : " Do you all with one heart
and united strength cherish our native country. The god of
heaven and the spirit of the earth will both know your thoughts,
and if you break this oath, they will cause your bodies to be cut
into pieces like unto these victims." ' '^

Even in the Buddhist period, in the 8th cent. A.D.,
similar bloody rites were celebrated by the profess-
ing Buddhist king of Tibet in concluding a treaty
with the Chinese.^

The attire of the Bon priest in his special cele-
brations* is a coat of mail armour, from the
shoulders of which project small flags, and a high-
crowned hat bordered by effigies of human skulls
and ornamented by flags and tufts of wool ; a
sword and shield are in the hands to fight the
demons. (The black-hatted devil-dancers are of
the Bon sect.) On ordinary occasions they wear
a red robe, and occasionally have human skulls
embroidered on their dress. Their hair is worn
shaggy, and not tonsured like the Lamas. They
oli'er on their altars wool and yak hair, and images
of men and animals made of dough, presumably,
as siiown by the present writer, instead of the
sacrificed animal of the primitive cult.

Whilst the present-day Bon religion has acquired
manj^ of the externals of Lamaism, many of the
elements of the old Bon religion have been incor-
porated into the latter, just as so many of the
pagan rites of Roman and Celtic heathendom have

1 See art. Jkwki, (Buddhist), g 7.

2 S. W. Bushell, ' Early History of Tibet from Chinese Sources,'
in J HAS, 1S80, p. 441.

:'Cf. L. A. Waddell, 'Ancient Historical Edicts at fihasa,' in
JRA.S, 19()9, p. 941.

4 See the figure in L. A. Waddell, Buddhixin of Tibet, p. 30.

334

TIME

been incorporated into the later Ciiristianity. The
reformed Lamaist Church of the Yellow-hat sect
employ manj' rites which are transjiarently Bon,
such as the necromantic expelling of the death-
demon and the demons of sickness, and much of
their divination-ritual. The unrefornied Red-hat
sects practise the old Bon rites to a much greater
extent, including the erection of masts attached
to dogs' and sheep's skulls, to ' bar the door ' to
the earth- and sky-demons. ^

4. Lamaism and its sects and rites. — The various
aspects of Lamaism and its sects and rites have
already been described in previous articles.^

Literature.— S. W. Bushell, ' The Early History of Tibet
from Chinese Sources,' in JA^S, 1880, p. 435 ff. ; A. Griinwedel,
M ythulogie des Buddhismus in Tibet und der Mowjolei, Leipzig,
1900 ; E. R. Hue, Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China,
ISUU-ltB, Eng. tr., 2 vols., London, 1851-52; C. F. Koppen, Die
lamaische Hierarchie %md Eircke, Berlin, 1859; C. R. Mark-
ham, Narrative of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet', Lon-
don, 1879 ; W. W. Rockhill, The Land of the Lamas, do. 1891,
'Tibet from Chinese Sources,' in JRAS, 1891, pp. 1-291, Diary
of a Journey through Mongolia and Tibet in 1S91 ami 1S:)2,
Washington (Smithsonian Inst.), 1894, Notes on the Ethnology
of Tibet, do. 1895 ; E. Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet,
Leipzig, 1863 ; L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet, London,
1895, Lhasa and its Mysteries, do. 1905, ' Buddha's Diadem,' in
Ostasiatische Xeitschrift,\. [1912-13] 133-168, 'Dharaui Cult in
Buddhism,' ib. ii. [1913-14] 155-195, ' Dharapis translated from
Tibetan,* in lA xliii. [1914] 37-95. L. A. WaDDELL.

TIME. — I. Introductory. — Temporal character-
istics are among the most fundamental in the
objects of our experience, and therefore cannot
be defined. We must start by admitting that
Ave can in certain cases judge that one experienced
event is later than anotlier, in the same immediate
way as we can judge that one seen object is to the
right of another. A good example of the immedi-
ate judgment in question is when we hear a tune
and judge that of two notes, both of which come
in our specious present, one precedes the other.
Another direct judgment about earlier and later
is made in genuine memory. On these relations
of before and after which we immediately recognize
in certain objects of our experience all further
knoAvledge of time is; built.

It must be noticed that the relation, as given in
experience, connects what we may call protensive
events, i.e. events that have some duration, and
not momentary events or moments. We are not
directly aware of events without duration, still
less of moments of empty time, and therefore are
not directly aware of the relations between such
objects. Momentary events, moments of time,
and the relations which order them in a series are
all known only after a long process of reflexion,
abstraction, and intellectual construction. This
does not necessarily imply that they do not exist
in nature, still less that they are subjective and
arbitrary ; all that is meant at present is that they
are not the objects of direct awareness. Again we
must notice that the relations of before, after, and
simultaneous with, as given in experience, are not
mutually exclusive. Protensive events may very
well overlap, and therefore we must recognize that
the most general relation between them is that of
partial precedence or consequence. Of course,
when we become familiar with the conception of
momentary events and see how convenient it is,
we tend to dehne partial precedence in terms of
them and their relation of total precedence. But
the opposite direction must be followed if we want
to start with the experienced facts and trace the
logical development from them of the scientific

1 Buddhism of Tibet, yi. 4S4 f.

-See artt. Ahbot (Tibetan) ; Ati^ia ; Bhutan-, Bnmui.^M in;
Oeliisacy (Tibet.in); < 'harms and Amulets (Tibetan); Ohortrn ;
Death and Disposal hk the Dkad (Tibciaii) ; Demons and Spirits
(Tibetan) ; IJivination (Buddhist) ; Festivals and Fasts
(Tibetan) ; Images and Idols (Tibetan) ; Incarnation (Tibetan) ;
Initiation (Tibetan); Jewel (ISuddhist); Lamaism; Lotus
(Indian); Padmasaaiwiava ; Prayer (Tibetan).

notion of time. We must take tlie exiieriunced
relation of partial precedence as fundamental and
define momentary events, moments, and the re-
lation of total precedence in terms of partial pre-
cedence and events of finite duration.

That such a course is possible is shown by the
fact that it has recently been followed to a satis-
factory conclusion by Norbert Wiener in tiie Trans-
actions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and
by A. N. Whitehead in his Principles of Natural
Knowledge. We may compare the duration of ex-
perienced events with tlie extension of visible and
tangible objects, and the relation of partial pre-
cedence with the partial overlapping of two ex-
tended objects in the field of vision. The problem
of defining momentary events, moments, and the
serial relation of before and after in terms of pro-
tensive events and partial precedence is closely
comparable to that of defining material points,
geometrical points, and the relations of before and
after on a straight line in terms of extended objects
and their partial overlapping. The problem for
time is, however, easier than that for space, because
in the former we have only to deal with a relation
that generates a one-dimensional series, whilst
with the latter the experienced facts force us to
define a three-dimensional manifold.

2. Time and space. — The analogy between time
and space has long been recognized ; and it will be
useful to consider at this point just how far it goes
and where it is supposed to break down. Let us
consider the likenesses and the alleged differences.

(a) Likenesses. — (1) Most objects of immediate
experience possess a kind of magnitude called
extensity, and such objects stand in certain im-
mediately recognizable relations to other objects
of the same sense experienced along with them-
selves. Also the ])arts of any one sucli object have
relations of this kind to each other. Similarly the
objects of our experience have another kind of
magnitude called protensity or duration. Such
objects have to others of the same kind the re-
lation of partial (or, in special cises, total) ])re-
cedence, and this relation can be recognized im-
mediately. Likewise the parts of a single specious
present can be seen to have this relation to each
other.

(2) The relations in each case have magnitude.
Just as one object in the field of view can be more
to the right of another than a third, so one event
in the field of memory or in the specious present
can precede another event by a longer interval
than some third one.

(3) In each region there is the same close and
peculiar connexion between the kind of magnitude
possessed by the terms and the kind possessed by
the relations. It is possible to say that the in-
terval between two events A and B is as long as
the duration of some event C, just as it is possible
to say that the distance between two sticks laid
in the same straight line is the same as the length
of some third stick.

(4) It is commonly believed that, when the
analysis is made into moments and momentary
events, all the events in the history of the world
fall into their places in a single series of moments.
So too it is supposed that, when the analysis is
made into material and geometrical j^oints, all the
points in the world take their places in a single
three-dimensional series of geometrical points. '

(b) Alleged differences. — (1) It is commonly held
that all events have temporal relations to each
other, but that psycliical events have no spatial
relations. This is denied by ii. small numlier of
pliiluHophers, notably by Saiiiiiel Alexander.

1 We shall consider later what the Theory of Relativity has to
say as to the impossibility of separating time and spara and as
to the notion of one single time-series.

TIME

335

Without questioning the possibility of correlating
psychical events with positions in space, we must
hold that this alleged difference is a genuine one.
If in introspection we do contemplate our states
of mind in the same sense as in perception we con-
temjilate other objects, it seems clear that our
states of mind show no trace of being extended or
standing in spatial relations, but do have duration
and stand in temporal ones. Alexander would,
however, deny that we can contemplate our states
of mind. If this be so, it would of course be quite
possible that we should fail to become aware of the
spatial characteristics of our mental states, even
though they possess them ; l)ut of course we have
no right to pass from this merely negative position
to the conclusion that they actually do possess
them. Alexander's positive reasons are bound up
with a large and complex metaphysical theory into
which we cannot here enter. In any case the
present difference is merely an external one, and
would not affect the essential similarity of space
and time.

(2) A much more important point is that time
is said essentially to involve the distinction
between past, present, and future as well as that
between before and after. Now nothing in space
obviously corresponds to these distinctions in time.

(3) Closely connected with this alleged difference
are a number of rather vague statements often
made — e,.g., that parts of space co-exist, but that
only the present moment exists.

These two supposed differences between space
and time may be treated together. They rest
largely on confusions into which it is verj'' natural
to fall. The distinction between past, present,
and future is not one which, like that between
before and after, lies whollj'^ in the experienced
objects, but is one that rests on the relations
lietween experienced objects and the states of
mind in which they are experienced. To begin
with, the distinction between present and not-
present at any rate may be usefully compared
with that between here and elsewhere in space.
Here means near my body ; elsewhere means
distant from my bod}^. If we want an analogy to
the distinction between past and future, we can
iind one in the distinction between things before
and things behind our body. It is true, however,
that this analogy is incomplete, and that for an
important reason, though one extraneous to the
nature of time. The reason is that our practical
and cognitive relations towards the future are
different from those towards the past. We know
a part of the past at any rate directly by memory,
but we know the future only indirectly by probable
inference. There is no analogy to this in space ;
our knowledge of what is behind our body is of
the same kind and of the same degree of certainty
as our knowledge of what is in front of it. But
we may imagine that a distinction like that
between past and future would have arisen for
space also, if we had been able to see straight in
front of us but had never been able to turn our
heads or our bodies round.

The distinction is sometimes drawn that the past is fixed and
unalterable, while the future depends, in part at any rate, on
our volitions. In what sense is this true?

Without involving ourselves in controversies about free will
and determination, we may at least assume that the laws of
logic apply to propositions about the future. Hence any
proposition asserting the occurrence of any future event must
be true or false, and cannot be both. In that sense the future
is as determinate as the past. Hut two points have to l)e
noticed, (i.) However much I may know about the laws of
nature, I cannot make probable inferc noes from the future to
the past, because X am not directly aiuiuainted with the future,
but I can make probable inferences from the v>ast to the future ;
I.e., although every possilile proposition about Hit future is
even now deterniinatcly true or false, 1 maybe alile to judge
now, from my knowledge of the past and ])resent and of the
laws of nature, that some propositions about future events arc
much more likely to be true than others. (It nmst of course

be remembered in this connexion that a proposition that is
.actually false may be much more lilcely to be true on my
present information than one that is actually true.) (ii.) 1
know with regard to certain classes of events that such events
never occur unless preceded by a desire for their occurrence,
and that such desires are generally followed by the occurrence
of the corresponding events. Bat the existence of a desire for
X does not increase the probability that x has happened. If it
did we might be said to affect the past in exactly the same
sense in which we are said to affect the future. Thus the
assertion that we can affect the future but not the past seems
to come down to this : (a) that propositions about the future
can be inferred to be highly prol)able from a knowledge of the
past and present, but not converselj', because of our lack of
direct acquaintance with the future ; and (J)) that the general
laws connecting a desire for x with the occurrence of x always
contain a; as a consequent and never as an antecedent.

3. Relation of time to logic. — This brings us
to the very important question of the relation of
time to logic. If we say of any event e that it is
present, this proposition will generally be false,
and will be tx'ue only at one moment. It seems,
then, as if the truth of the proposition altered
with time. Any other proposition asserting the
occurrence of an event— e.g'., Queen Anne is dead
— seems to be equally at the mercy of time. Then
again there seem to be other propo.sitions that are
totally independent of time — e.g., 2x2 = 4. These
are sometimes called eternal truths ; they always
state relations between universals, and all our a
priori knowledge is of such propositions. Lastly,
there are propositions which essentially involve
time, but claim to apply to any time; e.g., when-
ever it rains and I am out without my umbrella, I
get wet. Thus, on the face of it, there seem to be
three kinds of propositions as regards relation to
time: (1) eternal truths, which are independent
of time because they deal with the timeless re-
lations of timeless objects ; (2) hypotheticals
asserting temporal relations between classes of
events — these contain an essential reference to
time, but not to any particular time ; (3) proposi-
tions which assert the occurrence of particular
events, and which seem to be true at certain times
and false at all others, though this is not really so.

There are two points to notice about the last class of pro-
positions, (a) All propositions aV)Out events essentially contain
a reference to time, and all propositions about particular events
essentially contain a reference to the particular time at which
the event happens. This reference is not always made explicit ;
but, until this has been done, we cannot say that the verbal
form stands for any definite proposition, (b) We have to dis-
tinguish between the time at which a judgment is made and
the time involved in the proposition that is judged. When the
latter is not made explicit in the verbal expression of the
judgment, it is a convention of language to assume that the
time in the proposition is intended to be that at which the
judgment is asserted. Thus, if I say ' It is raining,' this verbal
expression, since it clearly intends to refer to a particular
event, is incomplete and stands for no definite proposition ;
for it says nothing about the time at which it rains. It there-
fore seems to be sometimes true and sometimes false. But, as
actually asserted, the words would be taken to express my
judgment of the jiroposition, ' It is raining at the time at which
I say " It is raining.'" And this proposition is timelessly true
or false, subject to a further correction which we shall add in
a moment. In fact, whenever we are told that a proposition is
sometimes true and sometimes false, we know that we are
dealing with an incomplete statement about an event, and
that the real state of affairs is that a prepositional function of
the form 'c happens at i' gives true propositions for some
values of t and false propositions for other values. But the
propositions themselves are timelessl.y true or false.

It is important to notice that in practice there
is always the possibility of any verbal statement
about events, no matter how carefully put, being
sometimes true and sometimes false. We are not
directly aware of moments of time, and so can date
events onlj'^ by other events. And the persons
who road or hear our verbal expressions may know
only by some descrii)tion tlie event which we use
for purposes of dating. Now we can never be
certain theoretically that only one unique event
answers to any descriiition liowcvcr complicated,
and often tiicre -.s real ambiguity in jiractice.
'lake, e.g., the amended expression offered tibovc :
'It is raining at the time at wiiich I say "It is
raining.'" To any reader of this article the

336

TIME

expression remains ambiguous, because lie knows
the event that is used for dating only by the very
ambiguous description, ' The writer's statement of
the words "It is raining'" — a description which
applies to dozens of different events. In practice
the difficulty is solved in conversation by the fact
that all the manifold circumstances under which
the particular conversation takes place go into the
description and make it practically unambiguous.
In writing, the difiiculty is solved practically by
using as the origin of dates some event, such as
the birth of Christ, whose full description is so
complicated that it is almost certain that only one
event answers to it. But the theoretical difficulty
remains, and so we are tempted to say that any
proposition about events is sometimes true and
sometimes false. But the proper thing to say is
that any verbal expression referring to events, no
matter how carefully put, always runs a theo-
retical risk of ambiguity — i.e., it might with equal
propriety make one reader think of one proposition
which is true, and another of another proposition
which is false.

We can now apply these general results to the
special case of events being sometimes future, and
then present, and finally past. The statement ' e
is present' is essentially incomplete and ambigu-
ous, for, as we loosely say, it is sometimes true
and sometimes false. The first thing, then, is to
fill in the special time involved in the proposition.
We then get 'e is present at f,' where t is some
definite moment fixed by some system of dating
from a well-known and presumably unique event.
What does this statement mean ? Assuming tliat
there are such things as moments, it means that e
is at the moment t in an analogous way to that in
which an object is at a position in space. The
statement ' e is present at t ' may be compared with
the statement ' Mr. Asquith is present at the meet-
ing,' which means that his body is in the place
where the meeting is held. In all complete state-
ments of the form ' e is at ^ ' we must understand
the word 'is' as standing for a timeless copula,
and distinguish it from the ' is ' of the present
tense, which is contrasted with ' was ' and ' will
be.' Let us denote the ' is ' of the present tense by
' is now.' Then the statement ' e is now present ' is
an incomplete statement which is interpreted in
use to mean ' e is at (or occupies) the same moment
as my assertion that it is now present ' ; ' e is now
past ' = 'e was present ' = ' e is at a moment earlier
tlian my assertion that e is now past.' Similarly,
'ewUl be present'=:'e is now future ' = 'e is at a
moment subsequent to my statement that e is now
future.' The laws of logic are of course concerned
witli the timeless copula, and they presuppose that
statements containing tenses are reduced in the
way suggested above.

4. Past, present, and future. — We see, then,
that the real source of the distinction between past,
present, and future, and of the ditVerence here
between time and space, is that our judgments as
well as the events judged about are in time, whilst
our judgments about things in space are not in any
obvious sense in space. These three distinctions
correspond to the three possible temporal relations
between our judgments and the events which our
judgments are about. These distinctions are im-
portant, and they have been enshrined in language
because they are correlated with important epis-
temological and psychological differences. Some
states of mind are essentially contemporary with
their objects — e.g., the immediate awareness of
visual sense-data when I open my eyes.^ Other

1 It is better for the present not to call these states of mind
either perceptions or sensations, because the object of a percep-
tion is i;enerally supposed to be a pliysical object or its state,
and this may exist millions of years before the perception — e.g.,
the )ierception of a distant star. Similarly, to call these states

states are essentially later than their objects — e.g.,
memories. If we exclude the possibility of prophecy,
we may state the important epistemological pro-
position that all states of mind which give us an
immediate knowledge of existents are either con-
temporary with, or later than, tlieir objects.

It is important to notice that these statements
are not merely analytic. There is a psychical differ-
ence between memories and awarenesses of contem-
porary sense-data which is open to introspection
(though, of course, there may be marginal cases
where the diiference falls below the threshold of
distinguishability), so that the statement that the
former succeed and the latter are contemporary
witli their objects is a synthetic proposition.

We must, moreover, take into account the facts
described in psychology as the specious present.
In the first place, we must say that, if an object be
known directly by a state of mind which succeeds
it by more than a certain short time t, which seems
to be fairly constant for a given individual, the
state counts introspectively as a memory, and the
object is judged to be past. If the period between
the object and the direct awareness of it be not
greater than t, the awareness does not count for
introspection as a memory, and the object is judged
to be present. To say, then, that an object has
been present and is now past means that (a) it is
(timelessly) the object of an immediate awareness
which succeeds it by less than t, and [b) that my
statement ' It is now past ' succeeds it by more
than i. We have still, however, to consider what is
meant by the presentness of a state of mind. Tliis
seems to mean that, if a state of mind be the object
of an act of introspection which suceeeds it by less
than a certain short period, the state presents a
certain peculiar characteristic which it does not
present to any later act of introspection.

We can now deal with such statements as that
only the present exists, or that the present is a
mere transition from one infinite non-existent to
another. These phrases are mere rhetoric rooted
in confusions. It is perfectly true, of course, that
the whole history of the world is not a complex of
co-existing parts (in the sense of parts existing at
the same time), as a table is. But this does not
mean that it is not a whole, or that one part of it
exists any less than any other part. To say that
X no longer exists, or does not yet exist, simply
means tiiat it occupies a moment before or after
my statement about it. At another moment I
may make another statement of the same verbal
form about x, and, since this no longer stands for
the .same proposition, it may no longer be true (i.e.
no longer stand for a true proposition). But this
involves no change in x itself. That x exists at a
certain moment simply means that x occupies that
moment, and this is timelessly true. Similarly,
the fact that this moment has a certain temporal
relation to any definite assertion that I may make
about X is timelessly a fact. That it has different
and incompatible temporal relations to various
assertions of the same verbal form made by me is
also timelessly true, and is not merely compatible
with but also a necessary consequence of x's exist-
ence at its own moment. An event must continue
to be, if it is to continue to stand in relations ; the
battle of Hastings continues to precede the battle
of Waterloo, and therefore both these events must
eternally be at their own respective moments.
That both have ceased to be present merely means
that they precede any assertion that I or my con-
temporaries can make about them ; that both were
once present merely means that both are contem-
porary with some assertions made about them.

of mind sensations would lead to misunderstandings, owintc to
the ambiguities of that word and the widely held belief that
sensations do not ha\ e objects.

TIME

337

The fallacy which we have to avoid is tliat of
confusing two different senses of co-existence. In
one sense the parts of any related whole co-exist ;
in another only those events that occupy the same
moment of time co-exist. It is clear that the whole
course of history does not co-exist in the second
sense, and it is thought that this prevents it from
co-existing in the hrst. Yet this is necessarily
false, since it is admitted that events do have and
continue to have temporal relations, and therefore
they must form a related whole all of whose parts
have being. The confusion is increased by the
belief that past, present, and future are essential
characteristics of objects in time in the same way
as before and after are, instead of being analysable
into the temporal relations of states of mind and
their objects.^

When it is once recognized that the whole course
of events is in a certain sense a totum simul, it
becomes easy to see the answer to the famous theo-
logical problem : How can God's foreknowledge of
men's actions be compatible with the freedom of
men's wills? The answer is as follows. Whether
men's wills be free or not, every man's future actions
are as completely determinate as his past ones ; this
is a mere consequence of the laws of logic. If inde-
terminism be true, then no amount of knowledge
about events previous to a moment t, and about
the general laws of nature or the particular habits
of a man, will enable us or even God to infer with
certainty what the man's volition at t actually
is, although it is eternally perfectly determinate.
These two statements are clearly quite compatible.
Finally, in spite of the fact that God cannot infer
the man's volition at t, He may at any and every
moment be directly aware of it in precisely the
same way as we are aware directly (and not merely
inferentially) of certain events throup:h memories
which are themselves later events. The facts that
at a certain moment t-^ God can have a state of
mind whose immediate object is the volition of a
man at some later moment t^, and that no amount
of knowledge of events before t^ would enable Him
to infer the volition at t^, are perfectly compatible ;
and they cease to be even paradoxical when we
compare the case of memory and note that there is
no essential difference between past, present, and
future. 2

5. Reality of time. — A great many philosophers
have been concerned to deny the reality of time.
Their arguments fall into two groups:' (1) those
that depend on the supposed infinity and continuity
of time, and are therefore equally applicable to
space ; and (2) those that depend on the supposed
peculiarities of time — e.g., on the distinction of past,
present, and future. Before considering tlie argu-
ments in detail, it Avill be useful to make some
quite general reflexions.

(i.) It is a matter of direct inspection that the
immediate objects of some of our states of mind
have temporal characteristics. It is as certain that
one note in a heard melody is after another in the
same specious present and that each has some
duration as that some objects in my field of view
are red or square and to the right or left of each
other. It is then quite certain that some objects
in the world have temporal characteristics, viz. the
immediate objects of some states of mind. Now
it is also certain that these objects exist at least
as long as I am aware of them, for, in such cases,
I am obviously not aware of nothing. Hence
there cannot be anything self-contradictory in the
temporal characteristics found in these objects, for
otherwise we should have to admit the existence of

1 The point can perhaps be made clearer by reflecting that a
tune has a pattern in time in exactly the same sense as a wall-
paper has a pattern in space.

2 We can, of course, remember much that we could not infer.

VOL. XII. — 22

objects with incompatible chai'acteristics. Hence
there is no obvious reason why temporal character-
istics should not also applj' to what is not the
immediate object of any state of mind. It follows,
then, that criticism cannot reasonably be directed
against temporal characteristics as such, but only
against the descriptions that we give of the temporal
characteristics of experienced objects, and the con-
clusions that we draw from them or the construc-
tions that we base on them. And arguments that
refer to the infinity and continuity of time are
really directed against a construction based on
what we conceive to be the essential characteristics
of the time element which is undoubtedly present
in the objects that we experience ; for we are not
directly aware of infinite duration or of the con-
tinuity— in the mathematical sense — of time. If
we suppose that such criticisms are successful, the
conclusion ought not to be either that reality has
no temporal characteristics (for it is quite certain
that at least some parts of it have), or that time,
as an inference or construction extending the
temporal characteristics of experienced objects to
others, is unreal (for this goes much too far). The
only justifiable conclusion would be that one
particular way of describing and extending the
temporal characteristics of experienced objects is
unsatisfactory, and that it behoves us to look for
a better one. This point has not commonly been
grasped by philosophers who claimed to disprove
the reality of time.

(ii.) It is thus obviously of importance to be
clear as to what is the particular view of time
that is attacked by special arguments. The
important distinction for us to make is this : it
is possible to hold [a) that there is a series of
moments of time, and that events occupy some
of them but are distinct from them, and have
temporal relations to each other in virtue of those
Avhich subsist between the moments that they
occupy ; or {h) that there are no such things as
moments distinct from events, but that events
really do have direct temporal relations to each
other ; or (c) that there are no moments, and that
even events only appear to have temporal relations
to each other. It is clearly possible to deny [a)
without denying (h). To do this can hardly be
called denying the reality of time ; it should
rather be called denying the absolute theory of
time in favour of the relative theory. It is only
philosophers Avho deny both {a) and {b) and support
[e) who can strictly be said to deny the reality
of time. It is quite possible, however, that some
arguments might be equally fatal to (a) and to (6).

It will be well at this point to say what we can about the
controversy between absolutists and relativists. The absolute
theory strictly means that temporal relations between events
are regarded as compounded out of two relations — (1) that of
an event to the moment of time which it occupies, and (2) the
relation of before and after between moments of time. The
relative theory holds that tliere are no moments, but that
temporal relations hold directly between events. Its most
important philosophical upholder is Leibniz, thoug-h he goes
a good way farther in the direction of (c); it is also held, with
a good deal of misunderstanding and confusion, by many
modern physicists of a philosophical bent. We may say that
the relative theory stands at one remove, and the absolute
theory at two removes, from what we find in the objects of
immediate experience. Here we find, as we have seen, events
of finite duration and relations of partial precedence. The
relative theory rejilares these objects by series of momentary
events of no duration, and the relations by those of total
precedence and simultaneity. The absolute theory takes the
farther step of introducing a new set of entities, viz. moments
which have no duration and stand in relations of total preced-
ence but never of simultaneity, and a new relation, viz. that
between a momentary event and the moment which it occupies.

Neither theory has been very accurately staled by most of
its supporters ; e.q., Newton, the chief upholder of the absolute
theory, was mainly concerned with the measurement of time
and the desire for a constant rate-measurer. But the two
theories, when thought out, may be reduced to what has been
stated above. We may say at once that we know of no way of
deciding conclusively between the two. But, although moments
and momentary slates may exist, we now know that all their

338

TIME

work can be done by certain logical functions of nothing: but
events of finite duration and their relations of partial pre-
cedence. Hence both theories may be said to sin by assuming
entities which are not necessary to science and cannot be either
directly or indirectly verified (viz. momentary events in the
relative theory, and moments in the absolute theory), and the
absolute theory is the worse sinner of the two. As certain
logical functions of what actually exists (viz. certain classes of
classes of events), moments do exist ; but whether there also
exists anything having the same logical relations but of the
type of individuals and not of that of classes of classes it seems
totally impossible to determine. It is, however, often con-
venient to continue to speak in terms of moments, and this
is harmless for the reasons given above.

We can now deal with the special arguments
against time.

(1 ) Those based on its supposed infinity commonly
confuse infinity with endlessness. They generally
proceed on the assumption that what is meant by
the infinity of time is that it has neither a first
nor a last moment. But this would be perfectly
compatible with the whole course of time lasting
for no more than a second. The fractions between
0 and 1, arranged in order of magnitude, have
neither a first nor a last term, and yet the interval
between any two of them is less tlian unity. But
all attempts to prove that time or the series of
events must have an end fail. So do attempts to
prove that they cannot have ends. The most
celebrated argument on both sides of this question
is contained in Kant's first antinomy. His
argument against the endlessness of time, inter-
preted as charitably as possible, comes to the
statement that, because tliere are definite points
in the time-series — in particular, the point which
we have reached when we read Kant's argument —
therefore the series must have a definite beginning
point. Otherwise, Kant says, the series of events
could never have reached the definite point which
it admittedly has reached. The argument is, of
course, a complete non-sequiticr, for it practically
amounts to saying that a series cannot have any
definite term unless it has end points. And this
is sufficiently refuted by considering that the
number + 2 is perfectly definite, altliough the series
of numbers with signs has neither a first nor a last
term.

Arguments to prove that time or the series of
events in time cannot have a beginning are
perhaps more plausible. It is difficult for us
psychologically to imagine a first event or a first
moment, because all the events that we can
remember have been preceded by otliers. Also
there are special difficulties connected with causa-
tion in the notion of a first event, which do not
apply to a first moment or to a last event. A
first event is one which no event precedes, though
there may of course be moments that precede a
first event. Now, the only plausible general
proposition about causation seems to be that, if
the whole universe were completely qviiescent for
a finite time, it could not begin to change.^ This
means that, if the universe be in the same state
at any two moments ty and t^ and at all moments
between them, it will be in the same state at all
moments later than t-^. Now, to say that a change
happens at <, means that, if the state of the uni-
verse at ^1 be 5i, and if it also be Sj at any later
moment ^2r then there is a moment between' ^j and
^2 at which its state is different from s-^. It follows
from this definition that to say that a first event
happens at t involves that the universe has been
in the same state for a finite time before t. And
this is contrary to our proposition about causation.
If, then, we accept this proposition as an a 2'>i'iori
truth, there cannot be a first event, though there
might be a first event in certain isolated parts of
the universe (e.g., the creation of the world) pro-
vided that there had never been a first event in

The universe here must be taken to include God, if there
be one.

other parts [e.g., in the mind of God). But, of
course, there remains the doubt whether our axiom
about causation be not a mere prejudice mas-
querading as an a priori law.

It must be carefully noted that, if there be a
first event, there need not be a first moment of
time, and that, if there be a first moment of time,
there need not be a first event. Again, if there
be a first moment of time and no first event, either
there might be no moment, except the first, that
was not occupied by an event, or there might be
a duration unoccupied by events. These con-
sequences follow from the continuity of time,
and have often been overlooked by philo-sophers
ignorant of the mathematical theory of continuity.

Leibniz based his main argument against the
absolute theory of time on the fact that, if it
were true, there might be a i)eriod, finite or in-
finite, before any event happened. This period
must be definite ; and yet, the moments of time
having no intrinsic ditt'erence, tliere is no reason
why it should be ended or limited by one moment
rather than another. If, on the other hand, we
avoid this by assuming that there is an event at
every moment of time, there is no reason for
assuming both events and moments, for the series
of events will suffice.

This argument is a sound one against assuming
that there are moments, though it certainly cannot
disprove that there may be moments. If there
v/ere moments, they would doubtless have intrinsic
difierences, though we could not discover them ;
we must further recognize some ultimate facts,
and one of these might be that the course of events
is preceded- by such and such a duration of empty
time.

We may sum up our conclusions as follows.
Arguments to disprove the reality of time from
its infinity and continuity either confine them-
selves to criticizing infinity and continuity as
such or introduce considerations about causality.
Arguments of the first kind would be equally
fatal to any infinite or continuous series, and
therefore prove too much, for they would destroy
tlie series of real numbers. And we now know
that all such arguments do rest on confusitms and
on an insufficient analysis of the notions of infinity
and continuity. There is therefore no reason why
the series of moments at any rate should not be
either (a) endless or (b) of infinite length. The
second set of arguments can apply only to events
and not to the supposed series of moments,
because causation is concerned with events and
not with empty time. We saw that, if a certain
plausible axiom about change be true, there cannot
be a first event. This would not, however, prove
that the whole series of events has lasted for an
infinite time, though the present writer knows of
no objection to such a possibility. There is no
more objection to the series of events being end-
less than to any other .series being endless — i.e.,
there is none at all. The result is that all danger
of a valid antinomy against time vanishes, (i.)
Whether the axiom about change be true or not,
it is equally possible that the series of moments
shall be (a) endless or terminated, and [b] of finite
or of infinite length, (ii.) If the axiom about
change be true, the series of events cannot have
a beginning, but may (a) have an end or not, and
[b) be of finite or of infinite length.

(2) Arguments against the reality of time which
turn on the distinction of past, present, and
future may be dealt with shortly. One argument
asserts that the past and the future do not exist,
and that the present is a mere point without
duration. It is then supposed that what occupies
no finite duration cannot be real, and this disposes
of the present. An argument of this kind is used

TIME

339

by Leibniz against absolute time, thougli it would
presumably apply to events just as well. It is
met, of course, by the consitleration that past,
present, and future are all always equally real,
and that these characteristics do not belong to
events as such, but in virtue of the temporal
relations between them and certain psychical
events.

A somewhat different argument against the
reality of time has been produced by J. M. E.
McTaggart.^ His argument is that every event is
past, present, and future ; and that the attempt to
avoid the incompatibility of these predicates by
saying that the event has been future, is present,
and will be past involves a vicious circle or a vicious
infinite regress. The answer is that, whenever we
consider any definite statement about the pastness,
presentness, or futurity of an event, we can see
that there is no contradiction. Take a definite
statement by McTaggart that Queen Anne's death
is now past and has been present and future.
Suppose we interpret this to mean that Queen
Anne's death is not the direct object of any aware-
ness (even a memory) which is contemporary with
McTagsart's statement, but that it is contempo-
rary with some states of mind (e.g.. Lord Boling-
brolce's) which precede McTaggart's statement;
and that it is later than some thoughts about it
{e.g., William lll.'s), which also precede the state-
ment. Then those three propositions seem to be
timelessly true, perfectly compatible, and to con-
tain all that is meant in the assertion by McTaggart
that Queen Anne's death is past and has been
present and future.

We may conclude, then, that no satisfactory
proof has been offered even that absolute time is
unreal, still less that the series of events and their
direct temporal relations are unreal.

6. Measurement of duration. — It seems to have
been the question of a rate-measurer that led
Newton to the theorj' of absolute time. Newton
considers a number of periodic events which are
roughly isochronous, and compares their rough
isochronism with ' absolute time, which flows
uniformly.' It is an unfortunate way of intro-
ducing absolute time. In the first place, it is of
no practical use to any one. Whether absolute
time flows uniformly or not, we can only observe
events and must use them, or processes based on
them, as our rate-measurers. Again, the statement
that absolute time flows uniformly is thoroughly
obscure. Time cannot be said to flow, for this
seems to imply that time changes ; and this would
make time consist of a series of events in time.
Nor is it at all clear what Newton meant by uni-
formity in this connexion. Presumably the mean-
ing must be that the moments of time form a series
like the real numbers. What we really want to
know is whether we can find any periodic process
such tliat the time that elapses between corre-
sponding stages in each repetition is the same.
But no essential reference to absolute time is in-
volved here. We must beware of confusing the
two statements : (1) there are definite intervals of
a certain determinate duration, and this duration
is independent of our methods of measurement ;
and (2) there are absolute moments of time, and
the interval between any two of these has a definite
magnitude. The latter implies the former, but
not conversely. The real problem is : Granted
that there is a definite interval between pairs of
events, how are we to measure it ?

There is a special difficulty in measuring intervals
of time between events which is not nearly so much
felt in measuring the distance between things.
This difticulty is in the temporal analogue to super-
position. \\ e may carry a rod about with us in
1 ' The Unreality of Time,' 3!ind, new ser., xvii. [1908] 457-474.

space, and we may have fairly good reasons to
believe that it has not altered in length. The
corresponding procedure in time-measurement is to
find some process which can be started and stopped
at any moment and can be assumed to have the
same period whenever it is repeated. Such pro-
cesses may be called isochronous. But, even when
an isochronous process has been secured, it cannot
be used to measure time in the same direct way in
which a rod can be used to measure length. A rod
will not as a rule fit an exact number of times into
what we want to measure ; it is therefore divided
into a number of equal parts. Similarly we want
an isochronous process tliat can be divided into
equal subdivisions which can be easily recognized ;
i.e., we want a process which itself consists of a
number of similar processes which all occupy equal
times. Now, it is not nearly so easy to be sure
that a process takes the same time whenever it is
repeated as to be sure that a rod keeps the same
length wherever we use it ; and it is much less easy
to divide a process into parts that occupy equal
times than to divide a rod into parts tliat have
equal lengths. The recognizable divisions in a
process of change are largely fixed for us, wliile
divisions on a rod can be fixed by us with marks
without affecting the rod as a whole.

Nevertheless the assumptions that have to be
made, and the peculiar mixture of observation
and convention that is involved, are the same in
principle for the measurement of time and of space.
The fact is that we can make immediate com-
parisons both of length and of time with a certain
amount of accuracy. We believe that these judg-
ments are the more accurate the nearer the objects
to be compared are in time and space, and the more
similar the circumstances under whicli each is
inspected. Trusting to these immediate judg-
ments, we see reason to believe that both the
lengths of rods and the time taken by processes
may vary when the rods are moved or the processes
repeated. But we believe that the variation always
depends on the fact that change of position in space
or time involves change in the relations of the rod
or the process to pieces of matter, and that mere
changes of position in absolute time and space —
if such could be — make no difference. We have
learned by experience what are the most important
factors that determine change of length or of period,
and we can allow for them. It is found that the
periods of recurrent processes are, on the whole,
more largely affected by changes in the surround-
ings than are the lengths of such bodies as steel
rods.

Our method of determining an ideal rate-
measurer is somewhat as follows. We begin with
some process which is sensibly isochronous — e.g.,
the swing of a pendulum, or the time taken for a
complete rotation of the earth on its axis. We
can judge of this isochronism with a certain amount
of accuracy by direct comparison in memory, just
as we can compare lengths by looking at tliem.
We can go farther than this. Just as Ave are greatly
helped in our comparison of lengths by putting
the objects to be compared side by side, so we
can use expedients to help our judgments of the
isochronism of processes. If we start two pendu-
lums together and their periods be not exactly the
same, the divergence will become more and more
marked the longer they swing. If no divergence
be noted after many swings, we may conclude that
each swing of one takes the same time as the
corresponding swing of the other. This does not
prove that the successive swings of eitlier are
isochronous ; for the period of each may be vaiying
according to the same law. But, if we al.-^o find
that the period of one of these processes synchron-
izes with the corresponding period of some other

340

TIME

sensibly isochronous process which is physically
very different, it becomes very improbable that
there should be any law by which the successive
periods of two such very diflerent processes alter
in precisely the same way. We are therefore
justified in concluding tentatively that the succes-
sive periods of these sensibly isochronous processes
are actually isochronous.

The next step is to state all the laws of nature
which involve time on the assumption that equal
intervals of time are measured by complete periods
of such processes. We find, e.g., that, if it be
supposed that the successive rotations of the earth
on its axis are isochronous, the laAvs of motion can
be very simply stated and are very nearly verified
by all the mechanical phenomena that we can
observe. So far we are entirely in the region of
what can be experienced or rendered very probable
from what we experience. But now a conventional
element enters. We shall probably find that, when
time is measured by an actual physical process and
when our laws have been stated in terms of time so
measured, a closer investigation shows that there
are slight divergences from the laws which cannot
be accounted for by mere experimental errors.
The last stage in the determination of the equality
of times now begins. We argue that the suggested
laws are so simple and so nearly true that the
most reasonable plan is not to keep the same time-
measures and complicate the laws, but to suppose
that the laws are rigidly true but the time-
measurer not perfectly accurate; i.e., that suc-
cessive periods of this physical process are not
f)erfectly isochronous. We therefore erect the
aws into principles, define equality of times by
them, and apply the necessary corrections to our
old time-measurer. There is nothing particularly
arbitrary about this. We believed, to begin with,
as the result of direct judgments assisted by the
use of such expedients as have been described
above, that a certain periodic process is isochron-
ous. We admitted, however, that deviations from
isochronism so small as to escape the notice of any
direct method are possible. We then stated our
laws in terms of time as measured by this process,
and found them to be simple and very nearly true ;
but, if they are to retain their simple form and
become quite true, a small correction must be
made in the assumed isochronism of the process.
This contradicts nothing that we have deduced
from our experience ; for we admitted all along
the possibility of errors too small for direct detec-
tion. The procedure has the least trace of arbi-
trariness if, as is often the case, we can see the
physical cause of the lack of complete isochronism
in our time- measurer and can fully explain this
lack in accordance with the laws which we have
erected into principles. This has happened, e.g.,
with the earth as a time-measurer, where we can
explain its small defect from isochronism, when
once we have to assume it, by the frictional ettect
of the tides acting according to the laws of
mechanics. Even when no physical cause can be
detected for the presumed lack of isochronism, it
is ahyays possible to suggest a hypothetical one.
But, in so far as this has to be done, our procedure
does become more arbitrary ; and a point may be
reached where a full explanation of all the phen-
omena demands a real change in the form of the
laAvs with or without a change in the time-measurer.
This has happened in recent years to the laws
of motion, mainly through investigations on the
movements of small electrically charged particles
with a velocity comparable to that of light.

7. Theory of Relativity.— The next point to be
considered is the criterion of beforeness, afterness,
and simultaneity among events which are not the
objects of any one experience. We have seen that

in favourable cases we can immediately judge that
one event that we experience is after another
that we experience. Other people can make similar
judgments about events in their experience. But
we cannot directly judge of the temporal relations of
events which we do not directly experience. Matters
are on exactly the same footing with spatial re-
lations. I may be immediately aware that one
object in my field of view is to the right of another
in the same field, and another man may be able to
make similar judgments about his visual sense-
data. But it remains to be seen what is meant by
saying that an object which A experiences is at the
right of one which B experiences ; or again what
is meant by the statement that of two objects
which no one experiences — e.g., two atoms — one is
to the right of the other. What is wanted is to be
able to date events in a time-series Avhich is neutral
as between A 's experience and i5's, and shall contain
events that do not fall into the direct experience
of any one. In this problem we must carefully
distinguish between two questions which are liable
to be confused : (1) How do we come to understand
the nature of the relations in the neutral time-
series?, (2) How do we know with regard to any
two definite events, e^ and Cj, whether e^ is before
or after or simultaneous with e^ ?

The answer to the first question is that the re-
lations in the neutral series are regarded as having
the same logical properties as those which we
directly experience, or at any rate as being capable
of definition in terms of the logical properties of
these relations. Possibly a temporal relation as
experienced by A has a sensuous particularity
different from that possessed by one experienced
by^B ; just as it is impossible to say whether the
quality of what A sees and that of what B sees
are precisely the same when they say that they

Serceive the same colour, and no available test can
etect any discordance between their experiences.
But, of course, the sensuous particularity is what
is shed when we consider a neutral time-series,
and only the logical properties of the relations
(e.g., transitivity, asymmetry, etc.) are important.
The distinction between the space and time of
each man's experience and a neutral space and
time runs parallel with the distinction between
the immediate objects of each man's experience
and neutral {or, as we call them, physical) objects.
However we suppose physical objects to be con-
stituted, and whatever we suppose to be the re-
lation between our minds and them, it must be
assumed that physical objects are in the neutral
space, and that their changes take place in the
neutral time and make themselves known to us by
correlated changes in the immediate objects of our
experience.

It is not necessary here to consider how a
number of people, il/j . . . Mn, come to agree
that certain events, e^ , . . e^, in their respec-
tive sense-data are all correlated with the same
physical event. But it is necessary to notice that
they will find, first of all in the case of sound,
that, if their physical laws are to give at all a
simple and complete account of what they may
expect to hear under given circumstances, they
must assume that the sounds heard by various
people, and all correlated by them with a single
physical event, are not in general contemporary
with each other. The greatest accuracy and
simplicity is introduced into the laws of sound by
supposing that the hearing of the sounds by the
various people takes place at times dependent on
the positions of their bodies in physical space and
on the spatio-temporal position of the single
physical event correlated with all these sounds.
This example brings out three very important
points. (1) The determination of the temporal

■■fijl

TIME

341

relations between events in the minds or in the
immediate objects of the minds of difl'erent people
can be accomplished only when these events have
been correlated in some definite way with supposed
neutral physical events ; (2) the temporal relations
then assigned are such as to make the laws telling
us what sensations to expect in given circumstances
as simple and accurate as possible ; (3) it follows
from these considerations that the determination
of a neutral time-series and of the positions of
physical objects in a neutral space must proceed
pari passu.

Suppose, e.g., that we say that the velocity of sound is v
centimetres per second : (1) we want to connect all the known
facts about the sounds which people hear under circumstances
that can be directly experienced ; (2) we want to do this com-
patibly with the assumptions which have already been made as
to what heard sounds are to be classed totjether as connected
with one physical event ; and (3) we want our laws which sum
up the known facts and anticipate experience to be as simple as
is compatible with accuracy. We find that these ends can best
be accomplished by supposing that ^'s hearing of sa and B's
hearing of sb (sa and sb being both correlated with the single

physical event S) take place at times t H and t+ — respec-
tively, where t is the date of S in the neutral time-series, and
Xa and xb are the respective distances between the place where
S happens in physical space and A's and B'b bodies as physical
objects. We must remember that the correlation of several
sounds heard by different people with a single physical event
and the assignment of positions in neutral space to physical
events are themselves carried out on the same general principles
as the dating of events in neutral time and as the measurement of
duration already described ; i.e., we start with instinctive judg-
ments of rough accuracy, and then proceed to a more accurate
determination of our terms, guided by the general motive of
maximizing the accuracy and simplicity of scientific laws.

As we have seen, sound is the first and most
obvious case where it is necessary to assume
difl'erent dates for different members of a group of
sense-data which are all correlated with a single
physical event. The more accurate researches of
science necessitate a similar process for dealing
with tlie sense-data of sight, and so the notion of a
velocity of light is introduced. These velocities,
once determined, furnish a criterion of before and
after among physical events, and, through them,
for events in difl'erent minds.

Let us denote any moment at A by the symbol "tr, and an
event which happens at the point A at the moment "tr by
aer. Let us use the same notation for events and moments
at B. Then we can say : An event "er precedes an event es if
a disturbance leaving A at "tr reaches B not later than ^ts.
Now it is found that we have no reason to believe that any
disturbance travels faster than light. It can be shown that, if
the above be our sole criterion for before and after between
events at different places, there will be pairs of such events of
which we have no reason to say that one is either before, after,
or contemporary with the other.

To see this, consider the following case. Let "ei happen at
A at "ti. A signal which leaves A at "ij cannot reach B before
a certain moment ''<2- Again, a signal that reaches A at "<i
cannot have left B after a certain moment ^o- On our criterion,
therefore, "fj is before any moment that is after ''U and is after
any moment that is before %. But how are events at B which
happen between *to ^"'^ '''2 related in time to the event "^i^
Take an event ''e^. such that ''t^ is between h^ and *<2- You
cannot say that it is before "fj ; for a disturbance leaving B at
btx would reach A later than %. But you also cannot say that
"<! is before it; for a disturbance leaving A at "tj would reach
B later than ^t^ (viz. at h<^. Hence on our criterion we can
neither say that 'e^. is before "ej nor that "cj is before ''e^.
Moreover, there is an infinite number of events at B of the
form '^ej. where x is between 0 and 2. Thus we cannot cut the
knot by saying that, since they are neither before nor after "ej,
they are contemporary with it. For they are not contemporary
with each other. Thus one and only one of the class of events
'"gj. can be taken to be contemporary with "«!, and the rest, so
far as our criterion goes, must be held to be neither before,
after, nor simultaneous with "fii. We are thus compelled to re-
cognize that we may have no means of deciding whether a pair
of events at different places in physical space are contemporary
or not in physical time.

We can, if we like, accept this result, and build
up our physics on the assumption that physical

time really is non-connexive ; i.e., that, though
all events have temporal relations to some events,
none have temporal relations to all events. This
has recently been done very fully and ably by
A. A. Robb.^ Or we may take the more usual
course of assuming that physical time really is
connexive, but that in certain cases all criteria fail
to determine the actual temporal relations which
subsist between events in difl'erent places. We
then must simply make a convention (to return to
our example) that one particular event of the class
of events at B, whose temporal relations to "ej are
left doubtful by our criteria, is contemporary with
"gj, and that whatever precedes this one precedes
"e-y and whatever follows it follows "e^. It is
customary to assume that the event at B which
comes midway between % and ''e^ is contemporary
with "gj ; but it must be noticed tiiat this is a mere
convention, though doubtless the most reasonable
one to make. (On our notation this event would
naturally he^e^.)

We must notice further that, for this convention
to be determinate at all, Ave must assume that we
know that the time-measurer at B goes at the
same rate as that at A , and that both go uniformly.
Now, if the time-measurers cannot be moved
about, their synchronism can be determined only by
sending signals from one to the other — e.g., light-
signals. And, even if they can be moved about,
our only test for the continuance of their synchron-
ism, when they have been moved apart and are no
longer in view together, is by light-signals. On
the other hand, the question whether our tests for
synchronism by light-signals are genuine tests (i.e.
involve synchronism in physical time) depends on
whether the velocity of light relative to the system
containing the time-measurers is constant in time
and the same in all directions. And this last point
cannot be determined until the time-measurers in
two places have been synchronized ; for it is
obvious that to measure a velocity we need to
know the time in two places. We see, then, that
the possibility of synchronizing time-measurers
and the uniformity of the velocity of light stand
and fall together, and that neither can be proved
independently of the other. If we allow that the
velocity of light relative to the system is constant
and uniform in all directions, our tests for synchron-
ism and uniformity in our time-measurers are valid ;
if we allow that the criteria ensure physical
synchronism, the physical velocity of light (as
distinct from its numerical measure on our con-
vention) will be constant and uniform. But
neither question is or ever will be capable of in-
dependent settlement ; and therefore we simply
have to make a convention that tiie meaning to
be attached to synchronism in difl'erent places is
agreement with the tests based on light-signals,
and another convention that distances shall be so
measured that the measure of the velocity of light
relative to the system is independent of time and
of direction.

Suppose now that the people on a system S
determine their spatio-temporal co-ordinates in
this way, and that the people on another system
S^, moving with uniform translational velocity
relative to S, determine their spatio-temporal co-
ordinates similarly. Let them arrange, as they
can do, that the time-measurers at the origin of
each go at the same rate ; and further let them
arrange tlieir units so that the velocity of light as
measured bj"^ each from experiments witii sources
and mirror.s fixed in tlieir own system shall have
the same numerical measure. Then (a) it can be
proved tliat each will find the same numerical
measure for the velocity of light, even though the
sources and mirrors be in uniform motion relative
1 A Theory of Time and Space.

342

TIME

to the two systems. (6) It is possible to find
equations connecting the spatio-temporal co-
ordinates which the people on S give to any
momentary event which they observe with those
which the people on S^ give to the same event.
These are tlie celebrated transformations of the
Theory of Relativity. They are, as we should
expect, perfectly reciprocal, since the relative
motion of S and ,S^ is a perfectly mutual phenome-
non. But (c) they lead to certain rather startling
results. (1) Lengths along and at right angles to
the direction of relative motion which are judged
to be equal by the people on one system will be
judged to be unequal by those on the other. The
ratio depends on tlie relative velocity and on the
value of the velocity of light which is common to
the two systems.! (2) Events in different places
which are judged to be contemporary by the people
on one system will be judged to occur at different
times by those on the other system, and the
difference of time will depend on the distance apart
parallel to the direction of relative motion.

Although the observers on the two systems thus
differ, they cannot criticize each other. _ Each has
pursued precisely the same plan in setting out his
co-ordinates and synchronizing his time-measurers.
And it would be quite futile for one to claim that
his results are the right ones because his system is
at rest and the other is in motion. For the
relative motion is completely reciprocal, and
neither absolute motion nor any consequence of it
can be observed. Lastly, it is equally futile for
one to say that he is at rest 'relative to the ether,'
while the otlier is in motion ; for we know that no
experiment whatever has been able to demonstrate
motion 'relative to the ether,' and this motion
may fairly be dismissed as a fiction. The upshot
of the matter is that there is nothing to choose
between their respective judgments, and that all
the laws of nature can be stated as truly and will
have precisely the same form, no matter which of
an infinite number of systems in uniform trans-
lational motion be taken as the basis for spatio-
temporal co-ordinates. This result, with the
mathematical consequences that flow from it, is
known as the Theory of Relativity. Its philo-
sophical importance is that it enables us to see the
tacit assumptions that are made when we talk of
events at ditlerent places being contemporary ; and
the fact that measurement of distance is entangled
with time, since the distance between two objects
at any time involves a decision as to what is meant
by the same time in two ditterent places. _ Though
it no more completely refutes the possibility of
absolute space and time than does any other
argument (for after all it only deals with our
numerical measures and leaves it open whether one
system of time-measurers is physically uniform and
synchronous and one system of space-measures
directly represents distances in physical space),
yet it helps to render the notions of absolute space
and time still more spectral and remote from all
possible experience than before. For it enables us
to see that there are a certain indeterminateness
and conventionality even in the measurement of
the distance between physical objects and of the
lapse between events ; and that therefore what we
can know is even at a farther remove than we had
thought from the points of absolute space and the
moments of absolute time.

The Theory of Relativity sketched above was
first fully stated by Einstein in his classical paper,
* tJber das Relativitatsprinzip uud die aus demsel-
ben gezogenen Folgerungen,' which appeared in
the Jahrbiich der Eadioaktivitdt und Elcktronik
for 1907. This may be called the restricted Theory
of Relativity. It may be briellj' characterized as
1 This is the famous Lorentz-Fitzfreralrt contraction.

consisting of an experimental fact and a philo-
sophical principle suggested by a great number of
facts. The philosophical principle is that, since
we can never observe absolute time, space, oi
motion, even if there be such things, the laws of
physical phenomena as learned from experiment
and observation must retain the same form for
acts of observers in uniform motion relative to
each other. This persistence of form (or covari-
ance, as it is technically called) in the differential
equations that express the laws of nature does
not in general imply that the actual magnitudes
measured by two observers in uniform relative
motion will be the same.

E.g., an observer moving with his instruments relative to an
electrically charged body will detect magnetic as well as elec-
trical forces, whilst one who is at rest with his instruments
relative to this body will observe only electrical forces. But
the differential equations connecting the effects noted by one
observer with each other and with his x, y, z, and t co-ordinates
will be precisely the same as those connecting the effects noted
by the other observer with each other and with his x, y, z, and
t co-ordinates.

This principle by itself, however, would be of
little use, since it does not enable us to say what
connexion exists between the co-ordinates of the
two observers. But, if there be some physical
magnitude, which is not merely covariant but also
invariant as between different observers in uni-
form relative motion, the transformations connect-
ing the two sets of co-ordinates can be found.
Now the velocity of light in vacuo is found to fulfil
this condition ; its actual numerical value is found
to be the same by all observers. The mathematical
consequences of this fact lead to Einstein's set of
equations connecting the x, y, z, t co-ordinates of
one observer with those of another who is moving
relative to the first. The precise significance of
Einstein's principle of the 'Constancy of Light
Velocity ' has been indicated above, and shown to
be connected with the way in which we are forced
to lay out a system of co-ordinates and to define
simultaneity between events in different places.

Einstein's restricted theory has gained many
triumphs. It explains at once what is known as
Fresnel's dragging - coefficient for light passing
through matter that moves relative to the observer.
It also accounts for the change of mass with
velocity which is observed when small particles
move with speed comparable to that of light. The
principle necessitates slight changes in the previ-
ously accepted form of some of the laws of nature.
Maxwell's equations and the equation of continuity
in hydrodynamics do indeed at once and without
modification fulfil the condition of covariance.
But the laws of mechanics, as they stand, are not
in accord with the principle and need modifications
which only become practically important in dealing
with the motion of matter with velocities com-
parable to that of light.

Considerable philosophic importance, in con-
nexion with the nature of time, attaches to the
work of Minkowski.

On the ordinary Newtonian mechanics the form of the laws
of nature is unchanged if the three spatial axes be twisted in
space about their origin as a rigid body. Now Minkowski
showed that the Lorentz-Einstein transformation is equivalent
to a twist of the same nature performed on a set oijour
mutually rectangular axes in a four-dimensional space. Three
of these axes are the ordinary spatial ones, the fourth is the
time axis multipled by e, the velocity of light, and i, the root of
-1. So far the theory must be regarded as a merely elegant
mathematical device, since the fourth axis is imaginary in the
mathematical sense, and the angle of solution is also imaginary.
But, if we do not assume that the geometry of the four-dimen-
sional ' space-time ' is Euclidean, a much more important mean-
ing can be attached to Minkowski's interpretation of the
relativity transformations. If we suppose the geometry of
'space-time' to be hyperbolic (i.e. the geometry of Lobat-
chewski), the relativity transformation corresponds to twisting
a set of four real axes as a rigid body through a real angle about
the origin. The axes are now x, y, z, and ct, and c siiuply
depends on the different units that we use in measuring time
and space ; so that really we .-ire dealing with a four-dimensional

TIME

343

manifold in wliich space and time are liomogeneous with each
other, but whose geometry is not Euclidean but Lobat-
chewskian.

The work of pliilosopliical mathematicians since
Minkowski's death has consisted largely in de-
veloping the notion that the ultimate data in the
world are events in space-time, i.e. events extended
both in space and in time. The content of a
specious present forms an example of such data.
Space and time as used in the scien(^es only emerge
at the end as elaborate mathematical constructions
built on the immediately perceptible relations
between extended events.

The best exposition of this point of view is con-
tained in A. N. Whitehead's Principles of Natural
Knoivledge, which begins with a severe criticism
of tlie concepts of classical physics and proceeds to
elaborate the notions of space, time, and matter
from the crude data of sense and their immediately
given simtio-temporal relations. It seems hardly
possible to doubt that this is the right path for
further research, but it demands a combination of
philoso[)hical and mathematical abilities of so
high an order that few can tread it successfully.
Alexander in his Gifford Lectures at Glasgow has
developed the notion of space-time with great full-
ness from the purely philosophic side, but, at the
time of writing, his lectures have not appeared in
print, and it is impossible to give a fair account of
his views from the short synopses which are alone
available.

It remains to say a few words about the general-
ized Tlieory of Relativity. So far we have only
considered observers in unifvrm. relative motion
and have laid down a principle of relativity for
them. Einstein has occupied himself in the last
few years in removing this restriction and thus
bringing gravitation, wliich fell outside the older
theory, into the scope of the Tiieory of Relativity.
A particle is said to be under the action of no force if it move
uniformly in a straigfht line. But the question whether it moves
in a straifj'ht line and whether it moves uniformly is clearly
relative to our spatial axes and to our measure of time. If, e.g.,
a particle moves uniformly in a strai'^ht line relative to the
rectangular axes x and y, it will not do so relative to axes which
rotate about the origin in the xy plane. Accordingly, relative
to one set of axes it will be said to be under the action of no
force, whilst relative to the second set it will be said to be under
the forces needed to produce the observed accelerations. Now
the ' forces ' introduced by these mere changes of our axes of
reference are in one respect very much like the force of gravita-
tion. They, like it, affect all forms of matter indifferently and
depend only on the mass, not on the special nature of the
matter. On the other hand, a genuine gravitational field cannot
be altogether transformed away by a suitable change of axes,
as a purely geometrical field can be. For any one particle this
can be done by choosing axes fixed in the particle, but relative
to these axes the other particles in the field will still be
accelerated. Now it seems clear that a mere change of axes
could not make any difference to the form of the laws of nature,
and thus, if gravitation were capable of being transformed awaj'
merely by a suitable change of axes, the principle of relativity
would assert that the presence of a gravitational field makes no
difference to the form of the laws of nature. For the reason
mentionett above the principle of relativity cannot be taken in
this unrestricted sense. It may, however, be taken to assert
that the form of the law of nature is unaltered in a gravitational
field up to a certain (as yet undetermined) order of differential
coefficients.

It is now necessarj' to see the bearing of these
results on the constitution of the 'space-time' of
nature.

It has been proved by Riemann that the metrical geometry
of any space is completely determined when the ' linear element.'
i.e. the interval between any pair of infinitely near points, is
expressed as a known function of the differentials of the co-
ordinates. Thus a three-dimensional Euclidean space is com-
pletely defined by the equation

for the linear element. Now the metrical properties of four-
diraeusioiial space-time will be completely determined when ds'^
(the interval of any pair of adjacent points in it) is expressed as
a known function of dx'^, dy'\ dz", dt-, dxdy, dxdz, dxdt, . . .
etc. In space-time, therefore, the ten coefficients of dx^, dj/2
. . . must be known in order to determine ds^. In general
these coefficients will be functions of x, y, z, t ; they are denoted
by the letters g.vx, gyy, gxii, etc. Any transformation of axes
corresponds to a change iii these g'a and therefore to a change

in the form of the linear element. It follows that, as regards
forces introduced simply by changes of axis, it is a matter of
perfect indifference whetlier we say (a) that the geometry of
space-time is such and such and that such and such forces arc
acting, or (h) that the geometry of space-time is such as to pro-
duce the ajipearance of these forces. The g 8 can be regarded
either (a) as completely determining the forces on a given
assumption about the geometry of space-time ; or (6) as deter-
mining the metrical properties of space-time itself. The ex-
tended Theory of Relativity prefers to take the second view of
them and to drop all reference to forces ; on the first view the
j/'s are of the nature of potentials. Now, in theory, any function
whatever might be chosen for the g'a. But, in fact, all parts of
nature are subject to gravitation. This means that the choice of
g's is not absolutely unrestricted, but that in every permissible
system of axes for describing nature the g's will be subject to
a set of differential equations connecting tfiem with each other
and with the x, y, z, and t of that system. These equations
then express the law of gravitation and at the same time
express it as a fundamental property of space-time.

It is extremely difficult to render Einstein's
theory intelligible without mathematics, and the
mathematics needed is somewhat formidable. It
is hoped, however, that the above slight sketch
may illustrate that extreme entanglement of time
with space and with matter which undoubtedly
occurs in our crude .sense-data and is now seen to
persist even in the most refined speculations of
mathematical physics. It may perhaps be added
that Einstein's generalized theory, as distinct from
the special philosophic interpretations which may
be put on it, is not a mere idle speculation, but
has already explained the anomalies in the peri-
helion of Mercury, and has correctly foretold the
amount of deviation in a ray of light due to its
passing near a heavy body like the sun.

8. Historically important speculations about
time. — Our knowledge of time as of space owes more
to the labours of mathematicians and physicists
than to those of professed philosophers. The sharp
distinction between time and what changes, and
between space and what moves in it and is ex-
tended, is largely due to the development, first of
mechanics, and latterly of electrodynamics.

To the Greeks we owe much less with regard to
time than with regard to most matters of philo-
sophic or scientihc speculation. This may perhaps
be ascribed to the late development of dynamics ;
the Greek approach to the problems of time was
mainly by way of astronomy. Of course, Zeno's
celebrated arguments have an important bearing
on change and continuity, and, whatever may
have been the real intention of their author, they
remained the best discussion on these subjects so
closely related to time until the final treatment of
infinity and continuity by Dedekind and Cantor
in the latter part of the 19th century. Time plays
an important part in the Timmus of Plato ; and,
although his treatment cannot be called satisfac-
tory, it has the merit of distinguishing time from
what is in time.

Plato says that God wished the created world to
resemble the intelligible one as far as possible.
Now, it was not possible for it to be eternal, and
the nearest analogue to eternity which He could
provide was to make ' a moving image of eternity.'
This is time, and it is closely connected with the
motions of the heavens ; eternity ' rests in unity,'
but the image ' has a motion according to number.*
Before the heavens were created, there were no
days, years, etc. ; but, when God created the
heavens. He created these divisions of time also.
Time was thus created with the heavens, and, if
one were to be dissolved, so would the other be.
But Plato does not appear to identify time with
the motion of the heavens, though it is difficult to
see what he supposes it to be in itself. According to
Plato, past and future are created species of time
which we wrongly transfer to the eternal essence ;
strictly ' was ' and ' will be ' are to be asserted
only of generation in time, for tkey are motions.
The analogy of the moving image to the eternal

344

TIME

is that the created heavens have been, are, and will
be in all time. This view has something in common
with that of Spinoza, who makes things as they
really are for ratio timeless, but holds that this
timelessness cannot be grasped by imagination,
which represents it confusedly as duration through
endless time.

Aristotle defines time as ' the number of motions
relative to before and after.' Number here appears
to mean what is numbered. The now is borne
along with the movable as a point may be regarded
as moving and making up a line. So in a sense
there is only one now, though in another sense
there are many nows. This is obviously a very
unsatisfactory metaphor, and there seems no reason
to think tliat Aristotle was really clear as to the
distinction between time and motion.

The Schoolmen in the main adopted Aristotle's
views, though with certain modifications. St.
Thomas Aquinas, in the tract de Instantibus, dis-
cusses time and change with some fullness. He
draws a distinction between the time in which
angels perform their acts and that in which men
and matter operate. The time of angels is dis-
crete, that of men continuous ; the difl'erence arises
from the fact that continuity is essentially con-
nected with matter, while angels are separated
substances. An instant for an angel is the time
occupied by a single act ; it may thus correspond
to a long period in our time. This may be com-
pared with Royce's views about the varying lengths
of the specious present in various beings.

In modern philosophy the men who have most
concerned tiieniselves with time are Leibniz and
Kant. Leibniz argued strongly for the relative view
of time in his letters to Clarke, who represented
Newton and the absolute theory. His arguments
turn mainly on the identity of indiscernibles and
the principle of sufficient reason. Leibniz care-
fully distinguished duration from the relation of
before and after, and he compared duration to the
extension of matter. Leibniz's view is that time
is a system of possible positions of possible events
related bj' before, after, and simultaneous with.
He holds that all possible worlds must be in time,
though, of course, the particular temporal rela-
tions of the actual world are contingent. To make
Leibniz's theory coherent, it would be necessary to
be much clearer than he is as to the relation
between the time-series of each monad and the
time-series of the universe. He attempted to
explain the relation between successive states of
the same monad by saying that the earlier ones
have the quality of being desires for the later ones.
As an attempt to replace relations by qualities
this clearly fails, since ' desire for ' anything is
clearly a disguised relation. And as an attempt
to define before and after it also fails ; for it is
clearly a synthetic proposition that desire for X
precedes X. Then again it seems essential to
Leibniz's doctrine of the reflexion by one monad of
the states of another that we should have some
account of the temporal relations between corre-
sponding states in difierent monads. The state of
a monad at a given moment in its own time-series
is presumably the reflexion of the contemporary
states of other monads ; but we are not told what
is meant by a time-series common to the monads,
nor is it clear that this would be consistent with
Leibniz's dislike of relations.

The absolute theory of time has never had much
philosophic support ; there can be little doubt that
Leibniz had the better of Clarke. Perhaps the
best arguments for absolute time and space are to
be found in Bertrand Russell's Principles of Mathe-
matics. They do not seem to the present writer to
be conclusive, and their author lias latterly taken
a much more relativistic view.

Locke, Berkeley, and Hume insisted that the
notion of time comes from the succession of our
ideas. But they never made it clear how their
temporal relations are connected with the time
that is used in physics. Berkeley and Hume in
particular fail to give any reasonable account of
the distinction that we certainly make between
the temporal order of our ideas and the temporal
order of the objects which we claim to know by
them. It is a great merit of Kant to have seized
on the importance of this point in his ' analogies
of experience,' though the distinction will certainly
not bear the superstructure which he built on it.
He attempted to prove that the distinction involves
the permanence of substance (which he seems to
identify with the chemical law of the conservation
of mass) and the law of causation among experi-
enced objects. But his arguments are entirely
inconclusive even to prove that, in order to make
the distinction, we must believe in these principles ;
much less to prove, what the transcendental method
always tends to confuse with this, that the prin-
ciples are true.

Time plays perhaps more, and more important,
parts in Kant's philosophy than in any other.

(1) In the Esthetic he tries to prove that it is a form of
intuition, the form appropriate to the internal sense. This
seems to mean that, just as we can only perceive physical
objects as being in space, though there is no reason to think
that things-in-themselves are spatial, so we can only perceive
ourselves and our mental states in introspection as being in
time, though there is no reason to think that we really are in
time. This certainly seems to raise the special difficulty that,
unless we know ourselves as we are and not merely as we
appear, we cannot know what our forms of intuition are, but
only what they appear to be, whilst Kant's argument certainly
assumes that we know what they are. (2) In the Dialectic, as
we have seen, Kant has an antinomy about time. Tliis
apparently would, if valid, overthrow not merely absolute
time but also the temporal character of events and the tem-
poral relations between them. We have already seen how grave
are the difficulties in the way of any such conclusion, and how
entirely powerless Kant's arguments are to prove it. (3) In
the Analytic time plays an important part in the difficult
doctrine of the schematism of the categories. The position
seems to be that the categories as pure conceptions of the
understanding cannot be applied immediately to the manifold
given in sense, even after that has been synthesized by imagina-
tion. They have to be mediated through time ; thus the cate-
gory of ground and consequent, which is purely logical, can be
applied to the world of sensible experience only after it has
been schematized into the temporal form of cause and effect.
The whole argument here is confused and weak to a remarkable
degree ; the principle appears to be that the manifold of sense is
provided with temporal characteristics bj' intuition ; that these
remain and are elaborated b3' the syntheses of imagination ;
and that then the categories can be applied if they be first
schematized so that they and the sj'nthesized manifold share
the temporal characteristic in common. (4) Kant's critical
solution of his own antinomj^ is that the infinity involved in
time is not an actual infinite, as it would have to be if time
applied to things-in-themselves, but is only the power that we
have of always synthesizing farther than we have yet gone in
constructing a temporal series. To this Lotze makes the very
pertinent criticism that it surely depends on the nature of
things-in-themselves whether we shall be indefinitely supplied
with material to synthesize.

The modern development of our knowledge
about time is due mainly to two sets of people : (1)
philosophical mathematicians, like Dedekind and
Cantor, who have given a satisfactory analysis of
infinity and continuity, and thus finally refuted
all antinomies based on these ; (2) mathematical
physicists who have been led by their studies in
the optics of moving systems to elaborate the
Theory of Relativity. The pioneer in this work
is Lorentz ; the theory itself was first formulated by
Einstein ; and the mathematical and philosophical
consequences have been drawn and elaborated
by Einstein, Minkowski, Robb, Whitehead, and
others.

It is also necessary to mention among recent
philosophers Bergson, in whose works time, nomin-
ally at any rate, plays an important part. Bergson
hoids that the attempt to treat time as similar to
space is a perverse one philosophically ; it may
work very well in dealing with dead matter, but it

TIRUPATI

345

shows its falsity in biology, psychology, and philo-
sophy. He also falls foul of the mathematical
theory of the continuum as applied to time ; he
admits that it is internally consistent, but denies
that it describes what anybody really means by
change and motion. Bergson's arguments seem to
rest partly on a comparison between change as
a sense-datum {e.g., the peculiar characteristic of
what we see when we look at the second hand of a
watch as distinct from the hour hand) and physical
change, and partly on the erroneous view that a
whole of related states cannot be a change unless
each of its terms be a change. Again, in some of
his remarks about memory he seems to suppose
that, because a memory-act is a later awareness
of an earlier event, the earlier event and the later
awareness must somehow be contemporary.
Finally, he seems to think that the ordinary view
of time is refuted by the facts, of which he is
strongly convinced, that no two total states of
mind at different times can be exactly alike, that
there are not, strictly speaking, distinct elements
which can recur as parts of different mental states,
and that no amount of knowledge about earlier
states will enable us to foretell later ones com-
pletely. But Bergson's most characteristic doc-
trines belong to the subject of change rather than
to that of time.

Literature. — (a) Historical. — Plato, Timceus; Aristotle,
Physics; St. Thomas Aquinas, de Instantibus. (6) Absohite
and relative theories. — Leibniz, Letters to Dr. Samuel Clarke,
London, 1917 ; Bertrand Russell, The Principles of Mathe-
matics, Cambridge, 1903, i. {c) Reality of time. — Leibniz ;
Kasit,Critiqueof Pure Reason; F. H. Brsidle^, Appearance and
Reality, 2nd ed. revised, London, 1902 ; J. Ellis McTaggart,
'The tlnreality of Time," Mind, new ser., xvii. [190S] no. 68,
p. 437 ff. ; H. Bergson, Time and Free-will, Eng. tr., London,
1910, and Matter and Memory, Eng. tr., do. 1911. (d) Measure-
ment of time and Theory of Relativity. — H. Poincar^, Science
et nUthode, Paris, 1908, and La Valeur de la scieiice, do. 1908 ;
H. A. Lorentz, The Theory of Electrons, London, 1909 ; H.
Minkowski, Raum und Zcit, Leipzig, 1909 ; L. Silberstein,
The Theory of Relativity, London, 1914 ; C. D. Broad, Per-
ception, Physics, and Reality, Cambridge, 1914 ; A. A. Robb,
A Theory of Time and Space, London, 1911 ; A. S. Eddington,
Report 071 the Relativity Theory of Gravitation, do. 1918.
(e) Physical tim-e as a construction. — B. Russell, Our Know-
ledge of the External World, London, 1914 ; A. N. White-
head, Principles of Natural Knowledge, Cambridge, 1919.

C. D. Broad.
TINNEH.— See DENfe.

TIPITAKA.

viii. p. 85^

-See LlTERATlTRE (Buddhist), vol.

TIRUPATI. —Tirupati, vulg. Tripetty (Tel.
Tirupati, tiru, Skr. in, ' venerable,' ^rt^i, 'lord'),
a town in Cliittoor District, Madras (lat. 13° 38'
N., long. 79° 24' E.), is a famous place of pilgrim-
age, situated on the Tirumalai or sacred hill,
usually known to Europeans as Upper Tirupati, in
contrast to the lower town at its base. The whole
area is considered sacred, and up to 1870 had never
been visited by Europeans. Mark Wilks states
that he was on duty for eighteen months in the
neighbourhood, and, though he frequently climbed
the adjoining hills, he could never catch even a
distant view of the pagoda.^ The belief that much
crime was committed without detection in the holy
town led to the issue of an order by Government
that it should be thrown open to the District
officials. This at first produced considerable local
opposition ; but European visits now cause little
sensation. The sanctity of this hill-range rests on
the legend that it forms part of the sacred moun-
tain Meru. The range has seven principal peaks,
each of Avhich is sacred and has a name and legend
of its own. One of the peaks, known as Sesha-
chalam, ' serpent hill,' takes its name from the
belief that it was torn from Meru by Adi Sesha,
the primordial snake, who contended in a trial of

1 Uist. Sketches of the South of India'^, M.adras, 1809, i. 246 n.

strength with the wind-god, Vayu. Vayu raised
so great a tempest that the peak was blown away
and fell to earth in its present position. Near this
peak the great temple stands. Little can be seen
of it, and no European has been allowed to enter
it. It is a building of little architectural beauty
or importance, but the cultus of the deity is
interesting as an example of the amalgamation of
local non-Aryan beliefs with orthodox worship.
Within a small chamber lighted by lamps is tne
idol, a stone image of Visnu, seven feet in height.
It represents the god as Chaturbhuja, ' four-armed,'
one of the right hands holding the discus (chakra),
one of the left the conch-shell {sankha), the second
right hand pointing to the earth to draw attention
to the miraculous origin of the holy hill, while the
remaining left hand grasps a lotus. The deity
possesses 1008 titles, the most common of which
are Srinivasa, 'dwelling with Sri or LaksmI,'
goddess of prosperity, and Venkatachalapati, the
title of the sacred hill, which has been adopted into
Sanskrit from the Tamil ven, 'white,' kadam,
' hill slope,' thus showing that the deity was
adopted into Brahmanism from a Dravidian cult.
By visitors from the Deccan and N. India he is
generally known as Balaji, which, according to
Monier- Williams,^ is the name of a human incarna-
tion of Visnu or Krsna of whom little is known,
save that he was remarkable for many extra-
ordinary qualities, and that he lived in the neigh-
bourhood of the sacred hill. Hence visitors to the
shrine generally invoke him by the title of Govinda,
'cow-keeper,' one of the names of Krsna. It is
remarkable, however, that, according to common
belief, the image worshipped was originally one of
Siva. The transformation of the baiva cult to that
of Visnu is traditionally ascribed to the reformer
Ramanujacharya (born c. A.D. 1017). It is said
that he procured a conch-shell and discus of gold,
which he placed before the image and closed the
temple doors. When the shrine was opened next
day, it was found that these emblems of Visnu
were grasped in the hands of the image, and there-
fore it was really Visnu. The tangled hair (jata),
the cobras carved upon the body, and various other
peculiarities indicate that it was intended to re-
present Siva, and the priests, who are Dikshita
Bi'ahmans, admit that they belong to the Saiva
sect. The god is provided with a consort, Padma-
vati, said to be the incarnation of a mortal woman,
and the offerings are believed to have been origin-
ally collected to provide for the marriage of the
pair. In an ante-room there is a brass vessel with
a bag hanging in it, into which money and jewels
are placed. On the other side are two gongs, one
of which, when struck, utters the name Govinda,
the other Narayana — both titles of the god. Many
pious persons observe the custom of collecting in
their homes monthly contributions which are placed
in a money-box and finally oliered at the shrine.*
The anthropomorphism of the cult is shown in the
belief that the deity annually announces to certain
persons that he needs shoes, which they make and
present.* Various rites indicate the non-Aryan
character of the worship. Thus a feast called
Gangdjatra, ' Ganges festival,' is held in the early
spring, when a figure is made of clay or straw,
before which animals are sacrificed — a custom
quite opposed to true Vaisnava beliefs. Even
Brahmans, who will not attend personally, send
victims. When the sacrifices are over, the image
is burned, and much rude merriment follows.
Some votaries carry on their heads a structure
made of bamboo, resembling a car, adorned with
coloured paper, and supported by iron nails that

1 Brahmanism and HindHism-*, London, 1891, p. 267 (.

- E. Thurston, Ethnographic Notes in S. India, Madras, 1906,
p. 352.

3 Thurston, Castes and Tribes ofS. India, iv. 310 (.

346

TITANS

often pierce the flesh of the bearer, who submits
cheerfull}^ to the torture. At the Gangammd
festival held at the temple ' language truly filthy
and obscene' is used to the goddess herself.^ The
explanation of this custom is obscure.

'Abusive language is believed in certain circumstances to
bring good luck to the person against whom it is directed.' 2

On this theory the obscenity may possibly be
regarded as a form of mimetic magic intended to
repel the powers of evil from the deity, and thus
advance her powers of promoting fertility.*

Again, on the road leading up to the temple ' small stones
heaped up in the form of a hearth, and knots tied in the leaves
of the young date palms maj- be seen. Tnese are the work of
virgins who accompany the parties of pilgrims. The knots are
tied in order to ensure the tying of the tali string on their necks
[at marriage], and the heaping- up of stones is done with a view
to ensuring the birth of ehililren to them. If the girls revisit
the hill after marriage and the birth of children, the.y untie the
knot on a leaf, and disarrange one of the hearths. Men cause
their names to be cut on rocks by the wayside, or on the stones
with which the path leading to the temple is paved, in the
belief that good luck will result if their name is trodden on.'^

The hope of recovery from sickness and the
desire for male offspring are the chief causes of
vows being made to the god. The vow need not
be performed immediately on receipt of the bless-
ing. Death merely transfers the obligation to the
heir, and it is said that the god is never defrauded.
A common offering by women is the hair of their
heads, which is shorn off by barbers, more than
half the women who visit the temple returning with
their heads clean shaven. J. A. Dubois * describes
a custom of binding the idol in chains of silver,
apparently with the object of preventing him from
leaving the temple. The same writer ^ speaks of
the custom of women who desire children passing
a night in the temple. He also alleges that at the
festival, when the image is taken in procession,
the Brahmans select the most beautiful women as
wives of the god ; they are branded with a hot
iron, and, after serving for some years, are dis-
missed with a certificate of good conduct which
ensures that, as they wander through the country,
their wants will be abundantly supplied.'' By
other accounts, when such a woman becomes too
old to please the deity, the priests make a mark
on her breast, the emblem of the god, and give her
a patent certifying that she acted for a certain
number of years as one of his wives, that he is
now tired of her and recommends her to the
charity of the public. H. A. Stuart, however,
denies that any dancing-girls attend the god ; but
he admits that the state of morality among priests
and pilgrims has deteriorated, even celibate
Bairagis and priests taking their paramours with
them up the sacred hill. In the Deccan it is very
common for a woman to make a vow that, if she
is relieved from sickness or other trouble, she will
shave her head to the god at Tirupati. After
being shaved, she walks thrice round the temple,
worships the image, pays a fee to have lighted
camplior waved round the idol, receives a pinch of
the sugar offered to the god, distributes food to
the poor and to the monkeys which swarm round
the temple, ofters charity, and returns home.^
The tonsure of children is also performed at the
temple.*

LiTERATURR. — This art. is mainly based on an excellent
account of the place by A. F. Cox, Manned of the N. Arcot

1 Madras Government ittiseum Bulletin, Madras, 1901, iii,
267 f.

2 J. G. Frazer, Pausanias, London, 1898, ii. 492.

3 GJS-', pt. 1., The Magic Art, London, 1911, ii. 100.

4 Thurston, Ethnoijraphic Notes, p. 351.

^ Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies^, tr. H. K.
Beauchamp, Oxford, 1906, p. 591.
6P. 593f.

7 P. 601 f.; cf. Thurston, Castes and Tribes, ii. 117; N.
Manucci, Storia do Moijor, Eng. tr., London, 1907-08, iii. 143 f.

8 BG xxii. [1884] 64.

s J. R. Padfield, The Tlindti at Home, Madras, 1S:)6, p. 97 f.

District, Madras, 1881, p. 146 ff., supplemented by later informa-
tion supplied by its writer. In addition to the authorities
quoted, see J. B. Tavernier, Travels in India, tr. from ed. of
1676 and ed. V. Ball, London, 1889, ii. 243. For various refer-
ences to the woi-ship of the god among the people of S. India
see also E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of S. India, Madras,
1909, i. 195, 335, 389, ii. 43 f., 112 ff., iii. 42, 461, iv. 310, 326 f.

W. Crooke.
TITANS.— The Titans, like the Giants (q.v.),
are potencies belonging to an early pre-Olymijian
stage of Greek mythology. The two tend to be
confused by late authors, but in origin they are
distinct. Tlie Titans are distinguished from Giants
by the following well-marked characteristics: (1)
they are gods (6eoL), and as such immortal, whereas
the Giants are mortal ; TiTTjves deoi, ' Titans, gods,'
is a fixed formulary in Hesiod's Theogony ; (2) they
are sky-potencies {Ovpavl^ave's) ^ as contrasted with
the Giants, who are earth-])orn [yriyeveh) ; Titans
and Giants alike are to Hesiod the offspring of
Earth and Heaven, but the Titans tend skywards,
the Giants with their snake-tails earthwards. To
Shakespeare Titan is the sun.

' And Titan, tirfed in the mid-day heat.
With burning eye did hotly overlook them.' 2

To Pausanias* Titan, according to the local legend
of Titane, is ' brother to the sun,' and Pausanias
himself held that Titan ' was great at marking
seasons of the year.' Empedocles holds a less
specialized and perhaps juster view ; he places side
by side

' Gaia and billowj' ocean and air with its moisture.
And Either, the Titan, embracing the All in a circle.'*

The Titan Phaethon is the sun and sun's chario-
teer ; the Titaness Phoebe is the moon ; the
Titans Atlas and Prometheus are the sky-pillars
supporting Ouranos. The Titans are an integral
part of that primeval cosmogony of earth and sky,
ousted in Greece by the anthropomorphic Olym-
pians, but remembered as part of their Indo-
European heritage by the Northern Muses who
came to Helicon and taught their lore to Hesiod.

The etymology of Gigas, ' giant,' is uncertain ;
that of Titan is happily secure, and it throws a
flood of light on the function of these sky-potencies
of older date and explains in a flash the two Titan
myths — (a) the Titanomachia, (b) the rending of
Zagreus, which, but for this etymology, must have
remained obscure. Three glosses of Hesycliius
make it certain that Titan means simply ' king.'
They are as follows : riTTjuai' /3acrtX/5es (the word
glossed is from a lost play of yEschylus) ; Tf^qfij (for
TiTTjvi})' 7) ^aaiXia-aa, and rha^' ivrifios. ^ Svva,aT7)%.
6 5^ ^aaiXevs. Titan is king, ' honoured one,' but
— and liere is the interesting point, or rather series
of vitally interconnected points — he is the king of
the old order, the king-god or divine king, and as
such he is a sky-potency, for one main function of
the old king-god was to order the goings of the
heavenly bodies and generally to control the
weather. Here we have that odd blending of
physical phenomena with human and social poten-
cies which lies at the back of most gods and
certainly of Zeus himself.

The Titanomachia is at once clear. For on the
physical point of view it is, as described in Hesiod,^
just a half-humanized thunder-storm, Zeus, the
new sky- and thunder-god, fighting the old sky-
potencies ; from the theological point of view it is
the new anthropomorphism against the old religion
of the king-god or medicine-man who controls
the weather. The Olympian religion naturally
regarded these old Titan kings as criminals, rebels
against high heaven, condemned to Tartarus for
their sin of v^pis ; they are the counterpart of the
arch-Titan Prometheus.

1 II. v. 898. 2 Venus and Adonis, 177. 3 u. xi. 5.

■* H. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Berlin, 1903,
p. 38

5 Theog. 665 ff.

TITHES

347

The second Titan myth, the rending of Zagreus, is
less transparent, but in the light of the Titan kings
even more illuminating, for we catch the king in
his earliest stage of all, when he was tribal elder or
medicine-man, not yet fully developed into king-
ship. The Titans, according to a version of the
story as early as Onomakritos,^ lure away the
infant Zagreus, dismember, and (in some versions)
cook and eat him. The story is an initiation myth
based on the familiar initiation ritual of the mock
death and resurrection of the initiate. The initia-
tors are the elders or dynasts of the tribe, the
embryo-kings.^ The Titans as old-world kings are
well in place ; as a form of giant they are absurd.
The name Zagreus takes iis to Crete, and in Crete
we find the Titans in a connexion that again points
to initiation mysteries. The Cretans, according to
Diodorus,* said that in the time of the Kouretes
those who were called Titans ruled over the region
of Cnossos, where were shown the foundations of
the house of Rhea and a sacred cypress-grove of
hoary antiquity. These Titans again must have
been the old king-medicine-men, contemporary
with the Kouretes and, like them, initiators into
the ' men's house ' of the Mother Rhea.'* On a red-
figured hydria in the British Museum^ Zagreus
is depicted as actually devoured by the Titans,
and these Titans wear the characteristic dress of
Thracian chieftains. We may safely infer that the
Titan myth of the rending of Zagreus was known
from Thrace to Crete, and we may suggest that it
arose in that early stratum of ' satem '-speaking
population known to the later Greeks as 'Pel-
asgian ' — a stratum specially addicted to the
mystery-cults of the son of Semele.

Literature. — M. Mayer, Die Giganten and Tttanen, Berlin,
1887. For the Titans as Ouraniones, J. E. Harrison, Themis,
Cambridge, 1912, pp. 453-460. The right etimology of Titan
from the root ti, ' honour,' was first seen by L. Preller, Gr.
Mythologie-i, Leipzi}?, 1894, p. 44. Its meaning as 'king' was
made clear by F. Solmsen, in Indogermanische Forschungen,
XXX. [1912] 35. The full significance of the ' king ' meaning in
relation to the mystery-rite of the omophagia, as practised in
Crete and b}' Thracian chieftains, was established by A. B.
Cook, Zeus, Cambridge, 1914, i. 655 ff., in relation to his repub-
lication of the British Museum vase in pi. xxxvi. The previous
literature of the subject will be found in Cook's notes. On
p. 655, note 2, he rightly points out that the present writer's
former derivation {Prolegomena to the Stiidj/ of Greek
Religion^, Cambridge, 1908, p. 493, and Themis, p. 15) of the
word ' Titan ' from Ttrai/o!, ' white-clay man," is erroneous. As
initiators the Titans prol);ibly were daubed with white clay, but
the name is not derived from the disguise.

J. E. Harrison,
TITHES. — I. Origin and purpose. — Tithes are
connected, on the one hand, religiously, with
offerings of firstfruits (q.v.); on the other hand,
politically, with tribute and taxation. While
taxation often took the form of a tenth, the
amount might vary, less or more, though the
name ' tenth ' (deciina, SeKar-t)) was retained.
Voluntary offerings to a deity soon became
customary, and even necessary, especially where
kings began to impose taxation and tribute, and
where a god was now thought to be a divine
monarch. To keep up his sanctuary was as much
an obligation as to keep up the royal person and
court. An early example shows this. The people
of Tyre paid tithes to Melcarth as king of the
citj7, and the Carthaginians similarly sent their
tithes to Tyre.* W. R. Smith ^ shows that in this
case the tithe was as much political as religious.
The voluntary offering necessarily became tribute
also, as the ritual of a sanctuary became more
elaborate, the sanctuary itself more splendid,
and the attendant priests more numerous. Why
a tithe or tenth sliould have been fixed on so

1 Pans. viii. xxxvii. 3.

2 See art. Kouretes and Kortbantes.
i v. 66.

•• See artt. lIouNTAiN-MoTirKa and Kouretes akd Korvb.^ntes.
6 E. 240. 6 niod. Sin. xx. 14.

' Religion of the Semites", p. 24(i.

generally is not clear, but probably it is connected
with primitive views about numbers, or with
methods of counting — e.g., by fingers and toes.^

In Babylon, whether the tithe was native or
borrowed, its use is found in the time of Nebuchad-
rezzar II. Earlier evidence is so far lacking,
and there is no trace of it in the Assyrian period.
It was a due paid to the temple of a god from the
land, and was paid by all, including the king,
who assigned to temples founded by him an
annual amount from cultivated lands and from
the treasury. Numerous tablets concern tithes,
and show that the people were taxed for support
of the temple. Tithe was of the nature of a fixed
charge on the land and even became negotiable.
Such tablets may be regarded as of the nature of
a receipt for payment of tithe, which was generally
paid in kind — corn, oil, sesame, dates, flour, oxen,
sheep, and asses — though this might be commuted
for a money payment. One man sometimes paid
it collectively for a group of men, and possibly
this signifies a systematic collection of tithe in
one district by an authorized person." At the
same time Babj'lonian kings had a tithe of all
imports, as had also Persian satraps.^ In S. Arabia
tithes were used for the erection of sacred monu-
ments.* Cyrus, on the advice of Croesus, caused
his soldiers to devote a tenth of their booty to
Zeus.* The tithe as a tax on land was well known
in Greece and Rome, and the payment of a tithe
to temples on special occasions was not uncommon.
Pausanias gives many instances of this — e.g., a
tenth of war-booty being set aside to make an
image or a vessel for a temple.

In Egypt there was apparently greater freedom.
Temples were usually provided with lands for
their upkeep, but the gods expected to receive a
share of the produce of fields, vineyards, orchards,
and fish-ponds. The kings in time of war dedicated
a tenth of their booty to the temples, as well as
of tribute levied on vassal states and of prisoners
who were made slaves of the conqueror.®

Zoroastrian literature refers to the fourth rank
of men — traders, artizans, market dealers, etc. —
who should pay a tithe to the high priests and to
the king.'' Chinese sacred literature mentions a
tenth of the produce of ' the fields ' being annually
levied ; whether as a religious tribute or not is
not clear. 8

The Confucian Analects^ tell how 'the Duke Gae enquired
of Yew JO, saying, " The year is one of scarcity, and the returns
for expenditure are not sufficient. What is to be done ?"' He
desired to take two tenths, instead of the usual statutory single
tithe, from the allotments cultivated in common, against which
Yew JO protested.io

2. Tithe in the Old Testament. — Among the
Hebrews the relation of tithes to firstfruits" is
complicated, and opinions differ as to whether
they were distinct or not. Firstfruits would
naturally vary in quantity. Tithe expresses more
or less a fixed proportion. Perhaps the tithe re-
presents firstfruits made systematic, or different
names may have been favoured at different times
and in difl'erent localities. The tithe is called ' an
heave oflering' in Nii 18^, but the two are appar-
ently separate in Dt 12'*^'. In the later legislation
firstfruits and tithes appear to be distinguished.

The tithe, which is not mentioned in the Book
of the Covenant, appears first in the Northern

1 See art. Numbers (Introductory).

2 C. H. W. Johns, Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts,
and Letters, pp. xi, 205 1. ; M. Jastrow, The Religion of
Babylonia and Assyria, Boston, U.S.A., 1898, p. 668; G.
Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization, tr. M. L. McClure, London,
IbOl, p. 678.

3 Aristotle, CEcon. 13456, 13526. * W. R. Smith, p. 247.
B Ilerod. i. 89. 6 Maspero, p. 126.

7 RivdyaU (SBE xxxvii. [1892) 425 ; cf p. 443).

8 Shi King, vi. 7 {SBE iu.2 [1S99] 370 f.).

9 Bk. xii. ch. ix. §§ 1-4.

1" J. Legge, The Chinese Classics, Hongkong. 1861-72, i. 119.
11 See art. Firstfruits (Hebrew).

348

TITHES

Kingdom in the time of Jeroboam II, as the
material given for a feast at the sanctuary (Am 5" ;
cf. 4'*), though the feast was one for the rich at
the expense of the poor. Here it appears as a
fixed tribute. In Gn 28^^ (E) Jacob promises a
tenth of all to God — perhaps a reflexion of later
custom, though not necessarily so — and Melchizedec
receives a tenth of all {W'>). In 1 S 8i»- " tithe is
paid to the king, and perhaps he devoted this to
the upkeep of some sanctuaries. The tithe in the
Deuteronomic Code is not a forced tribute. The
tithe of corn, wine, and oil, with the heave offer-
ing, free-will offering, and firstlings of herd and
flock, are to be brought to the sanctuary and
eaten there as a feast with servants and Levite
(Dt 12"-"^). Here the connexion with firstlings
suggests that the tithe was the firstfruits of pro-
duce, or perhaps included these. This was a
private feast at the sanctuary, and may have
been a reform due to the fact that the ruling
classes, as in Am 5", secured the best for them-
selves. It was not a direct due for the priesthood
or for public religious services. If, however, the
distance to the central sanctuary was too great
for the offering to be taken there, it might be
commuted for money, and this would furnish the
material for the feast at the sanctuary as before
(Dt 14P^-). Every third year the tithe was to be
laid aside to furnish a feast or feasts at home for
the Levite, stranger, fatherless, and widow (14^^
26'".).

Does the tithe here referred to form the
equivalent of the firstfruits, the ritual of which,
as perhaps forming part of the tithe, is detailed
in Dt 26"- ? Probably they are ultimately the
same, including an offering of part as firstfruits,
and a feast for Levite and stranger, just as in
18* firstfruits are to be given to the priests. If
so, the words in 26^', ' Thou shalt rejoice in all
the good which the Lord thy God hath given unto
thee, and unto thine house, thou, and the Levite,
and the stranger,' would refer to the feast and be
equivalent to the feast on tithe of 1422'-, while the
earlier part of ch. 26 would refer to the offering
of part as a firstfruits offering.^

Is the third year's tithe additional to the tithe
given each year, or is it a special form of treating
tithe in the third year ? Here again opinions
differ, but most regard it as a diverting of the
usual tithe for the benefit of the local priesthood,
who would be deprived of the tithes through the
new custom of feasting at the central sanctuary.
Others regard it as a second tithe, and this is
supported by the LXX, which reads for ' the year
of tithing ' ' the second tithe,' rb 5e\jTepov iiriSiKarov.
But two tithes in every third year would mean
a large amount, and it is unlikely that such
demands would be made, or, if made, carried out.

In the Priestly Code tithe assumes the form of
a fixed due. A tithe of the produce of the land,
of fruit, and of the herd and flocks (i.e. of their
yearly increase) is ' holy unto the Lord.' If com-
muted for money, one-fifth part of the value is
to be added (Lv 27=""- )• This is probably the tithe
of produce referred to in Nu 18'^^'-, which was to
be given to the Levites, they in turn giving a
tenth of it to the storehouse for the support of
the priests (cf. Neh 10^''^-)> who received now also
firstfruits of corn, oil, and wine (Nu 18'"). The
tithe of cattle and sheep in Lv 27^", which is to
be 'holy unto the Lord,' may represent the
firstlings used at the Deuteronomic tithe-feast,
but claimed later by the jiriests (Nu 18''^-) as apart
from the Levites, but it is not referred to in
1 Of. S. R. Driver, Deuteronomy (ICC), Edinburgh, 1895,
in loc. The passage in Dt 18* assigning firstfruits of corn, wine,
and oil, and of wool to the Levites is out of harmony with the
other Deuteronomic legislation, if flrstfpuits and tithe were one
and the same.

Neh 10", where the tithe is described (cf. 12"
13^- ^"), and may be a later addition. It is, how-
ever, mentioned as paid to the priests in To 1',
by Philo,! and in the Book of Jubilees (32").
Rabbinic authorities regard it as furnishing,
along with a second tithe of produce (Lv 27^) —
additional, therefore, to the tithe of produce in
Nu 18^' — a feast for the tither and guests at
Jerusalem, as ordained in Dt H""^- The purpose
of the Priestly Code was probably to abrogate
the law of the tithe in Deuteronomy, but later
harmonizers did not take this view and spoke of
two tithes, and even three, the third-year tithe
of Deuteronomy being regarded as an additional
one. 2 The law of P is reflected in Hezekiah's
legislation, which ordered that firstfruits and
tithes of produce, sheep, and oxen should be
brought for the priests and Levites (2 Ch 31*) ;
hence, if the tithe of animals is in addition to the
original law of Lv 27^°'', it may have come into
force after Nehemiah's time.

In Neh 10^*^- firstfruits and firstlings and first-
fruits of dough were for the priests, and tithes of
produce for the Levites — the latter collected by
the Levites under the supervision of a priest, and
a tithe of the tithe being given to the priests
(cf. 12''*). The tithe, however, was not always
paid to the Levites, as Nehemiah discovered,
and they had to cultivate their own land. At
Nehemiah's remonstrance it was paid (13^''^-). At
a later time the priests themselves collected the
tithe,^ and the subsequent history of the Levites
in connexion with it is obscure, while they no
longer shared in the tithe, either from the time of
Ezra * or from that of John Hyrcanus.

The Pharisees, as well as the regulations of the
Talmud, considered minutely the things to be
tithed (Lk ll'*^), the former even paying tithes of
garden herbs — mint, anise, cumin.

Under the Rabbinic system of three tithes
referred to above, the first was collected yearly ;
the second was due in the first, second, fourth,
and fifth years ; the third in the third and sixth
years. Two were thus taken eveiy year, except
in the seventh year, when the land lay fallow.
The poor's tithe suggested tithing of earnings,
all of which was given to them. Extravagant
claims were made for the virtue of tithe; e.g.,
through it Israelites escape the twelve months'
punishment in hell which is the lot of the wicked.^

In Ezekiel's proposed legislation, which marks the transition
to P, the first of all the firstfruits of everything is reserved for
the support of the priests. There is besides a tax paid to the
prince for the support of ritual and feasts out of wheat, oil, and
flocks (4430f. 45i3f. ; cf. 20'10). No mention is made of tithes, nor
are the payments to be made to the priests as in P.

3. Early and mediaeval Church usage,— In the
Christian Church the need of supporting the
clergy, who were early withdrawn from secular
business, was recognized, but the system of tithe
was not generally resorted to for several centuries.
Once it did become general, tithe was regarded,
on the analogy of its use in the Jewish Church,
as de jure divino, and supported by such passages
as Mt 10'", Lk 10^ 1 Co g-*^-— an argument which
Selden was the first to show groundless, in
his work on the subject. Until the 4th cent,
little is heard of it, and some writers regard the
matter from a totally different point of view from
that which was later adopted. Irenasus, referring
to tithes in the Jewish system, says characteristic-
ally that (I!iiristians, as ' those who have received
liberty, set aside all their possessions for the Lord's
purposes, bestowing joyfully and freely not the
less valuable portions of their property.'® Origen

1 Philo, de Prcemiis Sacerd. § 2, de Carit., § 10.

2 Jos. Ant. IV. iv. 3 f., viii. 22 ; cf. ix. xiii. 3 ; To V.

3 Jos. Ant. XX. viii. 8, ix. 2, Vita, 12, 15.

4 So the Talmud, Vebhdmdth, 86 ; Hilllin,131; Kethi'ibhdtk, 20.

5 JE xii. 1516. ® Adv. Hcer. iv. xviii. 2.

TITHES

349

regards tithes as something to be far exceeded in
Christian giving,' and Epiphaniiis says that tithe
is no more binding than circumcision. '•^ Augustine
regards the tithe as something due by Christians
to God, though he and others are prompted also
by the finer ideal of freedom in all Christian
giving. It was inevitable, however, that, as the
Church spread far and wide, circumstances should
make it necessary to fall back upon rule, based
upon legal provision, and the old standard of a
tenth was set up, and the Christian priest was
compared in this matter to the Jewish priest and
Levite. Ambrose and many other Fathers accord-
ingly maintain that tithes should be given, but
their views were not generally accepted in the
Eastern Church. Even in the West there is
evidence that ' this species of ecclesiastical property
was acquired not only by degrees, but with con-
siderable opposition.'* The moral duty of paying
tithe was now generally taught, but, even after
it was made a matter of law, tithe was paid
reluctantly and irregularly. In A.D. 585 the
Council of MS.con ordained its payment, while
priests were to use it in helping the poor and in
redeeming captives. He who refused to pay it
was to be excommunicated. Other councils en-
joined it, but it was not until the time of
Charlemagne that it became matter of law. In
one of his capitularies he ordained it to be paid
to churches and clergy. Preachers had already-
exhorted strenuously towards its payment as tend-
ing to Christian perfection, and doubtless it was
now more generally rendered. At the same time
it has to be remembered that, apart from ecclesi-
astical law, under Roman law colonists had to pay
a tenth to the State as rent from the ager publicus.
This had already in large measure fallen into the
hands of the Church. While the ecclesiastical
tithe was usually paid to the bishop, who ap-
portioned it, Charlemagne's capitulary regulates
its division into three parts — for the bishop and
clergy, for the poor, and for the support of church
fabrics. In later times tithe was often appropriated
to particular churches and to monastic foundations.
Once the payment of tithe became a matter of
legal due, excommunication or temporal penalties
were decreed against those who refused to pay it.
Meanwhile abuses had risen in connexion with
the appropriation of tithe. Sometimes, instead
of appropriating it to a church, monastery, or
diocesan treasury, a proprietor would appropriate
it to his own uses or even sell it. It had also
become common for ecclesiastics to grant tithes to
laymen as an award for service or in recognition
of their protection. These were now regarded as
evils, and it was set forth as a legal maxim that
all tithes are of ecclesiastical origin. Where they
had been appropriated by laymen, they were with-
held from the Church only by robbery or by feudal
grant (decimce infeudafce). No layman could
possess tithes without risking his salvation. Hence
the Third Lateran Council of 1179 forbade deten-
tion of tithes by laymen as well as transference
of them to other laymen. The Council also de-
clared that any one who violated this decree
endangered his soul, and would be deprived of
Christian sepulture. As a result of this, many
tithes were restored to ecclesicastical use. Towards
the 13th cent, tithe was also extended from the
fruits of the earth, or predial tithes, to all kinds
of profit and wages. It was divided by the
canonists into (1) predial — derived from the fruits
of the ground ; (2) mixed — of tilings nourished of
the soil, or those due partly to its productiveness,
partly to human skill and labour ; (3) personal —

1 In Num. horn. xi. 2 Hcer. 50.

s H. Hallam, View of the State of Europe during the Middle
4ff«s", London, 1855, ii. 145.

from the profits of trade and merchandise. But
generally the second division is included in the
first. Ecclesiastical law in the Middle Ages laid
down precise rules regarding wliat was tithable
and what was not, those who were exempt, the
sale or transference of tithe to laymen (a custom
which gradually came into use), the superiority
of tithe to State taxes, and the like.

4. English law and practice. — In England legis-
lation on the subject seems to date from the latter
part of the 8th century. Pope Adrian in A.D. 785
enjoined payment of tithe on the Anglo-Saxon
Church. This was confirmed in later ecclesiastical
councils and synods, sometimes by royal orders.
The idea that the civil grant of tithe dates from
an alleged charter of Ethelwulf (A.D. 855) is now
abandoned ; and in any case it appears to grant
a tenth of the land, not of produce.^ In King
Edgar's reign failure to pay tithe was made legally
punishable (A.D. 950). Towards this time the
growth of parish churches was attended by their
endowment with part of the tithe paid by the
landowner, who was usually the founder of the
church, to the diocesan or monastic treasury. In
course of time, and with the extension of the
parochial system, it became a matter of legal pre-
sumption that the local tithe was the property of
the rector. In many places rectories with their
tithes were the property of monastic establish-
ments, a vicar being appointed to perform the
duties of the charge. The Reformation brought
about great changes, and, where the rectorial
tithes belonged to monasteries, at their dissolution
the tithes became the property of the crown.
They were now frequently granted to lay impro-
priators, thus being completely dissociated from
their original purpose. The rectorial tithe was
the ' greater ' tithe, and such tithe or part of tithe
as was paid to vicars was the ' smaller.' The
greater tithes were generally predial ; the smaller
were mixed and personal. These distinctions
were practically wiped out by the Tithe Commuta-
tion Act of 1836, although long before that date
commutation of tithe paid in kind for a money
payment had been general. By the Act of 1836,
tithe, with a few exceptions, was now commuted
for a fixed rent-charge, based on a seven years'
average of the price of corn — wheat, barley, and
oats — the amount being that which formed the
legal tithe at the date of the Act. With the
difference in values since 1836, the result has not
been for tlie benefit of the recipient of titlie.
Further legislation has modified details in pro-
cedure. The Tithe Act of 1918 amends the Acts,
1836 to 1891, and orders that the sum payable
under these Acts in respect of tithe rent-charge on
or before 1st Jan. 1926 shall be the sum payable,
as ascertained by the septennial average prices
under the Com Returns Act, 1882, in January 1918.
Tithe rent-charge is thus fixed up to 1st Jan. 1926,
at £109, 3s. lid. But the Board of Agriculture
and Fisheries shall, after 25th Dec. 1925 and in
succeeding years, compute in the same manner as
for this septennial average the average price of
corn for the preceding fifteen years. "The sum
payable as tithe rent-charge after 1st Jan. 1926
shall be ascertained on this fifteen years' com-
putation.

5. Teinds in Scots law. — In Scotland tithes are
known as teinds, and are almost entirely predial,
including decimcB mixtce, and only in exceptional
cases personal. They were divided into parsonage
and vicarage teinds, the former being leviable
from grain (wheat, oats, and barley), the latter
from natural grass or bog-hay, certain vegetables,
butter, cheese, calves, lambs, herring, etc. Where
an incumbent was appointed by the patron, he

1 Hallam, ii. 263.

350

TITHES (Greek)

received the whole teind. In other or 'patri-
monial ' parishes the teind belonged to the bishop,
or to a religious house, and the vicar who served
the parish received stipend out of the teinds,
sometimes a small part of the vicarage teinds.
When teinds first began as such in Scotland is not
known with certainty, but they are frequently
mentioned in charters of the 12th cent., as well as
in writs of that period to enforce their payment.
Canons of provincial councils in the pre-Reforma-
tion period regulate this payment and appropria-
tion. Many abuses arose regarding teinds, and
the decrees of the Lateran Council were often
ignored. Certain ecclesiastical lands (i.e. lands
which were the property of monastic orders) were
granted freedom from payment of tithe by papal
privileges. When such lands were feued to laymen,
this exemption also passed to them. In view of
the coming Reformation, ecclesiastics frequently
made grants to landowners, called titulars, con-
ferring heritable rights to teinds by feu or by long
lease. At the Reformation church lands passed
into the hands of laymen by grant from the crown
or otherwise, but payment of teind still continued,
though the stipends of ministers were entirely at
the will of proprietors and were of the scantiest
amount. In 1537 the General Assembly petitioned
the Privy Council to make permanent provision
for the maintenance of ministers. The Council
thereupon decreed that one-third of all ecclesiasti-
cal revenues should be divided between ministers
and the crown. On the rent-rolls being made up,
this sum was found to amount to over £6000. But,
as a result of imperfect returns, remission, and
refusal of payments, much less than half of this
sum was available. In 1567 Parliament, under
the scheme known as the 'assumption of thirds,'
ordered that ' the haill thrids of the haill benefices
of this realme' be paid now and for all time
coming to ministers until ' the Kirk come to the
full posses-sion of their patrimonie, quhilk is the
teindes.' This third was never paid in full, but
the system remained in force until 1633. While
Parliament thus recognized the right of the Kirk
to teinds— a proprietary right fully enjoyed by the
pre-Reformation clergy — that right was nullified,
and teinds had been ' evicted from their former
owners, diverted from their former use, and
acquired and dealt ^^uth by the crown and nobles
as their own property.' ^ An Act of 1617 appointed
a commission authorized to augment stipends out
of teinds, and a number of stipends were so treated.
In 1627, as a result of Charles I.'s intention to
receive surrenders of alienated church lands and
teinds, and of the opposition which this roused, a
commission was appointed to deal with the subject
and to make provision for churches. Submissions
were made to the king by those who had benefited
by grants of teinds or were interested in them,
and as a result he issued his ' decreets-arbitral,'
which were confirmed by Act of Parliament in
1633, and commissioners were appointed to deal
with the whole matter. Teinds were to be valued
at ' the fifth part of the constant rent which each
land payeth in stock and teind where the same are
valued jointly,' or, if valued apart, the commis-
sioners were to declare their value. Titulars of
teinds were to sell them to heritors at nine years'

{)urchase, but only so far as not already devoted
ocally to the minister of the parish. The valua-
tion thus made fixed the amount of teind for all
time coming, and the minister's stipend was to be
paid out of the commuted teinds as a permanent
endowment, with a further possible augmentation.
Stipend thus forms a paramount claim upon teind.
These decrees were confirmed by Act of the Scots

1 J. M. Duncan, The Parochial Ecdegiastical Law of
Scotland?, p. 230.

Parliament in 1633, and still continue to regulate
the right to teinds and the payment of stipends of
ministers of the Established Church. The whole
matter of teinds was ve.sted in commissioners, but
was transferred under the Union of 1707 and sub-
sequent Acts to the Lords of Council and Session,
acting as a Court of Commission of Teinds. This
Court of Teinds deals with all matters regarding
teinds, and in particular hears all claims for
augmentation of stipend out of tlie unexhausted
or free teinds, where such exist in the possession
of the proprietors after payment of stipend. Such
claims can be preferred only twenty years after a
previous claim lias been upheld.^

In valuing teinds under the Act of 1633, the valuation was
made either in grain or in money. WTiere stipend is payable
according to value of grain, it is valued according to fiars prices
of the county, as determined by a local court who strike the
value for the crop and year.

Literature. — J. M. Duncan, The Parochial Ecclesiastical
Law.of Scotland'^, ed. C. N. Johnston, Edinburgli, 1903 ; Green's
Encyclopcedia of the Law of Scotland, new ed., ed. J. Chisholm,
do. 1909-14 ; C. H. W. Johns, Babylonian and Assyrian Laws,
Contracts, and Letters, do. 1904 ; H. Lansdell, The Sacred
Tenth, 2 vols., London, 1906; A. S. Peake, art. 'Tithe' in
HDB; G. F. Moore, art. 'Tithes' in EBi; R. J. Phillimore,
Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England^, ed. W. O. F.
Phillimore and C. F. jemmett, 2 vols., Ixjndon, 1895 ; J. Selden,
The History of Tithes, do. 1618; W. R. Smith The Reli'jion
of the Semites'^, do. 1894, pp. 244 ff., 458 ff. ; John Spencer, De
Legibus Hebrceorum ritualibus, et carxim- rationibus, Cam-
bridge, 1685. J. A. MacCULLOCH.

TITHES (Greek). — It is difficult to separate
tithes (Se/cdrT?) and firstfruits {airapxh), since the
tithe is only a special fonn of fir.stfruit. Many
nations and tribes, if not nearly all, have had the
custom of setting apart a portion of their goods
for the gods ; and when, as was sometimes the
case, the king or chief was a sort of god, he took
his share by compulsion. It seems to have been
a wide-spread belief that some sacrifice Avas due
to the local spirits whenever men broke new
ground, built a settlement, or bridged a river;
and it was certainly common in very early times
to leave a portion of the new land to the possession
of the old divinity. Perhaps for the same reason
portions of the fruits of the earth were left, or
otherwise given to the gods. It is not likely that
this portion was always the same fraction of the
whole ; but the tenth was found to be a convenient
fraction early and in many nations, among them
the Jews. No doubt the decimal numeration had
something to do with this choice.* In Greece a
few traces are known of the early custom just
mentioned — e.g., the sacred groves of Artemis,
AA'ith game that no men might kOI except in a
sacred hunt.*

The Pelasgians are said by Stephanus to have
offered the tithe, which in later days they dedicated
at Delphi ;* and Herodotus " tells how the Hyper-
boreans used to send their annual tithe to Delos.
The tithe is not mentioned in Homer ; and the
earliest records come with the inscriptions, although
legendary tithing is spoken of earlier. When
Agamemnon conquered Mycenae, he is said to
have dedicated a tenth to the gods.« An epic
poem, the Europia, two lines of which are quoted
by Clement of Alexandria,^ mentions the dedica-
tion of tithes at Delphi. The Liparians, on con-
quering the Etruscans, dedicated a tithe of the
spoils at Delphi.* After the Persian invasion the
Greeks took an oath to tithe all those cities which

1 Green's Encyclopeedia of the Law of Scotland, ed. J.
Chisholm, xii. 103 f. ; Duncan, p. 313 f.

2 SeKaTevui = ' I count.'

3 Philostr. Imag. 1. 28, Heroicits, 286 = 665 ; Xen. Anab. v. 3.
9; IG Sept., Berlin, 1892-1908, iii. 1. 654 (2nd cent, after
Christ); cf. the Upov Kvvrjyia-iov mentioned in Demosth. c.
Aristogeitona, A, Introd.

4 Stephanus, s.v. 'A^opCyeva ; Dionysius, i. 18. 49.

5 iii. 33. B Diod. xi. C5.
7 Strom, i. 349 (Sylburg). 8 uiod. v. 0.

TLINGIT

351

had sided with the enemy. ^ Tithes of that great
struggle are also mentioned as being upon the
Athenian Acropolis. ^ A helmet exists tliat was
part of a war-tithe, dedicated by Hiero probably
from the spoils of Cumre.* Tithes of spoils are
recorded also from the battle of the Eurymedon.*
Tithe is a certain restoration in the inscription
that records how the Cnidians built their drja-avpds
at Delphi.' Statues on the Sacred Way at
Branchidae bear the inscription of tithe.^ Two
colossal figures were purchased with the tithe of
Plataea ; '' the Clitorians also dedicated another
as a 'tithe from many cities.' ^ A bronze Apollo
in the Pythium at Athens belongs to the 4th cent. ; *
and an archaic bronze figure of the 'Apollo' type
bears the word ' tithe.' ^^ Even the private person
speaks Avith pride of the tithes that he offered
to Athene, to the amount of more than half a
talent." Most of the dedications of arms and
spoils are without the distinctive word ; but the
war-tithe is recorded from the following places :
ApoUonia,''^ Athens,^^ Boeotia,^'* Branchidce,^'
Crete,'® Mantinea,''' Megara,'* Sparta,'^ Thes-
saly ; 2» at Delphi by Athenians,^' Caphyes,''''
Cnidians,^ Liparians,^^ Spartans,^ and Taren-
tines ; ^ at Olympia by Clitorians,^ Eleans,^ Mes-
senians,^^ Spartans,^*" Thurians.^i

Other tithes are mentioned in Anaphe,*^
Arcadia,^ Argolis,** Athens,^^ Bceotia,^ Calabria,*''
Calymna,^* Crete, ^^ Cyrene,*" Delos,*' Delphi,
Didymi^^ and Epidaurus^ in Argolis, Halicar-
nassus,** Ithaca,'** Megara,''® Naxos,*^ Paestum,'*^
Paros,^» Rhodes,*" Samos.'i Thera.^s Siphnos.'*
They are dedicated by men or women, or by
groups of persons, to Apollo, Artemis, Athene,
Demeter, Heracles, Zeus. The articles tithed are
all kinds of produce, corn and the fruits of the
earth, hunting, fish, gotten minerals, or the profits
of trade and industry. Thus we find the Siphnians
tithing the output of their mines,^ the Corcyreans
their fish,^* the Samian merchants their profits.**^
Before " the Persian invasion the farmer offers a
tithe of his farm;" other early dedications of
tithes are made by fullers'^ and shipwrights.'^

1 Herod, vil. 132 : SexaTeva-ai.. 2 Oem. Timocr. 741.

3 CIG, 16 ; IGA, 510. -i Diod. xi. 62.

6 Paus. X. 11. 5 ; BCH xxii. 592.

6 C. T. Newton, Eist. of Discoveries at Ilalicamassus, Cnidus,
and Branchidoe, London, 1S62-63, inscr. vol., no. 66.

7 Herod, ix. 81 ; Fans. v. 23. 1, x. 13. 5.

8 Paus. V. 23. 6. 9 CIA ii. 1154, 1204.

1* American Journal of Archaeology, new ser., ii. [1S98] 50.
11 Lys. Polystr. 686. 12 Paus. v. 22. 3.
13 CIA i. 334 ; Paus. i. 28. 2.

1* IGA, 191 ; Amer. Journ. Arch., new ser., ii. 2,'JO.
15 Newton, p. 777.

15 Monximenti Antichi, iii. [1891] 402 ff.

1" IGA , 100 ; H. CoUitz, Samvilung de.r griech. Dialekt-
inschriften, Gottingen, 1884-1905, i. 1193.

IS IG Sept. i. 37. 19 Paus. iii. 18. 7. 20 /Q Sept. (Them).

21 Paus. ix. 13. 9. 22 BCH xviii. 177. 23 /ft. xxii. 592.

24 Diod. V. 9. 25 Xen. Anab. v. 3. 4 ; Plut. Ages. 9.

26 Paus. X. 13. 10. 27 lb. V. 23. 7. 28 lb. vi. 24. 4.

2» Die Inschriften von Olympia, Berlin, 1896, p. 259.

30 Paus. V. 10. 4. ^^ IGA, MS.

32 IG Insularum Mai-is .Hgii, Berlin, 1895-1908, iii. 257 f.

33 Collitz, i. 1198.

3* 76. iii. 3407 ; CIG, 1172 ; IG Peloponnesi et Insularum
Vicinarum, Berlin, 1902, i. 580, 977.

36 CIA i. 210. 36 I(i Sept. i. 1739ifi, IGA, 191, etc.

37 IG SicilitB et Italice, Berlin, 1890, p. 643.

38 L. Ross, Inscr. Groecce ined., Naples, 1834-35, iii. 298.

39 CIG, 2556.

« Collitz, iii. 4839, 4840 ; CIG, 5133 ; SI ittheilungen des deut-
sche7i archaol. Institnts, xxiii. [189S] 22.

41 BCH xxvii. 65, xxx. 214.

42 Collitz, iii. 3407. « lb. iii. 3335. +» CIG, 2GG0.
« /G Sept. iii. 1. 654. •»(> paus. i. 42. 5. *TIGA,-Wi,.

48 lb. 542.

49 Mittheil. des d4;utsch. arch. Inst. xvii. [1902] 196.
"> IG Insularum Maris ^-Eiiii, i. S17a 3.

61 Herod, iv. 152. 52 /(,. iij. 57.

W IG Insularum Maris yEgii, iii. 431.

8^ Herod, iii. 57 ; Paus. x. 11. 2.

55 Paus. X. 9. 3, V. 29. 9. 66 Herod, iv. 152.

67 CIA iv. Suppl. 1. 373121, p. 182.

68 lb. iv. 373 f., p. 42. 59 /&. \y, 1. 3732^4, p. log.

We also read of a butcher,' a courtesan, 2 and
others who speak generally of a tithe of their
work.' Sometimes friends or relatives offer the
tithe for another.* Some of the female statues
of the Acropolis were tithes.^ See also art. First-
fruits (Greek).

Literature. — Daremberg-Saglio, s.v. 'Dekate'; Pauly-
Wissowa, s.vv. inapxal, BeKcW-n; H. Lansdell, The Sacred
Tenth, 2 vols., London, 1906; W. H. D. Rouse, Greek Votive
Oferings, Cambridge, 1902, ch. ii. and index ; J. Selden, The
Hist, of Tithes, London, 1618; W. R. Smith, The Religion
of the Semites", do. 1894, pp. 244 S., 458 ff.

W. H. D. KouSE.

TLINGIT.— The Tlingit, who occupied the
coast of Alaska from Portland Canal to Copper
Kiver, were organized into two main phratries and
one subsidiary phratral group, and the phratries
were subdivided into clans. The character of
their country and their manners and customs were
almost the same as those of the Haida {q.v.),
though the northern towns had not adoptea the
elaborately carved poles so characteristic of the
latter, and tlieir potlatches were conducted in a
somewhat different manner.

I. Cosmolog-ical beliefs. — The outlines of Tlingit
belief were like those of the Haida and indeed of
the other tribes of the North Pacific coast, but in
details there were considerable divergences. Like
the Haida, they believed that the earth was flat
and the sky a solid vault hung above it like an
inverted cup and tenanted by various supernatural
beings. The stars were supjiosed to be towns and
their light the reflexion of the sea. The sun and
moon were also occupied by special beings, and more
regard was paid to the sun than by the Haida.
Shooting stars were supposed to be live coals thrown
down by departed spirits, and the northern lights
were those spirits at play. Under the earth was
an old woman called Old-woman-under-the-earth,
who supported a great post, on which the solid land
rested. According to one story, she was the sister
of four brothers, who were favourite heroes of
Tlingit mythology, and who in early days travelled
all over the world killing liai-mful animals, putting
things in order, and establishing customs for future
generations. One of these brothers, Kashkatlk,
was a powerful shaman who succeeded where his
brothers had failed, and was frequently called upon
to restore them to life, while another, Hlkayak,
was always getting them into trouble by his
impetuous and trifling character. He was sus-

Eected of an amour with his own sister, and, when
is brothers discovered that their su.spicions were
well founded, they drove him away, and he became
the wielder of the thunder. His sister, overcome
with shame, went down into the earth at a place
where the extinct crater of Mt. Edgecomlie now
is, near Sitka, and became Old-woman-under-
the-earth. The remaining brothers and their
mother were turned into rocks while trying to
cross the Stikine Kiver, and they may be seen
there at the present day. According to the
version of this story told at Wrangell, the sister
was also turned into rock at that place and Old-
woman-under-the-earth was an entirely different
person. Old-woman-under-the-earth liked to re-
ceive food and prayers from human beings,
and she was especially fond of girls because
they made the fires on earth which wanned
her. When she did not get enough' attention
from mankind, she became angry and moved
her pole, causing an earthquake. Others said
that the earthquake was caused bj' her anger
at some persons who were teasing her, and Veni-

1 IGA 543. 2 Herod, ii. 135 ; cf. BCH xv. 113.

3 KAT 172, BCH vi. 19253.

4 CIA i. 349 ; CoUitz, iii. 3448 ; IG Inmdarum Maris Mgii,
ii.25S.

5 /'.jr., the pillar base 150 iu Acrop. Museum : cf. CIA iv. 1.

373^112. 210.

352

TLINGIT

aminoff ^ was told that it was because Raven was
angry with mankind and was trying to drive her
away in order that the earth might fall into the
sea. Though Hlkayak was said to cause thunder,
it was more often ascribed, as in the case of the
Haida, to a huge bird ; the flapping of its wings
produced the thunder and the opening of its eyes
the lightning; it lived principally on whales,
which it carried up into the mountains, and their
bones were often found there. Still another story
relates that several brothers became wizards in
order to rescue their sister from a giant slug which
had dragged her up on the side of a steep cliff, and,
having learned to fiy, afterwards became thunder
beings. When a peal of thunder was heard, people
shook themselves and jumped into the air, crying,
'Take all my sickness from me.'

2. Supernatural beings. — Except in the general
way common to all American tribes, we do not
hear much of sky- beings. The ' above-people ' of
the Haida were said to have been first heard of
through the Tlingit, however, and the conception
of Taxet's house also originated with them, although
they did not recognize any special being of that
name.

The four brothers have been referred to as the
originators of culture and customs, but they by
no means supplant Raven, whose personality,
functions, and attributes were the same here as on
the Queen Charlotte Islands.^ It is ethnographi-
cally important to note that he began his career
on the Nass River, and, according to some accounts,
returned to its head as his final home.

In connexion with Raven we have the nearest
approach to a supreme deity that the Tlingit seem
to have possessed, for the heaven-god of the Haida
appears to be entirely wanting among them. This
personage Vvas called Raven-at-the-head-of-Nass
(Nasshakiyehl), and it was from him that Raven
obtained the sun, moon, stars, and eulachon to
distribute all over the world. Some of the more
thoughtful Indians at the present day elevate this
being to a position far above that which he occupied
aboriginally, but there is no doubt that he always
had a real existence. He was called in some
stories ' the king of birds,' and Raven was therefore
subordinate to him. Up to the present time, how-
ever, no account of him lias been obtained in the
northern Tlingit towns — a fact which may indicate
that Tsimshian and Haida influence has been
instrumental in creating him.

Although held in considerable regard, killer-
whales did not receive a tithe as much attention
as among the Haida, nor do they appear to have
been associated with points and reefs. Land-
otters, however, and the land-otter men (kiishta-
ka) — the Tlingit equivalent of the gagihit — played
a gi'eat part in Tlingit mythology and in the rites
of shamans, and were viewed with even greater
terror. We also find a counterpart of the Haida
Property- woman called Tlenahidak, and a counter-
part of Master-carpenter. The increased import-
ance of hunting is shown by the conception of
Mountain-dweller, who lived far back among the
mountains and had a house always abundantly
stocked with game. Mountains generally were
called upon for a fair wind. Other patron-deities
were undoubtedly believed in, but the tendency in
this direction does not appear to have been as strong
as among the Haida. Another belief peculiar to
the Tlingit was in a race of seal-men. When one
of these was seen, they poured a bucket of fresh
water into the ocean. The grizzly bears and
mountain-sheep, Avhicli are wanting in the Queen
Charlotte Islands, were naturally held in greater
regard than there, and, when bears were killed,

1 Ap. A. Krause, Die Tlinkit-hidianer, p. 268 f.
a See ERE vi. 473.

their skins were hung up and adorned with eagle-
down and red paint, being addressed meanwhile
with soothing words. If this were not done, it was
feared that the bear's relatives would be angry
and would kill the hunter. Favourite among
Tlingit myths was that of a hunter named Kats,
who was captured by a female grizzly bear that
killed her bear-husband in order to marry him.
His children by her were a famous race of bears
known as ' Kats's children.' They destroyed many
people and committed great depredations, but were
at last killed, and in later times figures of them
served as heraldic crests in many of the most
prominent families. There were also special tabus
regarding mountain-sheep and the handling of their
skins.

People obtained good luck by grasping at the
sun's disk and pretending to put it upon anything
that they desired to be lucky. Like the Haida,
the Tlingit gave food to any thing or any being
that they wished to help them, and called to it,
mentioning their wants. Everything was believed
to have a spirit connected with it — there was one
in every trail that a person followed and in every-
thing that he did.

3. The dead. — The regions of the dead are said
to have been three — one below and two above the
plane of earth. The first was the country of the
killer-whales, and was for those who had been
drowned, and the third, or highest, was for those
who had died by violence, corresponding to the
Taxet's house of the Haida. The approach to
this place was through a hole reached by a single
log, and this was guarded by a person wiio
admitted only such as had perished in the pre-
scribed manner. The trail thither was infested
by grizzly bears and other animals. All other
persons passed after death to the lower sky-country
Sagi-kawu-ani ('souls' home'), which corresponded
closely to the Giettlgai of the Haida. The person
who was to go thither found himself on a trail,
and, following it, came to a fork. One of the
two paths had been much trodden upon, while the
other was very faint. The former came out on
the bank of a river, beyond wliich were the houses
of the departed, but, however loudly the new-comer
shouted to the other souls to carry him across,
they paid no attention until by chance he yawned,
when they exclaimed that a soul had arrived,
ferried him over, and gave him food. This river
was said to be formed by the tears which women
shed over the departed, and therefore it was not
good to weep much iintil one's friend had crossed
the river. A story recorded by Krause ' adds the
important fact that only the souls of those who
had friends among the spirits got to the other side,
the remainder being forced to wander about
miserably, and also that the river itself was as
green and bitter as gall. The souls were dependent
for their food on what their friends put into the
fire for them, and all had to do their own work
except those for whom slaves had been killed.
Cremation, which was well-nigh universal among
the Tlingit, was accounted for by the belief that
only those whose bodies were burned could go near
the fire in the spirit-world, the others being forced
to sliiver near the doors of the houses. According
to Veniaminoft",^ the path of those whose friends
Avept much was muddy and watery, but for those
whose friends wept less it was smooth and even.
A world for wicked persons was sometimes spoken
of, called Yehlkiwalvawo ('Raven's home'), and
would seem to be in the place where Raven lived,
but it is possible that the belief was due to
missionary influence.

4. Rebirth. — As among the Haida, belief in
rebirth was general — so much so that it is said

1 p. 280. 2 Ap. Krause, p. 2S2.

TLINGIT

353

that a poor person would wish to die in hope of
being reborn in a higher position in life. If a
pregnant woman dreamed of some dead relative,
it was believed that her child would contain his
soul, and in consequence the child was given the
relative's name. A belief in four rebirths followed
by annihilation has also been recorded, but this
was perhaps a distorted rendering of the Haida
idea of reincarnation. ^

5. Shamanism. — Shamanism reached its highest
development among the Tlingit, and nowhere on
the coast were shamans of such exalted social rank,
so well thought of, or so powerful. When perform-
ing, the Tlingit shaman was dressed much like his
Haida counterpart, but he also assumed a wooden
mask, and, besides being possessed by one principal
spirit, he was, if not possessed, at least accom-
panied, by several subordinate ones. The latter
were represented on the masks by small figures
round the eyes, jaws, ears, etc., of the principal
figure, and Avere supposed to strengthen the cor-
responding features of the shaman. Still other
spirits had charge of his rattle. With each of the
masks went a certain number of songs. One of
the most popular spirits was the wood- worm, which
enabled the sliaman's mind to pierce through any-
thing just as the wood- worm cuts through wood.
In addition to his other neck ornaments, the
shaman sometimes had a bird's head tied in front.
He had an assistant, who took charge of his para-
phernalia, beat time for him, and told the other
people what to do. This assistant was generally
the man who was to succeed to his office. Accord-
ing to Veniaminoff,^ the successor was a son or
sister's son, but for a son to succeed to his father's
position seems to have been the exception. The
right to certain spirits might be inherited, and in
saying that this seldom happened Krause has gone
decidedly too far.^

Not infrequently the spirit came to a novitiate
shaman on the death of his predecessor, but often
he was compelled to stay as long as two weeks in
the mountains and woods before it showed itself.
When it finally made its appearance, it usually
sent him the land-otter, the tongue of which he
wrenched out, catching the blood on a little bundle
of sticks. Krause^ says that the shaman killed
this land-otter by exclaiming ' Oh ! ' four times
very loudly, each time in a dili'erent tone of voice.
He also notes that none of the sticks in his bundle
were retained except those on which the blood had
fallen. As the shaman drew out the tongiie, he
exclaimed, ' May I be skilful in my new calling,'
'May I be able to cliarm and dance well,' etc.
The tongue was afterwards concealed in the
bundle, which was then kept in an out-of-the-way
place, for, if an uninitiated person were to come
upon it, he would lose his reason. The skin he
removed carefully and preserved as a visible mark
of his calling, but he buried the flesh in the earth.
The part played by land-otters in shamanism
and in mythology generally inspired the Tlingit
with such respect and dread that, before the
coming of the Kussians, they would not shoot one
of them.

If a person could not otherwise succeed in becom-
ing a shaman, he might go at night to the grave of
some dead shaman and take from the body a tooth
or the end of one of the little fingers, and place it in
his mouth. A shaman who did not observe certain
regulations carefully might be killed by his own
spirits, and, on the other hand, he could throw
them into one who did not believe in him and
destroy him.

The great exhibitions or performances of the
shamans were undertaken only during the new or

1 See art. Haida, § 17.
8 P. 286.

VOL. XII.— 23

" Ap. Krause, p. 284.
•« P. 285.

full moon. Shamans then called upon their spirits
to bring good fortune and health to their town and
people. From the morning of tiie day before that
appointed until the following morning none of the
relatives of the sliaman who were to assist him
might eat or drink. They cleansed themselves
internally by drinking water and introducing a
feather into the throat to bring on vomiting. At
sunset all entered the appointed house, which had
been thoroughly cleansed and provided with new
floor-planks. Then the shaman came out from
behind a screen and began to run round the fire,
his friends singing all the time, until the spirit
came to him.

Veniaminoft"^ divides the spirits that spoke
through shamans into spirits from above, land-
spirits, and water-spirits. The first were the souls
from the above-country already referred to. The
land-spirits appeared in the form of land-animals,
but were said to be the spirits of those who had
died a natural death and who had their dwellings
in the distant north. The water-spirits appeared
in the forms of sea-animals, and were in fact the
spirits of those animals. According to Krause,**
every Tlingit, whether shaman or not, had his own
protecting spirit, but this belief does not seem to
have assumed the importance which it bears among
the inland Indians.

6. Witchcraft. — As shamanism had reached its
highest development with the Tlingit, so also had
witchcraft, which might almost be described as a
diseased shamanism. A wizard accomplished his
object by obtaining some portion of the person
or clothing of the victim and laying it by an
unburned body, among the ashes of a burned
body, or on the body of a dog. When a person
was suspected of being a wizard, his hands were
bound behind his back and he was imprisoned
in an empty hut without food and with nothing
to drink but sea-water. There he was kept until
lie confessed, lost his reason, or died, unless his
friends Avere powerful enough to liberate him.
The person who confessed to having bewitched
any one was forced to wade out into the sea with
the medicine or compound which had caused the
illness and to scatter it upon the water, accom-
panying his actions with certain formuhie. Instead
of being imprisoned, a suspected wizard was some-
times bound hand and foot and exposed on the
beach for the rising tide to cover him. Some-
times he was dealt with in a still more summary
manner. Among other accomplishments, wizards
and witches were universally believed to possess
the power of flight.

7. Charms, etc. — The principal families and
many in humbler circumstances kept charms to
bring wealth and good fortune. They believed in
all sorts of signs, which they extracted from, or
rather read into, natural phenomena, and they
thought that natural phenomena would be affected
by tiie breaking of this or that tabu. After a
person had died, his body was carried through a
temporary hole in the side of the house, and a dog,
dead or alive, was thrown out after it, either that
the spirits might follow it out of the house or that
the dead man might be protected in his journey to
the spirit world.

LiTERATURR. — The monumental work of A. Krause, Die
Tlinkit- 1 mUanfr, Jena, 18*5, is the authority on the subject.
Most of the important mythologjical material contained in I.
VeniaminofF and other eariy writers has been gathered into
it. See also J. R. Swanton, 'Social Condition, Beliefs, and
Linguistic Kelatioiishiii of the Tlinjjit Indians,' in 2H HBEW
[1908], p. 391 flf., and 'Tlingit Myths and Texts,' Dull. SO BE
[1909] ; F. Boas, report v. ' On the North- Western Tribea of
Canada,' in lii'port of the British Afsoa'atlon for the Adcance-
mentnfScieHce,lSS9,i>. SOia. JoHN K. SWANTON.

TOAD.— See Animals.

1 Ap. Krause, p. 291.

2 P. 292.

354

TODAS

TO DAS. — The Todas are a small community,
about 70U iu number, living on the undulating
plateau, about 7000 ft. above sea-level, of the
Kilgiri hills in Southern India. They are a purely
pastoral people who eschew all other occupations.
They are provided with the products of agriculture
by the Badagas, a Canare.yo tribe who also live on
the plateau, while the Kotas, allied to the jungle
peoples of Southern India, furnish their metal-
work and pottery. Except for these commercial
relations, the Todas form a wholly separate com-
munity and have few other relations with the
Badagas or Kotas. With the Kurumbas, a jungle
tribe living on the slopes of the Nilgiris, the Todas
have even less frequent relations, and these arise
chiefly out of the Toda belief that the Kurumbas
are sorcerers.

I. Social ori^anization. — The people are divided
into two sections called the Tartharol and the
Teivaliol, each of which is strictly endogamous,
though irregular unions are allowed between men
and women of the two. Each section is divided
into a number of exogamous clans. Each clan
owns a number of villages, or mad (commonly
called mand), and takes its name from the etudmad,
or chief of these villages. The villages are small
settlements, sometimes consisting of only one or
two houses with a dairy and buffalo-pen. They
are scattered over the hills, but most of the villages
of a clan are near one another. Each clan is
divided into two divisions called kudr, 'horn,'
which should properly be, and usually are, only
two in number. These divisions are of importance;
onlj' in ceremonial. Another division of the clan
is the palm, by which the sharing of communal
expenses, such as those incurred in the repair or
rebuilding of the chief dairies of the clan, is
regulated. The Todas recognize the existence of
the family, or kudupcl, as a social unit, and this
often corresponds with the pohn. One clan, the
Melgarsol, has an exceptional position in that,
though belonging to the Tartharol, it shares many
duties and privileges with the Teivaliol.

Descent is always patrilineal. A man belongs
to the clan of his father. The effect of fatherhood
is not determined by marriage, however, but by a
ceremony of giving a bow and arrow which takes
place at the seventh month of pregnancy. This
ceremony is not performed at every pregnancy,
but a person is regarded as the child of the man
who was the last to perform this ceremony with
his or her mother.

The Todas practise polyandry, nearly always of
the fraternal type.^ Formerly this practice was
possible in a pure form owing to the existence of
female infanticide. Though girls are probably
sometimes killed at birth, the practice is now
less frequent. There is still a considerable excess
of men, but polyandry is often combined witli
polygyny, producing a state which may be re-
garded as a variety of group marriage.^ In ad-
dition to orthodox marriage there is a regular
system of unions in which a woman has connubial
relations with one or more men called mokhthod-
vaiol. This kind of union may take place between
a Tarthar man and a Teivali woman or vice versa,
thus differing from marriage proper, which is con-
fined to members of one section. The orthodox
marriage is between cross-cousins, and this institu-
tion is reflected in the nomenclatui-e of relationship
which in several respects resembles that of the
Tamils. The cross-cousin is classified with the
spouse, the mother's brother with the father-in-
law, and the father's sister with the mother-in-
law. Betrothal in infancy is customary, and this
practice is probably responsible for a custom of
transferring wives from one man to another which
1 ERR viii. 427. 2 /&.

has now become very frequent. The custom seems
to have been originallj^ one by means of which a
widower could obtain a wife in a community
where, through the practice of infant betrothal,
every woman is already bespoken, but it has now
become a process set in action whenever one man
desires the wife of another.

The people are governed by a council of five
called the naini, one of the members of which
should properly be a Badaga. This council is
chiefly engaged in settling disputes arising out of
the transference of wives. It is also the business
of the naim to arrange when ceremonies shall be
performed, especially those of the more important
dairies. There is a headman called monegar, but
he is chiefly concerned with the payment of the
assessment to the Government, and the institution
is almost certainly recent. On the other hand,
the headship of the clan is certainly an old in-
stitution. Its functions are not especially im-
portant, and this also holds good of the headship
of the kudr and polm.

2. Religion. — The Todas believe in certain
superior beings who may be regarded as gods, and
speak of them as 1600 or 1800 in number, but
these are the customary Toda expressions for an
indefinitely large number. The two most import-
ant are On and Teikirzi. On is a male deity
who presides over Amnodr, the world of the dead.
He is believed to have created the Todas and
their buffaloes and to have been himself a dairy-
man. More important in the minds of the people
is Teikirzi, a female deity, who is believed to
have lived on the Nilgiris and ruled the people.
Most of the Toda social and ceremonial laws are
ascribed to her ordinance. These two deities are
not especially connected with hills, but nearly
all the others seem to be hill-deities, each being
associated %\ith a special hill-top. Two are river-
gods, associated with the two chief rivers of the
district.

The ritual of the Toda religion is concerned
almost exclusively with the butialoes and the
treatment of their milk. The dairies are the
temples ; the dairymen are the priests ; and
various incidents in the lives of the buffaloes, such
as their movements from one grazing ground to
another, the first milking, and the giving of salt,
have become the occasion of ceremonial which has
a religious character. This ritual stands in a
definite relation to the gods, for these beings are
mentioned in the formulas of the dairy ritual, the
general character of which indicates that they
must be regarded as prayers. The names used
for the deities in these prayers differ from those
used in ordinary speech, and form part of a series
of expressions called kwarzam, in which special
names of deities, buffaloes, dairy utensils, and
other objects are uttered, preceded by the word
idith, said to mean 'for the sake of.' The dairies
and the buffalo-herds form a somewhat complicated
organization, especially among the Tartharol.
Every village has a number of buffaloes devoid of
any element of sanctity, and their milk is churned
in a dairjs also devoid of sanctity, with no special
ritual. Most of the buffaloes, however, belong to
herds with special names with varying degrees of
sanctity, and in correspondence with these there
are great differences in the elaborateness of the
ritual with which the milk is treated and in the
ceremonial regulations of the lives of the dairy-
priests. This complicated system is confined to
the buffaloes of the Tartharol, the Teivaliol having
only one variety of sacred buffalo, but the most
sacred kinds of dairy of the Tartharol must be
tended either by Teivali men or by men of the
Melgars clan, which occupies an intermediate
position between the two main sections.

TODAS

355

The lowest grrade of Tarthar dairy is called tarvali. Its ritual
is coniparati\eIy simple and is contiiied to the evening milkinji:
and churning. When the daiiyman enters the dairy, he bows
down and touches the threshold with his forehead, touches
certain dairy vessels ceremonially, lights the lam]), and utters a
prayer before beginning to churn. After churiiini,' he holds the
ohurning-stick to his forehead, uttering the sacred syllable ' On.'
He also repeats the prayer of the dairy after milking.

The dairy next in order of sanctity differs in the possession
of a bell (mani). The dairyman is not allowed to put his
food on the ground ; both ciird and milk are put on the bell
with the utterance of the sacred syllable ; and the chief milk-
vessel is beaten three times with the bark of the sacred tudr
tree (Melinmna pungens and Wvjhtii), the same syllable being
uttered. The dairymen of this grade are allowed to sleep in
the ordinary hut only on certain days of the week. Ordinary
people are not allowed to drink the milk of buffaloes tended
at this dairy.

Certain villages have dairies with special features of ritual,
but the next kind of dairy in order of sanctity which occurs in
every Tarthar clan, except the Melgarsol, is the unirsuU, the
dairyman of which must be taken either from the Teivaliol or
from the Melgars clan. The restrictions on his conduct are
more numerous and the ritual of milking and churning is more
complex, special features being that he wears his cloak in a
particular waj', and that the proceedings of both morning and
evening have an equally ceremonial character. In many dairies
of this rank there are two rooms, the inner of which contains
the more sacred dairy vessels. The dairyman, or wursol, is
allowed to sleep in the village and have intercourse with women
only on two nights of the week.

All these dairies are situated at the villages where the people
live, though they may be at some distance from the dwelling-
houses. The highest kind of dairy, called the ti, on the other
hand, is situated far from the villages. Each herd has several
dairies, all of which are remote from the dwelling-places of the
people. The dairyman, called pcUol, must be of the Teivaliol,
and his attendant, the kalUnukh, must come either from the
Teivaliol or from the Melgars clan. The palol is not allowed to
visit a village or have intercourse with any persons other than
dairymen of his own rank, his kaltmokh, and men of the Melgars
clan who are priWleged to visit the ti dairy and drink butter-
milk. Intercourse with women is entirely forbidden except on
one occasion after the palol has held office for eighteen years.
The ritual of the ti is far more complex than that of any village
dairy. In this dairy the vessels are more numerous and have
special names different from those of the less sacred forms of
dairj'. The more sacred vessels, viz. those which come directly
into contact with the milk of the buffaloes, are always kept in
an inner room, together with the bell or bells, and are not
allowed to come into contact with the vessels which, being
used to contain the products of the churning, are regarded as
less sacred. The details of milking and churning are more
elaborate and more strictly regulated than in the village dairies,
and the prayers are longer and more frequently repeated.

The proceedings when the buffaloes move from one grazing
gjound to another have a definitely ceremonial character. This
is especially elaborate in the case of the ti dairies. The more
sacred vessels are carried by the palol, while the others are
taken by the kaltmokh, assisted by a man of Melgars, who
leads the way. There are elaborate ceremonies of purification
of the dairy which is about to be occupied, and a special prayer
for the welfare of the buffaloes is offered before going to rest.
On the following day there is a ceremony in which the kaltmokh
takes a leading part. His head and body are rubbed with a
mixture of milk and clarified butter, and he is given a ball of a
special kind of food larger than he can possibly eat, the re-
mainder of which he has to leave on the spot where the cere-
mony has taken place. An invocation is uttered that evils of
many kinds may afflict the bo3', and this is followed by another
invocation that these evils may be averted. At some dairies
milk and butter are rubbed on certain stones.

Before entering upon office every dairyman
undergoes certain ceremonies which may be re-
garded as a kind of ordination. These increase
in complexity with the increasing sanctity of the
dairy, but the chief feature common to all is a
process of purification by drinking and washing
with the water of a stream which is used only for
ceremonial purposes. The ceremony is named
either after this process or after the act of lighting
a lamp, this being the first duty of the newly
ordained dairyman. An important part of the
ceremony is the use of certain leaves to rub the
body and as drinking ve.=;sels. The ordinary
dairyman uses the leaves of a bramble for this
purpose, while the wursol and palol use the leaves
and bark of the sacred ttidr tree. Another feature
is the use of the special kind of cloth which is
worn by the palol. A fragment only is used by
the lower grades, while the wursol and palol
assume a complete garment of this material. The
village dairyman of the lower grades touches the
various vessels of the dairy, befriiining with tlie

less sacred, as tlie final stage of his ordination,
while the loursol and the dairymen of certain other
villages touch a buried vessel, called mu, specially
disinterred for the occasion. Tlie ordination of
the p/ilul is preceded by a qualifj-ing ceremony in
which after certain purifying rites the candidate
in a state of nudity receives food from an old
woman. Tliough the woman must be past the
age of child-bearing, the original object of the rite
is probably to test whether the candidates are
likely to submit successfully to the abstinence
which is incumbent upon the holder of the office of
palol. In the ordination ceremony proper of the
ti dairy the rites of purification last for a whole
week, and in the later stages of the ceremonial
the candidate drinks water from the sacred tudr
leaves three, seven, and nine times seven times.
The palol touches a bar of the opening into the
pen in which the sacred buffaloes are enclosed at
night as the final act with which he enters into
office.

An important ceremony of another kind is named
after the buttermilk, called pep, which is put into
the milking- vessel before milking is commenced.
A vessel called mu is kept buried in the buli'alo-pen
of the chief village of each clan, and, if this has
been tampered with, or if a dairy has been defiled
or the bell of the dairy has been taken to a funeral,
a new vessel has to be procured and consecrated,
the ceremony, however, being called the consecra-
tion of the buttermilk. The chief feature of the
ceremony is the sanctification of the new vessel
with the earth of a buftalo-pen taken from the
footprints of one of the buffaloes.

Another ceremony is performed about the
fifteenth day after the birth of a calf to one of
the sacred buffaloes, and still another when salt is
given to the buffaloes. There seems to be little
doubt that the great ritual development of the
business of the dairy is connected with a belief in
the sanctity of the milk of the sacred buffaloes.
At the present time the buffaloes themselves are
not regarded with any special veneration, and it
would seem as if this had been transferred to certain
cattle-bells called mani, so old that their tongues
have been lost, and to the vessels which come
directly into contact with the milk of the buffaloes,
while another specially sacred object is the vessel,
called mu, which is buried in the buttalo-pen of the
chief village of each clan (see above).

3. Sacrifice and offerings. — An important cere-
mony is one in which a male buffalo-calf is killed
and its flesh eaten, this being the only occasion on
which a Toda should eat the flesh of a buffalo. At
the ti dairy the ceremony, which may be regarded
as sacrificial, takes place three times a year ; at
the other dairies it should probably be annual, but
now takes place more frequently. After a prayer
in which the calf is asked to appear to certain
deities, and after it has been stroked with leaves
of tiidr, the animal is killed by being struck with
a log of the tzulr tree, the bark and leaves of which
are prominent in the dairy ritual. The right fore-
limb is of especial importance, being placed near
the middle of the fire at which the flesh is roa.sted
and eaten together with the pelvis, feet, and head
by the dairyman.

There is an annual ceremony in which a fire is
lighted by the pnlol at the foot of certain hills,
the summits of wliich are believed to be occupied
by gods. Clauses are added to the ordinary prayer
asking that fruit may ripen and honey abound.

The ceremonies which liave been described are
performed regularly, and their occasions arise
chiefly out of the necessary events of the pastoral
life, the last described standing alone in its refer-
ence to vegetation and means of subsistence other
tlian tho.se provided by the buffaloes. The cere-

356

TODAS

monies now to be described are more occasional
and depend on the commission of some act which
has offended the gods and tlius brought illness or
some other misfortune upon the offender. In these
cases the central feature of the ceremony is an
offering to the gods of either a buff\ilo or a buffalo-
calf, a piece of the cloth worn by the more sacred
dairymen, or a ring.

The simi)lest kind of offering, often made when
some mistake has occurred inadvertently in a
ceremony, is to undertake not to kill or part with
a Ijuffalo, but allow it to die a natural death. In
this case there is little ceremony, the donor simply
stating that he is giving the buffalo to the gods
while he salutes an elder. A more ceremonial
offering of a buffalo-calf is made if a misfortune is
ascribed to some serious offence against the dairy,
such as stealing milk or its products, quarrelling in
the dairy, or going to it in an impure state. In this
case the calf is given by the offender to the people of
the other kudr of his clan. All members of the
kudr of the offender have to leave the village for a
month, at the end of which, after purification with
fasting, the calf is driven across certain ceremonial
stones to be received by members of the other
kudr. For minor offences a piece of cloth or a ring
is offered with similar rites, the offering passing in
every case from the kudr of the offender to the
people of the other kudr of the clan. In all cases
prayers are offered, which include in some cases
supplications for the health of the people and their
buffaloes.

4. Divination. — The offerings just described are
made as the result of the finding of diviners called
teuol, or god-men. The decisions are given when
the teuol are in a state of frenzy and in a language
which is said to be Malayalam. It is believed that
they are the utterances of some of the gods. The
diviners are often consulted at funerals, usually to
discover the cause of death or illness either of men
or of buffaloes, or the cause of any harm which has
happened to a dairy or its contents. In the case
of illness they usually find either that the patient
has committed some offence against the dairy
or that he is the victim of the sorcery of the
Kurumbas.

5. Birth and childhood ceremonies. — Two cere-
monies are performed during pregnancy ; in the
first the wrists of the woman are burnt while she
is undergoing seclusion, while the second ceremony
is that already mentioned in which the presenta-
tion of a bow and arrow determines the fatherhood
of the child. Various ceremonies occur at the end
of a period of seclusion which follows childbirth.
Until a child is three months old no one but the
mother is allowed to see its face, and at that age
a ceremony is performed in which the face is un-
covered and the child is allowed to look at the sun.
Ceremonies are also performed when the name is
given, when the ears are pierced, and when a lock
of hair is cut, the last ceremony only taking place
on the day after the second funeral (see below) of
a Tarthar man.

6. Death. — The funeral ceremonies are very
elaborate and take place on two different occasions
often separated by many months. At the first
ceremony the body is cremated on a pyre, the
orthodox position being face downwards. Several
rites are performed before cremation, among them
being one in which a cloth is given by a near
relative of the deceased to men who have married
into the family, the cloth being then placed on the
corpse by the wives of these men. In the case of
a man the cremation is preceded by a ceremony in
which earth is thrown three times into a bufialo-
pen by the Teivali dairyman at a Tarthar funeral
and by the relatives if the dead man is one of
the Teivaliol. In most Tarthar clans the body is

placed before cremation in a special three-roomed
dairy. Bufialoes are killed, varying in number in
different clans. In each case the rigiit hand of the
dead man is made to clasp one of the horns, and
lamentations are uttered in which each person
addresses the dead bufialo by the same term of
relationship as he would use to the deceased.
Immediately before the body is burned, it is swung
three times over the fire upon a representation of
a bier. When the body is consumed, a piece of
the skull is recovered from the ashes and kept,
wrapped with some of the hair in a cloak, for the
second funeral ceremony. In the interval these
relics are kept in a special village, where they
are saluted by any Todas who visit the place.
Formerly the body was smoke-dried, after it had
been eviscerated, if the cremation ceremony was
delayed.

At the second funeral ceremony the earth-throw-
ing rite is repeated. At a Tarthar funeral a cere-
mony is performed in which the relics are sprinkled
with the blood of a buffalo mixed ^vith the bark of
the tudr tree. This is done by a Teivali man,
wearing the cloak in which the remains have been
wrapped, after which he touches the remains with
a bow and arrow. Buffaloes are killed, as at the
first ceremony, and the men dance with a tall pole
obtained from Malabar. During the following
night the final ceremony takes place, in which the
relics together with a number of other objects are
burned within a stone-circle. The ashes are in-
terred at an opening in the circle, and the grave is
covered with a stone. A bell is then rung and a
new pot broken on the stone, after which all go
away without turning back to look at the resting-
place of the ashes.

The dead are believed to go to a place called
Amnqdr in the west and below the earth. The
god On presides over this world of the dead,
where the people live much the same kind of life
as on earth. The dead travel to Amnodr by a
definite route, which differs in some respects for
Tartharol and Teivaliol. In each case the dead
perform acts on the way by which they lose their
love of the earth and regain the vigour of health.
They have also to cross a bridge of thread, running
the risk of falling into a river full of leeches.
Those Todas who have offended against the dairy
or have been selfish and jealous are thus delayed
in their journey to Amnodr. One of the Tartnar
clans, that of Taradr, has an Amnodr, distinct
from the rest, at Perithi in the Wainad, where
there are still some Toda settlements.

7. Sacred days and numbers. — Many Toda cere-
monies must be performed on definite days of the
week, and this is probably connected with an in-
stitution in which each clan has one or more days
on which a large number of activities are forbidden.
Thus, on the madnol, or village day, neither
dairymen nor women are allowed to leave the
village, and nothing may be sold or taken away.
There are various restrictions on conduct, and
funeral and other ceremonies may not be held.
Among the Tartharol there are similar restrictions
on days sacred to each kind of dairy, so that in a
village which has dairies of several different kinds
few days of the week are left for the performance
of the ordinary activities of life.

Sacred numbers are very prominent in the ritual,
three and seven being the most important. Many
ritual acts are performed three times, a threefold
rite being usually associated in the dairy cere-
monial with the utterance of the sacred syllable
' On. ' This number is also prominent in the funeral
rites, especially in connexion with the ceremonial
tiirowing of earth and the sAvinging of the body
over the pyre before it is burned. The sevenfold
performance of ceremonial acts only occurs in the

TOKEN

357

dairy ritual and is especially prominent in the
ordination ceremonies. Several of the moat ancient
lamps of the dairy are said to have had seven
cavities or seven wicks.

8. Sorcery. — Two kinds of sorcery are practised,
in one of which an incantation is uttered over some
hair, preferably that of the person it is designed to
injure. This is then hidden in the thatch of the
proposed victim's hut. In the other form the
sorcerer uses a bone or lime, which is then buried
near the village of the proposed victim. In each
case the incantation resembles the ordinary form
of prayer, but with less explicit reference to the
gods. It consists mainly of an enumeration of
the misfortunes which it is hoped may fall upon
the victim. The trouble is removed or averted by
a corresponding formula as the result of negotia-
tions with the sorcerer to whom the misfortune
has been ascribed by one of the diviners.

There are many points of similarity between the
ceremonial of the Todas and that of the Hindus,
the sanctity of the milk-providing animal being an
important feature common to both. There is
reason to believe that the two main sections of the
Todas differ in origin, and it is probable that the
Teivaliol represent the earlier settlers and that
they mixed with an indigenous people who practised
interment of the dead preceded by some kind of
mummification. The Tartharol seem to be later
comers, who either brought the practice of cremation
or accentuated its importance. The complexity of
the dairy ritual is probably due to their influence,
and they seem to have adopted the practice, so
frequent in India, of employing the earlier settlers
as their priests.

A point of especial interest is the relation of the
Todas to the stone-circles and other megalithic
structures on the Nilgiri hills. The people at
present take little interest in these monuments,
and this is intelligible if they were erected by the
older stratum of the population represented by the
Teivaliol, whose beliefs have been put into the back-
ground by the greater influence of the purely
pastoral Tartharol. Stones of various kinds enter
into the ritual of the dairy. The burial of the
ashes at the entrance to a stone-circle at the end
of the second funeral and the ritual throwing of
earth into the buflalo-pen at both funeral rites
suggest that the body was once interred in a buflalo-
pen, and this is perhaps confirmed by the burial of
the dairy-vessel called mu in a pen and by the
sanctification of tliis vessel with earth taken from
this spot. These features of ritual point to the
circular pens as part of the culture of the older
people, and in this connexion it is noteworthy that
the most ancient dairies are circular and attbrd
characteristic examples of the round house with
conical roof. It may also be noted that these
dairies are surrounded by stone walls, in one case
by two such walls.

LiTBRATTJEB. — H. Harkness, A Dencription of a Singular
Aboriginal Race inhabiting the Summit of the Neilgherry
Hills, London, 1832; W. E. Marshall, A Phrenologist amoiu/
the Toda^, do. 1873; W. J. Breeks, An Account of the Primi-
tive Tribes and Monuments of the Nilagiris, do. 1873 ; W. H. R
Rivers, The Todas, do. 1906. W. H. R. RlVERS.

TOHUNGANS.— See Polynesia.

TOKEN. — In its broadest sense a token is anj'
portable object serving as a sign or proof of authen-
ticity or credit, by which the issuer guarantees
that the claim indicated by the token will be satis-
fied on its presentation in the proper quarter. In
numismatics it signifies a coin-like piece of metal
or other material representing money of much more
than its intrinsic value, for which money the
issuer undertakes to redeem the token when pre-
sented ; it is also loosely applied to tickets admit-

ting to certain privileges, such as the holy com-
munion, or serving instead of letters of recommen-
dation or other forms of credential.

I. Antiquity. — Many vague statements have
been made as to the use of tokens or tesserce (sym-
bola, synthemata) for identifying persons who had
been ifiitiated into mysteries, but nothing of the
kind has been identified. Tesserce were largely used
in Roman times for giving admission to shows or
entitling to share in the distribution of grain (tes-
serce frumentarite), and some of tiiese bear Christ-
ian symbols (one is extant in ivory bearing an
anchor, two fishes and Afi). No Christian tesserce
hospitalitatis (memorials of hospitality for which
a return might be claimed when they were pre-
sented) have been identified as extant. Tesserae
were also used as credentials, serving instead of
litterce commendatitice or commendatorice.^ Such
tesserce would have been used when persons were
sent to cohfessors in prison to minister to them.
Tesserce may also have been used to identify the
faithful when they desired admission to religious
gatherings. Such use is a priori possible and prob-
able, but it is important to remember that nothing
of the kind, so far as is known, has survived from
antiquity bearing a specially Christian character.
Even among pagan tesserce, those relating to
religious bodies are rare. A certain number are
extant bearing the names of the magistri and other
dignitaries of the sodalitates who made distribu-
tions at festivals, such as the magistri Minervales ;
there are also tesserce inscribed ' Sacr(a) Lani(vina)
iuven(alia),' which were used at the festival of the
college of luvenes at Lanuvium.

As regards Byzantine times, a certain number
of tessei-CB of churches, convents, confraternities,
and other pious institutions have been described ;
they may have served, as in the West, for the dis-
tribution of alms and also for the control of various
payments due to the personnel of churches and
religious bodies. Such are, e.g., an anonymous
bronze tessera with the busts of the Virgin and St.
Demetrius, and another with God the Father
(inscr. aytos ayios dyios) and a bunch of grapes on the
reverse, which, it has been suggested, may have
been used for the remuneration of cantors. The
pieces used for charitable distributions are inscribed
(in Greek) with such texts as ' He that hath pity
upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord,' ' Blessed are
the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.'

2. Mereaux of the Roman Catholic Church. —
The token, or jeton de presence, issued to the
clergy in collegiate churches as a record of their
presence at mass, at the canonical hours, and at
other offices, in order that they might claim the
statutory payment for their services, was most
commonly known as a mtreau. The Latin word
merellus (merallus, maralus, etc.) is of uncertain
derivation. Other names met with are : plomb
(plonc, plommet, pluvibus, etc.), even when made of
other metal than lead (plommez de cuyvre at Aire
in 1527), enseigne, signum, marque, manuel, palot
[pallotus), moneta capituli, simoolum, etc. Many
of these terms, signifying merely distribution-
token, on the presentation of which a share in
funds or privileges could be claimed, were not
confined to the tokens of religious bodies, but
extended to all kinds of corporations. It is un-
certain when m&reaux capitiUaires were first intro-
duced ; the mention in a charter of the cathedral
church of Tours (1216) of a distributio nummorum
matutinalium, does not necessarily refer to such
mereaux as distinct from ordinary coins, and the
mireaux which are mentioned in charters of 1167
and 1173 are passes, or tesserce of identification,

1 Cf. the phrase of Tertullian, de Prcescript. xx. : ' dum est
illis [i.e. ecclesiis] communicatio pads, et appellatio fraterni-
tatia, et contesseratio hospitalitatis.'

358

TOKEN

without any special connexion witli religion. The
earliest undoubted documentary reference to their
use in churches seems to date from 1375, when
Charles v. granted to the canons of the collegiate
church of Langeac (Haute Loire) the right of having
struck at the Royal Mint of St. Pour^ain merelli
for distribution to clerks and canons present at
offices ; they were to be of copper, lead, or tin,
and to be carefully distinguished by their types,
which are specified, from coin of the realm. None
of these seems to have been identified. Next in
date comes a reference in 1401. In a clause of his
will Charles VI. ruled that the distributor of the
Sainte Chapelle ' ne bailie les mereaux jusqu'k la
fin des heures de Notre Dame.' In a letter of 18th
July 1401 he announces his intention of carrying
out during his lifetime the new system outlined in
his will ; no one of the clergy who misbehaved or
absented himself was to receive m6reaux. A 15th
cent, statute ordered that on every Saturday all
the canons, chaplains, and clerks of the Sainte
Chapelle should attend in the pay-room and bring
their mereaux to show what each had earned.
But there are extant chnrch-mireaux which by
their style must be earlier than the documents
referred to, and the substitution of these for the
custom of paying in actual money at the time, or
for pricking in, or for tallies, may date from early
in the 13th century. In 1557 the canons of M&con
claimed that they had had for ' more than three or
four centuries ' the right of distribution of leaden
jetons for the payment of choristers and other
priests serving in the church ; what foundation
their claim possessed is not known. Nearly all the
examples known come from France or the Low
Countries, where m^?'eawa; were also used by abbeys,
convents, hospitals, infirmaries, parish churches,
and confraternities. The popular English term
'abbey token' for what are really reckoning-
counters must not be taken to prove the existence
of the custom in England ; there is no evidence for
such use in this country.^

Such tokens were cashed from time to time by
the receivers of the various funds on which they
were issued ; sometimes they could be exchanged
by the cellarer for victuals ; and they often had
a modified circulation. As long as this did not
extend outside, so as to encroach on the currency
of the realm, no objection was raised to any body
issuing such mereaux. But, when it was the
custom, as it was at Saint-Am6 (Douai) or at
Arras (wheremf^reawa; were used inscribed ' merellus
mandatipauperum '), for the clergy to give away
such tokens, entitling to portions of victuals, as
alms to the poor, it is easy to see how the circula-
tion might extend outside. In 1577 the Cour des
Monnaies had to forbid the use of m6reaux issued
by the chapter of Autun except for distributions
to the clergy ; they had got into circulation in the
to^^^l. In the case of certain pieces, especially of
places in the Low Countries, it is matter of dis-
pute whether they are really chxixch-rnereaux or
base coins, of which the circulation was enforced
by local authorities ; sucli are the lead deniers of the
Abbesses of Maubeuge, which circulated through-
out Hainault until they were forbidden in 1541,
the copper deniers of Notre Dame de Termonde,
the ' yellow-money ' of the chapter of Notre Dame
de Cambrai. The rare mereaux of Carthusian
foimdations, such as the Certosa at Favia or St.
Mary Magdalen at Louvain, were used not for the
remuneration of the clergy, but for alms-giving.
A similar subsidiarj' use of m6reaux is illustrated
by the custom at Lembeke (near Eecloo, E.
Flanders), where mireaux were used for the dis-
tribution of alms under the foundation of G. Ker-
remans (1717) ; tokens of the value of two pntards
1 See, however, § 6 below.

were given to each of the poor who attended at
catechism in preparation for communion, and of
one patard to children who were zealous in pre-
paration for their first communion.

The metal of which church-merc«Ma; are made is
usually lead, copper, or brass ; the ruder specimens
in the baser metal may be cast in moulds, but a
large proportion are struck from engraved dies.
The slate moulds used for casting the m6reaux of
the parish church of St. Julien at Ath, mentioned
in letters-patent of 1478, are still in existence.
Non-metallic substances such as leather or paper
could also be used, but specimens in such material,
if they survive, are very rare ; a find made in de-
molishing a wall of the cathedral of Limoges seems
to indicate that mereaux of leather were used there.

A few typical inscriptions and types found on
mereaux may be mentioned. The St. Omer pieces
are inscribed ' Mo(neta) Ecc(lesiae) Santi Audo-
mari,' with the arms of the chapter, and ' Presenti-
bus dabitur ' ; those of St. Martin des Champs
read 'Distributio pro beneficiatis.' The series of
the Ste. Chapelle dating from after 1448 reads
' Capella Reg(u)alis Palacii Parisiensis.' An ordin-
ance of that year shows that those used for pre-
bendaries and cantor bore a long cross with the
crown of thorns on it, those for chaplains and
clerks had a royal crown ; other kinds then in use
were ordered to be withdrawn : such were pieces
marked with a cross, lance-head, and naU, repre-
senting relics in the chapel. Some series bear the
names of the various offices for which they were
used, as matines, prime, tierse, missa, sexte, nonne,
vespres, comp(lies). Dates do not appear before
the 16th century. The value in money which the
pieces represent is frequently expressed as ' VI .
D . T ' (' six deniers tournois '). A series mentioned
in the archives of St. Pierre d'Aire (Artois), and
described by Rouyer,^ may be given as typical.

There were (a) plombs des matines or deniers Marchant,
worth one denier Farigis, distributed daily after matins, and
paid from the fund known as du Marchant ; these occur from
1484 to 1637 ; (6) plombs de la Croix or de la procession du
vendredi and the plombs Lambert or du trisorier ; these
represent particular foundations, and were of different values,
given to canons, cantor, or other clergy ; they are not men-
tioned after the 17th cent. ; (c) plombs obituaires, i.e. m<m^tce
anniversariorum, given to those who assisted at anniversary
obituary services; (d) plombs des heures canoniales, instituted
20th June 1671, distributed to each canon present at the
canonical hours ; (e) plombs des revetus, distributed in the 17th
and 18th centuries at the masses said at the high altar to the
canons who assisted the celebrant as deacons or sub-deacons ;
(/) plombs des jours capitulaires, for ordinary meetings of
chapter, from 1571 onwards ; (g) plombs des chapitres spiriluels,
from 175S, for chapters dealing specially with matters of cult ;
{h) ploinhs des vicaires, poor priests or clerks employed by
canons to take their more arduous duties, as early as 14G5 ; (i)
plombs de la confrerie de Notre Dame Panctiire, or plombs du
Salve, from about 1520 down to 1790, for oflBces of the confra-
ternity.

Some specimens of the moneta anniversariorum
have survived ; one belonging to St. Pierre d'Aire
has on the obverse a death's head, on the reverse
a bone and a key in saltire between three stars.
Another inscribed 'Moneta anniversariorum' has
a crowned A between two lilies ; on the other side
' Requiescant in pace,' the mark of value 'XII.,'
and three lilies. Yet another is inscribed ' Obit
solenel ' and dated 1585 ; and there is a pair of
mereaux inscribed 'Orate Deum pro vivis' and
' Orate Deum pro defuntis' respectively.

A subsidiary use of tokens, more or less corre-
sponding to the use as communion passes,- has at
times prevailed in the Roman Catholic Church.
There is a tradition that Cardinal Pole in Queen
Mary's time made use of such tokens in order to
distinguish those Avho conformed from those Avho
did not. Communion certificates in the shape of
tokens or tickets were given to those going to
communion at St. Andrew's, Glasgow, from 1840
1 Rev. num. fr. xiv. [1849] 363 ff.
^ Described in § 3 below.

TOKEN

359

to 1850. At certain churches in llonie comnumi-
cants at Easter receive them after they have been
present.

3. Tokens of the Reformed Church. — The
earliest mention of m^reaux {marreaiix, marrons,
marcqs) in the Reformed Church abroad is in the
registers of the Geneva Council ; on 30tii Jan.
1560 Calvin advised their introduction, but there
is no evidence that they Avere actuallv used at
Geneva before 1605. On the other hand, the
French Protestants immediately adopted Calvin's
suggestion, and there are tokens of the Walloon
Church at Amsterdam as early as 1586. These
tokens (which in the first Helvetic Confession are
called tesserce) were used for quite a diti'erent pur-
pose from that of the m6reaux of the Roman
Catholic Church ; they were certificates, issued to
all persons considered after examination to be
satisfactory in regard to religious knowledge and
moral character, admitting them to partake of the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper. In 1584, e.g.,
Mme. Duplessis-Momay and all her household were
refused tokens for communion at Montauban
because she dressed her hair in the court fashion
instead of wearing the Huguenot hood. Extant
specimens of these French Reformed Church tokens
seem to be not earlier than the 17th cent. ; they
bear appropriate types, such as a chalice, or a
shepherd feeding his flock, and the initials of the
names of the churches, and sometimes dates ; such
inscriptions as ' Ne crains rien, petit troupeau '
also occur. Copper m^reaux with an angel-
shepherd, and the inscription ' In unum conducam
reliquum Israel, Mich. 2,' or ' Christ est le pain de
vie, of good 17th cent, workmanship, were prob-
ably made for Protestants in Paris. Another
similar piece reads ' Christ habite en nos coeurs
par foy,' and bears a flaming heart transfixed by
two arrows.

The first French church to employ this kind of
mereaux Avas at Nimes (before 1562). Except at
Sedan and Troyes (where it was introduced in
1564), none of the Reformed churches of the East
is known to have used it. It was especially
popular in Poitou, no fewer than 45 churches in
that district being represented. Such pieces are
commonest from 1740 to 1840, and are often very
rude, being the handiwork of the elders them-
selves. The material is usually lead, tin, or a
mixture, and they are most commonly cast (five
moulds are extant), though some are struck. The
French Reformed church at Erlangen in Bavaria
began to use tnireaux in 1689, and the same mould
has remained in use do^vn to present times.

In England the books of St. Saviour's Church,
Southwark, show that communion tokens were
used as early as 1559. It was the custom at South-
wark to collect Church dues by ' selling the com-
munion'; thus, in 1596, 2000 tokens were sold at
2j^d. each ; and a similar practice prevailed at St.
Peter Mancroft, Norwich. At Durham and else-
where in the 17th cent, it was the custom to take
Easter reckonings of such people as partook of
the holy communion, and account with them and
deliver and receive tokens. The names of com-
municants were written down, and they received
tokens which at the time of the administration of
the sacrament were demanded again, so that it
might be known who had paid their Easter offer-
ings and who had failed to do so. The use of
tokens in Presbyterian churches in England was
derived from Scotland towards the end of the
17th cent., but the earliest actually bearing a date
is of 1724 (Etal). Tokens are known of the Estab-
lished Church of Scotland, the Independent Presby-
terian party, the Reformed Presbyterian Church,
or Cameronians, the English Presbyterian Church,
the Associate Secession Congregation, the Relief

Church, the General Associate Congregation, the
United Associate Congregation, the United Presby-
terian Church, and the Free Church of Scotland.
Printed cards have now, as in Scotland, generally
ousted metallic tokens.

But it Mas in Scotland that the sacramental
token was most generally used. By the law of
the Church of Scotland, no one was permitted to
come to the Lord's Supper unless he or she had
been provided with a communion token, which
was issued after examination had shown the
would-be comnmnicant to be of good character
and properly instructed. The tokens were some-
times kept as certificates of character, serving the
same purpose as ancient tesserce. The Scottish
tokens were at first probably written or stamped
cards ; such ' tickets ' were in use as early as 2nd
May 1560 at St. Andrews, and continued often to
be used after metal tokens were introduced ; the
word ' ticket ' is frequently used indiflerently of
either. Written tickets were used as late as 1656.
The date of the introduction of metal tokens has
not been determined. The use of them has con-
tinued in both the Presbyterian Churches and in
the Scottish Episcopal Church down to the present
day, although in the larger towns they have been
almost entirely superseded by printed cards.
Recently established denominations, such as the
United Free Church and the Free Presbyterian
Church, appear to use only the latter. The
metallic tokens are most often made of lead, tin,
or a mixture, but brass, iron, copper, and even
leather (the last only at the Secession congrega-
tion at Ceres, 1743) have been employed ; the
Crown Court Chapel, London, and the Presbyterian
Church at Charleston used silver tokens, and for
the first Reformed Presbyterian Church of New
York they were made of ivory. They are gener-
ally cast in stone moulds, but are sometimes
struck from dies. The oldest extant dated piece
is of 1648, but a dated one of 1588 is recorded
(Glasgow). At first they were distinguished
merely by the initials of the parish (and this occurs
as late as 1866) ; later came the initials of the
minister, with ' M.' prefixed. Incuse numerals
sometimes indicate the table to which a communi-
ca.nt was admitted when the number was very
large. Religious symbols (heart, burning bush,
vine, lily, chalice and bread) appear towards the
end of the 17th century. The Covenanters' con-
venticle tokens bear simple texts, such as ' Holiness
to the Lord,' without indication of parish or date ;
and texts are common from the beginning of the
19th century. The cross, which is common on
Episcopalian tokens, also occurs on some of Pres-
byterian origin. In some large towns we find
the burgh arms and the initials of the deans of
gild. Views of churches first appear in the 18th
century.

From Scotland the Presbyterians naturally
carried the usage, not only to England, but to
other countries such as Ireland, wiiere the oldest
dated token known to have been struck is that of
the Old Presbyterian Congregation of Larne, of
the year 1700. Stamps and moulds for many of
these Irish tokens are illustrated by G. R. and
D. Buick.i

4. Monnaies des innocens et des fous. — A
curious phase of Church life is illustrated by
satirical 'coins' issued by tlie bishops and other
dignitaries (including archbishops, cardinals, and
even popes) who were elected by the clergy at the
ecclesiastical saturnalia known as the fetes des
innocent or fetes des fous. Such festivals flourished,
according to documentary evidence, from tiie 13th
to the 17th cent., especially at Amiens, but also
at other places such as Chartres, Reims, Laon,

1 See reference under Lileralure.

360

TOLERATION

Senlis, St. Quentin, Koye, Peronne— chiefly there-
fore in the north of France, but also as far south
as Besan9on. These dignitaries issued tokens
struck in lead, bearing such inscriptions as ' Joha.
Fournier eps. S. Aug. 1560,' ' Moneta nova Adriani
Stultorum Pap(e),' 'Moneta epi(scopi) innocen-
(tiuni),' as well as texts such as ' Homo non in solo
pane vivi(t),' ' ludica Domine nocentes me,' 'Stul-
torum infinitus est nunierus.' The types are
sometimes saints, as on Jean Fournier's piece just
mentioned, which was struck by the Augustinians
at Amiens and bears St. Augustine. Rebuses
are also in common use. Most of these pieces
come from Amiens, and bear dates from 1499 to
1583. The custom of issuing tokens on these
occasions also prevailed at Th6rouanne, Lille, and
perhaps Aire, but in those places no attempt was
made at humour, and the types are religious or
allegorical.

5. The boy-bishops. — The boy-bishops who were
elected at certain churches in England on St.
Nicholas' Day and held office for a week are also
supposed to have issued leaden coins. The extant
specimens, which seem all to come from Bury St.
Edmunds, all bear a head of St. Nicholas or a
mitre and are modelled more or less on the groats
and pence of the 15th century. They are usually
inscribed with an invocation to St. Nicholas on the
obverse ; on the other side we find inscriptions
such as 'Ave rex gentis,' ' Ave rex gentis Anglor.
Mile,' 'Ecce nova facies quia, Ecce reges Angel-
or(um).' The words 'Ave rex gentis Anglorum
miles Regis angelorum' are the beginning of an
anthem for the Feast of St. Edmund. The con-
stant association of these pieces with St. Nicholas
suggests that they were issued by the boy-bishops.
On the other hand, it has been argued that they
were used for the same purpose as the m^reaux or
jetons de presence described in § 2. It would, it is
true, be strange if such a method of distribution
were confined in this country to a single chapel
(that of the Hospital of St. Nicholas) in St.
Edmundsbury ; but this argument cuts both ways.
Another Bury piece inscribed ' Siglum Gilde Sci.
Nicho(lai)' round the bust of the saint on the
obverse, and on the reverse ' Congregacio Duooe '
round the letters ' S T N,' appears to be connected
with the Gild of the Translation of St. Nicholas ;
but from the published description it may perhaps
be a seal and not a token.

6. Church tokens of the Near East. — The right
of coinage by sacerdotal authorities has always
existed in the Levant and is revived in periods
of stress. During the Russo-Turkish War the
churches and convents and the Jewish communi-
ties of Constantinople issued much token-money
for small change. After the Peace of San Stefano
the Turkish authorities called in from the prov-
inces all the metallic token-money issued in the
first half of the 19th cent., but the custom still
persists. Silver, copper, and lead Avere issued for
the metallic tokens, but many of these issues
took the form of small cardboard tickets of differ-
ent colours. Tyjiical examples are the silver ' obol
of St. Irene' (from Smyrna), the copper of St.
George's (from Smyrna), dated 1775, and the card-
board pieces of the churches of Maronia (20, 10,
and 5 paras, 1894), of St. George at Apolloniada
(ApoUonia ad Rhyndacum, 10 and 5 paras), of St.
Michael at Goulion near Apollonia (10 and 5 paras,
' legal tender inside the church '), of St. John the
Divine at Yeronda (Didyma, 5 paras) ; while the
Sefarite synagogue, the synagogue of Akrida, and
other Jewish communities are represented by both
copper and cardboard.

LiTERATnRB.— (1) Antiquity .—F. X. Kraus, REM. [1886], s.v.
'Tesserae'; G. Schlumberger, 'Monum. num. et sphrag. du
moyen age byz.,' RA, new ser., xl. [1S80] 193-212, and ' M6reaux,

tess6res et jetons byz.,' Bemie nmiiism. franc. lu. xiii. [1895]
91-96 ; M. Rostovtsew and M. Prou, Catalogue des plumbs de
VantiqiiUi', du Moyen Aqe et des temps modernes, Paris, 1900.

(2) Roman Catholic Church. — The literature is very scattered.
Besides tlie index to the Revue nuinism. franc, s.v. ' M6reaux,'
see esp. J. Rouyer, ' Notes pour servir k I'etude des m^reaux,'
Rev. num. fr. xiv. [1849] 356-377, 446-464 ; ' M6reaux de la
Sainte Chapelle," ib., new ser., vii. [1862] 481-497 ; J. de
Fontenay, Manuel de I'amateur de jetons, Paris, 1854 ; A.
Forgeais, Collection de plombs hintori^s trouvis dans la Seine,
do. 1862-65, 3rd ser., ' Van6t6s numismatiques ' ; A. Chassaing,
' M6reaux de la coll6giale de Langeac,' Rev. num. fr. iii. iii.
[1885] 179-182.

(3) Reformed Churches. — ^J. de Pfetigny, ' Mdreaux des 6glises
calvinistes,' Rev. 7ium. fr. xix. [1854] 67-80 ; E. Delorme, ' Le
M6reau dans les 6glises r6forin6es de France,' Bull. Soc. Hist.
Prot. xxxviii. [18S8] 204-213, 316-325, 371-381, 483-492; H.
Gelin, Le Mireau da7is les iglises rif. de France, Saint-Maxent,
1891; J. Rouyer, 'M6reaux de cuivre frapp6s k Paris . . .
pour I'usage des protestants,' Rev. num.. fr. in. xi. [1893]
385-405; T. Burns, Old ScottishCommunion Plate, ^Amhur^h,
1892; E. F. li&TAma.n,Sa/:ramentalTokensof the Presbyterian
Churches in England, Morpeth, 1901 ; G. R. and D. Buick,
' On a Small Collection of Presbyterian Communion Tokens,' in
Ulster Journal of Archaeology, ix. [1903] 17-30 ; A. J. S. Brook,
' Communion Tokens of the Established Church of Scotland,'
Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. xli. [1906-07] 453-604.

(4) Monnaies des innocens. — J, R. [igollot], Monnaies incon-
nues des EvSques des Innocens, des Fous, etc., Paris, 1837 ; A.
Danicourt, ' Enseignes et m(5daille8 . . . trouvies en Picardie,'
Rev. num. fr. m. v. [1887] 49-67 ; A. Demailly, ' Inventaire
d'une 86r. in6d. de monn. des Ev6ques des Innocents, etc.,'
Mim. Soc. Ant. de Picardie, xxxvi. [1908] 1-170.

(5) Boy-bishops. — D. H. Haigh, ' Leaden Tokens,' Numism.
Chronicle, vi. [1843] 83-90 ; C. Roach Smith, ' Pilgrims' Signs
and Leaden Tokens,' Journ. Brit. Arehceol. Assoc, i. [1846]
200-212.

{Q) Near East. — A. Sorlin-Dorigny, 'Droit de monnayage
des communit6s non-musulmanes,' Rev. num. fr. iii. i. [1883]

216-223. G. F. Hill.

TOLERATION.— I. The policy.— The word
' toleration ' in its legal, ecclesiastical, and doctrinal
application has a peculiarly limited signification.
It connotes a refraining from prohibition and
persecution. Nevertheless it suggests a latent
disapproval, and it usually refers to a condition
in which the freedom which it permits is both
limited and conditional. Toleration is not equi-
valent to religious liberty, and it falls far short
of religious equality. It assumes the existence
of an authoritj' which might have been coercive,
but which for reasons of its own is not pushed
to extremes. It implies a voluntary inaction, a
politic leniency. The motives that induce a
policy of toleration are various, such as mere
weakness and inability to enforce prohibitory
measures, lazy inditterence, the desire to secure
conciliation by concessions, the wisdom to perceive
that ' force is no remedy,' the intellectual breadth
and humility that shrink from a claim to infalli-
bility, the charity that endures the objectionable,
respect for the right of private judgment.

However lamentable the fact may be, it should not surprise
us that greater intolerance has been found in Christian nations
than among any other peoples. Polytheism allows of an
indefinitely enlarging pantheon. Its theology admits the exist-
ence of separate national gods among the various nations.
But monotheism not only denies the existence of any such
divinities ; it regards the homage offered to them as a deroga-
tion from the worship due to the true God. Christianity,
therefore, as well as the Judaism on which it is based, is
necessarily intellectually intolerant. The same idea applies to
Muhammadanism, which is always an intolerant religion as
regards doctrine, even when it is not actively persecuting alien
faiths. Then both Christianity and Muhammadanism claim
to be universal religions; they are essentially aggressive; and
the positive missionary work wliich this fact implies easily
passes over into overt acts for the repression of idolatry and
polytheism, contrary as they are to the genuine Christian
temper. Add to this the fact that moral earnestness, at its
best mounting to enthusiasm, in extreme cases degenerating
into fanaticism, urges the devotees of a missionary religion
towards a militancy which the hereditary adherents of non-
aggressive religions have less inducement to adopt. When
paganism is not tolerant, this is generally due to resentment
against those who have attacked it, unless political motives
are the real grounds of action. The persecution of Elijah and
the adherents of Jahweh by Jezebel was occasioned by the
prophet's vehement opposition to the introduction of the rites
of the Phnenician Baal into Israel. The persecution of the Jews
by Antiochus Epiphanes was due to their refusal to admit
Ilellenizing practices into their national life.

TOLERATION

361

2. Indian toleration. — It has been asserted that
Hinduism is the most tolerant of religions. This
may be true as regards others than Hindus,
because, being entirely racial and hereditary, it
cannot proselytize. Judaism is also racial and
hereditary, but not exclusively so, because it can
admit proselytes. Hinduism has no opening for
such. Accordingly, it must tolerate alien faiths,
unless, like Tibetan Buddhism, it forbids immigra-
tion. Asoka, the Constantino of Buddhism in
India (3rd cent. B.C.), had monuments of his
legislation cut in stone expressing his liberal
treatment of religion as follows :

'The king, beloved of the god, honours everj' form of
reh'giou3 faith, but considers no gift or honour so much as the
increase of the substance of religion, whereof this is the root —
to reverence one's own faith and never revile that of others.'

The Muhammadan invasion put an end to
tolerance in India by introducing cruel persecu-
tion of Hinduism with a wholesale destruction
of the temples ; but this was intermittent, the
incursions of Turks, etc., taking the form of raids,
from the 11th till the 17th cent., when the Mughal
empire was established in Delhi. Akbar, the most
famous of the Mughal emperors, aimed at combin-
ing all the inhabitants of his religion in his own
eclectic theism. He held disputations in his
palace every Friday when Brahmans, Buddhists,
and Parsis expounded their views as freely as
Muhammadans.

3. Greek toleration. — The toleration of the
Greeks for great varieties of religious beliefs may
be attributed to their intellectual breadth, but
also to the syncretism which admitted a plurality
of divinities into its pantheon. Accordingly, as
Adam remarks,

'There was comparatively little persecution for religious
beliefs in Greek antiquity. Religious institutions and cere-
monies were carefully guarded ; but in respect of dogma
the limits of toleration were very wide. We may infer from a
remark of the Platonic Socrates that the Athenians in general
cared little what a man believed, so long as he did not attempt
to prosel.vtiae.'l

The Orphic believers, who, as the same authority
states, were ' analogous to modern dissenters,'
were tolerated since they showed no sign of
abstaining from the religious services which the
city ordained. The Pythagoreans, on the other
hand, were attacked because they used their
religious organization for political ends.^ The
death of Socrates appears to have been due
mainly to animosity against the philosopher on
account of his friendship with proscribed leaders
of the aristocratic party. He was seventy years
old at the time, and his daring teaching had
long been tolerated without any interference on
the part of the authorities.

4. Roman toleration. — It was a principle of
Roman state policy to allow conquered nations
to continue the practice of their indigenous
religious rites ('Cujus regio ejus religio'). The
old Latin cults were not propagandist, and they
admitted of alien rites for alien peoples. Never-
theless difficulties arose, imposing limits on this
easy tolerance in several ways: (1) by provincials
coming to Italy and even to Rome with a claim
to bring their own religions with them ; (2) by
missionaries of these alien faiths propagating
them and by Roman citizens adopting them ; (3)
by the enforcement of the new state worship
of the emperor throughout the empire ; (4) by the
dread of dangerous magic and the suspicion of
immoral and cruel proceedings among the adherents
of the foreign cults ; (5) by a notion that public
calamities might have been caused by neglect of
the worship of the old divinities ('atheism').

1 J. Adam, The Seligious Teachers of Greece {Giford
Lectures), Edinburgh, 1908, p. 7 ; cf. J. E. Harrison, Prolego-
mena to the Study of Greek Religion, Cambridge, 1903.

2 See Adam, p. 355.

But there were ditterences. The Twelve Tables
had forbidden the introduction of new gods into
Rome. Nevertheless for commercial reasons the
Jews had a dispensation granted them to practise
their religion in various parts of the empire,
including the imperial city. But they were
supposed to be conhned to their own quarters
in each locality — the ghetto. They spread their
ideas, however, especially among women of
the upper classes — in particular in Rome
and Damascus, where it became the fashion to
'Sabbatize.' At first the Christians obtained
tolerance on account of their Jewish origin, and
it was not till their separation from the Jews
became marked that they were interfered with
by the authorities ; nor was that the case at once
even then. The Acts of the Apostles shows us
Christians protected by Roman magistrates and
police when attacked by Jewish mobs. By the
time of Nero, however, in Rome the distinction
between the two communities had become evident,
and then the Christians were no longer sheltered
by the licence for Jews. Christianity was not a
religio licita. It is true that many unlicensed
cults were winked at, in particular the religions
of Syria and Egypt— the worship of Mithra, the
Dea Mater, Serapis, etc. This was due to their
great popularity. Christianity was not popular ;
it was too stern on the vices of paganism. W. M.
Ramsay has shown reason for thinking that the
tolerance of the Flavian emperors did not secure
the protection of the Christians from local out-
breaks. Nevertheless, on the whole, previous to
the great Decian persecution the authorities were
not disposed to initiate active measures against
them. When Pliny wrote to Trajan expressing
his perplexity at the Christianity of Bithynia and
the consequent desertion of the pagan altars, the
emperor replied ordering him (1) not to seek out
the Christians, (2) to discourage informers, but
(3) to punish convicted persons who had been
brought before him for judgment. This rescript
has been described by some as a persecuting order
and by others as a decree for the easing of the
case of the persecuted Christians. In fact it was
both. Evidently Trajan was opposed to active
persecution and favoured a policy of leniency ;
but his clear pronouncement requiring the punish-
ment of definitely convicted Christians left no
alternative but sentence of death for such people.
This was the first formal order to that effect.
Previously Christianity was implicitly illegal ;
henceforth it was to be explicitly illegal. In this
respect the rescript was a limitation on the Roman
policy of toleration. The persecution which had
been carried on with exceptional ferocity at Lyons
and Vienne under the gentle Marcus Aurelius was
stayed by his worthless son Commodus owing to
the intercession of his concubine Marcia, who
appears to have been a Christian catechumen.
This act of toleration cannot be raised to the
level of state policy. It was purely personal in
its origin, and it emanated from an unprincipled
character.

When the emperor Valerian was captured by
the Persians, the persecution which he had in-
stigated was brought to an end by his son
Gallienus, who issued a rescript in A.D. 260. It
has not been preserved. But Eusebius' quotes
a letter from this emperor to the bishops of Egypt
written in the following year, in which he gives
directions in accordance with his rescript. He
there states that he has issued an order through-
out all the world encouraging all to come out of
their religious retreats and ordering that no one
may molest them. Eusebius adds that there is
another ordinance addressed to other bishops in
1 HE vii. 13.

362

Toleration

which the emperor grants them permission to
recover their cemeteries in which they worshipped
(roTTot dprja-Kevai/iol). Gallienus's rescript has been
claimed as tlie first Roman edict of toleration ; but
Uhlhorn and Harnack have shown that our
knowledge of it does not indicate that Christianity
was now made a religio licita. Two things only
are ordered : the Christians are not to be molested ;
their property is to be restored. Since the churches
had registered themselves as burial clubs and
mutual benefit societies (collegia fraf rum, collegia
tenuiorum), it was in their social relations and
with regard to their possession of property that
Gallienus was now protecting their rights. Never-
theless, although Christianity was still illegal, in
point of fact, since it was not to be molested,
this was a policy of toleration. It cannot be
justified on grounds of consistency ; but practical
politics are often guilty of inconsistency and prove
tliemselves all the more humane for their freedom
from legal pedantry. In the line that Gallienus
was taking we see the exact opposite to his father's
calculating measures of repression, devised with
the deliberate, but now hopeless, design of stamp-
ing out Christianity. Gallienus's mUd policy by
no means gave to the Christians the legal rights
wliich could assure them against future persecution.
They enjoyed in consequence a whole generation
of immunity from attack ; but all along this was
in a condition of unstable equilibrium, since
nothing had been done to settle it on a sound
legal basis. We might compare the situation to
that of the Stuart ' Indulgences.' Christianity
was not yet a religio licita.

Legalized toleration did not appear till after
the last and greatest persecution. It was then
seen in two stages. The first of these was
spasmodic, insincere, and illogical, but still definite
and efiective. Galerius, the fierce instigator of
the persecution which bears the name of the senior
emperor Diocletian, who had been his reluctant
associate in it, seized with death-bed terrors,
issued the most extraordinary decree ever
conceived by a Roman emperor (April, 311).
Galerius first takes credit to himself for en-
deavouring to bring the Christians back to the
ancient laws and discipline of the Romans, and,
after a jibe at their divisions, for which he suggests
he has supplied a wholesome corrective, he gives
orders that his subjects may again be Christians
('ut denuo sint Christiani') and hold their
assemblies, 'provided they do nothing contraiy to
the discipline.' Galerius concludes with the re-
markable sentence, ' and for this indulgence the
Christians will make the prayers of loyal subjects
to their god.'

Toleration was not yet the settled policy of the
empire. Where it was practised, it was too much
subject to the caprice of the individual ruler.
Maxentius at Rome was openly anti- Christian
and Maximin Daza elaborated subtle devices for
the destruction of Christianity ; even later, during
part of his period of government, Licinius favoured
the pagans to the detriment of the Christians.
The final stage was reached in the Edict of Milan.
That magnificent Magna Charta of religious liberty
issued from a meeting of Constantine with Licinius
at Milan towards the end of the year 312, after
the defeat of Maxentius. Maximin's evasion of
the order of toleration granted by Galerius was
the occasion which gave rise to it, but the new
edict was much more statesmanlike than its
curious predecessor, resting on a broader basis,
breathing a nobler spirit, and establishing a surer
policy. It was issued throughout the whole
empire in the year 313. The Edict of Milan is
the work of the great emperor Constantine, who
induced his colleague Licinius to join him iu it.

There can be no doubt that Constantine was
thoroughly convinced by the enlightened principles
that it contains. His colleague's assent must be as-
cribed to political necessity, and subsequent events
showed that Licinius was by no means loyal to it ex-
cept under compulsion. Unfortunately the original
rescript has been lost, but Licinius's edition of it,
sent out a few months later, has been preserved,
both the original Latin by Lactantius,i and a
Greek translation, slightly diftering verbally, by
Eusebius.2 The toleration granted is absolute and
unconditional. It is expressly applied to the
Christians, for whose benefit it clearly shows that
it was primarily intended. But it also includes
devotees of all other religions. This went far
beyond the spirit of the ancient world, and indeed
only occasionally and in the teaching of excep-
tional and rare minds has such toleration reap-
peared until quite modern times, when it has been
seen in Cavour's dictum of 'a free Church in a
free State.'

Constantine did not live up to his own principle. No sooner
did he adopt Christianity than he began to patronize it, and
his patronage soon took the form of interference and control.
The Christian emperors were rarely more tolerant than the
Church of their day; and, as this" Church was stern in the
denunciation of heresy and schism, too often the imperial
government stepped in to give effect to the ecclesiastical
sentence. Sometimes it went farther, the emperor taking
sides and enforcing his own will, if for orthodoxy against the
heretics, if in favour of heresy, as in the support of Arianism
by Constantius and later by Valens, against the Catholics.
Later emperors interfered in the Christological controversies
with the Nestorians and the Monophysites. The iconoclastic
emperors were regarded as persecutors of the Church when
they took strong measures to put down image-worship. There-
fore, while Christianity is not only tolerated but legalized as the
religion of the State, the policy of toleration so brilliantly antici-
pated by Constantine is now buried out of sight, like an un-
timely birth. The tables are turned, and paganism, ceasing to
persecute, comes to be itself persecuted. Rrst magical rites
are prohibited as dangerous to the Slate and the citizens ; then
the worship of the old gods is prohibited and their altars and
temples are demolished. Theodosius ll. is the most conspicu-
ous figure in this anti-pagan crusade. On the other hand, it is
to be noted that the Christian emperors never went the lengths
in murderous violence to which the persecuting pagan emperors
had gone. There was nothing approaching the devastating
Deoian and Valerian persecutions. On the rare occasions when
the death penalty was inflicted this was nearly always for
magic and sorcery, not as the suppression of a false doctrine
but for the extirpation of a dangerous practice. The persecu-
tion of paganism naturally led its champions to preach tolera-
tion. Libanius argued for the principle of absolute toleration.
The pagan reaction under Julian was based on a profession
of tolerance, but the emperor was not entirely true to his
profession.3

5. Early Christian toleration. — The early Christ-
ian Fathers advocated toleration, not merely in
self-defence, but on principle. Tertullian was
most emphatic in asserting this principle :

' Humani juris et naturalis potestatis est unicuique quod
putaverit colere, nee alii obest aut prodest alterius religio.
Sed nee religionis est cogere religionem, quae sponte suscipi
debeat, non vi : cum et hostiae ab animo libenti expostulentur.' *
Lactantius maintained the inherent wickedness
of persecution.® The bigotry which appeared
among the Fathers of the 4th cent, was not allowed
to prevail without protest. Athanasius advocated
a conciliatory attitude for winning heretics back
to the faith. While Augustine denounced heretics
and schismatics — especially Pelagians and Donat-
ists — Hilary of Poitiers was a thoroughgoing
advocate of toleration. Ambrose condemned the
persecution of the Priscillianists, and Martin of
Tours denounced it as an atrocious crime because
it went so far as killing. The Fathers were
slow to sanction the death penalty for heretics ;
Augustine, while advocating milder measures of
persecution, Avas opposed to this extremity.

6. Mediaeval toleration. — During the early part
of the Middle Ages persecution was comparatively
rare, even in the case of sorcery, which, it was
thought, could be counteracted by the more potent

1 De Morte Pers. 48. 2 HE x. 5.

•i Cf. art. PKnsECHTlON (Early Church).

■1 Ad Scapulam, 2. B See Div. Inst. v. 20.

TOLERATION

363

influence of the rites of the Church. But with
the rise of the Inquisition in the 13th cent, a
greater rigour of ecclesiastical discipline crushed
out the spirit of tolerance.

7. Toleration in the Renaissance and the Re-
formation.— The irreligious and pagan habits that
accompanied the Renaissance issued in an easy in-
difference which favoured an unprincipled tolerance.
But the intellectuality and breadth of view that it
engendered went farther and gave rise to a reasoned
doctrine of toleration. Sir Thomas More, while
sanctioning persecution, admitted the abstract
excellence of the opposite course. Montaigne's
scepticism and liberal idea of life made for toler-
ance. On higher grounds Ei'asmus laboured in-
cessantly for the same end, combining inimitable
wit with immense learning, exposing the folly as
much as the wickedness of ignorant, narrow-
minded persecution. The duty of absolute tolera-
tion was insisted on by Castellio, a Frenchman,
who had been a friend of Calvin when the Re-
former was a professor at Basel. Denouncing the
execution of Servetus, he argued that, if the end
of Christianity be the diffusion of a spirit of bene-
ficence, persecution must be its extreme antithesis,
and that, if persecution can be the essential element
of a religion, that religion must be a curse to
mankind.

Most of the Reformers were not advocates of
universal toleration ; but Zwingli regarded error
as not inherently blameworthy and held that it
should be tolerated. He Avent farther and showed
a comprehensive appreciation of human excellency
apart from religious ditterences.

Laelius Socinus was a pronounced advocate of
religious liberty, and a clear assertion of the prin-
ciple is put forth in the Socinian Catechism of
Rakow. The German Anabaptists and the Dutch
Arminians also advocated this principle.

8. The German settlement. — The Peace of
Augsburg (1555) was arranged between the Roman
Catholics and the Lutherans ; it excluded the Re-
formed Church, both Zwinglian and Calvinistic,
as well as all the minor sects. Further, this
arrangement left it to the princes of the several
states to decide which of the two permissible types
of religion should be adopted and imposed on their
subjects. Disagreements between the two parties
concerned and the exclusion of the Reformed
Churches led to the Thirty Years' War. This
was concluded with the Peace of Westphalia
(24th Oct. 16-18), to wliich there were three parties
— the Roman Catholics, the Lutherans, and the
Reformers. It made provision for none of the
minor sects. The princes were allowed to pass
from one of the tliree religions to the other and to
require their selected religion to be imposed on
their subjects to the exclusion of all other religions,
or to admit other religions, as they saw fit. This
right was called i\xe jus reformandi. It implied a
limited and optional toleration.

Subsequently t\vo influences arose to widen the conception of
relijfioua liberty : (1) pietism, which, as l)Oth non-dogmatic and
charitable, tended towards universal tokration ; and (2) the
effect of the school of natural law. Pufendorf maintained that
no one could be compelled to embrace a f?iven religion and held
it to be a fatal necessity that dissensions should exist within the
Church. Christian Thomasius, the typical illuminist, bases the
principle of reli;;iou8 libeitj' on his fundamental conception of
law. He distinguishes morality from law, on the jjround that
law is coercive while morality cannot be coerced. Much more
is this the case with religion. The difference between the
spheres of the prince and the clergy is that it is the duty of the
prince to coerce and the duty of Ihe clergy to teacii. The
clergy should fight heresy with instruction, not by appealing
to the secular arm. While urging these principles in all his
works, Thomasius devotes three treatises especially to the
exposition of them, viz. the two ' Programmata,' I'rogramma de
tolerantia dis&idcntinm in contrnvcrxiis reliijiimia (1693) and
Programina varia tesUmonia Martini Lxithfri de tolerantia
dissidentium in reliqione complcctens (16!t7), and the more
popular work in the vernacular entitled Das Recht eravgelischer

Fiirsten in theolunischen Streiti<fkeitcn (1690). In these works
he maintains that all dissidents arc to be tolerated so long as
they do not disturb the public peace. Frederick William i.
of Prussia used the jiw refurniandi in favour of allowing Roman
Catholics to live in his Protestant state, and his son Frederick
the Great adopted a policy of toleration for all religions with
the cynical idea that, since they arose only from the ignorance
of the people, they were equivalent in the region of dogma and
to be distinguished only by their greater or less ethical import.
Thus, since morality is independent of articles of faith, ab.solute
religious liberty should be conceded. In a rescript of 15th June
1740 he says : ' All religions are equal and good so long as those
who profess them are upright people.' There was a temporarj'
reaction under Frederick William n., after which the right of
religious liberty spread first through Prussia and then through
the other German states, although the territorial state recogni-
tion of the three favoured religions remained — a policy of
general toleration, but not of religious equality.

9. England and America.— In the 16th cent.,
under the Tudors, the extreme Puritan party,
which had shared with other Protestants in the
per-secutions of Roman Catholic times, did not
obtain religious liberty. But the principle of
toleration was maintained by the Baptists and the
Congregationalists, although there were some limits
to the applications of it. The early Congrega-
tionalists would exclude from its privileges both
Unitarians and Roman Catholics, the latter as
themselves a persecuting party and a danger to
Protestant liberty. But John Robinson, a large-
minded man of liberal views, drew up a covenant for
the Pilgrim Fathers who sailed in the ' Mayflower '
and founded New England. The first instrument
of this covenant conferred equal civil and religious
rights on every member of any commonwealth.
A little later the colony of Maryland, founded by
a charter from Charles I., granted toleration to
Roman Catholics as well as to Protestants. Its
first law runs as follows : ' No person professing
to believe in Jesus Christ shall be in any way
molested or discountenanced for his or her religion,
or in the free exercise thereof.'

The Pilgrim Fathers, who had claimed liberty
at home, have been blamed for the inconsistency of
intolerance in tlieir own colony when they were
settled in America. The defence is that the ex-
clusive theocracy that they established implied
that they regarded themselves as a Church rather
than as a State, and as such would refuse member-
ship to unfit persons in accordance Avith a funda-
mental Congregational principle. But they have
often been unfairly accused of narrowness through
a confusion of two ditterent positions— that of the
early settlers in New England who had come from
John Robinson's church in Holland and were the
real Congregationalist immigrants, and that of
the Puritans who settled later in Massachusetts.
The latter were Presbyterians who had never
adopted the principles of religious freedom. It
was not until the separation from England that
complete equality in religion was established in
the United States.

10. The English problem. — In the 17th cent,
neither the bulk of the Presbyterians nor the
Episcopal party as a whole had any idea of tolera-
tion. Under the early Stuarts Laud and the High
Church, having the upper hand, persecuted the
Presbyterians. Lender the Long Parliament the
Presbyterians tried to force the Covenant on
the whole nation. Cromwell took a wider view
and ordered his 'triers' not to molest Protestant
godly men who preached the gospel, whatever
their ecclesiastical principles might be, and he
gave the Jews a legal footing in England.

At this time the Baptists, the Congregationalists
(tlien known as Independents), and the Quakers
maintained tlie principle of religious liberty — the
last-named body basing it on their doctrine of the
inner light, which excluded all ecclesiastical and
official interference with the individual soul. The
protest of the five Independents at the Westminster
Assembly (1643), which was mainly Presbyterian

364

TOLERATION

in composition, maintained the right of religious
liberty.

Later, on the Presbyterian side, Richard Baxter
laboured for large measures of comprehension, and
John Goodwin, generally regarded as a Congrega-
tionalist, but described by Rufini as ' a Puritan sui
generis — a rationalist Puritan,' maintained that
every religion, sect, or schism should be tolerated
so long as there was no attempt to interfere with
the security of the State. Milton, claimed by
both Presbyterians and Congregationalists, but not
wholly committed to either party, in triumphantly
vindicating the freedom of the press, pleaded
eloquently for religious toleration. In the Areo-
pagitica he showed that persecution was both un-
necessary for the preservation of truth and a
hindrance to the discovery of truth. He would
tolerate all Protestants, including Socinians,
Arminians, and Anabaptists, but not Roman
Catholics. On the Anglican Church side the more
liberal-minded writers were in favour of toleration
and comprehension. Chillingworth affirms that
Protestants are inexcusable if they do violence to
the consciences of others. He holds it to be a great
sin to force on other people our own interpretations
of Scripture, arguing that this was the cause of all
the schisms and discords (of Christianity. John
Hales took a similar line in his tractate Schism
and Schismaticks (1636). Jeremy Taylor, in his
famous Liberty of Prophesying (1646), was con-
tending for freedom of speech against the tyranny
of the Covenant under the Long Parliament.

The reaction at the Restoration and the passing
of the Act of Uniformity (1662), followed by the
Conventicle, Five Mile, and Test Acts, narrowed
the State Church position and imposed great dis-
abilities on Nonconformists ; these were to some
extent relieved a little later by James II. 's In-
dulgences, but at the expense of the rights of
Parliament. Legal toleration did not appear till
the Revolution. In the Declaration of Breda
Charles II. promised to respect tender consciences ;
but, when well established on the throne, he had
not the moral courage to stand to his word.

William III. obtained his invitation to England
mainly as the champion of religious liberty. His
aim was to bring about an agreement between the
Church of England and Protestant Dissenters.
While in his own country, he had been profoundly
affected by the ideas of the Dutch Arminians. In
England his most trusted adviser, Bishop Burnet,
had adumbrated the policy which the king after-
wards adopted in a Modest and Free Conference
between a Conformist and a Nonconformist {\Q&^).
William first aimed at comprehension in ' A Bill
for Uniting their Majesties' Protestant Subjects.'
The failure of this measure to pass in the House of
Commons necessitated another line of action.

II. The Act of Toleration.— The Act of Tolera-
tion, which was passed in the year 1689, gave relief
to Nonconformists from their chief disabilities ;
but it did not grant complete religious liberty ;
much less did it establish religious equality in the
eyes of the law. It exempted Nonconformists from
the pains and penalties of the Act of Uniformity,
the Conventicle Act, and the Five Mile Act; at
the same time it required people who desiied to
avail themselves of its privileges to take the oaths
of allegiance and supremacy and make a statutory
declaration against Romish superstitions, and it
ordered Nonconformist ministers to subscribe to
the Articles of the Church of England with the
exception of three — those referring to the traditions
of the Church, to the homilies, and to the conse-
cration of bishops and priests, a fourth exception,
that of the article on infant baptism, being allowed
for Baptist ministers. Further, it enacted that
every Nonconformist place of worship should be

certified by a bishop, an arclideacon, or a justice of
the peace. Quakers were allowed to make a solemn
declaration instead of taking the oaths and were
required to declare their belief in the Trinity and
in the inspiration of the Bible. Neither Roman
Catholics nor Unitarians were included in the con-
cessions allowed by this Act, and even orthodox
Nonconformity was still illegal, the persecuting
laws remaining on the statute-books, and only the
exaction of their penalties being forbidden. While
this measure was logically inconsistent, it was
practically serviceable as far as it went. It secured
a considerable amount of toleration.

The same year (1689) saw Locke's first Letter
Concerning Toleration published anonymously in
Holland in Latin. It was translated into English
immediately. A second and longer letter, and a
third longer still, followed in reply to answering
letters. Yet a fourth letter completes the series
in Locke's work ; this is not finished. The collec-
tion has become a literary classic on the subject of
toleration. Locke bases his argument on the
ground that the rightful sphere of the State is
wholly confined to externals and does not extend
to religion, which is internal. He holds that not
only the doctrines and 'articles of faith,' but also
' the outward form and rites of worsliip,' are out
of the province of the civil magistrate. Such a
position goes beyond toleration. Logically it in-
volves disestablishment, because, if the State is
not competent to deal with religious matters at all,
it follows that it should not patronize or support
a favoured religion any more than persecute a
religion of which it disapproves. With regard to
persecution, Locke holds that it is anti-Christian,
since love of our fellow-men is of the essence of
Christianity, and it cannot be maintained that
persecutors are actuated by love to their victims
in the cruelties which they perpetrate. But, while
on these principles Locke would tolerate Jews as
well as all Protestant sects, his toleration does not
extend to Roman Catholics or atheists. With
regard to the former, though he does not name
them in his argument on the subject, he says :

' That church can have no right to be tolerated by the
magistrate, which is constituted upon such a bottom, that all
those who enter into it, do thereby, ipso facto, deliver themselves
up to the protection and service of another prince.' i

He would also exclude persons who hold views
subversive of society and atheists, who, he con-
siders, are to be included in that category.^ Thus
he regards both these parties as obnoxious to the
State and to be excluded from toleration on politi-
cal grounds, not for their religious views. Locke
carries his idea of toleration beyond the political
sphere to the ecclesiastical, arguing for liberty of
thought within the Churches themselves. He
writes :

' What think you of St. Athanasius's Creed ? Is the sense of
that so obvious and exposed to every one who seeks it ; which
so manj' learned men have explained so different ways, and
which yet a great many profess they cannot understand ? Or is
it necessarj' to j'our or my salvation, that you or I should
believe and pronounce all those damned who do not believe
that creed, i.e. every proposition in it? which I fear would
extend to not a few of the church of England ; unless we can
think that people believe, i.e. assent to the truth of propositions
they do not at all understand. If ever you were acquainted
with a country parish, you must needs have a strange opinion
of them, if you think all the ploughmen and milkmaids at
church understood all the propositions in Athanasius's Creed ;
it is more, truly, than I should be apt to think of any one of
them ; and yet I cannot hence believe myself authorized to
judge or pronounce them all damned : it is too bold an intrench-
ing on the prerogative of the Almighty ; to their own Master
they stand or fall.' 3

Under Queen Anne the toleration that had been
obtained by the accession of William and Mary
was threatened by the Schism Act, which made it
illegal under heavy penalties for any one to keep a

1 Works, newed., London, 1823, vi. 46.
3 lb. p. 410 f.

I lb. p. 47.

TOLERATION (Muhammadan)

365

private school or teach in a seminary unless he
signed a declaration of conformity to tlie liturgy of
the Church of England and obtained a bishop's
licence to teach on production of a certificate that
he had taken the communion according to the rites
of the Church of England during the preceding
year. The queen's death stayed the execution of
this drastic measure, and it was repealed in the
reign of her successor, George I. From this time
onwards toleration with regard to religious views
and practices was firmly established ; but its limi-
tations were still numerous. It was the minimum
of concession to those who had previously been the
victims of persecution. Active persecution was no
longer allowed. But the negative policy of ex-
clusion and prohibition left galling grievances long
unrelieved. Toleration is far from religious equal-
ity. The very practice of it involves an exalted
position of power enjoyed by the people who toler-
ate as opposed to an inferior position in which the
tolerated are living. It is not inconsistent with the
monopoly of privileges by the one class and the re-
fusal of them to the other. If those privileges are
rights of citizenship, toleration is even possible side
by side with serious injustice. The tolerated may
be denied political power, the parliamentary and
municipal franchise, the opportunity of election as
members of Parliament or of corporations, access
to public schools, colleges and universities, whether
as pupils or as teachers, and a host of other national
rights and privileges. So it was tliat under the
Georges, and even throughout much of th e 19th cent. ,
Nonconformists, Roman Catholics, Unitarians,
Jews, and others suftered from various forms of
exclusion. The abolition of the Corporation and
Test Acts, Catholic Emancipation, the admission
of Jews to Parliament, the permission to dispense
with the member's oath extracted in order to meet
the case of Mr. Bradlaugh, the throwing open of
the universities to Nonconformists, the enlarged
foundation of grammar schools, and the extension
of popular education generally, irrespective of
ecclesiastical distinctions, were all steps beyond
mere toleration towards the goal of religious equal-
ity— a goal which in several directions its advo-
cates have not yet comjiletely attained.

12. Toleration in France. — The fight for religious
liberty which was waged principally in Germany,
Switzerland, Holland, and England during the
16th and 17th centuries passed on to France in the
18th century. The Edict of Nantes (1598) had con-
ceded toleration for Protestants ; the revocation of
that Edict (1685) restored and aggravated persecut-
ing intolerance. Bayle established the intellectual
basis of toleration in his Dictionnaire and in a work
entitled Commentaire philosophique sur ces paroles
de Jisus-Christ : Contrain-les d'enfrer — a refutation
of the misuse of a text popular with persecutors
from the time of Augustine. He holds it to be
immoral to compel men to profess religion in which
they do not believe, and also irrational, because it
discourages the discovery of truth. No one, he
maintains, has a right to claim such complete
possession of truth as not to need to compare his
ideas with those of other men. Montesquieu, in
De VEsprit des lois (1748), argues for religious
liberty and exposes the futility of coercion.
Rousseau, in his Contrat social,'^ affirms the com-
plete liberty of individual beliefs ; nevertheless,
holding that intolerance is inherent in Christian
dogma, he would abolish this and establish a civil
profession of faith in truths indispensable to a
well-organized social life, including that of the
existence of God. But it was Voltaire who by his
scathing sarcasm did more than any other man
in France during the 18th cent, to put an end to
persecution and secure tolerance for the Protestants.
1 Bk. iv. ch. 8.

The ideas of these champions of religious liberty
powerfully moulded the course of the French
Revolution in regard to religion and the universal
toleration that has since prevailed in France.

13. The present situation. — A policy of tolera-
tion now obtains throughout Western Europe,
North America, the British, French, and Italian
colonies, and India, where it is a safeguard of peace
and good order under British rule. It is estab-
lished in Japan and practically observed through-
out the provinces of China. It is also practised
generally throughout S. America. Eastern Europe
and Western Asia are still excluded from its
privileges. The exclusiveness of Tibet is national
rather than religious in character. Thus it is
apparent that the policy of toleration has been
adopted throughout the greater part of the civilized
world.

Apart from the liberalizing of legislation, great
progress has been made by means of Modernism in
Roman Catholic countries and by the general
spread of Christian charity, culture, knowledge
of history, scientific methods of criticism, and the
study of comparative religion, by the softening of
manners, by scepticism, and by religious indiffer-
ence, all tending to cool the ardour of the persecut-
ing spirit and so to establish toleration. The
champions of liberty now resent the use of the
term as representing a gracious concession on the
part of the privileged and claim to go far beyond
it in their demand for the abolition of all theo-
logical and ecclesiastical privileges and the estab-
lishment of absolute religious equality.

Cf. also artt. Persecution.

LiTERATDRE. — The literature of toleration is immense. A few
of the more important works are Tertullian, ad Scapulam ;
Lactantius, Divinoe Institutio-ii.es ; Vincentius, EpistolcB, 93,
17 ; Marsilius of Padua, Defensor Pacis, 13th cent. ; Faustus
Socinus, Opera, 2 vols., Irenopolis, 1656 ; Milton, Areopagi-
tica, London, 1644 ; John Goodwin, Plea far Liberty of Con-
science, 1644 ; Locke, Epistola de Tolerantia, Gouda, 1689,
Eng. tr., London, 1689 ; P. Bayle, Commentaire philosophique
sur ces paroles de Jistis-Christ : Contrain-les d'entrer, 2 vols.,
Cantorbery, 1686, Supplement du Commentaire, etc., Hamburg,
1688 ; S. Pufendorf, De habitu religionis Christianae ad vitam
eivilem, Bremen, 1687, Eng. tr., London, 1698; C. Thomasius,
Disputatio an haeresis sit crimen, 1697 ; Rousseau, Contrat
Social, Paris, 1762 ; F. M. de Voltaire, Traits sur la toUrance,
do. 1763, etc. ; J. S. Mill, On Liberty, London, 1859 ; Jules
Simon, La Libertide conscience^, Paris, 1872 ; J. C. Bluntschli,
Gesch. des Rechtes der religiosen Bekenntnissfreiheit, Elberfeld,
1867 ; P. Schaff, The Progress of Religious Freedom as shexen
in the Hist, of Toleration Acts, New York, 1889 ; H. Fiirstenau,
Das Grundrecht der Religionsfreiheit nach seiner geschichtL
Entwicklung und heutigen Geltung in Deutschland, Leipzig,
1891 ; M. Creighton, Persecution and Tolerance, London, 1895 ;
Wallace St. John, The Contest for Liberty of Conscience in
England, Chicago, 1900 ; L. Dubois, Bayle et la tolerance, Paris,
1902 ; L. Robert, Voltaire et I'itxtolirance religieuse, do. 1904 ;
Luigi Luzzatti, La Libertd di Conscienza e di Scienza, 1909,
French tr., Paris, 1911 ; G. Bonet-Maury, Eist. de la liberU
de conscience en France (1593-1905)'^, do. 19U9 ; W. E. H. Lecky,
Hist, of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in
Europe, auth. ed., London, 1910 ; A. A. Seaton, The Theory
of Toleration under the later Stuarts, Cambridge, 1911 ; H. F.
Russell Smith, The Theory of Religious Liberty in the Reigns
of Charles II. and James II., do. 1911 ; Lord Acton, Uist. of
Freedom and other Essays, London, 1907 ; Francesco Rufini,
Religious Liberty, Eng. tr., do. 1912 ; J. B. Bury, A Hist, of
Freedom of Thought (Home University Library), do. 1913.

W. F. Adeney.

TOLERATION (Muhammadan). — Muslim
toleration may be considered under two distinct
aspects, with respect to (i.) the faithful themselves,
and (ii.) non-Muslims.

(i.) Within the circle of the Muslim Church the
basis for toleration is found in the saying tradition-
ally attributed to Muhammad : ' Ikhtilafu ummati
rahmat^^,' ' Difference of opinion in my community
is a (manifestation of divine) mercy.' In accord-
ance with this principle, it has been possible for
the four schools {nuidhhab) of theologians and
legists into which the Sunnis are divided, viz.
^anafi, Maliki, Shati'i, and ^anbali, to exist side
by side, and for each of them to permit difference
or opinion even in its own midst. There has been

366

TOLERATION (Muhammadan)

abundance of controversy between these schools,
but instances of open violence have been rare.^ A
similar basis for toleration was found in the tradi-
tional saying- of the Prophet : ' My community
will become divided into 73 sects,' and rendered
possible the ample sectarian development in the
Muhammadan world. Instances have occurred
from time to time of the persecution of one sect by
another,^ but a more characteristic feature of the
Muslim Church has been the freedom allowed to
the exposition of religious doctrine, and the common
sentiment of princes and people has generally
condemned intolerance on the part of professed
theologians.*

(ii.) The recognition of rival religious systems,
as possessing a divine revelation, gave to Islam
from the outset a theological basis for the tolera-
tion of non-Muslims. Judaism and Christianity
are represented in the Qur'an as forms of the
primitive faith given to man and taught by a
series of prophets from Adam onwards :

'Men were of one religfion only; then they disagreed with
one another.' * ' Mankind was but one people ; then God raised
up prophets to announce glad tidings and to warn, and He sent
down with them the Book with the truth, that it might decide
the disputes of men.' 5

But JeAvish and Christian teachers had corrupted
the purity of this primitive faith, which Muham-
mad as ' the seal of the prophets ' ® came to pro-
claim anew.

This recognition of a common God is put forward
in the Qur'an as the basis for friendly relations
•with the followers of rival creeds, in the following-
verses :

' Say to those who have been given the Book and to the
ignorant, Do ye accept Islam? Then, if they accept Islam, are
they guided aright ; but if they turn away, then thy dutj' is
only preaching."? 'Those who have inherited the Book after
them [i.e. the Jews and the Christians] are in perplexity of
doubt concerning it. For this cause summon thou [them to the
faith], and walk uprightly therein as thou hast been bidden,
and follow not their desires ; and say, In whatsoever Books God
hath sent down do I believe ; I am commanded to decide justly
between you ; God is your Lord and our Lord ; we have our
works and you have your works ; between us and you let there
be no strife ; God will make us all one, and to Him shall we
return.' 8 ' Dispute ye not, save in kindliest sort, with the people
of the Book ; save with such of them as have dealt wronglj'
[\vith you], and say ye, " We believe in what lias been sent down
to us and hath been sent down to you. Our God and your God
is one, and to Him are we self-surrendered." '9

Muslim theologians have found a sanction for
the toleration of religions other than Judaism and
Christianity in passages such as the following :

'To every people have We appointed observances which they
observe ; therefore let them not dispute the matter with thee,
but snmmon them to thy Lord : Verily thou art guided aright :
But if they debate with thee, then say : God best knoweth what
ye do.' 10 ' If any one of those who join gods with God ask an
asylum of thee, grant him an asylum in order that he may hear
the word of God; then let him reach his place of safety.' n
'They who had joined other gods with God say, "Had He
pleased, neither we nor our forefathers had worshipped aught
but Him, nor had we, apart from Him, declared anything un-
lawful." Thus acted they who were before them. Yet is the
duty of the apostles other than plain-spoken preaching ? ' 12

The clearest injunction of toleration is in the
verse, 'Let there be no compulsion in religion,' ^^
and forcible conversion is condemned in the words :

' But if thy Lord had pleased, verily all who are in the world
would have believed together. Wilt thou then compel men to
become believers? No soul can believe but by the permission
of God.' 14

In harmony with the injunctions of the Qur'an
is Muhammad's letter to the bishops, priests, and
monks of Najran promising them the protection of
God and His apostle for their churches, their re-

1 See RHR xxxvii. [1898] 178 f.

2 See art. Persecution (Muhammadan).

8 0. Snouck Hurgronje, ' Le Droit musulman,' RHR xxxvii.
174-184; I. Goldziher, Die Zdhiriten, Leipzig, 1S84, p. 94 ff.,
Vorlesungen Uber den Islam, Heidelberg, 191U, pp. 51-53,
183-186.

4 X. 20. B ii. 209. 8 xxxiii. 40. 7 iii. 19,

8 xlii. lS-14. a xxix. 45. 10 xxii. 66-67. " ix. 6.

12 xvi. 37. 13 ii. 257.

i*Tf, 99, ]0n; c,f.. x-y\- 84, xxiv. ."j-S, xlii. 47, and Ixiv. 12.

ligious services and monastic institutions, and free-
dom from disturbance or any interference with
their rights, so long as they remained faithful to
their obligations.^ He permitted the Jews in
Medina to practise their own faith, until their
implacable hostility led to their expulsion from
the city, and he gave instructions to Mu'adh b.
Jabal, whom he sent on a mission to Yaman in
10 A.H., that he was not to compel any Jew to
abandon his religion.^

The teaching of the Qur'an and the practice of the Prophet
thus served as a clear basis for toleration of the Christian and
Jewish faiths. As mention is made of the Sabians in the
Qur'an, 3 they also were considered to have received some divine
revelation and therefore to be entitled to toleration ; it is
possible that the Harranians (,q.v.) and Mandseans Iq.v.) claimed
to be Sabians in order to enjoy the same toleration. ■* Their
practice of heathen rites naturally gave oflence to orthodox
Muslim feeling, and the khalifah al-Qahir (932-934) is said to
have consulted the jurist Abu Sa'id al-Istakhri as to whether
the Sabians should continue to be tolerated or not, and was told
that, as they were neither Jews nor Christians, but worshipped
the planets, they ought to be exterminated ; however, the
khalifah allowed the Sabians to buy themselves off and dis-
regarded the decision of this pious theologian.* About forty
years later his successor, Ta'i'li-anu-illah, promulgated a fresh
edict of toleration in favour of the Sabians, guaranteeing to
them protection for themselves, their wives, and property, and
free access to their temples and places of prayer, and the un-
disturbed performance of the rites of their religion.^ Their last
temple was not destroyed until 1230, and then by the heathen
Mongols.7

Political expediency, and the desire of the jurists of the
2nd cent, of the Hijra to make the religious law tally with the
accepted practice, prompted the extension of a similar toleration
to such faiths as were not mentioned in the Qur'an, but were
found to have adherents in the rapidly growing Muhammadan
empire ; e.g., when Arab rule was extended into Persia, it was
averred that Muhammad had given directions that the Zoroas-
trians were to be treated exactly like the AM al-kitab (' people
of the Book ').»

The Zoroastrians appear to have been but little disturbed in
the exercise of their cult up to the period of the fall of the
'Abbasid dynasty. 9 There is even an account of a Muhammadan
general (in the reign of Mu'tasim, 833-842) who ordered an imam
and a mu'adhdhin to be fiogged because they had destroyed a
flre-temple in Sughd and built a mosque in its place.io In the
10th cent., three centuries after the conquest of Persia, fire-
temples were to be found in almost every province. n

Even the Manichseans {q.v.), though not entitled to toleration
according to Muhammadan law, survived as a separate sect
until the end of the 10th cent. ; in the reign of Ma'mun,
Yazdanbakht, the leader of the sect, held a public disputation
with the Muslim theologians in Baghdad. 12

The severe condemnation of idolatry in the Qur'an is seems to
have made any toleration of idol-worshippers impossible for a
Muslim ruler, but already in the reign of Hariin Muslim law
had granted the privilege of paying jizyah to idolaters — wor-
shippers of idols, fire, and stones — and thus gave them a place
among the tolerated cults. i* The khalifah 'Uthman, in dealing
with the heathen Berbers, followed the precedent of 'Umar in
regard to the Zoroastrians, and allowed them to pay jf'zyaA. 15
In India the Brahmans appear to have paid jizyah from the
earliest days of Arab domination, 16 and to have been allowed to
retain their faith undisturbed, but the building of new temples
was held to be illegal, i'? Though during the later Muhammadan
conquests there was a considerable destruction of Hindu
temples, the settled Muhammadan governments appear often
to have respected the state endowments granted by the former
Hindu rulers to religious foundations, as was done in the case
of the temple of Brahmanabad in the province of Sind, where
Muhammadan rule was first established in India. At a much
later date, in the 16th cent., the Muhammadan government of
Bengal is said to have raised the large sum of £100,000 a year
bj' licensing the worship of Jagannath in Orissa,i8 and even
Haidar 'AH and Tipii Sultan, usually so notorious for their

1 CiBtani, Annali dell' Islam, ii. 351.

2 Baladhuri, Futuh al Bulddn, p. 71.

3 ii. 59, V. 73.

4 Al-Nadim, Kitdb al-Fihrist, ed. G. Flugel, Leipzig, 1871-72,
L 320.

6 Al-Nawawi, Biographical Dictionary, ed. P. Wiistenfeld,
Gottingen, 1842-47, p. 725.
6 Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier und der Ssahismus, ii. 537 f.
■? lb. i. 232. 8 Baladhuri, pp. 71 (fin.), 79, 80.

9 D. Menant, ' Les Zoroastriens de Perse,' RMM iii. [1907] 212.

10 Chwolsohn, i. 287.

11 Jlas'udi, Les Prairies d'Or, Paris, 1861-77, iv. 86; see art.
Gabars.

1'- Al-Nadim, p. 838.

13 iv. 115-120, xxi. 98-100, Ixvi. 9, etc.

14 Abii Yiisuf, Kitdb al-Kharnj, p. 73.
16 Baladhuri, p. SO, hnes 16-17.

16 Elliot, The Hist, of India, i. 176, 476.

17 lb. iii. 380.

18 W. W. Hunter, A Statiiiiic.nl Account of Bengal, xviii.
[London, 1877] p. 190.

TOLERATION (Muhammadan)

367

intolerance towards their liindu subjects, made jjrauts of
money to the monastery of SriiigCri, one of the most famous
shrines in S. India.i The same tradition survives in present
Muhammadan states in India, such as Haidarabad and liaha-
waljjur, which still assign revenues for tlie support of Hindu
temples.-

Even in such a barbarous country as Baluchistan the Hindus
enjoyed religious toleration in consideration of their paj'ment
otjizyah. 'They were free from persecution and molestation ;
in any dispute with the tribesmen they could appeal to their
protector or the headman for a fair hearing and a fair settle-
ment ; the honour of their women was respected ; their religion
was tolerated ; no one tampered with their customs.' *

The non-Muslim living under a Muhammadan
government was styled a dhimml (lit. ' one with
whom a compact has been made'), and the condi-
tions under which he lived were supposed to be
regulated by the agreements made with the Muslim
conquerors as they extended their dominion over
various cities and districts. As an example of
such an agreement, the conditions may be quoted
that are said to have been drawn up when Jerusalem
came under Muslim rule in A.D. 638 :

' In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate ! This
is the security which 'Umar, the servant of God, the com-
mander of the faithful, grants to the people of Aelia. He
grants to all, whether sick or sound, security for their lives,
their possessions, their churches and their crosses, and for all
that concerns their religion. Their churches shall not be
changed into dwelling-places, nor destroyed, neither shall they
nor their appurtenances be in any way diminished, nor the
crosses of the inhabitants nor aught of their possessions, nor
shall any constraint be put upon them in the matter of their
faith, nor shall any one of them be harmed.' ■*

The theory was that the dhimml, in return for
tribute paid and in consideration of good behaviour,
received protection from the Muslim government
and immunity for life, property, and religion.
Tradition attributed to the Prophet a warning
against the disregard of this compact : ' Whoever
wrongs one with whom a compact has been made
[i.e. a dhimml^ and lays on him a burden beyond
his strength, I shall be his accuser.'^ 'Whoever
torments the dhimmls, torments rae.'^ A similar
consideration for them was shown by the khalifah
'Umar, who in his testament enjoined on his
successor : ' I commend to your care the dhimmis
of the Apostle of God ; see that the agreement
with them is kept, and that they be defended
against their enemies, and that no burden be laid
upon them beyond their strength.''' Similarly,
'All, when he appointed Muhammad b. Abi Bakr
governor of Egypt in 36 A.H., bade him do justice
to the dhimmis.^ In a like spirit, the Turkish
code ordains that the dhimmis are not to be dis-
turbed in the exercise of their religion."

The actual practice appears to have varied
according to local conditions and the character of
the local government ; and by the 2nd cent, of tiie
Hijra, when some codification was made of the
law relating to the dhimmis, more harsh and in-
tolerant regulations had come into force than
those of earlier times. But in the first century of
Arab rule the various Christian churches enjoyed
a toleration and a freedom of religious life such
as had been unknown for generations under the
Byzantine government. We have the contempor-
ary testimony of the Nestorian patriarch, Isho'yabh
III. (A.D. 650-660), who, writing to the primate of
Persia, says :

1 Annual Report of the Mysore Archaeological Department
for the Year 1916, Bangalore, 1917, pp. 73-75.

2 M. A. Macauliflfe, The Sikh Religion, Oxford, 1909, v. 246 ;
Punjab States Gazetteers, vol. xxxvi.\. [I.ahore, 1908] p. 183.

s Censrcs of India, 1911, vol. iv. [Calcutta, 1913], Baluchistan,
pt. i. p. 175.

* Tabari, i. 2405.

5 Baladhuri, p. 1G2 ; Yahya b. Adam, Kitdb al-kharaj, Leyden,
1896, p. 54, ad fin.

8 Al-Makin, tlisloria Saracenica, Leyden, 1625, p. 11.

7 Abu Yiisuf, p. 71.

» Tabari, i. 3247, line 1 ; cf. his instructions to Ma'qil b. Qaya,
i. .3430, line 14.

» M. d'Ohsson, TeMenu gin^ral de Cempire othoman, Paris,
1820, iii. 44.

' The Arabs, to whom God at this time had given the empire
of the world, behold, they are among you, as ye know well ;
and yet they attack not the Christian faith, but, on the con-
trary, they favour our religion, do honour to our priests and
the saints of tlie Lord, and confer benefits on churches and
monasteries.' i

Indeed, the Church to wliicli this ecclesiastic;
belonged exhibited a remarkable expansion under
Muhammadan rule ; missionaries were sent from
Persia to China and India, both of which were
raised to the dignity of metropolitan sees in the
8th cent. ; about the same period the Nestorians
gained a footing in Egypt, and later spread the
Christian faith right across Asia, and by the 11th
cent, had gained many converts from among the
Tatars. 2 But by the 2nd cent, of the Muhammadan
era the condition of the Christians htul become
less tolerable. The victorious armies that estab-
lished Arab rule over Syria and Persia appear to
have been little swayed by religious considera-
tions, and under the I'ule of the Umayyads the
Christian and other non-Muslim religious com-
munities seem to have been little regarded except
as sources of revenue ; but under the 'Abbasids a
change in the attitude of the government made
itself felt. The orthodox reaction which supported
this dynasty and the union of the spiritual and
temporal power which characterized it tended to
make the administration of the existing laws more
oppressive. In the course of the long struggle
with the Byzantine empire the khalifahs had had
occasion to distrust the loyalty of their Christian
subjects, and the treachery of the emperor
Nikephoros was not improbably one of the reasons
for tlie harsher treatment initiated by Hariin al-
Rashid (786-809), who ordered the Christians to
wear a distinctive dress and give up to Muslims
the government posts which they held. But the
prescriptions of the jurists and theologians ^ were
often more intolerant than the actual practice of
the government, and it would be rash to assume
that the treatment meted out to the non-Muslim
population corresponded exactly with the prin-
ciples which they laid down. Harun's great jurist,
Abu Yusuf,^ leaves no alternative to the Arabs of
the Riddah (i.e. the Defection, after the death of
the Prophet) or to the idolatrous Arabs, except
death or the acceptance of Islam, but Csetani*
has proved that the early conquerors had no power
to enforce such a principle, and historical facts do
not show that any such alternative was actually
imposed on the heathen Arabs.

But protests against cruelty towards the dhimmis
are not wanting in the works of Muslim legists
themselves; e.g., Abu Yusuf^ claims for the
dhimmis gentle treatment ; they are not to be
beaten when called upon to pay jizyah, or to be
made to stand in the sun, or to be tormented in
any waj' ; and he makes an earnest appeal to his
patron, Harun, on their behalf :

' It is incumbent on the commander of the faithful (may God
grant thee his aid !) that thou deal gently with those that have
a covenant with thy Prophet and thy cousin, Muhammad (the
peace and blessing of God be upon him !), and that thou take
care that they be not wronged or ill-treated and that no burden
be laid upon them beyond their strength, and that no part of
their belongings be taken from them beyond what they are in
duty bound to pay, for it is related of the Apostle of God (the
peace and blessing of Go<l be upon him !) that he said, Whoso-
ever wrongs one with whom a compact has been made [i.e. a
dhimml] or imposes a burden on him beyond his strength, I
shall be his accuser on the day of judgment.' 7

Ibn Qasim al-Ghazzi (t 1512) maintains that the
majority of Muslim jurists hold that the dhimmi
must be treated with kindness and consideration
and not with contempt, when he comes to pay the

1 J. S. Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis, Rome, 1719-28, vol.
iii.. pt. i., p. 131.

2 J. Labourt, De Timotheo I. Nestorianorum Patriarcha,
Paris, 1904, p. 37 ff.

'■> See art. Pbrskcutiom (Muhammadan).

•• l\ 73, ad fin.

5 ii. 829, V. 337 f. « P. 70. 7 p. 71.

368

TOLERATION (Muhammadan)

jizyah.^ Commenting on this passage nearly two
centuries later, al-Birmawi (t 1694) enters a pro-
test against such fanatical glosses on Qur'dn, ix.
29, as are referred to in art. Persecution, and
holds that the phrase ' being humbled ' implies
only conformity to the regulations of Islam in
regard to the dhimmis, and that these words give
no justification for the rough treatment sometimes
inflicted on a dhimmi when he paid jizyah — e.g.,
that he should be made to stand with bent head
and back before the collector of the tax, who
should slap his face and pull his beard — for (as he
rightly says) there is no evidence that the Prophet
or any one of the khalifahs acted in such a
manner.^

A powerful influence in the direction of tolera-
tion in a period when feeling was acerbated against
the Christians, and when the disorder in Muham-
madan administration made their position more
{)recarious and exposed them to the tyranny of
ocal officials, was the extension of the religious
orders, especially that of the Qadiriyyah, and
the popularizing of that mystical presentation of
religious thought in which devout Muslims found
consolation after the devastations of the Mongol
conquests. 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (t 1166), the
founder of the order referred to, emphasized the
virtues of charity and meekness, and his attitude
and that of his followers towards the Christians
was kindly and sympathetic.^ The tendency of
Persian mysticism was opposed to any emphasiz-
ing of religious differences, and the teaching of
the poets who wrote under the influence of this
mystical movement often made for tolerance ; a
well-known example is the story of Abraham in
Sa'di's BUstdn,* in which the patriarch is rebuked
by God for refusing his charity to an aged fire-
worshipper on the ground of his infidelity. But
in the present article attention may rather be
drawn to instances of toleration in contrast to the
fanatical usage of legislation ; e.g., though the
so-styled Pact of 'Umar' forbade the building of
new churches, there was considerable variation of
opinion among the Muslim legists themselves on
this question, from the more liberal ^Janafi doc-
trine, which declared that, though it was unlawful
to build churches and synagogues in Muslim
territory, those already existing could be repaired
if they had been destroyed or had fallen into
decay, while in villages where the tokens of Islam
were not apparent new churches and synagogues
might be built, to the intolerant 9anbali ruling
that they might neither be erected nor be restored
when damaged or ruined. Some legists held that
the privileges varied according to treaty rights :
in towns taken bv force no new houses of prayer
might be erected by dhimmis, but, if a special
treaty had been made, the building of new
churches and synagogues was allowed. But, like
so many of the lucubrations of Muslim legists,
these prescriptions bore but little relation to actual
facts. Schoolmen might agree that the dhimmis
could build no houses of prayer in a city of Muslim
foundation, but the civil authority permitted the
Copts to erect churches in the new capital of Cairo.
The fact that "Umar b. 'Abd al-'Aziz (717-720)
ordered the destruction of all recently constructed
churches, and that more than a century later the
fanatical al-Mutawakkil (847-861) had to repeat
the same order, shows how little the prohibition
of the building of new churches was put into force ;
and both Christian and Muhammadan historians

1 FatJi alQarCb, ed. L. W. C. van den Berg, Leyden, 1894,
p. 625 f .

2 Bdshiya 'old sharli Ibn Qdsim al-Ghazzl, Cairo, 1879, p.
326. ^

3 T. W. Arnold, The Preaching of Islarrfi, p. 329.
* ii. 37-54, ed. C. H. Graf, Vienna, 1858, p. 142 1.

" See art. Pbrsbcution (Muhammadan), vol. ix. p. 767.

record numerous instances of the erection of new
churches, some of them buildings of great magnifi-
cence.^ Al-Muqtadir (908-932) even gave orders
himself for the rebuilding of some churches at
Ramlah in Palestine, which had been destroyed
by Muhammadans during a riot.^

Muslim law made death the punishment for
apostasy [q.v.), and the convert to Islam was not
allowed to return to his former faith, but instances
are not unknown of a more tolerant view vindicat-
ing freedom of conscience in such cases.

Even the mad Hakim (996-1020), whose persecutions caused
many Jews and Christians to abandon their faith, ordered the
churches that had been destroyed to be rebuilt, and the pro-
perty settled on the churches that had been taken from the
Christians to be^restored to them, and allowed the unwilling
converts to return to their old faith. * It is stated by more
than one Muhammadan writer that Moses Maimonides under
the fanatical rule of the Almohads in Spain feigned conversion
to Islam, but fled to Egypt and there openly declared himself
to be a Jew ; that towards the end of his life a Muslim juris-
consult from Spain denounced him for his apostasy and
demanded that the extreme penalty of the law should be
inflicted on him for this offence ; but the case was quashed by
al-Qadi al-Fadil 'Abd al-Rahim b. 'AH (one of the most famous
of Muslim judges and prime minister of Saladin), who authori-
tatively declared that a man who had been converted to Islam
bj' force could not rightly be considered to be a Muslim.*
Jewish writers, jealous for the honour of their great co-religion-
ist, have disputed the accuracy of this story, though the first
who narrates it, Ibn al-Qifti, was himself a contemporary of
Maimonides ;5 but in reference to Muhammadan tolerationit is
of interest to note that the decision of al-QadI al-Fadil is re-
ported without contradiction or condemnation. In the same
spirit, when Ghazan, ilkhan of Persia (1295-1304), discovered
that the Buddhist monks who had become Muhammadans at
the beginning of his reign (when their temples had been
destroyed) only made a pretence of being converted, he granted
permission to all those who so wished to return to Tibet, where
among their Buddhist fellow-countriTnen they would be free
once more to follow their own faith. J. B. Tavernier •> tells a
similar story of some Jews of Ispahan who were so grievously
persecuted by the governor 'that either by force or cunning he
caused them to turn Mahometans ; but the king (Shah 'Abbas
u. [1642-1667]), understanding that onli' power and fear had
constrained them to turn, sufler'd them to resume their own
religion and to live in quiet.' The Yazidis who were forced to
accept Islam under the oppressive rule of Badr Khan Beg in
1844, were permitted b.v an imperial firman to return to their
own creed three j-ears later.''

The practice of Muhammadan governments
seems, generally, to have been to leave to each
separate protected community the management of
its internal affairs, and to permit the religious
leaders to administer the laws as to marriage,
inheritance, etc., in accordance with the ordin-
ances of the particular faith as accepted by the
persons concerned, in some instances in criminal
cases also,^ though, according to Abu Hanifah,
there was no obligation resting on the Muham-
madan government to recognize the decisions of
such a judge or on the dhimmis to conform to
them.^ But, if an appeal was made to the Muslim
judge, he would decide the case on the basis of the
Qur'an and Muslim law, and some jurists held that
the State could even in>^ist on the application of
Muslim law in cases of inheritance in which the
public treasury would thereby derive more benefit
than if the special law of the dhimmis concerned

1 For examples see Arnold, 7%e Preaching of Idani^, pp.
66-68.

2 Eutychius, AnruUes, ed. L. Cheikho, Paris, 1906-09, ii. 82.

3 Ibn Khallikan, Biographical Dictionary, tr. MacGuckin de
Slane, Paris, 1843-71, iii. 451.

4 Ibn al-Qifti, Ta'rikh al-Hukamd', ed. J. Lippert, Leipzig,
1903, p. 31S, line 5, p. 319,' lines 16-19; Abu'l Faraj, Ta'rikh
Mukhtasar al-Duwal, Beirut, 1890, p. 417 f. ; Ibn Abi Usaybi'ah,
'Uyin al-anbd'/i iabaqdt al-atibbd', ed. A. Miiller, Konigsberg,
18S4, ii. 117.

5 See A. Berliner, ' Zur Ehrenrettung des Maimonides,' in
Moses ben Maimon: sein Leben, seine Werkeund sein Einfluss.
Zur Erinnerung an den siebenhundertsten Todestag des
Maimonides, Leipzig, 1914, ii. 103 ff.

6 Six Voyages through Tartary into Persia and the East
Indies, Eng. tr., London, 1677, p. 160.

7 G. P. Badger, The Nestorians and their Rituals, London,

1852, i. 133 f.

8 Arnolds, p. 146.

9 Mawardi, Constitutiones Politicce, ed. M. Enger, Bonn,

1853, p. 108 f.

TOLSTOY

369

were applied.^ It is recorded of Khayr b. Nu'aym,
a judge in Egypt about the middle of the 8th cent.,
that, after hearing the cases of the Muslims inside
the mosque, he ■would sit on the steps outside the
gate in the afternoon and hear the cases of the
Christians and Jews, testing the value of the
evidence of the witnesses by inquiring into their
credibility among their co-religionists.''

An important testimony to the toleration of
Muslim rule is the fact that persecuted Christian
and other sects took refuge in Muhammadan lands,
to enjoy there the undisturbed exercise of their
several cults. When the Byzantine emperor, Leo,
in 714, instituted a persecution against the Mon-
tanists and the Jews, forcibly compelling them to
submit to baptism, while some burnt themselves
alive rather than suffer the loss of religious free-
dom, others fled for safety into the neighbouring
Arab territory.* The persecuted Spanish Jews at
the end of the 15th cent, took refuge in Turkey in
enormous numbers.* The Calvinists of Hungary
and Transylvania and the Unitarians of the latter
country long preferred to submit to the Turks
rather than fall into the hands of the fanatical
house of Hapsburg ; ' and the Protestants of
Silesia in the 17th cent, looked with longing eyes
towards Turkey and would gladly have purchased
religious freedom at the price of submission to
Muslim rule.® The Cossacks, who belonged to the
sect of the Old Believers and were persecuted by
the Russian State Churcli in 1736, found in the
dominions of the sultan the toleration which their
Christian brethren denied them.''

Of toleration in the Muhammadan world gener-
ally it may be said that it was more operative in
the earlier centuries of the Hijra than in the days
of the decline of the khalifate or the unhappy
period of the Mongol conquests or in modern times
when the pressure of Christian Powers exasper-
ated Muslim feeling. The civil government has as
a rule been more tolerant than the clergy, and the
regulations of jurists have seldom been put into
force with all their rigour ; though practice has
varied with time and place, the persecutions ^ that
have occurred have been excited by some special
and local circumstances rather than inspired by a
settled principle of intolerance. The judgment of
A. de Gohineau is on the whole justified by the
facts of history :

'Si I'on s6pare la docti'ine religieuse de la n6cessit6 politique
qui souvent a parle et agi en son noin, il n'est pas de religion plus
tol^rante, on pourrait presque dire plus indiff6rente sur la foi
dee homines, que I'Islam. Cette disposition orjfanique est si
forte qu'en dehors des cas oii la raison d'F^tat niise en jen a
port6 les <ronvemements uiusuhnans a se faire arme de tout pour
tendre i I'unit^ de foi, la tolerance la plus complete a 6t6 la
rfegle fouriiie par le dogme. . . . Qu'on ne s'arrete pas aux
violences, aux cruauti'S conimises dans une occasion ou dans une
autre. Si on y regarde de pr6s, on ne tardera pas i y ddcouvrir
des causes toutes politiques ou toutes de passion humaine et
de temperament chez le souverain ou dans lea populations.
Le fait religieux n'y est irivoqu6 que comme pritexte et,
en r^alitd, il reste en dehors.' 9

To this sober conclusion of the historian may be
added the eloquent outburst of one of the Spanish
Muhanimadans who was driven out of his native
country on the occasion of the last ex[iulsion of
the Moriscoes in 1610 :

' Did our victorious ancestors ever once attempt to extirpate
Christianity out of Spain, when it was in their power? Did they
not suffer your forefathers to enjoy the free use of their rites
at the same time that they wore their chains? Is not the

1 REJ xxix. [1S94] 209-211.

2 Al-Kindi, Kitdb al-Qv(}dh, ed. R. Guest, London, 1912, p.
351.

3 MichafJ the Elder, ii. 489-190 ; Theophanes, Chronographia
(PG cviii. 810, 812).

* La Jonquifere, Hist, de I'empire ottoman, new ed., ii. 501.
» /6. i. 266; J. Scheffler, Tiirckeii-Sc/inlfi. 1064, § 45 f.; T.
Gasztowtt, La Pologne et V Islam, Paris, I'.KIT, p. SI.
6 Scheffler, § 48. '> La Jonqui6re, ii. 482.

8 See art. Pbrsecution' (Muhammadan).

9 Les Religions et les philosophies dans I'Asie centrale, Paris,
1865, p. 24 f.

VOL. XII. — 24

absolute injunction of our Prophet, that whatsoever nation is
conquered by Musalman steel, should, upon the payment of
a moderate annual tribute, be permitted to persevere in their
own pristine persuasion, how absurd soever, or to embrace
whatever belief they themselves best approved of ? If there
may have been some examples of forced conversions, they are
so rare as .scarce to deserve mentioning, and only attempted by
men who had not the fear of God, and the Prophet, before their
eyes, and who, in so doing, have acted directly and diametri-
cally contrary to the holy precepts and ordinances of Islam
which cannot, without sacrilege, be violated by any who would
be held worthy of the honourable epithet of Musalman. . . .
You can never produce, among us, any bloodthirsty, formal
tribunal, on account of different persuasions in points of faith,
that anywise approaches your execrable Inquisition. Our arms,
it is true, are ever open to receive all who are disposed to em-
brace our religion ; but we are not allowed by our sacred Alcoran
to tyrannize over consciences. Our proselytes have all imagin-
able encouragement, and have no sooner professed God's Unity
and His Apostle's mission but they become one of us, without
reserve ; taking to wife our daughters, and being employed in
posts of trust, honour and profit ; we contenting ourselves with
only obliging them to wear our habit, and to seem true believers
in outward appearance, without ever offering to examine their
consciences, provided the^' do not openly revile or profane our
religion : if they do that, we indeed punish them as they deserve ;
since their conversion was voluntarily, and was not by compul-
sion.'!

Literature. — Baladhurt, Futuk al-Bulddn, ed.M. J. de Goeje,
Leyden, 1866 ; Tabari, Annals, ed. M. J. de Goeje and othere,
do." 1879-1901 ; Abu Yiisuf Ya'qfib b. Ibrahim, Kilab al-Khardj,
Cairo, 1302 a.h. ; Michael the Elder, Chronique de Michel le
Syrien, ed. J. B. Chabot, 4 vols., Paris, 1899-1901 ; L. Caetani,
Annali dell' Islam, Milan, 1905-14; H. A. Gibbons, The
Foundation of the Ottoman Empire, Oxford, 1916, pp. 73-81 ;
A. de la Jonquii^re, Hvit. de I'Empire Ottoman, new ed., 2
vols., Paris, 1914; H. M. Elliot, The Hist, of India, as told
by its own Historians, 8 vols., London, 1872-77 ; D. Chwol-
sohn. Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus, St. Petersburg, 1856 ;
George Campbell, Handy Book on the Eastern Question,
London, 1S76, ch. ii.-iv. ; Sidney Whitman, Turkish Memories,
do. 1914, ch. xii. ; T. W. Arnold, The Preaching of Islam^,
1913 ; Cheragh "Ali, The Proposed Political, Legal and Social
Reforms in the Ottoman Empire and other Mohainmadan
Stales, Bombay, 1883 ; J. Denais, ' Le Fanatisme en Turquie,'
La Nouvclle Revue, cvii. [1897] ; Ahmad Riza, ToUranee
musulm,ane, Paris, 1897 ; Ahmad Zaki Beg, ' Al-muslimiina
wa'1-dhimmiyiina wa'1-mu'ahiduna,' Al-Muqtabas, iv. [Cairo,
1908] 251 ff.; Muhammad b. Mustafa b. al-Jaza'iri, Al-
iqdmat al-barahin al-'i^dm 'aid naiy al-ta 'as.^ub al-dini Ji'l-
isldm, Algiers, 1319 a.h. (a.d. 1902); L. Cheiitho, ' Uhud
nabiyyi "l-islam wa'1-khulafa'i '1-rashidin Ii '1-nasara,' Al-Mashriq,
xii. [Beirut, 1909] 609 ff., 674 ff. ; Muhammad' Shibli Nu'manI,
HuqUq al-dhimmiyyina, Aniritsar, 1911 ; Carra de Vaux, La
Doctrine de I'lslarn, Paris, 1909, p. 152 fif. ; F. Giese, Die
Toleranz des Islam, Weimar, 1915. T. W. ARNOLD.

TOLSTOY.— I. Early life and manhood.— Lev

Nikoldevich Tolstoy (1828-1910), novelist, social
reformer, and religious mystic, was born ou 28th
Aug. (O.S.), 1828, at YAsnaya Polyana ('Bright
Glade'), the home of the family, in the government
of Tula, about 130 miles south of Moscow. Lev
was the youngest of four sons. His mother having
died when he was three, and his father five or six
years later, the boy went in 1840 to the university
town of Kazan in eastern Russia, where he lived
under the charge of an aunt, whom he held in
grateful remembrance. After two years' study he
left the university without a degree. The blame
is usually laid upon the professors, but some portion
of it must be attributed to Tolstoy's own dissipated
and irregular life. Returning to his estate, he
interested himself in the life of his peasants, with
the disappointing results recorded some years later
in liis A Morning of a Landed Proprietor (1856).
He admits that he did not really know their life,
and that he was aiming at their betterment only
from the outside. It was, however, the beginning
of that interest in 'the people' which led him at
last to throw in his lot with the peasants and the
poor. In 1851, to escape from the idle dissipation
of his class, he fled to the Caucasus, ■\\here he
M-rote his earliest works — Childhood, A Morning
of a Landed Proprietor, and The Incur-iion — and
planned The Cossacks, sold ten years later to pay a
gambling debt.

Chiidhood (1852), Boyhood (1854), and Youth

1 J. Morgan, Mahometism Eotjilai'.ned, London, 1723-25, ii.
I 207 f., 345.

370

TOLSTOY

(IS.oG) form an autobiograpliical fragment, thinly
disguised under iictitious names. Here, as else-
where, Ti)!. toy doubles himself, to bring out the
dual nature, tlie natural and the spiritual man of
whicli he was always conscious in himself. Irtenev
represents the lower nature, his friend Nekhlyiidov
the higher. The latter reappears in the Landed
Proprietor and in Ee'-nrrrrtion, just as in War
and Peace Pierre Beziikhi, and in Anna Karenin
Konstantin Levin, are Tolstoy himself in that
struggle between flesh and spirit which ended only
with life. There is truth in Leo Wiener's state-
ment that even the Christ of his religious writings
is still the image of the author, and that 'it is
Christ-Tolst6y that becomes the final and lasting
stage of his spiritual evolution.' ' This autobio-
graphical fragment reveals Tolstoy as an awkward
child, morbidly sensitive to his appearance ; a boy,
confessing frankly every shade of evil in his heart,
such as the rise of sexual feeling ; and a youth ' in
search of an ideal,' whose one faith was in the
possibility of virtuous perfectibilitJ^ Beyond this.
Ids creed, though retaining the forms of the Ortho-
dox Church, had become dust, ready to crumble at
a touch. Yet we see the beginnings of many
things which appear and reappear in his writings
to the end — a shame of being rich while others
want, a deep hatred of injustice, and the clear
poetic vision of Nature and her loveliness.

The Cossacks (18(j3) represents Tolstoy's revulsion
from the artificial and vicious life of cities and his
class. The natives had their vices, but they sinned
naturally and frankly, and tlius escaped the deeper
corruption of hidden immorality. In contrast with
their bold outdoor life, Tolst6y saw himself (the
Olenin of the story) as a degenerate weakling.

Joining tlie army in 1851, Tolst6y commanded a
battery at Sevastopol ; and in his three sketches
— Sevastopol in December, 1S54, Sevastopol in May,
1855, Sevastopolin August, 1S55 — v/e find the seeds
of thought that were to fructify in his War and
Peace, and many an indignant denunciation of the
violence by which nations are governed. The con-
viction of the sheer wickedness and brutality of
war sank deep into his soul and grew with the
years. The sketches probably saved his life; by
the emperor's orders the young man was removed
to a place of safety. On the fall of Sevastopol in
1855 he was sent with dispatches to St. Petersburg,
and his career as a soldier came to an end.

Of this period, and up to his marriage in 1862,
Tolst6y could never afterwards think Avithout
shame. Between 1857 and 1S61 he travelled in
Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, England,
and Belgium, to study their educational methods,
wrote many books on education, and started schools
for peasant children on his estate. Yet alongside
this generous interest in 'the people' the tides of
the passions of the natural man never ceased to
flow. His own words in his My Confession^
frankly reveal this moral duality :

'I cannot recall those years without dread, loathing;, and
angfuish of heart. I killed people in war and challenged to
duels to kill ; I lost money at cards, wasting the labour of the
peasants ; I puiiished them, fornicated, and cheated. Lying-,
stealing, acts of lust of every description, drunkenness, violence,
murder — there was not a crime which I did not commit, and
for all that I was praised, and my contemporaries have regarded
me as a comparatively moral man. Thus I lived for ten years.'

On 23rd Sept. 1862 Tolst6y married Sofiya, second
daughter of a Dr. Behrs of Moscow, who bore him
thirteen children, several of whom died in infancy.
Fifteen years of unbroken domestic happiness
followed. Tolst6y was busy with his schools, his
works on education, the management of his estate,
and, above all, the writing of his greatest novels.
War and Peace (1864-69) and Anna Karinin

1 Lev N. Tolsltiy : an Analysis of his Life and Works (Com-
plete Wi}rks of Count Tolstdy, tr. and ed. L. Wiener, xxiv. 293).

2Ch. ii. {Works, xiii. S f.).

(1873-77), in which appear all the problems round
which his mind never ceased to work — war, the
peasants, the land and the serfs, education, the
universal duty of manual labour, and, at the root
of all, religion and the ethical duties flowing tliere-
from. Then suddenly, to the dismay of the literary
world, Tolstoy cast aside the art in which he was
acknowledged the greatest living master, and de-
voted the remainder of his life to moral and religious
tales for peasants and children, and an examina-
tion of the Gospels, the Creed, and the foundations
of violence on which he believed the entire system
of civil government rested. His literary ambitions
had been treason to the deepest convictions of his
soul. The literary caste set up to teach what they
did not know, and for the sake of his family he
had shared their delusions :

' The new conditions of my happy family life completely drew
me away from all search for the general meaning of life. All
my life during that time was centred in my family, my wife,
my children, and, therefore, in cares for the increase of the
means of existence. The striving after perfection, which before
had given way to the striving after perfection in general, after
progress, now gave way simply to tlie striving after malting it
as comfortable as possible for me and my family. Thus another
fifteen years passed.' i

The struggle to break away from this treason to
the higher life led to great family unhappiness,
and ultimately to his mysterious and tragic end.

2. Ethical and religious ideas.— Tolstoy's princi-
pal works after his ' conversion ' are My Confession
(1879-82), Critique of Dogmatic Theology (1880-82),
The Foiir Gospels Harmonized and Translated
(3 vols., 1880-82), My Religion (1884), What shall
ive do then? (1884-86), Blorcd and Religious Tales,
The Kingdom of God is within you (1893), What is
Art ? (1897), and Resurrection (1899), his last great
novel, in which he sums up his indictment of
Church and State and the entire structure of
society. It is from this vast mass of literature
that we must now attempt to deduce the religious
and ethical convictions into which, with endless
vacillations, Tolst6y finally settled.

(1) Tolstoy's fundamental conviction is that the
one purpose of life is to know God by bringing all
relations of humanity into harmony with His will.
In reply to the decree of the Holy Synod which
excommunicated him in 1901 he states his creed :

' I believe in God, whom I understand as Spirit, as Love, as
the beginning of everything. I believe that He is in me and I
in Him. I believe that God's will is most clearly and compre-
hensibly expressed in the teaching of the man Christ, whom
to understand as God and pray to I consider the greatest
blasphemy. I believe that the greatest true good of man is the
fulfilment of God's will, but His will is this, that men should
love one another and in consequence of this should treat others
as they wish that others should treat them, as, indeed, it says
in the Gospel that in this is all the law and the prophets. I
believe that the meaning of the life of every man is, therefore,
only in the augmentation of love in himself ; that this aug^menta-
tion of love leads the Individual man in this life to a greater and
ever greater good, and gives after death a greater good, the
greater the love is in man, and at the same time more than any-
thing else contributes to the establishment of the kingdom of
God in the world, that is, of an order of life with which the
now existing discord, deception, and violence will give way to
free agreement, truth, and brotherly love of men among them-
selves. I believe that there is but one means for success in
love, and that is prayer, not public prayer in temples, which is
directly forbidden by Christ (Matt. vi. 5-13), but such as Christ
has given us an example of,— solitary prayer, which consists in
the establishment and strengthening in our consciousness of the
meaning of our life and our independence of everything except
God's will." 2

(2) Tolst6y warns us that, when he calls God
' Father ' and speaks of His ' will,' he is not to be
understood as meaning that God is a personal
Ijeing. He admits that, when he prays, he is in-
consistent with his doctrine of the impersonality
of God : it is a necessity forced on him by the fact
tliat he himself is a person. The doctrine of the
Trinity is blasphemy. Metaphysical speculations
conceal God ; nothing reveals Him but love in its

1 My Confession, ch. ill. ( Works, xiil. 16).

^ Answer to the Decree of the Synot! (Works, xxiii. 235.f.).

TOLSTOY

3,11

application to human life. The fundamental idea
oi The Kingdom of God is within you is that
God is, in every man, tlie revelation of life and
the power by which man lives and acts upon the
world. Whatever a])proves it.self to the (lod
within has divine sanction and right. Since God
thus acts naturally through man, miracles are
impossible.

(3) Tolst6y's conception of Christ passed through
many fluctuations. In the Crimea he dreamed of
a new Christianity ' purged of dogma and mysti-
cism,' giving happiness here on earth. At his
brother Nikoldy's funeral he projected ' a Life of
Christ as a Materialist.' After reading a German
work on the Gospels he inclined to agree with the
author that Christ never existed. In the end,
while admitting His existence, he denied in-
dignantly His divinity. 'To recognise Christ as
God is to renounce God.'^ On the theory of His
divinity the Temptation becomes absurd — ' God is
tempted by God Himself.' The miraculous Birth
is an invention to cover His mother's shame. The
Resurrection is 'a trite, contemptible invention,'
contrary to reason and needing the invention of
other miracles to support it. He is ' the living
Christ' only in the sense in which all men live on
in the spirits of those who come after them. Jesus
is grouped with other great religious teachers of
the world, such as Confucius, Buddha, Lao-tse.
These views are asserted with a peculiar earnest-
ness : ' I am standing with one foot in the grave,
and I have no need to feign.' The truth is that
Tolst6y had almost a personal interest in thus
emphasizing the human side of Christ : he found
in it those elements of wavering of which he was
conscious in himself. The Temptation, the shrink-
ing of His soul at the visit of the Greeks, the agony
in the Garden, the cry ' My God, my God ' on the
Cross, seemed to bring Him nearer to his own
weaknesses and vacillations. There was even a
moment, he held, when Christ resolved to use
violence against violence and advised His followers
to sell their garments and buy swords ; and it was
only in the Garden that He was able to overcome
the terrible temptation by prayer. '

(4) Tolst6y's attitude to Scripture settled down
into acceptance of nothing that did not commend
itself to the God within himself. The OT is non-
essential to Christianity. The Church doctrine of
the infallibility of Scripture — myths, miracles, con-
tradictions, immoral stories, and all — only commits
the soul to untruth. Yet he admired the OT
stories and the Gospel parables as the highest form
of art, taught them to the peasant children in his
schools, and advocated that cheap unabridged
copies be given them, not one word omitted :

' The book of the childhood of the race will always be the best
book of the childhood of each man. . . . There is no book like
the Bible to open up a new world to the pupil and to make hiiu
without knowledge love knowledge.' 2

After giving elaborate interpretations of the
Four Gospels, he warns his readers against all
interpretations : let each man read for himself in
the spirit of a little child. To get nearer the
original meaning he learned Greek ; and he used
his new-found instrument in the most uncritical
and arbitrary way. The Four Gospels were the
lieart of the Bible ; the Sermon on the Mount was
the heart of the Gospels ; and a few sayings of
Christ formed the heart of the Sermon. Whatever
in Scripture did not harmonize with tliese fev/ say-
ings and Tolst6y's vast ' private interpret;ition ' of
them was set aside without scruple as no part of
the true original teaching ; and, as one has said,
if he cleared away superstitions of the Church, he
created others of his own.

1 Three Letters on ReaHon, Faith, and Prayer (Works, xxiii.
472).

- The School at Viinnaija Poly una {Works, iv. 308, 310).

(5) In substance, Tolst6y reduces Christianity
to five commandments of Christ in the Sermon on
the Mount :

(a.) Thou shalt not he angry (Mt 521 -«). — He takes this prohi-
bition absolutely, omitting ' without a cause.' It forbids, not
killing merely, but the anger from which violence flows. In his
own experience he found that contempt was the root of anger ;
and, since contempt was possible only to inferiors, he strove
to divest himself of the worldly possessions, standing, and
privileges which gave him a false sense of superiority over those
who were sons of the one Father. If it be said that Christ in
this passage speaks of the penalty of judgment and fire for
this sin, Tolst6y replies that He never prescribed this penalty,
the mention of which only indicates the severity of His con-
demnation of it. In his discussion of Mt 23 he does not seem to
recognize that Christ's indignation against the Pharisees must
be a breach of His own law against anger, if understood in the
absolute sense.

(6) Thou Shalt not commit aditltery (Mt 527-32). — Tolstdy
interprets the words in v.32, 'saving for the cause of fornica-
tion," as meaning that the husband by divorcing his wife ' causes
her also (as well as himself) to commit adultery.' His views
pass through several stages and are influenced by his own
early lapses. For the first fifteen years of his married life his
ideal for woman was the duty of motherhood. He disapproved
of celibacy and held that monogamy is 'the natural law of
humanity.' The close of What shaCl we do then f is an impas-
sioned appeal to women to fulfil ' the highest act of life,' the
duty of maternity. Domestic Happiness (1859), however, warns
against basing the happiness of marriage on the romantic
fever of the senses called love, from which motherhood is the
true escape. This view persists through War and Peace and
Anna Karinin. In the latter a young and beautiful woman,
married to a man much older than herself, turns to feed her
starved heart to an illicit passion ; and the suicide in which she
ends is, in the author's intention, far less the punishment of her
infidelity to her husband than of her unfaithfulness to her
lover and their child— the burning out through jealousy of her
lover's affection, and her unworthiness of her own maternity.
The Kreutzer Sonata (18S9) marks the extreme development of
his views — a sordid storj' of the murder of a guilty wife and the
acquittal of the husband on the g^round that he had merely
defended his honour. The title implies that in Tolstiy's view
Beethoven's music irritates and hypnotizes soul and sense into
crime. His final position is given in his Epilogue to the
Kreutzer Sonata (1890), written to defend himself against many
attacks. In substance, he demands an absolute chastity,
whether in the married or in the unmarried life. The teaching
of the gospel is ' in the first place that a married man must not
be divorced from his wife, in order to take another, and that
he must live with the one with whom he has come together
(Matt. V. 31-82 ; xix. 8) ; in the second place, that for man in
general, both married and unmarried man, it is sinful to look
upon woman as an object of enjoyment (Matt. v. 28-29), and, in
the third place, that for an unmarried man it is better not to
marry at all, that is to be absolutely chaste (Matt. xix. 10-12).'!
He admits, however, that this absolute chastity is not a precept,
but an ideal, to which the race is meant to approximate. To
the objection that this ideal would annihilate the race he
replies coolly. Why not? Both Church and science foretell an
end of the world ; why should it not come through the increase
of virtue ?

(c) Thou Shalt not swear (Mt 533-3") —This means much more
than mere simplicity and truth of speech : ' Yea, yea ; nay,
nay.' Christ forbids us to bind ourselves by an oath to any
human power or authority. To do so is to abjure the freedom
of conscience, which is the divine within us, and to make our-
selves the slaves of a human will which may be the enemy of the
will of God. It is the deliberate renunciation of Christianity.
In short, this command of Christ strikes at the root of aU
mihtary power, since all armies rest on an oath of allegiance to
some human authority ; and this plain command the Church
explains away, knowing that, if it were obeyed, the entire
structure of society, and its own institution as part of it, would
fall to the ground.

(d) Resist not evil (Mt 538-42 72-5 etc.).— This doctrine of non-
resistance dominates all the rest of Tolstdy's teaching. It was
the first command of Christ which he understood, and it opened
the meaning of all the others. Phj-sical force, being an outrage
on the freedom of conscience, which is the Kingdom of God
within the soul, must never be applied to make any man do
what he does not wish to do. Compulsdry military service, the
whole system of civil and criminal law and government, par-
liaments, courts, judges, police, jails, taxation, even the
payment of debts — all stand condemned as unchristian.
Property must be abolished, since it rests on force ; it is not
merely theft, but murder, because human life is the price pai<i
for it. He prophesied the bankruptcy of the present system of
violence ; and, were he alive, it is conceivable thnt he would
point to the Great War and the horrors of Bolshevism as the
fiillilment of his prophecy. Non-resistance is the only way to
destroy violence. ' As fire does not put out fire, so evil does
not put out evil.' Given a non-resisting community, 'no
enemies— neither Germans, nor Turks, nor savages— would kill
or torture such people.' His fanatical and uncompromising
Russian mind admitted no limits to this doctrine. If he saw
a madman attack a child or a horde of savages fall on his
own wife and children, this command of Christ forbade him

1 Works, xviii. 430,

37S

TOLSTOY

absolutely to protect them bj' force. The worst that can
happen by not resisting is death, whereas to resist is to ' act
contrary to the law of Christ, which is worse than death.' We
need not hesitate to say that this carries the doctrine to the
point of insanity. The natural instinct of a normal conscience
is to protect tiie weak and the defenceless from a drunkard or
a madman.

(e) Wage no war (Mt 5<a-45. 48, Lk 632f.).— The five command-
ments of Christ form five widening circles : (1) the individual
heart — harbour no anger ; (2) man and woman, the family —
avoid carnal lust ; (3) private worldly relations with others —
bind the conscience by no oath or promise ; (4) relations to the
State — resist no evil by force ; (5) the human race — regard no
nation as j'our enemy : ' If they make war on you, submit, do
good, and wage no war.' It is absurd to say that Christ, who
forbade anger to the individual, now allows anger, and murder
which is the fruit of anger, to communities and nations.

From the Sevastopol sketches, on through War and Peace,
The Kingdom ot God is within you, and innumerable pamphlets,
etc., Tolst<5y never ceased to strip war of its ' glory ' and to hold
up its naked falsity, cruelty, and bestiality. Under all its fine
names its true purpose is murder. Three causes are named :
'(1) the unequal distribution of property, that is, the robbing of
one class of people by another, (2) the existence of a military
class, that is, of people educated and destined for murder, and
(3) the false, for the most part consciously deceptive, religious
teaching, in which the young generations are forcibly educated.' i
Patriotism is the chief war-criminal — a sentiment fostered by
pageants which hypnotize the people into 'loyalty,' by alliances
with or against other nations, based on an unreal love and a
created hate. There is no such thing as a good patriotism, the
aim of all patriotism being that ot ' Deutschland iiber Alles,'
to exalt our own nation over others, by violence if need be.
It is this sentiment that puts into the hands of rulers a dia-
bolic weapon, making possible military conscription and all the
cruelties, atrocities, and bestialization of invasions and battle-
fields. 'The one remedy is the substitution for love of country
of love for man as man, and the refusal of individuals to sub-
mit to militar3' service, be the consequences what they may.
Tolstoy had a profound distrust of peace congresses and courts
of arbitration, because ' the decision of the court of arbitration
against the military violence of the states will be executed by
means of military violence.' 2

(6) Following out his doctrine of human freedom,
Tolstdy attacked all current forms of education as
the forcible ruin of life and ethics. The schools on
his estate were based on absolute freedom. The
children came when they pleased, sat where they
liked, were at liberty to speak, had no home
lessons to torture them. Yet the order and atten-
tion were perfect. The teaching included walks in
the fields, explanations of natural sights and
sounds, history, folk-tales, stories and parables
from the Bible, by far the finest instrument of
education. Tolst6y wrote a series of tales, which
had a great success in Russian schools ; but he
held that it is the peasant children who can teach
us to write, not we them : they are nearer the
original harmony of beauty, truth, and goodness
than men, whose education has been a system of
destroying that harmony. His views are summed
up thus :

' I am convinced that the school ought not to interfere in that
part of the education which belongs to the family ; that the
school has no right and ought not to reward and punish ; that
the best police and administration of a school consist in giving
full liberty to the pupils to study and settle their disputes as
they know best.' 3

He opposed ' popular education ' because it was not
popular, but compulsory, based on violence, and
hated by both parents and children, who forgot its
artificial results as quickly as they could.

' Schools which are established from above and by force are
not a shepherd for the flock, but a flock for the shepherd.' ^

From infant school to university the sj'stem was
arbitrary, mechanical, and out of relation to life
and its needs. To compel all child-natures to pass
through a standardized system, without freedom of
choice, is torture. In fine, education has become
an elaborate system of demoralizing child-nature,
which is good, in the interests of the world and its
evils. At an early age it severs the natural bond
of parent and child, and of the great mother,
Nature herself, and it does so in a way which

1 Who is to Blame f, Letter on the Transvaal War (^Works
xxiii. 458).

2 Concerning the Congress of Peace {Works, xxiii. 440).

3 The School at Ydsnaya Polydna {Works, iv. 237).

4 On Popular Education {Works, iv. 15).

fosters lying, hypocrisy, and vice, and destroys
individuality.

(7) In What is Art? Tolstoy sweeps aside with
contempt all theories of mere aesthetics and 'art
for art's sake,' and reduces the criteria of art to
the following: (1) art must spring from a genuine
feeling in the artist ; (2) this feeling must have the
power of infecting others with the same emotion ;
(3) it must have the power of uniting men by this
infection of a common hope, joy, love, or whatever
it be : if it separates men, it is not art. The more
widely it unifies men, the more worthy is it of the
name. ' Upper class art,' dependent on an arti-
ficial training, springs from no living infectious
emotion in the artist, who has to write, paint, etc.,
to please his rich patrons, who lead idle, artificial,
and parasitic lives. Such art grows ever narrower
in its appeal, and its patrons ever prouder of its
exclusiveness, whereas ' great works of art are
only great because they are accessible and compre-
hensible to every one,' like the story of Joseph and
the parables of Christ. Whole generations of
artists, singers, poets, players, artisans, workmen,
are practically serfs for the production of false
exclusive art — an art which is simply the expres-
sion of the pride, sensuality, and weariness of life
of the men and women who pay them.

All good art, being universal, depends on uni-
versal emotions which unify men by infection.
What these are is revealed by ' the religious per-
ception ' that all human good is contained in ' the
fraternal life of all men, our love-union among
ourselves.'

Hence ' the Christian art of our time can be and is of two
kinds : (1) art transmitting feelings flowing from a religious
perception of man's position in the world in relation to God
and to his neighbour — religious art in the limited meaning of
the term ; and (2) art transmitting the simplest feelings of
common life, but such, always, as are accessible to all men in
the whole world — the art of common life — the art of a people —
universal art. Only these two kinds of art can be considered
good art in our time.'i

The name of art is denied to emotions which
divide men, as patriotism, or religious sectarian-
ism, or the honour given for wealth, education,
rank, or profession. The theory has met with
much ridicule ; but, making allowance for some
exaggeration in Tolst6y's dislike of the conventional
forms in which every art seeks expression, we may
agree with Kropotkin that What is Art? is a
much-needed protest against the over-artificiality
into which modern art has drifted.

(8) Tolst6y's doctrine of the future life may be
described as a kind of pantheistic immortality.
His novels overflow with studies of deatli and the
process of dying. The higher ranks meet death
with reluctance and complaining, the poor with
cheerfulness and faith. Of Natalya, the old
stewardess in the home of his childhood, he says :
' She executed the best and highe.-<t act of this
life, — she died without regrets or fear.'^ During
the period of his ' conversion ' thoughts of suicide
became so strong that he had to hide a rope that
hung in his dressing-room and could not trust
himself to go out hunting with a gun. There was
no meaning in life, no end to which it moved.
He was saved from suicide by the discovery that
the end was God, God in whom he lived, and moved,
and was. The fear of death is a ' superstition '
due to the fact that men live in a mere fragment
of their own nature and of the world, and this the
lower fragment of tlieir carnal and personal being,
instead of their rational consciousness in its rela-
tion to the sum of things, which is God. Life is
given to be a ministry of life to the world, and

1 What is Arts, ch. xvi., tr. Aylmer Maude, London, 1905
(of this tr. Tolstoy in a Preface says : ' I request all who are
interested in my views on art only to judge of them by the work
in its present shape.' The tr. is from the original MS, and is
free from the mutilations of the Russian censor).

^Childhood, ch. xxviii. {Works, i. 136).

P

TOLTECS

373

it lasts just so long as this ministry is being ful-
filled. To cast it away in suicide when it becomes
unpleasant to us is sinful, partly because just then
is probably the time when this ministration truly
begins. Moreover, it is in this life of universal
ministry that man finds the only true immortality.
Personal immortality is impossible, because true
life is the deliberate sacrifice of all personal ends.
Resurrection and reincarnation would be nothing
better than a return to the carnal and personal
relations which are spiritual death. Life is an
ever onward movement of reason and love, and
the only real death is to arrest the movement
at any given point. Live onward beyond the old
self, and life becomes a living part of the grow-
ing good of the world. This is the life eternal
and the only true immortality for man.

3. The last phase. — The life of the great Russian
ended in a mysterious tragedy of conscience. For
many years his life consisted of a struggle to bring
his practice into harmony with his principles by
escaping from his class, his Avealth, his family.
In My Religion, written in his fifty-sixth year, he
lays down five conditions of human happiness :
(1) a life that does not break the link with Nature
— the open sky, sunlight, fresh air, soil, plants,
animals ; (2) work, physical labour, giving appetite
and sleep ; (3) family life ; (4) a free and living
intercourse with all the various classes of man-
kind ; (5) health, and a natural and painless death.
These conditions are open most widely to the
peasant, and grow narrower the higher you rise
in the privileged classes, the Tsar, e.g., holding
intercourse with none but a few of his jailers.
Hence Tolst6y's later years were one long effort
to transform himself into a peasant ; and the
asceticism which formed part of his strangely
complex nature finally struck out the third con-
dition, the family life. He transferred to his
wife the responsibility of managing his estates,
and, although he continued to live in the family
mansion, it was, as far as possible, as a poor man
working with his hands. It was a compromise
which gave no peace of conscience. More than
once he left his home intending never to return,
but family affection always drew him back. The
family friction which resulted is portrayed in the
form of fiction in Walk in the Light, while ye
have Light (1888). One's sympathies are not
entirely on the husband's side ; the countess had
much cause for complaining that the burden of
the children, the estates, and the publication of his
books was transferred to her shoulders. In spite of
a true attection between them, they drifted apart.

Tolstdy's actual departure from bis home came about
through the question of the copyright of his works. From
1882-83 the countess, to counterbalance her husband's neglect
of the estates, became the publisher of his writinjjs ; and in
1894 she deposited in a public museum for safety large
quantities of his manuscripts, producing evidence afterwards
that they were given her by Tolst6y. This was done, evidently,
to protect herself from a deliberate attempt by one of his
disciples, V. G. Tchertkdf, to deprive her of them and of all
control of their publication. In 1S91 Tolstby, having convinced
himself that to make money by his moral and religious writings
was sinful, made public announcement that any one was free
to publish his works written from 1881 to the time of his
death. About the same time he gave Tchertkbf the right of
first publication, in Russian and in English, of his future
writings. Although this was almost equivalent to copyright,
Tchertkbf was not satisfied with it, and set about a long series
of intrigues to induce Tulstdy to make a will in his own favour,
and without the knowledge of the countess, on the ground
that only through him would his works be published in accord-
ance with his publicly expressed wishes. An unhappy aspect
of the affair is that his youngest daughter, Alexandra, was in
the intrigue against her mother. After many tentative wills
had been drawn up and signed, a final one was made on 22nd
July 1910, bequeathing all his productions and the manuscripts
themselves into the full possession of liis daught^jr Alexandra.
An • explanatory note ' stated his wish that ' all papers extant
at the time of his deatli shall be handed to V. G. Tchertk6f,
that he nuiy examine such documents and publish what he
may consider suitable.' This will was signed on the stamp of
a tree near Tchertkdf's house, after a long series of unscrupulous

intrigues, and when the old man of eighty-two was fast breaking
up in both body and mind. At 5 o'clock on the morning of
28th Oct. 1910 lie left his home for ever, accompanied by his
daughter Alexandra and his disciple Dr. Makovitsky. His son
Ilya, in his Reminiscences^ of his father, traces his flight to the
intolerable moral torture of the dilemma of confessing all to his
wfe or of repudiating the will. He started with no object but
to hide himself somewhere, anywhere. He went first to see hi%
sister Mary, a nun of the Shamdrdino convent, and expressed
to her his intention of taking a peasant's cottage and living near
her ; but his daughter, fearing that her mother should discover
his whereabouts, carried him off secretly, with the intention of
securing a passport and leaving Russia. "The old man, however,
was nearing his end. At Ast.ipovo he had to be removed to the
house of the stationmaster, where he lingered on till the morning
of Sunday, 7th Nov. 1910 (20th, N.S.). Tchertk6f, professing
to guard him from intrusion, refused to allow the countess —
who had learned where he was only through a message from a
newspaper office — to see her dying husband until he was in the
article of death and past the power of recognizing her.

Thus passed away in darkness the greatest of
modern Russians. Nevertheless, he had attained
moral and spiritual unity as nearly as was possible
to a nature so vast and turbulent. The common
idea that his life is broken into two distinct parts
is a mistake. His ' conversion ' is simply the
emerging into clear consciousness of those ideals
of truth and right towards which we see him
striving even in the midst of his most di-ssolute
life. His fixed idea was God, and, in spite of all
appearances, the effort to make God all and in all
gave to his life a great and solemn unity. He
was like a wild tumultuous river with the fall
of the mountains behind it, thwarted by rocks,
gorges, precipices, but never ceasing to turn and
twist and foam around and over every obstacle in
its thirst for the sea.

Literature. — The Complete Works of Count Tolst6y, tr. and
ed. Leo Wiener, with an Analysis of his Life and Works, 24
vols., London and Boston, U.S.A., 1904-05 (vol. xxiv. contains
an extensive bibliography in English, German, and French up
to date of publication) ; Aylmer Maude, Life of Tolstoy, vol.
i., The First Fifty Years, London, 1908, vol. ii., 2'he Later
Years, do. 1910, abridged ed., Leo Tolstoy, do. 1918, Tolstoy
and his Problems, London and New York, 1901 ; C. E. Turner,
Count Tolstoi as Nooelist and Thinker, London, 1888 ; C. A.
Behrs, Recollections of Count Leo Tolstoy, Eng. tr., do. 1893 ;
Paul Birukofif, Leo Tolstoy : His Life and Work (autobio-
graphical memoirs, letters, and biographical material, compiled
by Paul Birukoff and revised by Leo Tolstoy), Eng. tr., do.
1906 ; P. A. Sergyeenko, How Count Tolstoy lives and works,
Eng. tr., do. 1899 ; Reminiscences of Tolstoy, by his son. Count
Ilya Tolstoy, Eng. tr., do. 1914 ; E. M. de' Vogiie, Le Roman
russe, Paris, 1886, Eng. tr., do. 1913, Le Tolstoisme et I'anarchie,
do. 1900 ; G. H. Perris, Leo Tolstoy, the Grand Mujik, A Study
in Personal Evolution, London, 1898; C. T. H. Wright, in
EBr'^'^, s.v. ; M. Arnold, Essays in Criticism, 2nd ser., London
and New York, 1888 ; G. Brandes, Impressions of Rti-ssia, Eng.
tr., London, 1889; P. Kropotkin, Russian Literature : Ideals
and Realities, do. 1905; W. E. Henley, Vieics and Reviews,
do. 1890 ; F. Grierson, Modern Mysticism, London, New
York, Toronto, 1914 ; C. Sarolea, Europe's Debt to Russia,
London, 1916; Review of Reviews Annual., 1906: Tales and
Talks of Tolstoy, ed. W. T. Stead. J. S. CARROLL.

TOLTECS.— I. Origins.— The beginnings of
the Toltec peoples are enveloped in the fogs of
mythology. Their origin is rather mysteriously-
attributed to the acts of a certain hero-god, Quetzal-
coatl ('a twin '), compounded of two words quetzalli,
a plume of green feathers, and coatl, a serpent, in
other words, a plumed-serpent (-god). Some wild
speculations and pious conjectures have identified
him with St. Thomas, and others with the Messiah.
Another mysterious hero-god (personage) who has
been closely linked with Quetzalcoatl was Votan,
the reputed founder of the civilization of the Maj-as,
for a time a contemporary and rival people with
the Toltecs.

In the pre-Toltec period of history in Mexico and
Central America the Nahua and the Maya were
the two leading civilizations. Quetzalcoatl, the
plumed-serpent divinity, was the creator of man,'
the founder of the new order of things among the
Nahua peoples. Like the Maya peoples of Yucatan
and Central America, the Nahuas did not confine

1 Reminiscences of Tohtoy, Eng. tr., London, 1914.
- Bancroft, X R iii. 272, 275.

374

TOLTECS

tlieir colouicti or activities to any one area of
territory, though their main settlement was on the
plateau of Mexico. In the 6tli and 7th centuries
the Toltec Chichimec tribes, rej^resenting the
Nahua power, migrated from Central America and
settled down on the Mexican plateau, in proximity
to the wonderful lakes of that region.^ Of thq
Nahua tribes who made their homes in this region
the Tol tecs were one of the prominent sections, the
beginnings of whose separate and independent
existence cannot be sharply depicted.

2. History. — At the opening of historic times
the Toltecs were in possession of Anahuac (a section
of the plateau of Mexico) and outlj'ing territory.
While the civilization was old, the name Toltec
was new, possibly derived from Tollan or Tulan,
the original capital of the empire. The boundary
lines of the Toltec sovereignty cannot be fixed,
though it probably did not exceed that of the
Aztec domain of later times. It is thought to have
extended so far west as to have covered Michoacan,
which was never conquered by the Aztecs, and
stretched eastward to tlie Gulf of Mexico, includ-
ing also the Totonac territory of Vera Cruz. The
many tribes and peoples of which the Toltec empire
was composed cannot be identified by name with
any of the later nations found in Andhuac. Out-
side the so-called Toltec empire, the peoples, par-
ticularly in the north, were regarded as barbarians
and were popularly known as Chichimecs.

From the 7th to the 12th cent, the Toltec empire
was in the main ruled by a confederacy which
resembled the alliance of a later time between
Mexico, Tezcuco, and Tlacopan with capitals at
Culhuacan, Otompan, and Tollan respectively.
Each capital in its turn became the dominant force
in the confederacy. Tollan on the river Quetzalatl
is reputed to have reached the highest point in
culture, splendour, and fame. It is now repre-
sented by the little village of Tula, about 30 miles
north-west of the city of Mexico. Culhuacan was
the only one of the three capitals of the confederacy
to survive by name the bloody revolution by which
the empire was finally overthrown, and to maintain
anything of her earlier greatness. The confusion
and often contradiction between the numerous
reports and records and manuscripts of the native
and Spanish writers lays a heavy burden upon a
historian ; but Bancroft and Nadaillac are appar-
ently faithful to the best evidence available in those
writers. Let us make a survey of the history and
constitution of the Toltec em2)ire, so called, during
its five centuries of domination in the central
plateau of Mexico, based on the representations of
Bancroft and Nadaillac."

The pre-eminent personag^e in the beginnincrs of this new
agglomeration of tribes and peoples was Huenian the prophet.
It was through his line that a powerful priesthood ruled the
destinies of the Toltec empire from its inception to its downfall.
The government was in reality a theocratic republic, in which
each leader directed his own tribe both in war and in peace,
but all were more or less subservient to their spiritual leader in
all matters of national import. Seven jears after the arrival of
these peoples in Tollan the heads of families and chiefs met in
assembly and decided to change their form of government, and
establish a monarchj', in order to consolidate their strength
against any possible future challenge to their rights as a people.
On the advice of Hueman, the chiefs sent an embassy to the
reigning king of the Chichimecs to ask for a son or other relative
to be crowned king over the Toltecs, accompanied by a specific
requirement of agreement on the part of the Chichimec king
that the Toltecs should ever be a free and independent people,
owing no allegiance whatever to the Chichimecs, although the
two powers would enter into an alliance for mutual defence and
aid. The Chichimec king was only too ready to seize such an
opportunity, and sent back with the embassy his second son
with the required guarantees, to be crowned first king of tlie
Toltecs at Tollan under the royal name of Chalchiuh Tl.atonac,
'shining precious stone.' This young king, by his splendid
bearing, fine character, intelligence, and amiability, immediately
won the admiration and affection of the people. His coronation

1 NR V. ch. iii.

2 Pre-historic America, Eng. tr., new ed., London, 1895.

and accession to the Lhroiie took place about the lirst quarter
of the Sth cent., between 710 and 720.1 Immediately after his
accession the young king and his counsellors laid down a law
that the time limit of a king should be 52 years, at the end
of which he should abdicate in favour of his oldest son, to
whom he miglit, however, act as adviser. If the king should
die before the time limit had been reached, the unexpired term
should be filled by magistrates elected by the jieople. The next
task of the king was to find a wife to provide an heir to the
throne, so that the dynasty might be perpetuated. The amiable
young king left this choice entirely to his sul)jeets — at least so
the records say — to their joyful satisfaction. Thiir choice fell
upon tiie daughter of Acapichtzin, who himself liad been a can-
didate for the throne when it was proposed to found a kingdom.
Two Nahua documents ^ive a rival story of the beginnings of the
monarchy, but the main features are not so widely different.^

Chalchiuh Tlatonac, the first Toltec king, died at the end of
52 years and was buried in the chief temple, aliout a.d. 771.
His son and successor was Ixtlilcuechahuac. He had a peaceful
and prosperous reign. The signal event of his rule, and near
its conclusion, was a meeting of all the wise men under the
direction of the old prophet Hueman. This assembly collected
all the Toltec ancient and modern documents, and after a pro-
longed conference and careful investigation, compiled the
Teoamoxtli, 'book of God.' On its pages they inscribed the
Kahua annals from the creation down ; also their religious rites,
their governmental system, laws, and social customs ; their
methods of agriculture ; their arts and sciences, and especially
astrology ; their methods of computing time and interpreting
their writings. To these wealthy pages was added a chapter
on the forecast of the future events of the kingdom, including
the disaster through which it was crushed and destroyed.

The third king, Huetzin, succeeded to the throne about 823.
The fourth king, Totepeuh, sometimes given as the second king
of Culhuacan, came to his father's throne at the end of 52 years ;
and handed it down at the same time limit to his son Naoaxoc,
the fifth king at Tollan, who was succeeded by Nauhyotl, or
Mitl. This sixth reign stretched over 59 years. During all
these six reigns there was great advance made in building new
cities, beautifying old cities, erecting new temples, one of
especial magnificence at Quauhnahuac and another at Tollan
rivalling even the Temple of the Sun at Teotihuacan, a city
which surpassed Tollan in extent and beauty. These more
than 300 years saw the Toltec emj^ire well and prosperously
established over a large territory and many peoples.

Looking back at some of the details of those
reigns, we gather a few significant facts. The
annals of Culhuacan mention Totepeuh (the fourth
Toltec king) as the second king of that city. He
waged several successful wars, notably in the pro-
vince of Huitznahuac, where he found, conquered,
and married a princess Chimalman, who bore him
an heir named Ceacatl Quetzalcoatl. This notable
scion of the royal family succeeded in establishing
certain laws of succession which prevailed down to
the end of the empire ; but the most far-reaching
act was the conclusion of an alliance between the
crowns of Culhuacan, Otompan, and Tollan. Each
king was to be independent in his own domain;
but in affairs of general interest the three rulers
were to constitute a council, in which the king of
Culhuacan was to rank first, with a title almost
equivalent to emperor. Otompan took the second
rank and Tollan the third. The date of the
formation of this confederacy or empire was about
A.D. 856.

After Quetzalcoatl had ruled in Culhuacan about
ten years, he met obstinate opposition to his
authority from his enemies. He was a radical
reformer whose ideas ran counter to those of the
reigning pontiffs. He modified much of the religi-
ous ritual and abolished human sacrifices. These
sacrifices had had a first place from pre-Toltec
times at Teotihuacan, and more or less general
acceptance in Culhuacan and Tollan. He absolutely
prohibited them in the temples of Tollan, and so
stirred up the enmity of the powerful priesthood of
Otompan and Culhuacan. The nobility of Tollan
also, who resented the curbing of their religious
liberties, became jealous of their brothers of equal
rank among other peoples of the empire. Never-
theless, Tollan became the metropolis of the con-
federacy. In the magnificence of her palaces and
<(3iii|ilos, in the skill and fame of her artists, if not
in her population, Tollan surpassed all her rivals
on the plateau. This was too much for the otiier
centres, and active aggressive opposition, political,
1 NR V. 244 ff. 2 lb. V. 248-250.

TOLTECS

375

luayical, and religious, vai.sed its weapons of warn-
ing, (^uetzalcoatl's aversion to the shedding of
blood is said to have caused the abandonment of
his throne, against the ardent wishes of his more
warlike friends, and his crossing over to the eastern
part of the plateau of Huitzilapan in 895. His
successor in Tollan, Nacaxoc, known under several
other names, was the fifth king of the Toltecs.

The reign of Nauhyotl, or Mitl, the sixth king
of Tollan, was marked with great prosperity and
peace. His entire energy and strength were
devoted to the promotion of the glory of his city,
where he re-afhrmed and carried out the reforms
of his predecessor. Cholula, a rival sacred city,
really stirred him to vigorous action, in building-
greater temples and more attractive shrines to
prevent pilgrimages from Tollan to the rival city.
He also built superb temples in other provinces to
the south outside the boundaries of Andhuac.

Nauhyotl, or Mitl, at his death, was succeeded by his queen,
Xiuhtlaltzin, who rei{?ned four years. She showed wonderful
wisdom and skill in her direction of public affairs, and her death
was greatly lamented by her subjects. Her son and successor
was MatloocoatI, wliose reign covered 949 to 973 ; he was
succeeded by Tlilcoatziu, who ruled from 973 to 994, and who
was followed by Tecpancaltzin. The records of this period are
almost a blank, except that in Culhnacan Quetzallacxoyatl was
succeeded in 953 by Chalchiuh Tlatonac (ii.) and the latter in
985 by Totepeuh, the second king of that name.

We now approach the period Avhen the Toltec
empire was descending the slopes of ruin. The
annals of this period are scarlet with the sanguin-
ary struggles between the powerful tribes and
bands from the north and north-west and the civil
and religious authoiities of the empire. Tho
extensive records of the period of the downfall of
the Toltec empire are confusion worse confounded.
They abound with tales of marvel and mystery,
as if intending to throw dust into the eyes of the
reader.

Spanish writers still spoak of Tollan as the empire, but Nahua
documents find in that city the ' occurrences which caused the
destruction of the Toltec power.' Whether this is the truth or
not, it seems that a battle was fought between the king of
Culhuacan and the king of Tollan, and, while this contest was
going on outside the city, a party of invaders was admitted into
Tollan. Civil strife followed in the streets between three rival
sects, until the city itself was nearly in ruins. The three allied
powers fought each other, and later there came a period of
famine and pestilence in the land. These events occurred
between 1040 and 1047.

Defence was so weakened, the reins of government so loosened,
that dependencies took advantage of their opportunity to
renounce Toltec authority and declare their independence.

The other Toltec cities of power, Culhuacan, Otompan, and
Tezcuco, seem to have gone down before Tollan. Invaders
from the north and north-west, from the powerful Chichiniec
tribes and Nahua peoples, fell upon the weakened Toltecs with-
out mercy and took possession of all their cities and territory.
The cities of the confederacy were plundered and burned excejit
Culhuacan, whose king seems to have made a 'delivering'
alliance, about a.d. 1060.

The Toltec power was overthrown. The last
years of its struggle for existence are inextricably
mixed. Plots, intrigues, battles, invasions, assas-
sinations, blot the escutcheon of the once noble
kings of the Toltec empire. Many of the nobility
of the Toltecs are said to have migrated before the
storm burst. They went to foreign provinces w^ith
their families, their treasures, and their other
movable wealth. But the Toltec peoples of the
humbler classes remained in Anuhuac. Some of
them are said to have Tuaintaincd a national exist-
ence for a time in Culhuacan, and possibly in
Cholula. But they finally hcc'ime the snl)jerts of
the invaders, whose language and customs were
probably identical with their own. Even the san-
guinary records do not warrant us in believing
that the Toltecs as report(!d were reduced to
merely a few thousands in number. The Toltec
collapse was the fall of an empire, not flic annihila-
tion of a nation. The succeeding period was a
struggle to secure the authority which fell from
the hai;ds of the Toltec rulers.

3. Physical features and culture.— The Toltecs, we are told, 1
were tall, well built, with clear .^•ellow complexions ; their eyes
were black, their teeth white, Uieir hair black and glossy, their
lips thick, their noses afjuiline, and their foreheads recedinof.
They had thin beards, and little hair on their bodies. Their
mouths made an agreealjle impression, but their facial ex-
pression was severe. They were brave, cruel, and vengeful,
and their religious rites were sanguinary.

They were intelligent, eager to learn, and are said to have
been the first [in Mexico] to construct roads and aqueducts ;
they used the ordinary metals except iron, cut precious stones,
built houses of stone laid up in lime mortars ; knew how to
spin, weave, and dye cloth ; and built mounds similar to those
found so plentifully in the Mississippi valley."' Their cities were
marvels of construction, beauty, and durability. Their temples
were ornate with sculptured bas-reliefs and hieroglyphics, cut
in porphyry, basalt, and obsidian.

Their commerce was important and pioneering. Their pro-
ducts were exhibited yearly at fairs, spread before the public in
the cities of Tollan and Cholula. Though they seemed not to
have used iron, they did work in gold, silver, copper, tin, and
lead. They were skilled in making fine jewellery, in which
precious stones, such as emeralds, turquoises, and amethysts,
were mounted. Cholula was famous for its pottery in the form
of vases, utensils for the house, idols for the temples, and
ornaments for the people.

The weapons used by the Tolteas were slings, bows and
arrows, spears, and darts pointed with silex, obsidian, porphyry,
copper, or bone. The warriors wore padded cotton armour,
practically impenetrable to arrows or javelins, and so heavy
that a warrior once fallen could not always get up again. Their
round shields of light flexible- bamboo were decorated with
feathers and covered with cloth or the skins of animals which
they had killed in hunting. The shields of the chiefs were
decorated with plaques of gold as a mark of their rank.

4. Human sacrifice. — Prisoners of war were
often sacrificed to their gods. Funeral ceremonies
were also accompanied by the burning of women
upon the funeral pile of their husbands ; this the
women joyfully accepted because it opened to
them the door into the hrst celestial sphere, where
they could follow their husbands and thus avoid
jMictlan, a gloomy and .solitary abode.

5. Religion. — The religious system of the Toltecs
is a chaos of ceremonies and ritual, so entangled
with the pre-Toltec era and modified in the sub-
sequent Chichiniec- Aztec period that little definite
and specific can be affirmed beyond those items
already mentioned above in § 2. Even the many
extracts from native and Spanish writers given by
Bancroft and Nadaillac convey merely a hazy idea
of the so-called religious systems of the Nahua
nations of which the Toltecs were a part. Their
multitudinous polytheism only adds to the con-
fusion and attests that religion, mysticism, and
mythology were such a conglomerate of everyday
life that even the alleged documents of native
writers could not disentangle them.

6. Calendar and hieroglyphic language.— The
so-called Mexican calendar, found on a block of
porphyry uncovered in the old city of Mexico in
1790, probably supplies us with the Aztec astro-
nomical cycle. The Mexicans kept a solar year,
and a lunar year only for religious holidays ; the
latter was divided into periods of thirteen days,
corresponding to the phases of the moon.^ The
Toltecs (and Mayas) had a month of twenty days,
apparently based on the normal number of a man's
fingers and toes.^ The key to the ancient hiero-
glyphic language of the peoples of Mexico and
Central America, as found on their great monu-
ments at Palenque and Copan and other remark-
able ruins, is practically lost.^ A fcAV signs are
known, but, until a sure key is established, we
shall have to rely mainly on tlie native sources, as
reported to and by Sitaiiish writers, for any in-
formation regarding the hieroglyphic era of the
pre-Aztec, and even of the Aztec, peoples.

Even the most comprehensive works on the
Toltecs are inadequate Miid insufh(Ment in metliod
to dear up the {)roblems that native anil Spanish
autliors pour out on the table of tlu^ modern
student of ancient Mexico.

1 Nadaillac, p. 27.5 f . -' NR i. 24. ■•

* See art. Calk.ndar (Mexican and Mayan).
OiV/iii. 119.

NR i. 24. •" Nadaillac, p. 3lili.

376

TONGANS

Liter AT":; R.—(l) Maj/a material: F. S. Clavigero, The
Uist. of Mexico, Eii|j. tr., London, 17S7 ; E. K. Kingsborough,
Antiquities of Mexico, do. 1830-48; C. E. Brasseur de
Bourbourg, Manuscrit Troano, Paris, 1869-70; Codex Cor-
tesianus, Madrid, 1892 ; J. J. Hoil, Book of Chilam of Chu-
inayel, Philadelphia, 1913; E. H. Thompson, 'The Home of
a Forgotten Race : the Mysterious Chicheu Itza in Yucatan
Mexico,' National Geographic Magazine, xxv. [1914] 585-648,
'Aztec Calendar,' ih. p. 689; J. Zimmerman, '"Hewers of
Stone": Ruins of Mitla, Mexico,' ib. xxi. [1910] 1002-1019;
A. C. Galloway, 'An Interesting Visit to the Ancient
Pyramids of San Juan Teotihuacan," ib. pp. 1041-1049 ; W. F.
Sands, 'Mysterious Temples of the Jungle,' ib. xxiv. [1913]
325-338 ; S. G. Morley, ' Excavations at Quirigua, Guatemala,'
ib. pp. 339-361 ; Cyrus Thomas, ' Aids to the Study of the
Maya Codicea,'6 HBEW, 18SS, pp. 253-271.

(2) Codices, Aztec and earlier: E. T. Hamy, Codex Telleri-
ano-Remensis, Paris, 1899 ; E. Seler, Codex Fejirvdry-Mayer,
Berlin and London, 1901-02, Codex Vaticanus, no. 3773, do.
1902-03, Codex Borgia, eine altmexikanische Bilderschrift,
Berlin, 1904-09.

(3) Studies of early Mexico: H. H. Bancroft, Works, San
Francisco, 1882-90, vols, i.-v.. Native Races; J. F. A. du P.
Nadaillac, Pre-historic America, London and New York, 1SS5.

(4) Popular reading: L. Biart, The Aztecs: their Hist.,
Maimers and Customs, tr. from French, Chicago, 1886 ; T. S.
Denison, The Primitive Aryans of America, do. 1909.

I. M. Price.
TOMB.— See Death and Disposal of the
Dead.

TONGANS.— I. Introduction.— Tonga— or at
least the Tonga of this article — is the name of a
group of islands in the Western Pacific, lying to
the north of New Zealand, the east of New Cale-
donia, and the south of Fiji and Samoa. It is
sometimes known as the Friendly Isles, the
name given it by Cafjtain Cook. The Tongans
who inhabit this group are a tiny nation of the
Polynesian race. Although few in number — about
20,000 only — their nationality is clearly marked,
and they can easily be distingiiished from their
neighbours the Fiiians and Samoans. Typical
Tongans are tall, large-limbed, of a light coffee
colour, with upright forehead and straight hair ;
but a little acquaintance with them shows that
there has been an admixture with a race that
was short and had receding foreheads. This agrees
with their traditions, which state that, when the
Tongans came to the group, some five or six
centuries ago, it was already occupied by an ab-
original race. Traces of these have been found in
one of the volcanic islands, but the vestiges have
not been scientifically examined. Still it is clear
that the Tongans, and Polynesians generally, have
emigrated from a distance ; and the most probable
theory is that of Fornander, that they came from
the head of the Persian Gulf.

Old navigators used to speak of the Tongans as
' the most splendid savages in existence,' and they
Avere certainly the terror of the neighbouring
groups, all of which are said to have been once
conquered by them. They acknowledge them-
selves to be mentally inferior to the European ;
but it cannot be said that they come very far be-
hind ; and occasionally students at Tubou College
have achieved results that could be equalled only
by the best pupils in English schools. A fair
measure of the size of their brains may surely be
found in their language, which contains, it is
estimated, at least 10,000 words in use. The verbs
have about 20 voices, and the pronouns are de-
veloped to such an amazing extent that there are
more than 100 ways of saying 'our,' against two
in English, 'our' and 'our own.' As the adjec-
tives, too, have many degrees of comparison, and
there are more than two articles, shades of mean-
ing can be produced to an almost infinite extent.
That the Bible translates well into a language like
this is not surprising ; but geometrical treatises,
and such works as Milton's Paradise Lost, can also
be well rendered.

Physically, then, and mentally, the Tongans
stand high ; and it comes as a surprise that their

spiritual developnmnt, f.s r^'pri-sciiti'd by their old
religion, was low. Their pantheon was a medley,
and their theology unredeemed by any gleams of
philosophy as in the religion of India.

2. The gods of Tonga may be divided into three
classes.

(1) In common with other parts of Polynesia,
their great gods comprise the two groups of the
Tangaloa and the Maui (pronounced Mow-y : Mow
as in now). The Tangaloa were the earlier group,
and consisted of Tangaloa 'Eiki ('Lord Tangaloa,'
or ' Tangaloa the Elder '), Tangaloa Tufunga
('Tangaloa the Smith, Carpenter, or Artificer,'
who made axes and built canoes), and Tangaloa
'Atulongolongo ('Tangaloa the Sender-forth-of-
sound'). The Maui group consisted of five per-
sons: Maui Motu'a ('Old Maui,' or 'Maui the
Father'), Maui Loa (' Maui the Tall '), Maui Buku
('Maui the Short'), and Maui 'Atalanga ('Maui
the Vigorous Planter '). This last had a son called
Maui Kijikiji (pronounced Kitsikitsi : ' Maui the
Violent, the Mischievous'), who was, of course,
the grandson of Maui Motu'a.

There were, however, older gods than any of
these. One was called Tama - bo'uli - ala - mafoa
(' Son -of -the -Darkness -that -can -have- a -dawn ').
Some accounts represent him as the original deity.
Another of the primitive gods was 'Eitu-matubu'a
(' 'Eitu-of-the-olden-time '). He is spoken of as the
father of the Tongan people. Another of these
gods was Hikule'o, the Tongan Satan. Hikule'o
means ' the echo,' and there is no doubt that this
was the original signification of the name ; but as
it might mean ' Watching Tail,' the legend gi-ew
up that the tail of this deity was so long that
when he, the god, went about, the tail kept watch
at home. But even now the Tongans, when they
hear an echo, say it is Hikule'o walking in the
woods ; and the other explanation was evidently
an afterthought.

These with others were the original gods of
Tonga. By and by a division of departments took
place. To the Tangaloa was assigned the Sky (or
Heaven) ; to the Maui group the Under World ; and
to Hikule'o the World and Bulotu (Hades). But
in order to keep Hikule'o in his place, as he was a
god that delighted in mischief, a cord was attached
to him, one end of which was held by Tangaloa in
the sky, and the other by a Maui in the under
world, to prevent his leaving Bulotu to damage
the world. This division was effected by an older
god than any, namely, Taufulifonua ('Frequent-
Upsetter-of-the-land'), who also assigned the sea
to Hemoana, and the woods and dry land generally
to Lube (the Dove). Hemoana's name is some-
times pronounced Heimoana, and the present writer
believes that Tongavalevale spoke of him as Hea-
Moana, though he is unable to speak positively on
that point. Hca-Moana would signify 'Hea-of-the-
deep-sea ' ; Hemoana would be simply ' the Deep
Sea ' = Oceanus. His shrine was the banded sea-
snake. These were the Olympian gods of Tonga ;
but, with the exception of Hikule'o, they were
rarely worsliipped, and few if any temples were
erected in their honour. The exception is due
to the fact that Hikule'o was a mischievous god,
and must therefore be propitiated.

(2) The second class of gods were an inferior race,
who had their shrines in animals, birds, fishes,
trees, whales' teeth, clubs, and even stones. Yet
these were the gods worshipped by the people, and
their temples were to be found in eveiy village.
Here are a few of them : Tu'i 'Ahau ('King of the
town of 'Ahau '), whose shrine was a volcanic stone
of peculiar shape ; Tu'i Lalotonga (' King of Raro-
tonga,' or perhaps of the world below Tonga),
Avhose shrine was the dragon-fly ; Taliai Tubou
(the god of the reigning dynasty while yet heathen),

TONGANS

377

whose shiiue was a shark [^iLavuicr renders Tulini
Tubou by ' AVait there, Tubou,' which is certainly
incoiTect ; Taliai Tubou was probably the name of
a king] ; Bulota Katoa (the I'leroina of the Spirit
World, who presided over hurricanes, and agri-
culture), whose shrine, we think, was a tree at
Kolonga [Mariner mentions several the present
writer has never heard of : Tubou Toutai (' Tubou
the Mariner ' ; Tubou is the familiar designation
of the king, and one of his family is usually called
Tubou Toutai) ; Hala'evalu (' Eight Ways ' ; also
the name of a chief) ; 'Alo'alo ('the Fanner'), the
god of wind and weather, rain, harvest, and
vegetation; Tu'i Bulotu ('King of the Spirit
World')]. Other gods resided in the turtle, the
cuttle-fish, the kingfisher, etc. Fonokitangata's
shrine was a war-club. These were, so to speak,
the private gods of the people, and the shrine of
each was tabu to its worshippers. Thus the people
of Te'ekiu were forbidden to eat the octopus, that
being the shrine of their god. In the neignbouring
villages, however, it would be freely eaten. In
Nomuka one particular family were thus debarred
from eating turtle, while the rest of the town were
free to partake of that delicacy.

(3) In addition to these there were a number of
supernatural beings whose position in the Tongan
pantheon is not clear. They were looked upon as
gods, and the term expressive of highest deity was
applied to them ; but they were never worshipped,
nor were temples built to them. On the contrary,
they were looked upon with contempt, and their
follies freely portrayed and laughed at. It is
curious to see these ascriptions of high divinity
and expressions of contempt standing side by side.
Is it that these were the gods of the inferior race
which the Tongans found in the group when they
landed ?

Take an instance or two. Jiji and Faiga'a were two goddesses
in this class, who had set their affections on a Tongan of great
masculine beauty called Bajikole. He, tired of their attentions,
plaited two large baskets of cocoa-nut leaves, put one goddess in
each, and, shouldering them like a Chinaman, conveyed them
into the bush, and hung them on the branch of a tree, and left
them there for two years, until the baskets rotted, and they
fell to the ground. They made another attempt on his affec-
tions, and he finally got rid of them by inveigling them into his
fish traps, and leaving them at the bottom of the sea, where
they lay until Tangaloa took pity on them, and sent a god to
release them. Take another instance. In this case also it was
two goddesses, who set out to meet a mortal lover. While
waiting for him, they took off their heads to dress their
hair. Suddenly his footsteps were heard, and they put their
heads on again ; but in the hurry one of them put hers on hind
before ; and when she attempted to move, her face went one
way and her legs another. It is extremely puzzling to meet
with tales like these, referring to those to whom the titles of
highest deity are given : and yet, after all, they do but recall
the vagaries of the Olympian deities as described by Homer,
when

'Unextinguished laughter shook the skies.'

On the subject of ancestor-worship. Mariner
speaks positively (vol. ii. p. 97) : ' That there
are other Hotooas or gods, viz. tlie souls of all
deceased nobles and matabooles.' The present
writer was disposed to agree with him at first,
especially as it was a custom of the people to go
to the cemeteries to pray, even after a sacrifice
had been presented at the temple. But further
inquiry has convinced him that they did so because
they fancied themselves nearer the spirit-world in
such places. Intelligent chiefs like Valu, who
were acquainted with heathenism, are equally

f>ositive in the other direction, and deny that they
ooked upon the spirits of deceased chiefs as gods.
We think the truth lies between the two state-
ments, and that Mariner himself gives us a key to
the solution of the question. In vol. i. p. 376, he
speaks of Feenow as being frequently inspired by
the spirit of Mumui (a late king of Tonga). Now
we can readily understand that in such circum-
stances Feenow would pray to iSIiiinni, and others
would join him ; so that in time Miuiiui would be

looked upon as a god. This would account for
such gods as Tu'i Lalotonga, Tu'i 'Ahau, Taliai
Tubou, and others. All the inquiries of the present
writer negative the assertion that the spirits of
chiefs as a general thing became gods. We may
then look upon the gods of the first class as primi-
tive, brought by the Tongans from their original
home, and the third class as the gods of the
aborigiv.als whom they conquered. The second
class contained also some primitive gods, but was
recruited largely from the spirits of ancestors — i.e.
the spirits of certain deceased chiefs by whom
kings and notable personages fancied themselves
to have been possessed.

The other point the present writer made special
inquiries about was whether the Tongans wor-
shipped the clubs, whales' teeth, animals, trees,
stones, etc., before which they placed their offer-
ings, or the god who was supposed to be tempor-
arily residing in them. The answer was decisive.
The clubs, trees, etc., were simply the vaka, the
god itself was spiritual. Vaka signifies a 'mode
of conveyance,' usually a canoe, but also a carriage,
or anything by which one is conveyed from place
to place.

Probably we may see here a development of their
spiritual ideas. The oldest class — Tangaloa, Maui,
Hemoana — were undoubtedly corporeal. Their
bodies performed all the functions of human bodies,
and they were inflamed with human passions. But
the Tongans had long ceased to pray to them, and
scarcely any vestiges of their worship remained
when the missionaries came. The third class of
gods, too, Avere corporeal, but there are no signs of
worship being paid them at any time. These two
classes existed side by side ; out long before the
introduction of Christianity both had been dis-
carded as objects of worship, which was paid only
to the second class. In other words, the Tongans
had worked out a theology, which had, at any rate,
this noble feature in it, tnat God was a spirit, and
they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit.

The general Tongan term for supernatural beings isfa'ahikche.
This is often shortened into fa'a/ii, and when the adjective lahi
('great') is added— fa' ahi lahi— the idea conveyed is that of full
deity. Fa'ahi signifies properlj' ' a party,' ' a side ' (as in cricket) ;
or it may be short iorfa'ahinga = ' kind,' 'class,' ' race,' ' species,'
' genus.' Kehe = ' other ' (eVepos, not oAAos), so /a 'ah ikche is ' diff-
erent folk,' ' other kind of people.' The usual word for ' God ' is
'Otua. Mariner spells it Uotooa, but there is no h in it. The
inverted comma represents a guttural, a half k, which is one of
the difficulties of the language. It is not readily recognized by
the European ear, and is mostly neglected by foreigners, while
being as intractable as the Ayin in Hebrew. The present writer
has failed to find any derivation for 'Otua, or meaning other
than ' God,' and believes it to be a primitive Polynesian word.
In some parts of the Pacific it appears as Atua.

The other great word is 'jBJfci = 'Lord,' which is used as in
English for both earthly and heavenly lords. Hence it is not so
high a term as 'Otua. Indeed it seems sometimes to mean only
' supernatural.' Thus a corpse is called ha me'afaka'eiki, which
apparently signifies ' a thing belonging to the spirit world.' Pro-
bably Mariner was thinking of this when he said (vol. ii. p. 130) :
' The human soul after its separation from the body is termed
hotooa, i.e. a god or spirit.' He is certainly wrong in that state-
ment. It is clear that 'eiki was not the original form of the
word, which the laws of the language point out to have been
ikeiki.

We must not pass over the fact that the members
of one of the dynasties of kings were regarded as
gods. This was the earliest line of kings, and theii"
title was 2'u'i Tonga ( ' King of Tonga '). They were
certainly looked upon as in .some sense divine
beings ; and instances are on record of prayers
being ottered to them. Words applied only to the
gods were used in addressing them ; such as 'El,
already referred to, ha'de, and 'ajio, used of the
movements of deity. The face of the Tu'i Tonga
was termed the ' sky,' and to him, as the repre-
sentative of the gods, were presented the ' first-
fruits.' This ceremony, called the 'ina/'i, or 'por-
tion,' is described by Mariner (vol. ii. p. 196). Wlien
a Tu'i Tonga died, he was said to be ' missing '
(kala), ;\'.u\ he was buried in a ziqqurat, or pj'ramid

378

TONGANS

of steps. Tills was called a lamp,, or ' heaven ' ; and
many of them remain in tolerable preservation, and
excite the wonder of the visitor by the huge size of
many of the stones, some of which measure over
20 ft. in length.

Many, probably most, of the names of the Tu'i
Tonga have been preserved, and their history
curiously reminds us of the story of the Carlovin-
gians and Merovingians in France. One of the
Tu'i Tonga, called Takalaua, was murdered, and
his son and successor Kau'ulufonuafekai, from
weariness or fear, devolved the duties of govern-
ment on his younger brother, reserving to him-
self the honours and emoluments of the office.
His brother assumed the title of Tu'i Ha'a
Takalaua ('King of the Takalauans '), and soon
got all the power into his hands, the Tu'i Tonga
becoming a roi faineant. After a few generations,
however, the Tu'i Ha'a Takalaua became effete,
and the government was handed over to another
branch, called the Tu'i Kanokubolu ('King of
Kanokubolu,' the town in which he lived). This
is the title of the present dynasty. Representa-
tives of the other two lines, however, still exist,
but the titles are not used. The representative,
however, of the Tu'i Tonga holds even now a
quasi-sacred position, and is still addressed as the
gods used to be ; and words sacred to deity are
used for all his movements.

Mariner mentions another semi-divine person called the Veachi
(vol. ii. p. 80). This part of his narrative is very perplexing,
as neither Veeson nor Tliomas nor any of the modern chiefs
knows anything about him.

The word used all over Polynesia for 'religion,'
'worship,' 'prayer,' etc., is lotw. Fortunately
this has a meaning in Tongan, and signifies ' a
seeking for something that is hard to find. ' Thus
when famine prevails, the people lotu kai, i.e. go
all over the land looking for food. It is also used
for the restlessness of a caged animal seeking an
outlet, and for the cry of an animal for its mate or
companions. This is not the only word common
to Polynesia which finds its meaning in Tongan.
Tabu (or taboo), now of world-wide use, signifies in
Tongan that something which might be opened is
closed. These and other considerations lead one
to think that the Tongan language comes nearer
than most of the dialects to the original Polynesian
tongue.

3. The religious rites of the Tongans were few.
There was nothing in their religion corresponding
to our idea of worship. If they wanted something
— rain, fair winds, good crops, successfid fishery- —
or if they wished to prevent some calamity — such
as sickness, death, hurricanes, war — they would
seek the favour of a god, would offer sacrifice and
pray. But to come into his temple, to worship, to
sing his praises, to dwell upon his attributes — this
Avas a foreign idea altogether. Hence tliere was
very little in the Tongan religion to cultivate the
conscience, or to control the passions, or to elevate
the thoughts. Mariner thinKS otherwise, and we
would gladly believe his favourable report of the
Tongan character. But all our information — and
much of it goes back to Mariner's time — contradicts
his statements. He even contradicts himself. The
Feenow he speaks so highly of Avas a monster of
iniquity ; and there is no doubt that for centuries
theft, murder, lust, treachery, and almost every-
thing in the catalogue of evil, have been rife in
Tonga. No man's life or property, and no woman's
honour, was safe for a flay.

They never went to tlieir gods empty-handed ; a
piece of kava root for making the native drink waf
a. sine, qua non. Baskets of tood, too, were usually
brongiit in addition, and presented to the god or
his priest. One of the party would then state the
object of their visit, and implore the deity to grant
their request, or use his iufhienoe with the gods of

Bulotu in their favour. Sometimes the priest would
remain silent ; at other times he would object that
their gifts were too small. If he spoke at all, he
spoke as tlie god, being supposed to be ' possessed '
by the god at the moment. John Thomas says
(Farmer's Tonga, 128) : ' Often there was another
person present, the friend of the god, who acted as
mediator, and addressed the priest on behalf of the
offerers.' Hingano, a chief lady of great age,
described to the present writer how she and others
would take baskets of food to the door of Taliai
Tubou's temple in Nuku'alofa, and, boAving down,
would implore the god's favour. Shortly a white
{sic) foot would be protruded from beneath a
curtain, which they would kiss and then retire.

If their object was to deprecate a calamity, as in
a case of sickness, the rite assumed a darker hue.
Fingers were cut off, wrapped in banana leaves,
and presented ; or children were strangled, and
their bodies brought as a sacrifice. When prayers
v/ere offered to Fonokitangata, the sacrifice was
always an adult. Generally a man obnoxious to
the community was hunted doAvn and killed, and
his body brought in a basket and laid before the
priest ; but Mariner speaks of a chief of rank
being killed in one instance. The ofi'erers, clothed
in old and dirty mats, and wearing necklaces of
chestnut leaves, would squat on the ground at a
distance, and weep and beat their breasts, while
the priest, holding in his hand a war club, the
shrine of the god, wovdd listen to their prayers
with his eyes fixed upon the club or upon the
ground. Sometimes he would reply in his ordi-
nary voice, but more often in unnatural tones, as
if some one were speaking in him ; and frequently
he would begin to shake as if in a tit, and to roll
about and foam at the mouth. Any words he
might utter whilst in this condition were eagerly
caught up as the direct utterances of the god.
After a while the shaking would cease, and the
priest, striking the ground with the club, would
announce that the god had departed. Mariner
(vol. i. p. 160) has a good description of this kind
of possession ; and he evidently thought that the
phenomena were not altogether voluntary, but
that a real possession of some kind took place —
a belief -which was shared by some of the earlier
missionaries.

4. The Tongans believed in the immortality of
the soul. Mariner, Veeson, and Thomas are
agreed on this point.

Veeson says (Farmer's Tonga, p. 131) : ' One day they wore
conversing about a person that was lately dead, and said, " He
goes to the island through the sky." " ilow can he be," said I,
" in that place, when he is dead, and liis body here ? Did you
not bury him some moons ago ? " But all they answered was,
" But he is still alive." And one took hold of my hand, and,
squeezing it, said, " This will die, but the life that is within
you wiU never die " — with his other hand pointing to my
heart.'

Mariner and Veeson, too, agree in stating that
this immortality is enjoyed only by the upper
classes : the souls of the T^u'as, or common people,
die with their bodies. This, no doubt, was the
belief of the upper classes, who looked down upon
the Tu'as as little better than animals ; but it is
no evidence of the belief of the Tu'as themselves.
Thomas says more truly : ' Of the faith of the
common people there was no certainty.'

The ' island ' referred to was called Bulotu, and
'through the sky' meant 'over the horizon.'
Bulotu is, the present writer thinks, a j>rimitiv(!
Polynesian word, and is the name for Paradise in
all the dialects. It was situated west or north-
west of Tonga, and could be reached by sea. At
least the ballads speak of canoes touching there ;
but how the disembodied spirits got there is not
stated. Mariner tells us (vol. ii. p. 101) that
Bulotu was believed by the Tongans to be a
large island, stocked vrith all kinds of useful and

TONGANS

379

ornamental plants in a state of iiigli perfection, and
that when these were plucked others would imme-
diately occupy their place. The whole atmosphere
was filled with a most delightful fragrance ; there
were also beautiful birds of all kinds, and abund-
ance of hogs— all of which were immortal unless
killed to provide food for the gods. At the moment
a bird or a hog was killed, another living bird or
hog came into existence. Further on he gives
another account of Bulotu brought by a canoe
which touched there :

' The crew landed, and proceeded to pluck some breadfruit ;
l)ut to their unspeakable astonishment, they could no more lay
hold of it than if it was a shadow. They walked through the
trunks of trees, and passed throug:h the substance of the houses
without feeling: any resistance. They at length saw some of
the gods, who passed through the substance of their bodies as
if there was nothing there.' The gods were supposed to have
no canoes, not requiring them ; ' for if they wished to be any-
where, there they are the moment the wish is felt.'

Now, is this again a development ? For the
ballads, which date from a time long antecedent
to the visit of Mariner, give a very different de-
scription. According to them, everything in
Bulotu was material. Its entrance was guarded
by a woman mth eight tongues. There was a
large canoe for the gods to voyage in, which was
called Langotangata ( ' the human-rollered '), be-
cause it was dragged dovra to the sea on living
rollers, each being a human being. The same
trees grew as on earth : cocoa-nuts, breadfruit,
yams, etc. ; and provision was made for the
favourite pastimes of chiefs. There were emi-
nences for netting wood-pigeons, reefs for shark-
catching, 'ulua to be fished, and gigantic clams to
be dived for. Ovens of food were cooked as on earth,
and kava was prepared and drunk. The houses
had solid posts, and the roofs were constructed in
the usual way. One of the halls in Bulotu was
panelled -witn the pujpils of men's eyes 'which
sparkled and flashed. The women nad a hall
Imed with mirrors — a veritable crystal palace.
There was a Vaiola, or Fountain of Life, Avhose
waters were so potent that a child plunged into it
grew up to manhood in a few days. There was
also a Vai-lolofafanga, or Fountain of Perfumery,
and other delights of women (see ' Voyage of
Faimalie,' Tubou College Magazine, vol. iii. p. 39).

5. Cosmogony. — The earliest chapters of the
Tongan genesis ran somewhat as follows :

Some seaweed and slime clung together, and were carried
away by the sea, and washed up on the island of Total in
Bulotu. By and by there grew up between them a large
metallic stone called Tou'iafutuna (' Pregnant-how-long-ago ! ').
Suddenly it began to shake, and sent out a sound like thimder ;
and, splitting, there sprang out a male and a female twin. The
male was called Biki (' Sticky ') and the female Kele (' Slimy ')•
Again the huge stone rolled about as if there was an earth-
quake, and other twins sprang out : the male called Atun-
gaki (?), and the female Maimoa'alongona (' Vagaries-of-sound ').
Again the stone groaned, and twins sprang out, called ' Land-
turtle 'and 'Sea-turtle.' Again the stone sounded and earth-
quaked, and tmns sprang forth, Hemoana (the Sea-snake), and
Lube (the Dove).

They grew up and married, i.e. the first pair and the second
and tiie third. The eldest child of Kiki and Kele was a son,
Taufulifonua (' Frequent-overtumer-of-the-land'i). The next
was a girl called Havea-lolofonua (Havea-of-the-underworld ').
The second pair had a girl called Velo Labi, and the third pair a
girl called Vele Ji'i. {Vele signifies ' longing ' or ' desire ' ; Vele
Z/a/ti = ' Desire the Elder,' Vele c/^i'ii=' Desire the Younger').
Sticky and Slimy created a new land called Tonga Mama'o (' Dis-
tant Tonga '), and put on it Taufulifotma and Havea-lolofonua.

[The next incident is unprintalile, but is a realistic setting of
the words, 'And they were both nakid, tho man and lus wife,
and were not ashamed.' They were iLTuorant even of the
sexual function, which they discovered onlv by accident. The
result was a boy called Hikule'o (' the Echo,' the Tongan Satan :
see above).]

Then Havca said to Vele Labi and Vele Ji'i, 'Conie anil marry
your brothei's as I have done, for there is no man for you.'
They did so, and Vele Lahi gave liirth to the Tangaloas, and
Vele Ji'i to the Maui family. Then Taufulifonua divided the
heaven and earth as stated above.

In process of time the Tangaloas ordered Tangaloa 'Atulongo-
longo to go down and see in what condition the world was. So

1 Tau is sometimes intensive. This would then mean ' com-
plete-overturner.'

he entered into the Kiu (? ' Sea-lark '), and went down, and flew
in all directions, but could not see any land, only shallows.
Tiien went lie up to heaven and reported to the Tangaloas that
there was no land, only something that looked Hke shallows.
Said the heavenly chief, ' Wait seven nights, and then go
again and see': so Tangaloa 'Atulongolongo remained seven
days in the sky, and then went down to look at the shallows.
The bottom was evidently coming up, and he reported to
heaven, ' It looks like a reef.' He said also, ' I can find nothing
to stand on and rest.' So they said, 'Go to Tangaloa the
Smith, and let him throw down the dust of the pumice he
sharpens his axes with.' So Tangaloa Tufunga did so, and
threw down the dust of his grindstone, and produced the island
of 'Eua. On this being reported, Tangaloa was sent down to
stand there and watch. By and by a bit of the shallows would
become dry, and ultimately a large land grew up, which con-
sisted, how ever, only of sand. Tangaloa reportecl, ' My land is
large, but nothing will grow on it.' Then said Lord Tangaloa,
' Take this seed, and set it in the land you have discovered.' It
was a fue (convolvulus). So he set it, and it overspread the
land. Then said he, 'There is vegetation enough, but no
people : and Lord Tangaloa and the other heavenly chiefs replied,
'Go and split the root of the /we.' He did so, and it rotted and
produced a grub. So he reported to the sky, ' A great thing is
lying in the fiie I spht.' They ordered him to cut it in two,
and to call the head Kohai (' "Who is it ? ') and the tail Koau (' It
is I '). He did so, and both parts became men : as did also a
little piece that had adhered to his beak. This was called
Momo (' Little Bit ') : and he with the other two were the
first men.

Now at that time Maui the Elder ordered his family to go on
board a canoe, and fish up lands. There were four Maui in the
canoe : Maui Loa, Maui Buku, and Maui 'Atalanga with his
son Maui Kijikiji ; and they took their mother Vele with them.
She was the maker of mats and fine robes. They called at
Manuka, a part of Samoa that was already above the waters.
And Maui Kijikiji, leaping ashore, went to get a fish-hook.
Meeting the chief's wife, he ravished her ; and she, taking kindly
to him, revealed her husband's secret, that the magic fish-hook,
which would bring up lands, was not a bright and glittering one,
but an old and rusty hook, stuck in the reeding. So they got
the hook, and, having tried it successfullj- near Samoa, sailed on
boldly, and pulled up Tonga and many other groups of islands.
When they came to 'Eua, and saw the three men, they asked
whether they had any women ; and on their repljang ' No,' they
went and fetched three, so that they might have one each.

At that time the sky was very low, and an ironwood tree that
stood in Tonga reached quite up to heaven. So 'Eitu-Matubu'a
was wont to climb down, and visit the earth ; and, cohabiting
with a woman in one of the islands, had a child by her called
'Aho'eitii. When he grew to man's estate, he asked who and
where his father was ; and was directed by his mother to climb
up the ironwood tree, and seek him in the sky. He finds him,
is recognized, and sent to play with his brothers, who become
jealous, and finally kill and eat him. 'Eitu, finding this out,
makes them vomit into a large tub, and covers the disjecta
membra with the leaves of the tree of life (Nonu). By and by
the fragments cohere, and ultimately 'Aho'eitu is found sitting
up alive. His brothers are punished by being turned out of
heaven, and have to serve 'Aho'eitu on earth, who becomes the
first Tu'i Tonga, superseding the children of the 'grub.' The
Maui afterwards puslied the sky higher up, as it is at present.

Now the Maui dwelt in the under world, but one of them,
Maui 'Atalanga, said to his brethren, ' Have you any ob'eetion
to my living on the earth, if I visit you from time to time?'
And they said, ' No.' So 'Atalanga went up to the earth, taking
his young son Kijikiji with him. He lived in Vava'u, and
married a mortal wife. Now Maui 'Atalanga did not plant in
Vava'u ; for he was a mighty planter, and there was not land
enough ; so he had his plantation in the under world. He kept
this, however, a secret from his son Kijikiji, for he was such a
mischief. But Maui Kijikiji tracked his father by his footsteps,
and, seeing him lift a bush and descend into the earth, waited a
while and followed him. Many tricks did he play, until one
day his father sent him to Maui the Elder to get a fire-stick.
Kijikiji kept quenching the fire and going back for more. At
last old Maui told him to take the whole log. This was of
enormous size, but the young Maui took it up with ease. Old
Maui, who had not recognized his grandson, perceiving that he
was a superhuman being, challenged him to wrestle — with the
result that the elder Maui was thrown and left tor dead.
'Atalanga, hearing of it, strikes his son with his spade and kills
him. On going, however, to see how his father was faring, he
finds the old man alive, and rather pleased than not with his
defeat by his grandson, and angry with his son for having kille'I
him. They apply, however, the leaves of the tree of life, and
Maui Kijikiji revives. His next exploit is to carry .some fire
i from the under world to earth, in sjiite of tho efforts of bis
father to prevent him. They then devote themselves to lighting
with and destroying the monstrous animals that infested the
world— a huge rat, a gigantic bird called the Moa, a lizard, and
some carnivorous trees, etc. Maui 'Atalanga is at last devoured
by a huge dog that lived in a magic cave which opened and
closed automatically ; and his son, after killing the dc^, died of
grief for his father, etc.

IjiTKitATiiRB.— The principal authorities on the state of Tonga
in early times are tliesc: William Mariner, An Acrmmt 0/
the \atives of the Tonga Islands", London, 1S18 ; G. Veesori,
Authentic Narrative 0/ Four Years' Residence in Tonf/atabu,
do. 1810 ; S. S. Farmer, Tonga and the Friendly Islands, do.
l&o5. (Mariner's is a most valuable work. He gives evidence

380

TONGKING

of being possessed of no common ability, p.nd of an excellent
memory ; and, if the present writer has ventured to differ from
him, it is for the foUoOTng reasons : (1) the shortness of Mariner's
stay — only 4 years ; (2) his obvious want of acquaintance with
the niceties of the lang^uage ; (3) the considerable time that
elapsed between his lea\ ing Tonga and the writing down of his
reminiscences ; (4) the fact that the present writer's acquaint-
ance with Tonga extends over a period of 40 years ; (5) that
most of his information was taken down from the lips of the
' Last of the Bards,' a once heathen chief called Tonga valevale,
who was the repository of their folk-lore and ballads ; (6) that
he has had access to the unpublished journals of the Rev. John
Thomas, Wesleyan minister, who went to Tonga in 1826, and
was the first missionary to make a lengthened stay.]

J. Eg AN MOULTON.
TONGKING.— Ethnographically Tongking is
divided into two parts : South Tongking, the
special domain of the Annamese race, and North
Tongking, bounded on the north by the Annanio-
Chinese frontier, on the east by the sea, on the
west by the range where the waters separate into
the Red and Black Rivers (Song-Koi and Song-Bo),
and on the south by a line bisecting the provinces
of Kwang-Yen, Bac-Giang, Thai-Nguyen, Tuyen-
Kwang, and Yen-Bay. This Upper Tongking has
an area of 54,700 square kilometres, and a popula-
tion of .374,528, belonging to 26 different ethnic
groups. There are no Annamese or Chinese except
officials and merchants ; the country is peopled
chiefly by Tai, Man, or Yao, Pa-Teng, Meo, Lolo,
Muong, and a very small number of representa-
tives of far more ancient ethnic groups, such as
the La-tchi (La-ti) and the Keu-Lao.

1. Tai. — The Tai element, most important in
point of numbers (239,179 individuals — about 60
per cent of the total population), is divided into
numerous siib-groups, the most important being
the Tho (146,000), who are found round Cao-Bang,
the Nung (66,000), and the Black Tai (14,500).
The Tai have a strong admixture of Chinese and
Annamese and are thus closely related to the
Siamese and Laotians.

I. Physical characteristics. — The Tai are strong and of a
livel\- disposition, careless, fond of pleasure and play, and
extraordinarily indolent. This race seems to be on the
decrease ; there are few births, and infant mortality is very
high. They are not absolutely averse to mixed marriages :
their daughters maj' marry Chinese or Annamese if they choose,
and their sons take wives from any variety of the race what-
ever, even from the Man ; these mixed marriages produce a
stronger and more provident race than the pure Tai.

The Tai live in the plains and low x'alleys bj' preference.
Their houses are, as a rule, built on piles, the ground-floor
being reserved for live-stock and poultry, the upper storey for
the inhabitants. The Nang and several other tribes dress like
the Chinese ; the rest of the Tai follow the Annamese fashion,
but wear much brighter colours — indigo blue is almost universal
— and far more ornamentation. Rice is the staple food. The Tai
also use beans, sweet potatoes, and gourds ; pork is their most
usual meat, chickens and ducks being reserved for feast-days ;
they also eat fish. Tea is their chief beverage, though they
sometimes drink too much wine or spirit made from fermented
grain. The use of tea and betel is practically universal among
them ; opium is confined to the rich.

The Tai are essentially farmers. They cultivate rice, maize,
buck-wheat, beans, peas, sweet potatoes, and sesamum. In-
du«try and commerce are practically non-existent owing to the
indolence of the race. They can, however, distil alcohol,
weave cloths, make rich embroidery, and do fine basket-work.
The Th6 even spin a little silk.

2. Religion. — On their original animism the
Tai have superimposed a confused mixture of
Taoist, Buddhist, and Confucian ideas, derived
from the Chinese and Annamese. A few priests
or lettered men have a vague knowledge of the
cosmic system of the di-kinh.

They believe that the primordial principle of nature gave
birth to the male and female principles, from which issued
everything and everybody. The male principle is the sun, the
sky, the intellectual soul of men ; the female is the dark earth,
the moon, the vital and sensual soul of beings. Man has three
subtle souls, or Mn, which emanate from the male principle,
and seven or nine (according as the sex is male or female)
vegetative souls, or vid. At death these vid return to the
earth whence they came, while the hdn go to the infernal
regions. Here we see the influence of the Buddhist doctrine of
the transmigration of souls and their purification by punish-
ment. After undergoing the punishments which they have
merited, they maj- approach the throne of the emperor of Jade,
the supreme Taoist idol.

The great majority of the peojale, a most super-
stitious race, confine themselves to the worship of
the evil spirits which infest the air and lie in wait
for man even in the most insignificant actions of
his life. These are combated by means of fore-
thought and offerings, and especially by the help
of more powerful good spirits which are rendered
propitious by devoted worship. Among the good
spirits the genius of the hearth and the tutelary
deity of the village are held in highest honour ;
of the evil spirits, which have different names in
tlie various Tai gi'oups, the most dreaded are the
spirits of people who have died a violent death
and the chicken-spirits that insinuate themselves
into people, especially women, and give them the
evil eye. Of course tiie Tai believe in white and
black magic, spells, lots, and philtres.

Their priests are chiefly sorcerers, who earn
their living by ottering sacrifices to the spirits,
exorcizing the sick, and warding otf all the evils
invoked against man. They also choose the
material with which to build villages or houses,
the propitious day for beginning any work, etc.
Among the Tai they are nearly all connected with
an official cult, but there are independent sorcerers
and sorceresses.

The only temples that the Tai possess are small
rustic pagodas, nearly all dedicated to the tutelary
genius of the locality.

Their religious festivals are borrowed from the
Annamese ; but among certain tribes, particularly
the White and Black Tai, there are some festivals
which seem peculiar to the race. (1) Kin lao
mao ('drink,' 'alcohol,' 'drunk') takes place in
September. All the inhabitants of the village
meet in one of their houses for a banquet, which is
followed after sunset by music and singing. The
feast lasts three days, during which no one may
enter or leave the village. (2) King pang (' to eat
bread ') takes place in January. It is character-
ized by round dances to the accompaniment of
chants. Among the White Tai it is the women
who dance, among the Black Tai the men. (3)
Kin tien ('to eat coined money') takes place in
December in honour of the dead. It lasts three
days, with banquets, dancing, and singing. Both
men and women take part.

Ancestor-worship exists among the Tai, but
only a more or less slavish imitation of Annamese
ritualism. It is practised chiefly among the Tho,
who preserve the names of their ancestors to the
fourth generation, make otterings at prescribed
times, and train their children to honour the dead
as the protectors of the hearth. Only those who
have died a natural death have a place on the
family altar ; those who have died a violent death,
out of doors, have only a small outside altar,
usually built in the garden. ^

3. Myths and legends. — Among all the Tai is
found the tradition of a univer.sal deluge, from
which the god of the earth saved only a brother
and a sister — a poor but pious couple — who shut
themselves at his command inside a hollow
pumpkin, with some rice for provision. After the
subsidence of the waters the present-day races
were born from the union of this couple.

4. Medicine. — The Tai regard nearly every ill-
ness as the work of evil spirits, and the best
medicine is the sorcerer; the more enlightened
members of the race sometimes admit tliat there
are natural ailments, wliicli they treat with simples
and mineral products borrowed from the Chinese
pharmacopoeia.

1 It should be noticed that the Tai know nothing of the pro-
perty called hu'd'ng hoa in Annam — an inalienable part of the
patrimonj' reserved to meet the expense of the cult of the dead
and the upkeep of the tombs. As a rule after a few months, at
most after four years, the Tai have nothing more to do with
the tombs.

TONGKING

381

5. Marriage. — Although the manners of the
Tai are not so free and easy as those of the
Laotians, youths and maidens meet freely to sing
and play — which often leads to sexual relations ;
all that Tai morality requires is that there be no
tangible proofs of these relations, and hence re-
course is had to abortive measures or the suppres-
sion of children.

The father is the unquestioned head of the
family, yet it is only among the highly Annami-
tized Tai that he chooses a mate for his child ;
among the Tai of the right bank of the lied River
the young people make their own choice. The
proposal is made by a go-between ; the young man
pays a dowry, and the engagement is settled after
a sorcerer has compared the genealogical forecasts
of the couple, in order to see whether any super-
natural influence opposes their union. The
engagement is generally long — from three months
to three years — and is rather expensive for the
fiance, who is expected to give a great number of
presents. The engaged couple are bound to ob-
serve the strictest reserve ; they are not allowed
to take any notice of each other until the wedding-
day, while they have complete liberty in their
relations with the other young people of both
sexes. The marriage-ceremony itself is borrowed
from the Annamese.

The outstanding characteristic of marriage
among the Tai — with the exception of the Th6 in
the west, the Nung, and the Tho-Ti — is the quaint
custom of separating husband and wife after the
celebration of their union : among some tribes the
wife spends a fortnight with her parents and a
fortnight with her husband ; among others she
cannot go to her husband except when invited.
This state of affairs conies to an end with the
appearance of pregnancy, or, in cases of sterility,
at the end of the fourth year of married life, when
the wife takes her place at the family hearth. As
the separated husband and wife retain complete
liberty of behaviour outside with people of tlieir
own age, Tai morality suffers some strange draw-
backs from this custom. The Tai youths marry
usually between twenty-three and twenty-five, the
girls between sixteen and eighteen.

The Th6 of the west and several other tribes
practise maiTiage by adoption and marriage by
contract also. A poor young man can enter a rich
family without paying the usual dowry, on condi-
tion that he takes his father-in-law's name, and
lives with and works for his father-in-law. Should
he wish later to live apart with his wife, he is
liable to pay an indemnity to his father-in-law.
A young man can also marry without paying a
dowry and without changing his name, by under-
taking a contract to serve his wife in her father's
house for a stated number of years — from four
to seven. If he ilies before the contract has
expired, his widow is responsible for his debt.
These two forms of marriage, which are not held
in high esteem, entail no long engagements and no
costly wedding-feasts.

Polygamy is allowed by the Tai, but seldom
practised ; the number of wives is usually limited
to two, only tlie first having honour and authority
at the hearth, the other being practically her
servant. Among the White Tai, however, the
daughter of a chief has the rights of first wife, no
matter when she is married. The Tai woman,
though she enjoys a life of perfect freedom in her
youth, becomes after marriage a sort of beast-of-
burden ; all the hard work in the fields and in the
house falls on her. She has no real individuality
till she becomes a mother. Divorce is rare ; by
right only the husband can seek it ; in actual life
it is the wife who applies for it. Repudiation is
still more rare and is nearly always due to sterility.

6. Birth. — The house of the mother is forbidden
to strangers during and for a certain time after
confinement. If they did enter, they might them-
selves be contaminated and bring harm to the
child. The confinement is made known to those
outside by a branch of shaddock and a piece of
coal among the Tho of the west, by a piece of
wood, a knife, and a green branch among the Th6
of the east, fastened to the ladder of the house.
The first visitors to enter the house of the mother
have to pass over a burning brand or a pail of
water, into which red-hot iron is plunged. The
Tai woman is delivered nearly always in a stand-
ing position, holding on to ropes with her hands.
The eastern Th6 alone light a brazier on the camp-
bed whither she is afterwards carried. The
placenta is secretly buried by the midwife. The
birth is announced with libations to the ancestors
by the head of the family. A propitious day is
chosen for putting the child in the sack that does
duty as swaddling. The choice of a name is sur-
rounded with the same superstitious fears as are
found among the Annamese, and the same un-
pleasant designations are chosen.

7. Death and disposal of the dead. — The Tai
originally practised cremation and still do so for
certain chiefs. As a rule they have noM' adopted
burial. Funeral honours are paid only to men
over 18 years of age and to married women. The
rites are imitations of those of the Annamese.
The medicine-man determines the position of the
coffin and the situation of the grave. The deceased
is dressed in his best clothes and a pair of new
sandals, and is put into a coffin containing about
10 kilogrammes of ashes. On the bier are placed
some duck-feathers to help him to ford the rivers of
the other world, and a pencil and paper for him to
make his wishes known. On the day of burial —
usually the third after death — the corpse is placed
on a paper catafalque and taken to the cemetery
with great ceremony. The one idea at this
juncture is to prevent the dead from returning to
torment the survivors at home and at the .same
time to protect him from evil spirits. It is for
this purpose that the medicine-man is employed ;
he brandishes his sword at intervals round the
coffin and the mourners, who strew the road with
gold and silver paper in order to tempt the evil
spirits to stop and gather it up. The coffin is then
put into the grave under the protection of the
medicine-man's sword ; food is placed on the tomb,
near which the catafalque is burned — a house for
the dead in the other world. Among the Chong-
Kia Tai, when the coffin has to cross a river, the
children stretch a piece of cloth from side to side
for the souls of the dead, to keep them from
wandering. Commemorative rites are not observed
regularly by the Tai, except where they are very
much under Annamese influence.

8. Tabu. — There seems to be only one kind of
tabu among the Tai, viz. the entering or leaving
a village during a local festival. Strangers are
warned to turn back by notices placed outside the
village.

II. Man. — This Chinese name, which means
' barbarous,' ' rude,' is applied in Tongking to the
ethnic group of the ' children of Pan-Hii or Phien-
Hii,' who claim to be descended from the union of
the dog Pan-Hii with the daughter of the emperor
of China, whose inveterate enemy had been van-
quished by Pan-Hii. The Man, or Yao, probably
inhabit the high parts forming the basin of the
Li-Kian^ in the north, and are about 50,651 in
number in N. Tongking and much more numerous
in the west than in the east. Their various groups
have been classified in six great families issuing,
they say, from the six sons of Pan-Hii : the Man
Coc, or ' homed Man ' ; the Man Ti§n, or sap^tie

382

TONGKING

Man ; the ]Man Lan-Tien, or ' indigo-tinted Man ' ;
the Man Quan Trang, or ' blue-trousered Man ' ;
the Mail Quan Coc, or ' short-trousered Man ' ; and
the Man Cao Lan, or ' great rainbow Man.' The
Man Coc, most numerous and most iinportunt, live
in the liij^hest parts of the country ; lower down
are the Man Tien ; the Lan-Tien hardly ever are
found at a greater altitude than 300 metres ; the
others follow by various stages to the borders of
the deltic plains ; as a rule, they all find life in the
valleys uncongenial.

1. Physical characteristics. — The Man are not so tall as the
Tai, but are more robust, more intelligent, and much more
active. As they have no rice, their staple food is maize, vege-
tables, and yams. They eat meat sparingly, chiefly pork, rarely
buffalo or ox, never the dog— for this is the totem of their
race. They do not chew betel, but both men and women
smoke tobacco and the rich consume opium.

Their houses are buUt sometimes on the ground, sometimes
on piles, and sometimes half-and-half. A random group of
these houses forms a village, and the village is scarcely ever
surrounded by a wall. The Man borrow their style of dress
from either the Chinese or the Annamese according to their
locality. The women's garments are embroidered on the
skirts, facings, neck, and sleeves with bright red and blue
designs so intricate and elaborate that it takes three years to
embroider one costume. Their hair-dressing is also elaborate,
and is nearly always finished off with a large turban having
coloured edging and embroidery.

The Man are essentially agriculturists ; but they are also
good blacksmiths, and can make the trinkets that their women
use, and also paper from bamboo-fibre. They are good fishers
and hunters.

2. Religion.— Their beliefs are like those of the
Tai, but even more confused — a few vague notions
from the three great religions of China ; but the
mass of the people are aniniists, though not quite
so superstitious as the Tai. Ancestor-worship is
held in great honour among them. They have the
same flood legend as the Tai. The Man have only
a few pagodas dedicated to the tutelary deity of
the village. They are nearly always built against
a fruit-tree. They have medicine-men who present
offerings, exorcize spirits, and work cures. The
reputation of these sorcerers varies with the
Man Coc according to whether they have or
have not received complete initiation to the third
degree. Among the other tribes initiation gener-
ally comprises only one degi'ee. The Man worship
consists in sacrifices, songs, and dances. They
observe the Chinese feasts with varying regularity.
They have also two curious local feasts celebrated
with great pomp, especially by the Man Coc. The
one takes place every three years in certain tribes,
every five years in others, and commemorates the
rescue of the Man race when — so long ago as to be
in the region of hypothesis — it was sliip\vi'ecked in
sight of the Chinese coast on its way from an
island in the east. The second feast, called ' the
great fast,' comprises five days of extraordinary
pomp, and occurs only once in ninetj' years. We
have no data of any value on its oi'igin or symbolic
meaning.

3. Medicine. — Their medicine comes from the
Chinese, but the Man would not believe in the
efficacy of any medicine that was not accompanied
by incantations and exorcisms.

4. Metamorphism. — The ]Man believe that their
neighbours, the Mao, have a third cutting of teeth
in their old age, and after death escape fiom their
graves and reappear as tigers.

5. Marriage. — The Man do not attach much
importance to virginity. Wlien a child is born
before marriage, it is suppre.ssed without a thought
of the laAV which demands a fine for such an
ofl'ence. Violence is also punished by a fine. The
young people themselves, and not their parents,
arrange their marriages. The young man makes his
choice, then tells his parents, who send a go-between
to make proposals to the parents of the girl.
After examining the genealogical forecasts, the
go-between may, at a second visit, discuss the

amount of the dowry and the presents to be offered
by the suitor. The engagement is concluded when
the young man himself brings all or some of the
presents. All intercourse between the engaged
couple is stopped until the wedding-day, which
is signalized by the customary banquets; the
couple drink a cup of rice- wine together and
prostrate themselves before the ancestral altar.
They live together after the marriage-ceremony.
The daughter-in-law must scrupulously avoid
touching her husband's parents, though she serves
her father-in-law at table.

The Man are also familiar with marriage by
adoption and contract. Among the Man Cao-
Lan the newly-married couple do not live together
until two or three months after the marriage-
ceremony. Among the Man Qu^n Tring the
marriage is preceded by a term of three years
spent by the young man in his future father-in-
law's house, the girl being usually about thirteen
or fourteen at this time. The youth may marry
her at the beginning of the three years on condi-
tion that he indemnifies his father-in-law for the
three years' service which he owes. If pregnancy
occurs during this term, the parties are bound to
each other ; if the youth changes his mind before
the end of the term, he can leave without paying
or receiving anything ; if he is dismis.sed, he can
claim an indemnity for the service rendered. After
marriage the couple serve seven years in the pater-
nal home of the husband.

Polygamy is practised among the Man ; the
number of wives is usually restricted to two, the
first alone having authority in the house. The
Man Quan Triing allow polygamy only in excep-
tional cases. The material status of woman is
high among the Man, tlie men doing all the lieavy
work ; her legal status is dift'erent : she is the
property of her husband, who can give her away
and repudiate her. She, on the other hand, is not
allowed to leave him. In cases of adultery the
husband has the right to send his wife back to her
parents and reclaim the dowry that he paid for her ;
if he keeps her, he can chxim damages.

6. Birth. — From the third month of pregnancy
sexual relations cease, and the woman abstains
from fat, green vegetables, and garlic. She is not
allowed to sew or embroider except outside her
house. The Man Lan-Tien believe that, if a preg-
nant woman were the first to cross a new bridge,
it would fall ; that the touch of such a woman
spoils rice and alcohol ; the Man Quan Tntng, on
the other hand, keep her away from these things
for her own sake, in case they should cause mis-
carriage. The birth is announced to outsiders by
a bunch of grass hung on the door among the Man
C6c, by threads stretched across the door among
the Quan TrSng ; no announcement is made among
the Lan-Tien. The Man woman is delivered sit-
ting on a little stool. No fire is put under the bed
after delivery. The placenta is taken far away
and hidden in a hole in a tree or rock ; it is buried
under tlie mother's bed among the Man Lan-Tien ;
if eaten by an animal, it would bring misfortune
on the child. Children born out of wedlock among
the Quan Trang belong to the mother ; but the
father, if known, is liable to pay a fine and give
two months' service free in tlie house of the
mother's parents to repay them for the loss of
work caused by the birth. Tliey practise adoption
freely and thus receive into their families many
Annamese cliildren as their own.

7. Death and disposal of the dead.— The Man
C6e used to burn their dead, .and this custom sur-
vives west of the basin of the Red River. The
Lan-Tien ne.arest the delta buried only those over
fifty ; the Quan Trang buried all tlie heads of
families. The burial rites ar;; copied from f]\o

TONGKING

383

Annaniese. The Man C6c do not make ' the white
silk soul ' or catafalque ; a sorcerer of the second
degree exorcizes the tree from wliich the coffin is
to be made so that the tree-spirit may not come to
torment tlio dead.

III. Pa-TenG. — Tlie I'a-Teng, about 200 in
number, live near tlie Man on the heights separat-
ing the Ked River and the Clear River (Song-Ka).
They are often classed with the Man, but are
reallj'- se^Darate linguistically. Their beliefs and
customs are i)ractically those of the Man.

IV. i)/£:o. — Tiie Meo, or 'cats,' numbering
21,471, are found in Cao-Bang, Bao-Lac, Lao-Kay,
and Coc-Len as well as in the provinces of Thai-
Nguyen and Yen-Bay. They claim to have come
originally from tlie Chinese provinces of Yun-Nan,
Kwei-Chu, and Tse-Chuen. Thoir last invasion
into Tongking, in 1860, was very violent.

1. Physical characteristics. — The Meo are little and squat,
very vigorous on their short legs, brave, hardy, and independ-
ent ; they can be very abstemious, but are inchned to eat and
drink heavily. Maize is their staple food ; they eat very little
meat, and drink a great deal of alcohol, but tobacco is not
used and betel is unknown among them. Their rustic huts, of
pis^ or mud, are dirty to repulsiveness.

2. Religion. — Their traditional beliefs are
borrowed from China and are very unprecise and
wavering. They dread evil spirits — among others,
the souls of beheaded people and of the unburied
dead. A vague form of ancestor-worship is pi'ac-
tised ; it amounts to a few prayers and offerings of
food, Avhich are quickly consumed by the survivors.
They are familiar Avith the flood-legend of the
couple saved in the hollow pumpkin. Their priests
are sorcerers.

3. Marriage. — Paternal authority is not strong.
The young people make their own choice of mates,
and marriage is accomplished through a go-between.
In some districts the suitor has both to pay a
dowry and to serve his future paronts-in-law
for two years before marriage. The Meo marry
freely with other ethnic groups. Marriages are
always accompanied by dances, songs, and games ;
if the bridegroom cannot allord the expense, he
may leave it for his father-in-law to bear, on con-
dition that he and his wife give so many years'
work in payment. Marriage by capture is also
found : the youth may carry off the girl who has
been denied him, and he atones for his offence by
paying a heavy dowry. Polygamy is allowed, but
is not practised except Avhen the first wife has no
children. In adultery the husband has the right
to kill the culprits, but as a rule he is content with
repudiating his wife and taking back the dowry.

4. Birth. — There is nothing to mark the house
on the occasion of a birth ; the mother is delivered
sitting and remains indoors for 33 days. The
placenta is buried in front of the house, if the
child is a boy ; under tlie fire-place, if it is a girl.

5. Death and disposal of the dead. — The Meo
bury their dead. The watch by the corpse con-
sists of three days' feasting and dancing ; the chil-
dren of the deceased invite him to join in the ban-
quets, and even slip a piece of food between his
teeth. By the side of the corpse, which is dressed
in new clothes and fixed in an upright position to
a wall of the hut, a dead dog, killed for the purpose,
is placed. The two are bound together by a strip
of paper going from the dog's mouth to the dead
man's wrist. The dog's duty is to guide his
m<aster in the other world. The collin and the
body are taken to the grave separately ; the body
is carried on a litter and is followed by the sorcerer,
the family, and some friends, while guns are firetl
to frighten the evil spirits. Wiien the grave is
filled in, the litter is broken over it, -some food
(which must be renewed for several days) is placwl
on the tomb, and the funeral-procession returns to
a banquet .it the deceased's house.

y. Low. — The Lolo, a people almost certainly
originating in the Brahmaputra valley, are about
2300 in number in Tongking and live chiefly in the
region of Bao-Lac.

1. Physical characteristics. —Of medium height, muscular
and well built, with fine re^'ular features and a copper com-
plexion, they recall to the Western mind the Bohemians of
Europe. They are luxurious and indolent, marrying only
among themselves ; but their race is degenerating through the
use of opium. Their chief foods are rice, maize, vegetables,
and gourds, meat being reserved for festivals. They make
alcohol from fermented maize. They use no betel and very
little tobacco, but indulge in opium to excess.

Their houses are built on piles in the rich villages ; in poor
villages they are wretched huts placed on the ground. In
dress the Lolo resemble the Chinese or the Th6 according to
locality, but their garments (those of the women in particular)
are shorter and much more elaborately embroidered. The
Lolo are great agriculturists and hunt and fish a little.

2. Religion.— Their beliefs and psychical life
vary according as their villages are next a Tai,
Man, or Meo clan. Their chief cult appears to be
that of evil spirits, and they countenance ancestor-
worship, theoretically. They also have the story
of the flood and the survival of their ancestors in a
pumpkin.

3. Marriage. — Marriage, which takes place
during the night, comprises no religious ceremonies,
but simply banquets and dances. After marriage
the wife lives only two or three nights with her
husband, and then returns to her parents until
pregnancy privileges her to take her place in her
husband's home. Marriage by capture is prac-
tised, the captor paying a double dowry. Adultery
is punished by the death of both offenders. Poly-
gamy exists only in theory.

4. Birth. — The rites connected with birth have
no peculiarities among the Lolo. Adoption is of
frequent occurrence, either by free consent or as
the result of a bargain, and is the occasion of
great festivities.

5. Death and disposal of the dead.— Burial takes
place, without ceremony and in presence of rela-
tives only, three days after death. For nine days
in the case of a man, eight for a woman, and six
for a child, the family keep a fire burning on the
tomb, and after that take no more trouble. Certain
tribes exhume the dead, after one or three years,
with great pomp, and put the head or all the bones
into a little wooden box, which is then placed on a
neighbouring rock, where the survivors can see
it while at work. Their ancestor-worship is verj'
crude. The place of the tablet is often taken by a
representation of the dead made from an orchis
stem and little bits of paper, placed against a par-
tition or between the wall and the roof of the hut.

6. Tabu. — Women after puberty are forbidden
to eat pork, chicken, duck, or dog, and must not
even cook their food in dishes which have been
used for preparing these foods ; hence the neces-
sity of two fire-places and two utensils in a Lolo
house.

VI. MUONG OR MON. — The Muong or Mon
are an ethnic group centring in the province of
Hoa-Binh. They are of uncertain origin, but
appear to be closely connected with the Annamese,
whom they resemole strongly in physical type,
dress, and customs. Their religion is a develop-
ment of the popular animism of the Annamese.

It should be noted that in one thing they are
very different from the Annamese : among the
Muong the relations between the sexes before
marriage are very free. Whenever a girl becomes
pregnant, her family and that of her seducer are
made to pay a tine to the village. As among
the Annamese, the blood-test is applied when the
father of a child denies his paternity. Marriage
is celebrated according to the Annamese rites.
Acc(jucheiiieiit takes place on a caiiipbed under
which the usual fire is kept burning, and the house
I is marked to outsiders, after tlie delivery, in tlie

384

TONGUE

same way as among the Annamese. The placenta
is buried underneath the house itself. The dead
are buried in accordance with the Annamese rites.
The corpse is placed in a coffin made from a hollow
tree-trunk and set up in front of one of the doors
of the hut. Outside, and facing it, there stands
on a bamboo tripod a basket containing a little
dog killed for the purpose, some rice, alcohol, and
incense-sticks. A special cord binds the tripod to
the coffin. After the coffin has been let down and
the grave filled in, a wide-mouthed jar is emptied
near the stone which marks the position of the
dead man's head ; and, if rain-water comes and
fills this jar again, it shows that the grave has
been well chosen and it brings a thousand blessings
to the survivors. The bodies of the quan-lang
(village chiefs) are kept, it appears, for three
years before burial in front of the ancestral altar ;
a long bamboo tube leading from the hermetically-
sealed coffin right up beyond the roof of the hut
preserves the hut from mephitic vapours.

VII. Keu-Lao. — The Keu-Lao, of whose origin
and customs we know next to nothing, form an
ethnic group of seven families in the neighbourhood
of Dong- van.

VIII. La-TCHI. — The La-tchi or La-ti are
about twenty in number and live in the village of
Chi Ka, near the upper valley of the Song-Chay.
Though resembling the Annamese of the delta in
physical type, they claim to be aboriginals. They
are very little known and seem to live like the
Meo. Their characteristic trait is'their abstention
from pork, the diet par excellence of the Far East,
because, they say, their orphaned ancestors were
fed by a sow.

LiTERATDRB. — E. Lunet de Lajoiiqui^re, Ethnographie du
Tonkin septentrional . . ., Paris, 1906; A. Bonifacy, ' Contes
populaires des Mans du Tonkin,' in Bull, de I'Ecole fr. d'Ext.-
Or. ii. [1902] 268-279, ' Etude sur les langues parlies par les
populations de la Haute-Bivifere Claire,' ib. v. [1905] 306-327 ;
A. Ch^on, ' Notes sur les Muonj;: de la province de Sontaj',' ib.
V. 328-367 ; E. Diguet, Etude de la langue Tai, Hanoi, 1895,
Les Montagnards du Tonkin, Paris, 1908.

Antoine Cabaton,
TONGUE. — I. Physiology. — The essential
organ of taste is ' the mucous membrane whicli
covers the tongue, especially its back part, and
the hinder part of the palate.'^ Here are found
certain cells, arranged in groups which are known
as ' taste-buds ' and are connected with two cranial
nerves. Sensations of taste are intermingled with
accompanying sensations of touch, and often of
smell.''

' There appear to be distinct terminal organs for bitter tastes,
for sweet tastes, for acid tastes, for salt tastes, and possibly for
other tastes, all differing from the terminal organs for tactile
sensations, and from the structures, whatever they may be,
which are concerned in general sensibility. '3

Modern knowledge of the physiology of taste
began (1665) with Malpighi (16'28-94), who
employed the newly invented microscope.'* The
sense of taste was grouped by Aristotle under that
of touch, both operating only through immediate
contact.* Pliny notes that the human palate also
possesses the sense of taste, and he gives many
details about the variety in the tongues of
animals.® An Anglo-Saxon leech-book, in pre-
scribing 'for men in whom the string under the
tongue is badly swollen,' says that 'through the
string first every disorder cometh on the man.''
But the chief significance of the tongue for

1 T. H. Huxley, Lessons in Elementary Physiology, new ed.,
London, 1900, p. 354.

2 G. F. Stout, A Manual of Psychology^, London, 1904, p.
195.

s M. Foster, A Text-book of Physiology^, pt. iv., London,

1900, p. 1519.

* M. Foster, Lectures on the Hist, of Physiology, Cambridge,

1901, pp. 94, 100.

8 De Anima, bk. ii. ch. 10. 6 u^f xi. 37.

7 J. F. Payne, Enqlish Medicine in Anglo-Saxon Times,
Oxford, 1904, p. 153.

primitive thought is obviously in regard to the
faculty of speech, to which it contributes, together
with the throat and lips, in the modulation of the
voice. That vibration of the vocal cords which is
called ' voice ' is modified by the varying shape of
the resonant chamber formed by the mouth. The
tongue, however, is not indispensable to speech ;
Huxley refers to a case in which conversation
remained quite intelligible though the tongue had
been completely amputated.

2. Localization of psychical function. — This
characteristic of primitive thought concerning the
physical organs^ is frequently illustrated by
primitive practices in regard to the tongue.
Since the nervous system and the minuter struc-
tures of the tissues were unknown to the ancients,
the tongue was thought to possess an inherent
faculty of speech, as something residing in it, so
that the faculty or its special qualities could be
transferred by acquisition or assimilation of the
tongues of specially gifted animals or men.

Thus, among the Tlingits of Alaska, the chief of the spirits
sends the candidate for shamanism ' a river-otter, in the tongue
of which animal is supposed to be hid the whole power and
secret of shamdnism. ... If, however, the spirits will not visit
the would-be shaman, or give him any opportunity to get the
otter-tongue as described above, the neophyte visits the tomb
of a dead shaman, and keeps an awful vigil over night, holding
in his hving mouth a finger of the dead man or one of his teeth ;
this constrains the spirits very powerfully to send the necessary
otter.' 2 'In Bohemia the tongue of a male snake, if cut from
the living animal on St. George's Eve and placed under a
person's tongue, will confer the gift of eloquence.' 3 'A North
American Indian thought that brandy must be a decoction of
hearts and tongues, "because," said he, "after drinking it I
fear nothing, and I talk wonderfully." '4 In S.E. Australia
' one of the Wakelbura was observed to take the tongue out of
a certain grey-and-white lizard called Bungah, and give it to
his little son, a child of about thirteen months old, and gave as
a reason for doing so that after eating the tongue his child
would soon be able to talk.' 5 ' When a child is late in learning
to speak, the Turks of Central Asia will give it the tongues of
certain birds to eat.' 6 The converse is illustrated by the belief
that the saliva of a queen touching the tongue of a bird gave it
human speech. 7 Among the Nubians, ' before the tongue of
any animal is eaten, the tip is cut off ; on human analogy they
beheve that "here is the seat of curses and ill-wishes." '8 Itis a
common custom of hunters to cut out the tongues of animals
that they have killed. Perhaps ' the removal of the tongues is
sometimes a precaution to prevent the ghosts of the creatures
from telling their sad fate to their sympathising comrades, the
living animals of the same sort, who would natur.ally be
frightened, and so keep out of the hunter's way.' 9 The
cannibal practice of eating the tongue of a slain enemy is
partly based en the idea that the localized qualities are in this
way acquired. 10

3. Ordeals. — The idea of the localization of

{)sychical function and its ethical qualities under-
ies different forms of the tongue-ordeal.

Lady Anne Blunt records an interesting case of this in connex-
ion with a dispute as to the parentage of a child : ' The matter,
as all such matters are in the desert, was referred to arbitration,
and the mother's assertion was put to the test by a live coal
being placed upon her tongue.' n Here the original thought
seems to have been that the truth would be elicited when the
inherent falsehood of the tongue was, if necessary, burnt out.
Similarly, in case of theft among certain W. African tribes, use
is made of a needle which the operator ' thrusts through the
tongue of each member of the household in succession, to dis-
cover the thief, it being believed that it will fail to pierce the
tongue of the person who committed the theft.' 12

Reference to the tongue-ordeal among E. African natives was
recently made in the British House of Commons ; ' A native
chief was investigating a case of cattle theft in the presence of

1 See art. Body, vol. ii. p. 755 ff.

2 NR iii. 147, quoted by H. Spencer, Descriptive Sociology,
London, 1873-1910, i. 266 n.

3 GB^, pt. v.. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii. 270.

4 fb. p. 147. 5 Howitt, p. 402.

6 OB'^, pt. v.. Spirits of the Com and of the Wild, ii. 147.

V LP i. 97.

8E. Crawley, The Mystic Rose, London, 1902, p. 111. The
thrusting out of the tongue in derision or contempt (Is 57*;
Livy, vii. 10 ; Cicero, de Oratore, ii. 66 [266]) may be in origin
a roncentrated curse.

9 GB'\ pt. v.. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii. 269 f.,
where numerous examples and parallels will be found.

1" J. Eobinsohn, Die Psychologic der Naturvolkcr, Leipzig,
1800, pp. 64, 67.

11 A Pilgrimage to Nejd^, London, 1881, i. 10.

12 A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-Speaking Peoples of the Gold Coaxt,
London, 1S87, p. 201.

TONSURE

385

the District Commissioner, Mr. Dundas. The chief called on
the accused, one of his people, to go through the native form of
ordeal by fire, by licking a hot knife. Mr. Dundas did not
prohibit this procedure, but took care that the knife was not
sufficient!}' heated to burn the tongue of the accused.'! An
ordeal of a different kind is undergone by the medicine-man in
certain tribes of Central Australia. The tongue is mysteriously
mutilated, and ' remains throughout life perforated in the
centre with a hole large enough to admit the little finger.' 2
But this may rather be an example of the frequent practice
of mutilating an organ before its special use in order that it
may be used with impunity (cf. circumcision, etc., at puberty).

4. Religious usages. — The tongue is not often
named as a separate oflering in the rites of
sacrifice.

The Homeric Greeks concluded a feast by casting the tongues
of the victims upon the fire, over which they poured the drink-
offering.3 'According to some accounts, the tongues of the
victims were assigned by the Greeks to Hermes, as the god of
speech, or to his human representatives, the heralds.' 4 The
Yakut made a special sacrifice, for a sick man's recovery, of
tongue, heart, and liver, consuming the rest of the meat them-
selves.s In the horse-sacrifice of the shamanists of N. Asia the
tongue of the sacrificed animal is torn out (in order to make its
spirit dumb under the shaman's control?)."

Honey was placed on the tongue of one who was
being initiated into Mithraisni, as Avas the custom
with newly-born infants ; ' we may compare with
this the ceremonial tasting of milk and honey by
those being baptized into the Christian faith. ^ In
this connexion may be noticed the miracle of
healing ascribed to Martin of Tours, Avrought by
anointing the tongue of a dumb girl with oil after
exorcism.** The wide-spread rule of silence (q.v.)
during particular religious ceremonies falls beyond
the scope of this article, but the idea of the local-
ization of function probably underlies the Indian
usage recorded by Devendranath Tagore :

' On another elephant sat the Rajaguru (religious preceptor of
the Raja) dressed in the ascetic's brick-coloured robe, and silent.
He had his tongue encased in wood, lest he should speak.' 10

5. Penalties. — In the light of these illustrations
of the fundamental idea of localized function (or
'diliused consciousness'), we may better under-
stand certain barbarous mutilations widely

Eractised by way of penalty or revenge. These
ave often survived into times relatively more
civilized than those of their origin, when the idea
that first prompted them has been lost, viz. the
idea of penalizing the guilty organ in which the
original evil resides.

The Laws of gammurabi enacted that in certain cases an
adopted son denjing his new parents was to have his tongue
cut out.ii According to 2 JIac. , when the seven brethren were
being tortured, the king 'commanded to cut out the tongue of
him that had been their spokesman ' (7-*). Judas Maccabseus,
' cutting out the tongue of the impious Nicanor, said that he
would give it by pieces to the birds ' (1533). Maximus and two
other opponents of Monotheletisni were dragged from Rome
to Constantinople, where their tongues and right hands were
cut off, before they were driven into exile. 12 Blasphemy for the
fifth time was punished by excision of the tongue, according
to a law (1347) of Philip of Valois (1293-1350). 13 Evagrius writes
of the heretic Nestorius : ' I learn from one who wrote an
account of his demise, that when his tongue had been eaten
through with worms, he departed to the greater and everlasting
judgment which awaited him.' 1^ The instinct which doubtless

1 As reported in the Manchester Guardian of 6th May 1914.

2 Spencer-Gillena, pp. 523-525, with accompanying photograph.
A Hebrew name for an enchanter is ' a master of the tongue '
(Ec 1011).

3 Od. iii. 333-341.

* GB^, pt. v.. Spirits of the Com and of the Wild, ii. 270,
where references will be found.

5 F. B. Jevons, An Introd. to the Hist, of Religion^, London,
1902, p. 146.

« VV. Radloff, Aus Sibirien'2, Leipzig, 1893, ii. 26.

7 F. Cumont, Les Mystires de Mithra^, Brussels, 1913, p. 162.

8 ERE ii. 3S6b.

9 Sulpicius Severus, Dial. iii. 2 ; cf. Mk 733-33.

10 The Autobiography of Maharashi Devendranath Tagore,
Eng. tr., London, 1914, p. 131.

11 C. H. W. Johns, The Oldest Code of Laws in the World,
Edinburgh, 1903, p. 42, § 192 ; cf. S. A. Cook, The Lawsof Moses
aiid the Code of Hammurabi, London, I'JO.'i, p. 134.

12 W. F. Adeney, The Greek and Eastern Churches, Edinburgh,
1908, p. 130.

13 Fernand Nicolay, Uist. des croyances, superstitions, inoeurs,
■usages et coutumes (selon le plan d» Decalogue), Paris, 1902, i.
3S0 (numerous other examples given).

"£r.Bi. 7.

VOL. XII. — 25

created this legend worked also in Fulvia's savage action, when
she thrust her needle through the tongue of her dead enemy,
Cicero. 1 ' The Clarendon Papers, quoted by Southey, state that
at Henley-on-Thames, as late as 1646, it was ordered that a
woman's tongue should be nailed to a tree, for complaining of
the tax levied by Parliament.' 2

6. 'Figurative* usages. — The selected evidence
already given will prepare us to recognize a deeper
meaning in many plirases of ancient literature
which the modern mind is apt to dismiss as simply
figurative and poetical. The Biblical usages will
sufficiently illustrate this. The quality of 'a
backbiting tongue ' is as inherent as that of ' an
angry countenance' (Pr 25^) ; a lying tongue hates
those that it wounds (26^) ; the tongue devises
wickedness, like a sharp razor (Ps 52^) ; Job asks
more literally than most readers suppose, ' Is there
injustice on my tongue?' (6^"). The Servant of
Jahweh declares that his Master has given to him
the disciple's tongue, that he may know how to
help the Aveary by his words (Is 50^). In the
Messianic future the tongue of the stammerers
will be prompt to speak plainly (32^), the tongue of
the enemies of Israel will consume away in their
mouth (Zee 14^^). -phe tongue is not named in the
well-known narrative of Isaiah's call (Is 6), but the
cleansing of his lips by the live coal illustrates the
principle of the localization of psychical function.
So in the NT, when the tongue is said to defile the
whole body, and to be a restless evil, full of deadly
poison (Ja 3^- *), there is a hidden intensity of
meaning derived from primitive thought. The
importance of this is seen in regard to such a
phenomenon as the 'gift of tongues,' ^ which
implies that the local and quasi-independent organ
has been taken possession of by the Spirit of God.
This is more difficult for the modern mind to con-
ceive sympathetically than it was for the ancient,
largely because we have lost touch with the idea
of the localization of psychical function and ethical
attributes, and have replaced it by that of the
cerebral centralization of consciousness.

LiTRRATCRE. — J. G. Frazer, GRS, pt. v.. Spirits of the Com
and of the Wild, London, 1912, ii. 269 f. (where a immber of
primitive practices in regard to the tongue are collected in
a long footnote); J. B. Mayor, The Epistle of Jaines^, do.
1910, pp. 219-221, discusses the ethical aspects of the use and
abuse of the tongue. See also H. Wheeler Robinson, art.
' Tongue ' in DAC. H. WhEELER PtOBINSON.

TONGUES.— See Charismata.

TONSURE. — Tonsure is the shaving or cutting
of the hair after a particular fashion as a .sign of
reception into the clerical order and to the privi-
leges pertaining thereto. As a rite it is prepara-
tory to the reception of holy orders, and is ad-
ministered by the bishop or by a mitred abbot or
by certain jorivileged priests in whom its adminis-
tration has been vested by the pope. At first it
was part of the ceremony of ordination, but was
separated from it towards the end of the 7th
century. The origin of the tonsure is obscure, but
from passages in the Fathers it is clear tliat long
hair in men was considered efi'eniinate or worse,
and this was particularly true in the case of
monks. Epiphanius censures some Mesopotamian
monks for their long hair against the rule of the
Church, and Jerome is particularly indignant at
the custom.* A monk's hair had thus to be cut
short, though not shaven, as this was the custom
with the priests of Isis.^ The earliest tonsure was
probably no more than a close cutting of the hair
of the entire head, though this may have become
a shitving of the whole head after the manner of

1 C. Merivale, Hist, of the Romans under the Empire, newed.,
London, 1904, iii. 206.

- Edward Eggleston, The Beginners of a Nation, London,
1897, p. 67.

'■' See art. Cihrismata, vol. iii. p. 370.

4 Epiph. liter. Ixxx. ; Jerome, Kp. xxii. 'ad Eustoch.,' § 28.

s Herod, ii. 36 ; Martial, xii. 29.

386

TONSURE (Buddhist)

the Nazirites and tlioso unuiji' a vow (Nu 6^^ Ac
21**).^ It may also have been adopted by monks
as a symbol of a penitential life, since penitents
had their hair shorn. This is the Eastern form of
tonsure, or that of St. Paul. Bede tells how
Theodore of Tarsus, before being consecrated by
Pope Vitalian in A.D. 668, waited four months for
his hair to grow, that it might be shorn into the
shape of a crown (the second or Western form of
tonsure, or St. Peter's), ' for he had the tonsure
of St. Paul the apostle, after the manner of the
Eastern people.'^ The Petrine tonsure consists in
leaving only a circlet of hair round a shaven crown,
this symbolizing the crown of thorns or the crown
of Christ's royal priesthood. It had ilLsplaced the
Pauline form in the West, and is first mentioned
by Gregory of Tours (6th cent.), and was worn by
Pope Gregory the Great (A.D. 590-604), who sent
Augustine to England.^ It is ordered in the 41st
canon of the Council of Toledo (A.D. 633) — that
' all clerics must shave the whole front i)art of the
head, and leave behind only a circular crown ' of
hair on the lower part. While tonsure arose as a
monastic custom, it was soon adopted by all clergy,
probably before the end of the 6th cent., and the
Quinisext Council of 692 appoints it for such lesser
orders as readers and singers.

A third form, that of St. John — or of St. James,
as its upholders claimed — seems to have been
peculiar to the Celtic Church, and occasioned great
controversy with the missionaries from Rome, who
were astonished to find it in use in Britain, and
vigorously combated its use. Nevertheless it
continued to be used long after the Synod of
Whitby (A.D. 664), which decided against it.
What precisely its nature was is uncertain. The
Irish Druids are known to have used a tonsure,
perhaps denoting servitude to the gods, as it was
customary for a warrior to vow his hair to a
divinity if victory were granted him.* The
Druidic tonsure seems to have consisted in cutting
all the hair on the anterior part of the head from
ear to ear, except a small patch at the foreliead.^
This was looked upon as the tonsure of Simon
Magus, regarded as the archdruid or Magus. It
has been thought that the Celtic Christian tonsure
resembled this and ato,s retained through national
feelings. But there was apparently some differ-
ence, possibly slight, and it is hardly likely that,
while other Druidic observances were banned, this
would be retained. Two views are held regarding
the Celtic Christian tonsure. (1) It left the hair
long at the back, the upper part of the front being
shaved so as to leave a band of hair round the
forehead from ear to ear.^ This view was first
mooted by Thomas Innes, who says :

' The tonsure of the Scots was not fully round and did not
reach the hinderniost part of the head, and therefore resembled
a crescent or semi-circle.' ^

(2) All the front of the head was shaved, to a
line from ear to ear, behind Avhich the hair was

1 And also as a mark of servitude to God, since Boman and
Greek slaves had their heads shaven.

2 Bede, HE iv. 1.

3 Greg. VU(B Patrum, xvii.; Joannes Diac. <S. Gregorii Magni
Vita, in PL Ixxv. 230.

* Adaninan, Life of St. Columba, ed. W. Reeves (' Historians
of Scotland '), Edinburgh, lS7i, p. 237 ; J. H. Todd, SI. Patrick :
his Life and Misnion, Dublin, 1864, p. 455 ; P. W. Joyce, A
Soeiai Hist, of Ancient Ireland, London, 1903, i. 234 ; J. Rhys,
The Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by Celtic
Heathendom (Hi), London, 188S, p. 213, Celtic Britain*, do.
1908, p. 73 f.

6 L. Gou^aud, Leg ChriHifntfs celtiqnes, Paris, 1911, p. 198,
quoting MS Cotton, Otho E, xii. fol. 112b

* J. Dowdeii, ' An Examination of Original Documents on the
Question of the Form of the Celtic Tonsure,' Proceedings of the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, xxx. [1895-96] 32511. ; John
Smith, ' de Tonsura Clericorum,' Appendix to Bede, HE (PL
xcv. 327 f .).

7 Civil and Eccles. Hist, of Scotland, A.D. SOS IS (Spalding
Club Publications, xx.), Aberdeen, 1853.

grown. ^ Each of these forms has strong sup-
porters, but the former is probably confirmed by
Ceolfrid's account of his discussion with Adamnan,
who wore the Celtic tonsure, and to whom he said :
' You who think you are advancing to the cro^vn of life which
has no end, why do you wear on your head the representation
of a crown which has an end, as Simon Maijus did ? His
tonsure resembled a crown in front but on closer inspection
was seen to be imperfect."^

The adherents of the Petrine tonsure generally
ascribed the origin of the Celtic to Simon Magus,
by way of contempt, or, for the same reason, to
the swine-herd of King Loigaire MacNeill.^ At
an earlier time St. Patrick, who was tonsured after
the then prevailing Roman manner, viz. the whole
head shorn, tried to induce its adoption, but
apparently in vain.* According to Bede, the
community at lona and the others subject to it
accepted the Petrine tonsure about A.D. 716, but
other Britons did not conform then.^ The Celtic
tonsure, carried by emigrant Britons to Armorica,
was known there in the 9tli century.

The Latin form of tonsure with regulars leaves
often no more than a circlet of hair ; with seculars
it is smaller. According to the Synod of Placentia
(A.D. 1388), it was to be of the breadth of three
fingers. Once the tonsure has been received, it
must always be retained.

LiTKRATURE. — Besides the works cited, see E. Mart^ne, de
Antiquis Ecclesiae Ritibits, Venice, 1783; artt. 'Tonsur'in
PRES, and in H. J. Wetzer and B. Welte, Kirchenlexicon^,
Freiburg i. Br., 1882-1901. J. A. MacCULLOCH.

TONSURE (Buddhist).— There is no mention
of tonsure, and no regulation as to the method to
be adopted in wearing or not wearing the hair,
in the 227 original rules of the Buddhist order of
mendicants. But in the Khandhakas, or collection
of subsidiary and supplemental rules, completed
at the end of the first century after the Buddha's
death, we find the following paragraphs :

1. ' You are not, O Bhikkhus, to wear long hair. Whosoever
does 80, shall be guilty of a minor breach of the regulations
[i.e. of a diikkata]. I allow you, 0 Bhikkhus, hair that is two
months old, or two inches lont>'.'

2. 'You are not, O Bliikkhus, to smooth the hair with a
comb, or with a snake's hood [i.e. with an ivorj- instrument
so shaped], or with the hand held in that shape, or with pomade,
or with hair-oU.' . . .

3. ' I allow you, O Bhikkhus, the use of razors, of a hone to
sharpen the razors on, of powder prepared with Sipatika-gum
to prevent them rusting, of a sheath Lo hold them in, and of all
the apparatus of a barber.' . . .

4. ' You are not, O Bhikkhus, to have the hair of your heads
or on your face cut by barbers, nor to let it grow long." . . .

5. ' You are not, O Bhikkhus, to have your hair cut off w ith
a knife.' 6

We should not draw, from the fact of these
paragraplis being found among the subsidiary
rules, any conclusion that they belong to a later
time than the original rules. The subsidiary rules
refer quite often to what were evidently older
customs in the order, and only legalize and give
authority to practices already followed, though
not mentioned in the older rules. But we should
notice in the first place that there is no mention
of scissors. The reason of this is curious ; scissors
had not then been invented. This is confirmed
by an exception to rule 5 above. If a bhlkkhu had
a sore on the head, and the hair round it could
not be removed by a razor, then a knife might be
used.'' In this case no doubt, if scissors had been

1 Reeves, Intrnd. p. cxiv ; Todd, p. 487 ; Bede, v. 21.

2 Tlie tonsure here referred to was a mere segment with a half
circlet of hair in front and the hair worn full behind.

3 Bede, v. 21 ; Rhys, Celtic Britain*, p. 74 ; Gougaud, p. ia7.

4 A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical
Documents ri'lating to Great Britain and Ireland, Oxford,
1369-78, ii. 292, 328.

5 Bede, v. 22.

6 V'inaya, ii. 107, 134, tr. in Vinaya Texts, iii. 09 f., ]38f.

" The word satthaka {Vin. ii. 115) has been rendered ' scissors '
by Sten Konow, JPTS, 1909, p. 55. But this cannot be right.
See r.uddhagho?a as quoted in Vinaya Texts, iii. 90.

TONSURE (Chinese)

387

then known in the Ganges valley, their use would
have been allowed, at least as an alternative.^

The members of the order, we see, were to be
shaven, not only on the face, but all over the head ;
and the shaving had to be performed, not by a
barber, but by fellow- members. Why Avas this
the rule ? Undoubtedly because this was the
custom previously followed by the religieux be-
longing to the other orders that we know to have
been older than the Buddlia's time. It was only
natural that men who had devoted themselves
to tlie higher life, and whose main duty was the
learning by heart and the repetition of texts
dealing mth the higher life as they conceived it,
should have thought it becoming to themselves
to avoid, not only the use of fashionable clothing,
but also the elaborate hair-dressing then habitually
used by men of the world. The medallions carved
in bas-relief on the stone railings round the
Bharhut tope may serve as illustrations of these
turban-like arrangements, in which strips of
brocaded cloth are intertwined with the hair (left
long), the faces being clean shaven. ^ Though the
sculptures are later in date, earlier texts confirm
the general style by descriptions ambiguous with-
out the help of such illustrations.

There is one passage in a very early text, about
the same age as the five paragraplis, which confirms
the suggestion that those paragraphs probably give
us the earliest customs as to shaving followed in
the order. That is Dlgha, i. 90, in the Ambattha
Sattanta, where a Brahman, reviling the adherents
of the new movement, and in fact referring to the
Buddha himself, calls them ' shavelings, sham
friars, the ott-scouring of our kinsman's heels.' ^
It is clear that, in the view of the compilers of
this passage, the members of the order had their
heads shaven. Another such passage is px-eserved
in the popular anthology called Dhammapada,
264, which says : ' Not by his shaven crown is one
a samaha ' (a member of any order of religieux, a
'religious'), if he be irreligious. It should be
noticed that the technical word used is not bhikkhu
(a member of the Buddhist order), but samaha,
which included non-Buddhist orders also.

In the much later legend of the Great Renuncia-
tion—it is at least about seven centuries later
than the event which it purports to relate — we
are told that the first act of the future Buddha
after he had ' gone forth ' was :

'Taking his sword in his right hand, and holding the plaited
tresses of his hair, and its twisted decoration with his left, he
cut them off. So his hair became two inches long, and lay
close to his scalp curling from the right, and so it remained his
life-long ; and his beard the same.'-*

Now the oldest representations of the Buddha
that we possess — the so-called Grreco- Buddhist
bas-reliefs and statues — are an endeavour to re-
produce the coiffure thus described. This story,
therefore, as to the imperfect form of the tonsure
habitually followed by tlie Buddha himself,
must have been (credited, incredible as it seems
to us, at the date of those sculptures, not only
in the Ganges valley, but also beyond the present
frontiers of India, in the extreme north-west.
In the second place, the inventors of the story
ascribe to the Buddha the belief that every
religieux — ^not only Butldhists, for there were none
then — should have the hair cut quite short. In
other words, tlioy claim a pre-Buddliist origin
for tlie custom followed in the Buddiii.st order.
Perhaps the whole episode is merely invented as a
popular explanation of the odd rule as to two inches
in the first of the five paragraphs quoted above.

' Vinaya, ii. 134, tr. Vinai/a Texts, iii. 13;).

-See figy. 21 and :i:i iii Khys Davids, (iuddliist liuLUi,
IH). 94^)7.

'^ The whole episode is translated in Rhys Davids, Diatogues
of the Buddha, i. 112 ff.

* Jdtaka-nidiina, p. 04 (vol. i. of the Jdtaka, ed. Fausboll).

At the present time the bhikkhus in Burma,
Siam, and Ceylon hold theoretically to the two-
inch rule, but in practice never appear in public
without the head and face clean shaven. The
numerous sects of Buddliists in Tibet and Mongolia,
China, and Japan have long ago forgotten, if they
ever knew, tne ancient rule. But we iiave no
exact particulars as to when and where they have
enacted and carried out any newer rules of their
own.

Literature. — Vinaya Pitaka, ed. H. 01denl)erg, !> vols.,
London, 1879-S3 ; T. W. Rhys Davids and H. Oldenberg,
Vinaya Texts, 3 vols., Oxford, l.S8l)-85 (SBii' xiii., xvii., xx.);
Rhys Davids, Buddhist India ('Story of the Nations' ser.),
London, 1903, Dialointis of the Buddha, 2 vols., Oxford, 1899-1910
(SBB ii. , iii.) ; The. Jdtaka, with its Commentary, ed. V. Fausboll,
tr. Rhys Davids, Loudon, 1877-97, i.

T. W. Rhys Davids.
TONSURE (Chinese).— I, Confucian.— Con-
fucianism, being a system of ethics, has no priests
or monks. The tonsure is therefore unknown
in it.

2. Buddhist. — («) Monks. — The Buddhist ton.sure
was brought into China by monks from India.
The whole head is shaved once a month or oftener.
With boys brought up in monasteries, being either
dedicated by their parents to a religious life or
bought by the monks for that purpose, the tonsure
takes place early, but with others the age is often
eighteen or twenty. At the reception of a novice
the liturgy directs that the introducer of the
candidate shall ask the chapter assembled that the
tonsure may be granted. This acceded to, the vows
are taken. ^ A rite which is apparently a constant
sequel of the tonsure consists of the branding of
the head with from three to eighteen small circular
spots.- A mutilation of one or more fingers is also
sometimes undergone. An explanation of the
Buddhist tonsure given by some of the Chinese
is that it indicates tlie ' desire to put away . . .
everything of the world, so that the monk does not
claim as his own even his hair.'*

{b) Nuns. — Aspirants are received at the age of
ten into the nunnery, and their novitiate continues
till they are sixteen. During these years only the
front part of the head is shaved, but all the hair is
shaved when they become nuns. A woman desir-
ing to become a nun must obtain the consent of
parents, husband, or guardians.

' One of these must act as sponsor to her at the time of initia-
tion and must hand the razor to be employed in shaving her
head to the Prioress who is to perform the ceremony.' •*

3. Taoist. — {'-(,) Monks. — Taoist monks shave all
about the crown, but the rest of the hair is allowed
to grow long and is gathered together into a top-
knot fastened by a wooden article like the back of
a tortoise.^ In some cases all the hair is allowed
to grow.^

[b) Nuns. — Taoist nuns do not shave their heads,
but have their hair done up on the top of their
heads.''

4. Dislike of the tonsure.- Though Buddhism
has l)enefited largely in tlie past from the favour
of emperors, the tonsure has often been very ob-
noxious to the governing classes in China, who
doubtless took it as the outward sign of the celi-
bate priesthood, which severs its connexion with
the family, entirely againtit Chinese ideas of the
paramount importance of domestic life. Memori-
alists inveigh strongly against it. The following
are instances :

In .V.I). G2I, in a memorial to the emperor loquisting the
suppression of Buddhism, it was stated that it caused people to

1 L. Wiegcr, Buddhisme chinoi.i. Ho Kftn Fu, 1910, i. 151.
-' S. CouUu'f, Enci/dojhCi'ia i^inica, Slianghai, 1817, S.v.
• Tonsure' ; 2 he Chinese. Recorder, Shangli.ii, ix. [1878] ISl ff.
" J. Doolittle, SocirU Life uf the Chinese, London, ISCO, ii. 241.

4 Woman's Work in China, vii. [1SS3] 27 ff.

5 W. Milne, in The Chinese Repository, xiii. [1844] 25.
« Dooliltle, ii. 243.

' J. IL Oray, China, London, 1878, i. 104.

38d

TONSURE (Hindu)— TOPHBT

• shave their heads and abandon their ruler and their parents.' i
The memoriarist says again : ' Before the Western Tsm Dynasty
fA D 256-3171 reigned, the ruling dynasties enacted stringent
laws' by which the people of the Middle Kingdom were prevented
from shaving the head at pleasure.' 2 • u <- f„ +v,^<,»

In A D 995 an edict threatened severe punishment to those
who were ' shaved surreptitiously ' without first obtaining per-
mission of their district prefect to become monks or nuns •>

In A D 140S it was decreed that, ' if any person surreptitiously
took the tonsure to become a monk," he should be punished
with a term of hard labour, and after that become a husband-
man.4

The determination of the Chinese Government
to keep the tonsure as well as the age of receiving
it under their control is seen in other enactments.
Taoists are also mentioned in some of these cases. ^
Eight blows was the punishment under the Manchu
dynasty to Buddhist or Taoist who in the one case
took the tonsure and in the other did up his hair
on his own account.* At the same time monks
were not allowed to go about without the tonsure,
and pupils adopted by the Buddhist clergy had to
be tonsured. Those in monasteries witliout the
tonsure had to return to secular life, being neither
monks nor laymen.'' This was the case also in A.D.
1458 for those who had been tonsured after twenty,
but the culprits were to be banished for life ;» and
in A.D. 1537 it was decreed that not only those who
privately shaved their heads, but also their parents,
neighbours, and helpers," were to be punished.

5. Ridicule of the tonsure.— The tonsure of the
Buddhist lends itself to the derision of the Chinese,
who are very susceptible to anything that opens a
way to mockery or banter. One term applied to
the Buddhist monk is ' bald-headed ass,' another
is 'bald-headed thief.' ^^ As a further example of
the way in w^hich the shorn and shaven priest is
despised may be instanced the curious custom of
shaving the head of a young boy in order that the
evil spirits may think that he is of no consequence
—in fact worthless to the parents— and thus pass
him by uninjured. The boy is then called ' Bud-
dhist priest.' The present writer saw an instance
of this in the case of a neighbour's son in Canton."

6. The Manchu tonsure,— A species of tonsure
was practised by every male except monks in China
under the Manchu rule of the country. The hair
is now allowed to grow, instead of the greater part
of it being shaved off.

7. Tonsure of children. — Young children's heads
are also shaved to a large extent. The first shav-
ing of an infant's head, when a month old, often
has a religious character, being done before an idol
or the ancestral tablets.^"

Literature. — See the works referred to in the footnotes.

J. Dyer Ball.
TONSURE (Hindu).— C/mc?«, 'tonsure,' is the
name of an ancient rite in India, also called
chudakaranam or chudakarma, cftaulam., which is
performed on boys, sometimes on girls also, and
derives its name from the tuft of hair left on the
top of the boy's head (childa). According to the
ancient rule, this rite is to be performed when the
boy is three years old, or, in the lower castes, in
his fifth or seventh year. The boy is dressed in
new clothes, and placed on his mother's lap. A
barber cuts his hair with a razor, while sacred
verses from the Veda are recited. The hair is
thro^^^l on a heap of cow-dung, and afterwards dug
into the ground (see HUlebrandt, Bituallitteratur,
Strassburg, 1897). It is interesting to note that this
rite, as pointed out in Gerini's monograph on the
tonsure rite in Siam, has spread into Siam, together

I J. J. M. de Groot, Sectarianism and Religious Persecution
in Chi7ia, Amsterdam, 190:-!, p. 37.

•■; lb. p. 30. » Ih. p. 73 f . 4 76. p. 83.

■'' lb DP 97, 114- ® ^b- P- 1*W ; ^'80 see p. SO.

-lb. p.m. s/i. p. 85. 9/6. p. 88.

'" E. J. Dukes, Erery-dav Life in China, London, 1SS5, p. 183,
and see also Chinese- Eiisrlish dictionaries.

II Also see Grav, i- 11"2, note 1.
12 Doolittle, i. 122 f.

with other Brahmanical institutions. In India it
has been invested with some legal importance, the
Sanskrit lawbooks stating that a boy on whom the
ceremony of tonsure has been performed in the
family of his birth is no longer capable of being
affilia'ted to another person (see Jolly, Tagore Laio
Lectures, Calcutta, 1885). The tonsure rite is
carefully kept by many castes of the present day,
though the time of its performance varies. Thus
the Kanoj Brahmans of Poona perform the rite
when a boy is from six months to two years old ; the
Lingayats, after a year ; the Vanis, at any time
from six months to five years. Sometimes the child
is taken to the village temple for the ceremony, or
after its performance (see the Bombay Gazetteer,
passim; Rai Bahadur L. B. Nath, Hinduism,
Meerut, 1899). The tonsure rite is supposed to
belong to the common heirloom of Indo-European
nations, because similar rites and superstitions
occur in the Avesta of the Zoroastrians, and, par-
ticularly, among some Slavic nations, such as the
Servians and Bohemians.

Literature.— J. Kirste, ' Indogermanische Gebrauche beim
Haarschneiden,' Analecta Graeciensia, Graz, 1893 ; Potanski,
Die Ceremonie der Haarschur bei den Slaven und Germaiie^i,
Cracow, 1896. J. JOLLY.

TOPHET.— Although the OT references to
Tophet, the scene of the Moloch sacrifices in the
Valley of Hinnom, leave no doubt as to its great
importance in the popular religion of Judah in the
period before the reformation under Jo-siah, the
place itself is mentioned only in the following
places: 2 K 23'", Is 30^^ Jer 7^"- 19«-"-i--i^ The
similar word in Job 17* is clearly not to be under-
stood in this connexion. The original pronuncia-
tion of the word, which is transliterated in the
LXX Tdcped or ea4>id, is unknown, the Masoretic
pronunciation in this case, as in others, being due
to the substitution of the vowels of nK*3, ' shame.
Moreover, the etymology of the word is quite
uncertain, and it cannot be determined Avhether
the final t is radical or is merely the feminine
ending. In Is 30^^ indeed the form is nri?n, which,
if the text could be trusted, would be evidence of
the former alternative, unless the word should be
understood as having a double feminine ending
such as nnuvS" (Ps 3^). But against this supposition
is the fac't'that the word is construed as masculine
in its immediate context. In any case, since, with
the exception of Is 30^, it always has the definite
article or is capable of being so pointed, it is
evident that it is not strictly a proper name, u e
may reasonably infer that there were several
tophets, although we know only of the one which
was situated in the Valley of Hinnom. , . . , ,
Robertson Smith,i arguing from the fact that
'at the time when the word nsn first appears in
Hebrew, the chief foreign influence m Judsean
religion was that of Damascus (2 K 16),' sought to
connect the word with the Aramaic tfaya, which
means a ' stand or tripod set upon a fire ... of which
we might, according to known analogies, have a
variant tfdth. The corresponding Hebrew word
is ns-ciH (for shfath), which means an ashpit or
dunghill, but primarily must have denoted the
fireplace.' But this explanation of the word by
an Aramaic etymology takes for granted that the
cult practised at the tophet, or at any rate the
precise ritual of the cult, was a comparatively
new-fangled thing in the 7th cent. B.C., and there
are grave difficulties in such an assumption. Even
if Ahaz did bring from Damascus a new contriv-
ance for burning the children's bodies, why should
it have kept in Hebrew its Aramaic name, when
the Hebrew language itself possessed the same
word with the ordinary dialectic difference ? When
the same king introduced in Jerusalem the innova-
1 The Relifjion of the Semiten^, p. 377.

TORCH (Greek and Roman)

389

tion of a great stone altar, it was called Ly the
Hebrew word for 'altar,' not the Aramaic. More-
over, it is extremely improbable that such a
practice as the sacrifice of the first-boin should
have been suddenly introduced into Jerusalem as
late as the 8th cent. B.C. When it is considered
how hard debased superstitions have died in our
own country — if indeed they are dead — we can
understand the survival or even the recrudescence
in Palestine of aboriginal superstitious, but not
the adoption of so terrible a rite as human sacrifice
by a people who had reached an altogether higher
level of religion. The OT is unintelligible unless
it is recognized that the population of Palestine
in the days of the kings of Judah and Israel was
not so homogeneous as later writers imagined it to
have been, and that the true-born Israelites were
in a minority. In a fusion of races there is, no
doubt, a tendency for the higher to be drawn down
to the level of the lower. When a man of fairly
good intelligence, but not possessed of any strong
religious convictions, marries a thoroughly super-
stitious woman, it is the wife's superstition rather
than the husband's intellect that will be the
dominant factor in the household. And that the
sacrifice of the first-born was a deeply-rooted
Canaanite cult is proved not only by the excava-
tions at Gezer,^ but also by more than one passage
in the OT. It is most significant that the E docu-
ment of the Pentateuch represents God as com-
manding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Gn 22^), and
that the same document in its legislation (Ex 22^^'-)
puts the first-born of men and cattle on exactly
the same level, not requiring the redemption of
the former as is ordered in Ex 34^" (J). And that
a law allowing, if not requiring, the sacrifice of
the first-born was at one time issued in Jahweh's
name is evident not only from Ezk 20^'-, but also
from Jeremiah's protest (7^^ ; cf. 19') that Jahweh
had never commanded or contemplated any such
cult. Although Ahaz is the first king of Judah of
whom it is definitely stated that he sacrificed his
first-born, it would be unsafe to conclude that he
was the first who actually did so ; for what had
been done by earlier kings unheeded may well
have called forth a vehement protest in the days
of Isaiah. Certainly, if the stories of David re-
corded in the books of Samuel are based on a
sound tradition, and are not merely what later
prophets of the non-reforming party thought
David must have done, there would be no diffi-
culty in supposing that even David had presided
over the Moloch cult at the tophet in the Valley
of Hinnom. On the other hand, it must not be
forgotten that, as the story of the Ilechabites
proves, certain strata of the population remained
till a late period aloof from and uncontaminated
by the Canaanite elements, and it is doubtless these
non-Canaanite elements that we ought to credit
with the attempts made from time to time to
abolish the worst of the pre-Israelite superstitions
which threatened to swamp the religion of Jahweh.
There is no reason to question the statements in
the book of Kings that reforms were attempted in
the days of Asa and of Jeliosliaphat.

While it is not improbable that the method of
burning the bodies at the tophet in the Valley of

1 That the skeletons found at Gezer belonged to children who
had been sacrificed appears more natural than the explanation
adopted by J. Q. Frazer (GB^, pt. iv., Adonis, Attis, Osiris,
London, 1914, i. 108 f .), nor is the greater age of some of the
children whose skeletons were found in Tell Ta'annek conclusive
proof to the contrary. It is evident that the redemption of the
first-born must have been a not uncommon custom before it was
required by law (Ex 34). Parents would endeavour to save
their children by substituting some other victim, and, if all
went well afterwards, would assume that the god had been
satisfied- In time of great distress, however, it would be im-
agined that the god had not been contented with the substitute
and demanded his real due. See art. HKDKMrTiON,

Hinnom was the same as that adopted elsewhere,^
it is by no means clear that either the cult itself or
its ritual came from Damascus. It must not be
overlooked that the tophet, or at any rate the
place of the tophet, is called in Jer 19' 32^ ' the
high places of the Baal.' The point of Jer 7'^ is
that in the massacres which may be expected
corpses not slain in sacrifice will be buried at the
tophet — proof of the impotence of the tophet sacri-
fices to avert the divine wrath.

Robertson Smith, in discussing the meaning of
Is 30^, writes as follows :

' It appears that Tophet means a pyre, such as is prepared
for a king. But the Hebrews themselves did not bum their
dead, unless in very exceptional cases, and burial was equally
the rule among their Phoenician neighbours, as is plain from
researches in their cemeteries, and apparently among all the
Semites. Thus, when the prophet describes the deep and wide
pyre "prepared for the king," he does not draw his figure from
ordinary life, nor is it conceivable that he is thinking of the
human sacrifices in the valley of Hinnom, a reference which
would bring an utterly discordant strain into the imagery.
What he does refer to is a rite well known to Semitic religion,
which was practised at Tarsus down to the time of Dio
Chrysostom, and the memory of which survives in the Greek
legend of Heracles-Melcarth, in the story of Sardanapalus, and
in the myth of Queen Dido.' 2

But surely at a time when sacrifices were being
ofi"ered to Moloch, i.e. the king, at the tophet, a
statement that a tophet has been prepaied for a
king must have suggested the ritual of the Valley
of Hinnom ; the prophet declares with grim
Hebrew irony that a tophet has indeed been pre-

Eared for a king, only in this case the king will
e the victim and not the recipient of the sacrifice.

How long tophets remained in Palestine it is
impossible to say. It is asserted (2 K 23'") that
the one in the Valley of Hinnom was defiled by
Josiah ; but this statement occurs in a passage
which appears to be secondarj^ and, even if Josiah
tried to put a stop to the cult, there may have
been a recrudescence of it after his death ; and
beyond the limits of his diminutive kingdom it
probably continued considerably later. It is diffi-
cult to see why Jeremiah should have published
his denunciation of the tophet in the fourth year
of Jehoiakim, if it had been abolished once for all
in the eighteenth year of Josiah. And if, as seems
probable, Deuteronomy is to be dated in the 6th
cent. B.C., it is evident that as late as that time
it was still necessary, at least in some parts of
Palestine, to protest against the sacrifice of
children (Dt 18"*). Moreover, the prophecy in
Is 30, though based on a genuine utterance of
Isaiali, bears many evidences of having been
modified at a later date, and, if Asslmr here, as
in ll"- 1« and \Q'^«- (cf. Ezr G^-), means the Seleucid
empire, the king referred to in the present form of
the passage may be Antiochus Epiphanes. It is
certainly not impossible that in some outlying
districts of Palestine, such as Amnion, Moab, or
Edom, the cult associated with the tophets held its
own down to the 2nd cent. B.C.

Literature. — S. D. F. Salmond, art. 'Tophet, Topheth.'in
HDB ; W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites'^,
London, 1S94. R. H. KeNNETT.

t6rAH.— See Law.

TORCH (Greek and Roman). — In common with
other races, the Greeks and Romans held many
festivals at night, when torchlight was a practical

1 ' The human holocaust is not burned on an altar, but on a
pyre or fire-pit constructed for the occasion. This appears
both in the myths of Dido and Heracles and in actual usage.
At Tarsus a very fair pyre is erected yearly for the burning of
Heracles ; in the Carthaginian sacrifice of boys the victims fall
into a pit of flame, and in tlie Harranian ox-sacrifice the victim
is fastened to a grating placed over a vault filled with burning
fuel : finally, Isaiah's Tophet is a broad and deep excavation
filled with woo<l exactly like the fiery trench in which, according
to Arabic tradition, the victims of 'Anir b. Hind and the
martyrs of Nejran found their end ' (Robertson Smith'^, p. 376 f.).

ap. 372f,

390

TORCH (Greek and Roman)

necessity, and need have no particular religious
significance. But the torch was also impoi'tant in
various ceremonies where its presence was not
merely utilitarian ; and in many cases where it
may have lieen originally used for merely practical
purposes it acquired a sacred or symbolic meaning.
In agi'icultural festivals, e.g., the use of fire is a
well-known rite, although its precise significance
may be doubted. Mannhardt and Frazer have
collected a large number of customs which illus-
trate fire-ritual as a means of promoting the
growth of crops and animals.^ The underlying
idea may sometimes be a belief that earthly fire
represents the sun ; and torches, carried over the
fields, may be the means, by sympathetic magic, of
' making sunshine.' It is more probable, however,
that the fertility which the use of fire is believed
to cause is to be explained by its purifying power.

In Greek myth and ritual the torch is specially
connected with Demeter. According to the
Homeric hymn, the goddess, after the rape of
Persephone, rushed wildly in search of her daughter
with lighted torches in her hands. The hymn
deals with the Eleusinian mysteries, and it is
probable that the actual rites observed by the
initiated were attributed to the example of the
goddess. The Eleusinia^ included a 'torch-day'
[lampadum dies), when the fiixTrai. roamed along
the shore with torches. They supposed themselves
to be imitating the wanderings of Demeter ; but
the original meaning of the rite was doubtless to
purify the land and ward off pestilence from the
crops. In the same way the early Eleusinians
seem to have purified their children by making
them pass over the fire, as the myth of Deinophon,
in the same hymn, appears to indicate.' The most
solemn ceremonies at Eleusis took place at night,
when the hall of the mysteries (/Mva-riKhs §6fios) was
lit by torches. One of the chief officials was called
the 'torch-bearer' (5?5o0xos), and a priest bearing
the same title took part in another festival (the
Lenrea), and assisted at a rite of purification or
atonement of sin.'* Juvenal * speaks of the torch
as the special emblem of the Eleusinian priest.

The torch is an attribute of various Greek
deities besides Demeter. Persephone has the same
emblem as her mother. In literature and art we
find the torch regularl}?^ associated with Hecate,
perhaps as a moon-goddess.^ Artemis is also
commonly represented with a torch in literature''
and in art from the 4tli cent. B.C. Here the torch
may be the symbol of a moon-goddess ; but
Farnell,^ who holds that Artemis was originally
an earth-goddess, thinks that it belongs to her as
a deity of vegetation. The torches Avhich in art
are a frequent attribute of the Majnads are perhaps
best explained by reference to their nocturnal
festivals. Finally, Ares sometimes carries a torch,
an appropriate emblem for the god of war."

In Greek custom the most conspicuous example
of the use of torches is in the torch-race (\aij.ira87}-
(f>opla, Xa/XTraSr^dpoula, or, most often, simply Xa/xTrds).
This competition is best known as Athenian ; but
it is also recorded for other Greek states, and
Alexander included it in most of the festivals
which he established in various cities. In Athens

1 W. Mannhardt, Der Bauinktdtus der Germanen und ihrer
Nachbarstamme, Berlin, 1875, p. 497 f.; J. G. Frazer, GD'^,
London, 1900, iii. 313, and GB3, pt. vii., Balder the Beauti/xd,
do. 1913, vol. i. ch. v.

2 See art. Mysteries (Greek, Phrygian, etc.), g i (a).

3 See E. Rohde, Psyche, Freiburg i. Br., 1894, p. 29 ; F. B.
Jevons, An Introd. to the Hist, of Religion, London, 1896, p.
365 f. ; T. W. Allen and E. E. Sikes, The Homeric Hymns, do.
1904, p. 9f.

4 Suidas, p. 1404 : Aibs Km&wv ; L. R. Farnell, CGS, Oxford,
1896-1909, iii. 161 f.

5 XV. 140.

9 Roscher, p. 1888 f. ; but see also CGS ii. 509 f.

V First in Soph. CEd. Tyr. 206.

e CGS iii. 459. " C.f. Soph. Oid. Tyr. 27.

the torch-race was a feature of various festivals,
in honour of Prometheus, Athene (in the Pana-
thentea), Hephaestus, Pan, Bendis, Hermes, and
Theseus. It was even held in the festival of the
dead {eTrirdcpia}. The date of its institution is un-
known, but it was first held in honour of Pro-
metheus, the fire-bringer, at whose altar the
competitors lit their torches. As regards the
festival of Pan, we know that the race was in-
stituted after the battle of Marathon. At the
Bendidea it was run on horseback, and was a
novelty in the time of Socrates ; elsewhere the
race was on foot. The competitors were appar-
ently chosen from the several Attic tribes. The
torch was passed from one member of a team to
another, at fixed intervals along the course, and
the victory rested with the team whose lighted
torch first reached the goal — an altar on which fire
was kindled with the torch. This procedure gave
rise to the famous simile of Lucretius ('et, quasi
cursores, vitai lampada tradunt'), the idea of
which is found in Plato.^ An equally famous line
in .-Eschylus ^ also refers to the race, although the
exact point is doubtful.

.(Eschylus might possibly have meant that all the runners in
the winning team iiave an equal share in the victory, the last
no less than the first ; but more probably he refers to tlie fact
that the winning torch was handed in by the last to receive it.
This man would be first in relation to the rival teams, but last
in relation to his own.

The Greeks themselves explained the torch-race
as a commemoration of the gift of fire by Pro-
metheus ; * but the original motive must have
been something more than a mere commemoration.
The essential feature seems to lie in the transfer-
ence of fire from one altar to another at the
greatest possible speed. It is probable, therefore,
that the underlying idea is the need of carrying
fire from a pure source to take the place of a
polluted fire. At Athens all fires were extinguished
before the race began (at least in the Proraethea),
and were rekindled from the new fire. A belief in
the pollution of fire is shown in the Argive custom
of extinguishing fire after a death, and rekindling
it from another source wy fie/iiaa/j.ii'ov.^ Similarly
the fires at Plateea were defiled by the presence of
barbarians, and new fire was brought from the
sacred hearth of Delphi. The attraction of such
a rite to the cults of Prometheus and Hephrestus
needs no explanation. Athene, too, might well
have adopted a torch-race, as being the patron of
handicrafts and metal-working, for which fire was
a necessity ; but more probably she claimed the
torch-race as the supreme head of the city. The
race seems less appropriate to the other gods, with
the possible exception of Pan. The theory that
he was a sun-god cannot be accepted ; but fire
certainly played a part in his ritual, and an ever-
Ijuming lamp was maintained in his cave under
the Acropolis. Most probably, however, the
Athenians instituted the race in his honour to
commemorate his appearance to the runner
Phidippides after the battle of Marathon. Once
established, the race became popular, and was
attached to other festivals without any special
religious fitness.

The Romans had no torch -race, and the torch
was less prominent in their ritual than in Greek
religion. But the same ideas can be traced in
Italy as appear in Greek fire-rites, although it is
not always possible to distinguish the indigenous
from the borrowed element; e.g., the festival of
Diana at Aricia (Nemi) no doubt belongs to a
primitive Italian stratum, but it is impossible to
say how far Greek influence may have modified its

1 Lucr. ii. 78 ; Plato,_ Laws, vi. 776.

2 Agam. 314 : i-iic? S' o Trpwros koI reXevTato! Spafiiov.

3 Hyginus, Astroi'i. ii. 15 ; Anth. Pal. vi. 100.

4 Pl'ut. Qvfpst. Grcec. 24.

TORTURE

391

details. In this festival women whose praj'ers
before child-birth the goddess favourably heard
bore lighted torches to her shrine. It is difficult
to say whether this custom is a survival of a purifi-
catory rite (Diana representing a forest deity or
the goddess of agriculture) or whether the torch
is only a symbol of the moon-goddess, who was
the natural patron of women in cliild- birth.

In Greek and Roman private life the torch was
an important feature in marriage, as the bridal
procession took place at night or towards evening.
As early as Homer ^ there is mention of this torch-
light procession. It was the duty of the bride's
mother to light the nuptial torch.'' In Italy the bride
was also escorted to her new home by torch-light,
under the protection of Juno Domiduca or Iterduca.
Hence the god of love, botli in Greece and in Rome,
is often represented with a torch — an idea no doubt
assisted by the common conception of love as a
'fire.'

The torch had also funereal associations to the
Romans, being used to light the pile on which the
corpse was burned. Those who applied the torch
averted their faces.* The ' two torches ' (of
marriage and death) are mentioned by Propertius'*
and Ovid.^

LrrERATCRE. — The Aaiu,7ra5rj(^opi'a hag been frequently dis-
cussed—«. (7., by A. Mommsen, UeoHologie, Leipzig, 1864, p.
282; P. Foucart, in Revue de Phil, xxiii. [1S99] 112; N.
Wecklein, in Ilcnaca, \ ii. (IST'iJ 437 ; Daremberg-Saglio, s.v.
' Lanipade Jroniia ' ; J. R. S. Sterret, in AJPh xxii. [1901]
393. E. E. SiKES.

TORRES STRAITS.— See New Guinea.

TORT.— See Delict.

TORTOISE.— See Animals.

TORTURE. — Qticestio, said lialdus de Periglis,
an interpreter of that word of dire significance in
Roman law, ' is a certain kind of inquisition made
for the purpose of tearing out the truth ('eruendae
veritatis') by torments and bodily pain.' Few in-
stitutions have more signally failed even to atibrd
rational excuse for their evil existence as a method
of extracting evidence. Starting from a deep
instinct of violence, it consistently made manifest
its inherent viciousness, which no fundamentally
good intention could redeem and no humane after-
thought of qualification and exception could with-
hold from pernicious and cruel consequences. Un-
like the ordeal (q.v.), which was in some measure
an appeal to a fairly equal chance, torture was
without even the negative virtue of offering a per-
centage of probabilities of right and truth in its
results. It is difficult to think of any principle
which could make it really assist in evoking truth
from reluctant witnesses or reliable confession
from accused persons. The one point of affinity
to ordeal was the resort to torture when there was
a deficiency of direct legal evidence. Its basis in
injustice is shown not only in its penalizing the
innocent and unconvicted, but in the fact that its
applicability was long confined in both Greece and
Rome to slaves — significant of its palpable unfitness
for freemen. It never was universal, though in
ancient use amon^ Assyrians, Egyptians, Medes,
and Japanese ; it does not appear in the early laws
of Chinese, Hindus, or Jews. There is no mention
of it in the OT record. The metaphoric heaping
of coals of fire on the head probably refers to
torture, as appears from a Muhammadan penalty
of a live coal laid on a lascivious palm. From a
remote age torture prevailed in Greece for slaves,
and, although freemen were generally exempt, the

1 n. xviii. 492.

2 Eur. Iph. in Aul. 782, Phoen. 314, 3led. 1027.

S Virg. ^n. vi. 224. 4 iv. (v.) 11, 40. ^ Her. xxi. 172.

exemption was overborne in cases of conspiracy
and murder. Slaves in Atliens were subject to
torture in causes civil as well as criminal. At
times the actions were determined by balancing
the testimonies of the slaves of the opposing
litigants put under the pressure of the wheel, the
ladder, the rack, or the burning tile. Grecian
practice has not transmitted any code ; that was
reserved for Roman law, which unfortunately
hardened into permanence the crude tradition of
force which it shared with Greece.

In this exposition we are not dealing with
torture as a method of punishment, to which some
speculations give an earlier place than belongs to
the torture of witnesses or accused persons. It is
as a process for obtaining testimony or confession,
chiefiy in causes criminal, that torture has histori-
cally played its most unreasoned and baneful part.
In the Roman Republic it had wide currency in
spite of sharply defined restrictions which instruc-
tively exhibit the etlbrts, too tardily made and not
thoroughgoing enough, to modify and restrain an
institution for which abolition was the only remedy.
And yet credit must be given to the insight and
humanity of some of the distinctions made. The
exemption of freemen gave way under imperial
impulses wlien lese-majesty was imputed. The
general safeguard that there must be vehement
presumptions of guilt before resort to the torture
was clear enough in theory, but was widely ignored
in practice. Most curious fact of all perhaps is
the frankness of the authorities grouped in the
Digest on the primary desirability of doing without
torture, on the frailty and peril of the method as
an engine for ascertaining facts, on the delusive
character of confessions induced by modes which
were tests not of truthfulness but of physical en-
durance, and on the danger to third parties from
the allegations wrung from men willing to say
anything to save themselves. Evidence of slaves
under torture was declared inadmissible against
their masters, but there were exceptions of some
intricacy. The apostle Paul (Ac 22^''^-) pleaded
with success his right as a Roman freeman as a
protection from examination under the scourge.
Mainly used only in causes criminal, the institu-
tion made good its footing in some civil causes
also. Exemptions of minors, patricians, priests,
and pregnant women were inapplicable when
charges of treason were made. The direction of
Antoninus Pius that torture was not to be used to
secure betrayal of alleged accomplices was as wise
as it was humane, but the very object of getting
at other culprits came ultimately to be a main
occasion of its employment. The provisions of the
Digest ^ and the Code * systematize several contra-
dictory doctrines ' de quaestionibus ' illustrative of
a considerable development. The emperors were
not long in discovering what Dante was to illus-
trate by extreme examples, that treason was the
worst of crimes. This was the creed too of Anglo-
Saxon as well as of later feudal criminal law, and
it encouraged violent processes of detection. In
Rome the kind of torture with widest currency
was that of the eqnuleus, or rack, which passed
on as perhaps the worst legacy of Roman law to
mediaeval Europe.

The abolition of the barbarian ordeal by the
Lateran Council of 1215 left a vacuum wliicli was
partly filled by a still worse expedient — the Roman
metliod of 'tearing out the truth.' Under the
Salic law ordeal and torture had co-existed, but
the latter for slaves only, the provisions obviously
echoing Roman practice. The Ripuarian code
apparently countenanced ordeal alone. The re-
naissance of Roman law explains the return of
torture after some measure of abeyance. In

1 xlviii. 18. a ix. 41.

392

TORTUPwE

France and Italy it seems to have re-established
itself during the 13th century. Continental
charters cited by Du Cange ^ gave exemption from
torture. Its French name, gehennc, was fit enough.
There were many modes — the brodcquin, the
estrapade, the chevaht — all used in the question
priparatoire, preliminarily in the trial, and in the
definitive question prealable after conviction to
disclose accomplices. In England, though without
place in the common law, it was practised as an
abuse notably in the anarchy under King Stephen
and in King J ohn's processes of extracting treasure
from the Jews. The peine forte et dure, however,
or torture by pressure of weights to compel a
prisoner to put himself 'upon the country' or
verdict of a jury, appears about 1300. Under
Edward il. in 1311 papal inquisitors in the trial
of the Templars applied torture admittedly never
legally countenanced in England before. Though
long without regular sanction in the courts for
crime, the practice of torture crept in with what
may be called council government under the
Tudors. As alwaj's, secret courts favoured secret
methods, and torture loved the darkness. With
Shakespeare and other Elizabethan dramatists
'rack' and 'strappado' were household words.
Coke might excommunicate the institution from
the common law, but Coke and Bacon alike
countenanced it in practice when the scent of
treason Avas strong.

In Scotland the law and practice appear to have
nearly paralleled the state of things in England.
Isolated examples of torture, such as that given
by way of punishment to the murderer of James I.,
may have been preceded, as one annalist asserts,
by judicial torture at his trial. So late as 1542
the point of law was established that a confession
procured by torture was null. George Buchanan,
in spite of the risks that he himself had run from
the Inquisition, recognizes without censure the
obtaining of proofs by torture. The deplorable
inhumanities resulting from the witchcraft craze,
nurtured in Scotland by the sapience of the
demonologist James VI., and absolutely paralleled
by the like frenzy in England and France, were a
distressing combination of the mischiefs of torture
with a recrudescence of the ordeal. The victims
were often old, miserable, and insane ; the pitiful
and pitiless mania, however, was not merely a
British but equally a European crime ; its creed
on the Continent was of one context with that in
Britain ; everywhere the witch-finders used the
same methods of pain. It was the last stage of a
sort of common law of torture, although the variety
of local usage shows a wide range of divergence in
detail. In the Covenant time a last outburst of
persecuting zeal revived the decadent engine of
violence. A dubious tradition traces the tliumbi-
kins in Scotland to a Russian origin.^ Museums
of torture such as those of Nuremberg, The Hague,
and the Tower of London — competitions in horror
as tliey are — unite in a kind of commonplace
of malignancy. Authorities on torture in like
manner dwell with the same tedious insistence
on the indicia, or preliminary evidences needed to
justify torture, and on the conditions of its inflic-
tion. The Sum.ma Atigelica, a great cyclopedia
of instruction to confessors, enjoins the interroga-
tion to judges in confession whether they had put
people to torture without sufficient indicia, which
was very riglitly classified as a deadly sin. Now
and again a tractate of law and practice of torture,
such as that of Paulus Grillandus, breaks away
fi-om its companions in the great folio vol. xi. of
Zilettus (1584) by its superior realism. Grillandus

1 Glonsarium Mediae et Infima' Latinitatis, new ed., Niort,
1883-87, vi., s.v. ' Qu<estio.'

2 Maclaui-in, Arguments and Decisions, preface, p. xxxvii.

distinguishes with grim precision the five degrees
of torture : now a mere threat, now a suspension
on the rack for the space only of an Ave Maria or
a Paternoster, now a graver suspension for the
space of a Miserere, now for a period which might
reach into hours, and, last degree of all, where the
victim's limbs, weighted down, were jerked and
twisted till the agony was greater than the
amputation of the hand. It is marvellous how
men endured such torments, but that they did so is
attested by occasional observations by the judges
or assessors of court who wrote the treatises.
Grillandus, e.g., drawing upon his experience at
Pisa and at Rome, registers the wonderful case of
a most cunning thief whose absolute impassiveness
was ascribed to certain words that he whispered
when the torture was applied until a slip of paper
was found bearing as a charm the Scriptural text
(well known for its use in amulets) ' Jesus autem
transiens.' Finally, however, with the charm
removed altogether, this stout malefactor defied
the torture again by his whispered invocation so
that it was necessary to abandon the torture.
And still greater cases, the commentator concludes,
were seen at Milan and Rome when certain words
touching the milk of the Virgin enabled the victim
to go through the torment as if he slept. This
particular variety of charm was reported to be no
less effective as a counter-charm, but Grillandus
shows no faith in its potency as an aid to the
prosecutor.

An unfortunate feature of torture was its adop-
tion by the inquisitorial courts of the Church for
the investigation of charges of blasphemy, heresy,
and the like. Was persecution not, like the In-
quisition itself, a confusion of a secular with a
sacred function, in which the analogy of treason
to an earthly potentate carried priests of religion
to extremes not compatible with the conception of
a majesty which, though wounded, was divine?
Whatever of error lurked in the concept itself, the
tribunal which was its executive of vindication
added to the wrong in principle by a series of false
directions of the practice in prosecution. It surely
M-as a blunder worse than a crime to adopt methods
which doubly branded with public odium courts
which were designed by processes of barbarism to
repress the freedom of the human mind. The fact
that already by the middle of the 13th cent, papal
dispensations to churchmen were needed for irregu-
larities in the use of torture casts a lurid light on
the procedure. No safeguard of institutions is so
sound as publicity — the liberty of moderate criti-
cism, the freedom of defence, and the avoidance of
the abuses which wait upon invisible dungeons
and courts. Secrecy inevitably means tyranny
and obscurantism. The refusal of counsel for the
accused was a fundamental and far-reaching error
in a ' court of inquisition into heretical depravity,'
which by its very object tended to unite the zeal
and interest of both prosecutor and judge against
the heretic. The double sanction of royal and
ecclesiastical authority sometimes enabled the
machinery against heresy to be used for political
rather than spiritual ends. The most notorious
persecution of the 16th cent, was in the Nether-
lands, and torture was the keynote of its procedure.
The Renaissance had not wholly escajjcd the per-
secutions which rose to their evil eminence during
the transition period in which the swaying bound-
arj^-line came to a stand between Liatheran reform
and Roman orthodoxy. In 1532 the Constitutions
of Charles v. codified for Germany a system which
incorporated torture among the fundamentals of
procedure. His establishment of the Inquisition
in 1550 inaugurated a period of atrocities perhaps
worse than any other in human history. Philip II.
of Spain found in the Duke of Alva a spirit of

TOTEMISM

393

merciless executive in the Netherlands, scarcely
less jealous of public liberty than of private creeds,
and Alva's horrcnda gloria of death penalties earned
for him not only his downfall but also the execra-
tion ever since attached to his name. Out of that
fierce time aptlj' came its strange definitive and
callous expression in a contemporary book, the
Praxis BeruinCriviinaliumoi ios,s{ii\e'Da.mho\xdihvQ,
a councillor under both Charles and Philip in the
Netherlands, published in French and Latin in
1554 and repeatedly afterwards, remarkable among
other things for its matter-of-course attitude to
torture, which makes only too intelligible the
excesses of practice under tlie most illustrious and
excellent Alva, whose lionour and sagacity a pre-
face in some editions incidentally extols. Wood-
cuts queerly illustrate the varieties of crime, while
seven whole chapters on torture make transparent
the vices of a system the radical barbarity of which,
despite its antiquity of sanction expounded by
generations of civilian glossators and jurists, all
its touches of humanity — and there were some —
were hopeless to redeem. Damhoudfere harrows
the modern soul perhaps most by his passionless
exposition as of a principle doubtless imperfect, yet
itself of the nature of things. Leading modes
indicated are by the rope (i.e. the rack), by
water forced through the mouth, by oil internally
administered, by burning pitch or lime, by hunger,
cold, or the thumbscrew, by mice or parasites that
gnawed the flesh, or by fire intensilied by basting
the body with oil — these were only a few of at
least fourteen species of torments. What wonder
that Damhoudere after this enumeration should
consider that torture often could most happily
(felicissime) be applied by scourging alone ? Two
pictures complete the impression, one showing a
victim girt and twisted with ropes and swung
stretched out Avith weights at his feet, the other
an idyllic group of the doctors, knights, priests,
old men, children, and prospective mothers, who
were benignly excusable from torture.

It was a law from which no conceivable evolution
could eliminate the initial anomalies (1) of punish-
ing an accused by torture before he was found
guilty or a witness before he was proved a per-
jurer ; or (2) of torturing an accused after con-
viction when torture was no part of the sentence,
and when the judge's function was ended and the
process was no part of the trial. These were dilem-
mas from which no escape was ever devised, and
they gave effectual leverage to criticism when —
late in the day, it must be owned — the opposition
developed energy enough to make abolition of
torture a direct object of humane propaganda.
Illustrious opinions against torture were many ;
those in its favour were perhaps less illustrious.
Augustine, Ulpian, Quintilian, and Montaigne
could be cited on one side, and Demosthenes,
Aristotle, Bodin, and Pothier on the other. But
the lawyers were indifferent, and their neutrality
and acquiescence gave the practice a long lease of
life. Roman tradition persisted little shaken in
Europe till Beccaria and Voltaire threw a new
intensity into attack on abuses, and the objection
to torture passed from being a mere dissent into a
positive and earnest movement to repeal what was
at once a futility and a cruel injustice. From the
middle of the 18th cent, until the beginning of the
19th the Continental countries by degrees followed
the example of repeal set by Great Britain. Tor-
ture had died out in England by the middle of the
17th cent. ; it was abolished for Scotland by .statute
in 1708. Its extinction on the Continent has been
assigned in Prussia to 1740, in Portugal to 1776, in
Sweden to 1786, in France to 1789, in Russia to 1801.
But in the last-named country it is said that so late
as 1906-07 political prisoners underwent grievous

treatment in a 'museum of torture' comprising
brutalities in which ' scorching of the feet at the
fire ' was among the least revolting. In the Far
East the persistence of tlie evil has been still
greater. In China tlie usage has long held, and
presumably still holds, place as a fundamental
law. But in Japan it was abolished in 1876.
Suspicion, however, obtains that in Oriental lands,
despite reforms and prohibitions, illegitimate tor-
ture is still secretly carried on. One main fact in
Europe is perhaps that, while the lawyers 2000
years ago already saw the fallacy and futility of
torture, seventeen centuries had passed before its
abolition was taken firmly in hand. The many
generations of clerical jurists and judges did no
better than the laymen, accepting the institution
and ' passing by on the other side,' if indeed the
ecclesiastical tribunals were not the worst oflenders.
The divorce of the judges from all legislative
function has much to answer for in checking the
critical initiative of amendment sometimes induced
by judicial experience. Abolition at last came
neither from the logic of the law nor from the
impulse of the Church, but from the impassioned
zeal of humanitarian philosophy.

Literature. — H. C. Lea, Superstition and Force*, Phila-
delphia, 1892, pp. 428-590; F. Helbing, Die Tortur, 2 vols.,
Berlin, 1902 ; James Williams, art. ' Torture ' in £Brii ; F.
Zilettus, Tractatus (Tniversi Juris, Venice, 1584-86, vol. xi. , pt.
i., pp. 241-306, inchiding treatises de Tortura by Jacobus de
Arena, Guido de Suzaria, Franciscus Casonus, Baldus de Periglis,
Paulus Grillandns, and others; J. de Damhoudfere, Praxis
Rerum Criminalium, new ed., Antwerp, 1570, chs. 35-41;
Antonius Matthaeus, De Criminibus", Amsterdam, 1661 ; W.
Lithgow, The Tot all Discourse of the Rare Adventures . . . of
19 yeares Travayles from Scotland to . . . Europe, Asia, and
Africa, London, 1632, new ed., Glasgow, 1906, pp. 400-410 ; F.
Heinemann, Der Richter und die Rechlspjiege in der deuischen
Vergangenheit (vol. iv. of Monographien zur deutschen Eultur-
geschichte, ed. Georg Steinhausen), Leipzig, 1900, pp. 44-69 (with
numerous reproductions of old plates) ; Sir G. Mackenzie, Tfie
Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal^, Edinburgh,
1699; John Maclaurin (Lord Dreghorn), Arguments and
Decisions in , . . Cases before the High Court of Jtisticiary,
Edinburgh, 1774, preface, citing Lord Royston's MS Notes on
Sir G. Mackenzie (now owned by writer of this article) ; Suimna
Angelica de casibus conscientiae correcta secundum exemplar
ipsius Reverendi Patris Fratris Angeli de Clauasio, Rothoniagl,
1513, s.vv. ' Interrogationes,' 'Tortura,' folios clxxxvii., cccxlvi.
verso ; R. D. Melville, 'The Use and Forms of Judicial Torture
in England and Scotland," in Scottish Hist. Review, ii. [1905]
225 flf. ; Daines Barrington, Observations on the Mure Ancient
Statutes^, London, 1709 ; D. Jardine, A Readi7ig on the Use of
Torture in the Criminal Law of England, do. 1837; R. S.
Gundry, 'Judicial Torture in Cliina,' in Fortnightly Review,
new ser., xlvii. [1890] 404 fli. ; F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland,
Hist, of English Law, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1895; Montaigne,
Essai^, bk. ii. ch. 5 (no. Ixv.); Montesquieu, Espnt des his,
bk. vi. ch. 17 ; C. Beccaria, Trattato dei Delitti e delle I'ene,
Monaco, 1764, numerous translations, commentary by Voltaire,
various editions ; Z. B. van Espen, Jus Ecclesiasticum, Lou vain,
1778, ii. 330 ; W^. E. H. Lecky, Hist, of the Rise and Influence
of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, auth. ed., London, 1910,
i. 330; H. Hallam, View of the State of Europe during the
Middle Ages, ch. viii. pt. 3 ; H. T. Buckle, Intrud. to the Hist,
of Civilization in Enqland, new and rev. ed., with notes, etc.,
by J. M. Robertson, London, 1904, ch. xviii., p. 716 f. ; T. B.
Macaulay, Hist, of England from the Accession of James II.,
chs. ii. and xiii. ; Gregor Alexinsky, Modem Russia, tr. B.
Miall, London, 1913. G. NeILSON.

TOTEMISM.— I. Introductory. — The word
' totem ' is derived from ototcmnn, which in the
Ojibwa and cognate Algonquian dialects means
'his brother-sister kin.' Its grammatical stem
ote, meaning the consanguine kinship between
uterine brothers and sisters, the group of persons
recognized as by birth or adoption collectively
related together as uterine brothers and sisters
who cannot intermarry, is never used alone.^ The
word was introduced into the English language
by J. Long - in the form of totam. This he wrongly
defined as the favourite spirit which each of the
savages (Chippewa or Ojibwa) believes watches
over him, adding :

1 J. N. B. Hewitt, in HAT ii. 787.

2 Voyages and Travels-ofan Indian Interpreter and Trader,
London, 1791.

394

TOTEMISM

'This totain they conceive assumes the shape of some beast
or other, and therefore they never kill, hunt, or eat the animal
whose form they think this totam, bears.' i

The fii-Ht to give an account, accurate as far as
it goes, of totemisin on the American continent
was Peter Jones, himself an Ojibwa chief, but
an ordained Wesleyan Methodist minister and
missionary to liis tribe. He wrote the History of
the Ojebway Indiniu, published without a date in
London after his death, which took place in 1856.
He says :

' Their belief concerning- their divisions into tribes is that many
years ago the Great Spirit g:ave his red children their toodaima,
or tribus, in order that tliey might never forget that they were
all related to each other, and that in time of distress or war
they were bound to help each other. When an Indian in
travelling meets with a strange band of Indians, all he has to do
is to seek for those bearing the same emblem as his tribe ; and
having made it known that he belongs to tlieir toodaim, he is
sui-e to be treated as a relative. Formerly it was considered
unlawful for parties of the same tribe to intermarry, but of late
years this custom is not observed. . . . Each tribe is dis-
tinguished by certain animals or things, as for instance the
Ojebway nations have the following "^toodaims : the Eagle,
Eoindeer, Otter, Bear, Buffalo, Beaver, Catfish, Pike, Birch-bark,
White Oak-tree, Bear's Liver, etc. etc. The Mohawk nation
have only three divisions or tribes— the Turtle, the Bear, and the
Wolf.' 2

What Jones calls a tribe is now usually called
a clan or gens, meaning a group, not necessarily
localized, of persons regarded as united by a bond
of kinship real or fictitious, extended beyond the
family properly so called to a brotherhood bearing
the same name and including strangers who have
been formally adopted into it. This brotherhood
or clan may, and frequently does, extend also
beyond the boundaries of the local body called
by Jones a nation, but now usually known as a
tribe.

In the meantime Sir George Grey, then governor
of S. Australia, in the account of his travels in
W. Australia, drew attention to the similarity
between the Australian kobong and the American
totem, describing the kobo7ig at some length and
giving genealogical lists to illustrate the mode of
descent.^ A series of articles in the Fortnightly
Review* on ' The AVorship of Animals and Plants'
by J. F. McLennan was suggested, at all events
in part, by Grey's observations. It was this series
of articles, with McLennan's important but
erroneous speculations, which finally brought the
subject of totemism before the scientific public in
Britain. Among others Avhose attention they
attracted were Lord Avebury (then Sir John
Lubbock) and W. Robertson Smith. It was
especially the use made of totemism by the latter
in the speculations embodied in his important
work, The Religion of the Semites, that started
the controversies incessantly waged on the subject
from that day to this.

2. Definition ; plan of the article.— Totemism
as exemplified in N. America and Australia,
where it has been found in the fullest develop-
ment, is a form of society distinguished by the
following characteristics : (1) it is composed of
clans or bands of men each united among them-
selves by kinship real or fictitious, a kinship
frequently extending beyond the limits of the
local tribe; (2) the clan is distinguished by the
name of some species of animal or plant, or more
rarely of some other natural phenomenon, such
as the sun, rain, etc. ; (3) the species or object
which gives its name to the clan is conceived as
related to the clan, and to every member of it,
in some mystic way, often genetically; and in
this case every individual specimen of the object,
where it is an animal or plant, is regarded as
belonging to the clan ; (4) such species or object

1 P. 87. 2 p. 13S.

3 Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in N. W. and W
Australia, London, 1841, ii. 225 if., 391.
•» New ser., v. [Ib69] 407 ff., 562 fT., vi. [1870] 194 ff

is usually the subject of a religious or quasi-
religious emotion, and every individual specimen
is the subject of tabus or prohibitions: subject
to certain limitations, ceremonial or in self-defence,
it may not be injured or killed, or (where eatable)
eaten ; (5) moreover, as in all societies organized
on the basis of kinship, the members of the clan
are entitled to mutual defence, protection, and
resentment of injuries. They may not marry or
have sexual intercourse within the clan.

The.se characteristics are general, but they vary
to some extent not merely from area to area, but
from tribe to tribe. After detailing a few typical
examples, it will be necessary to mention others
where totemism seems to be decadent, and then
to consider whether it has ever prevailed among
peoples where it is not now to be found, and
lastly to inquire into its origin. Various influences
tending to modify, submerge, or destroy it will be
indicated from time to time in the course of the
article.

3. Typical examples. — (a) ^mmca. — Some-
what fuller accounts than that of Peter Jones are
now available concerning the totemism of the
Ojibwas. They were divided into about 40
exogamous toteniic clans, of which those of the
Crane, Catfish, Loon, Bear, Marten, and Wolf
were the principal, and the first five appear to
have been the original. The other clans are said
to have been formed by the segmentation of these.
Nearly all the clans are named from animals of
either land or water. Members of a totem-clan
were held to be closely related to all other persons
of the same totem, even though belonging to
difi'erent tribes. 1 We have no information whether
the Ojibwa clans regarded themselves as having
descended from the totems whose names they bore ;
but the clans of some other Algonquian tribes
claim such descent. Thus, among the Delawares
or Lenape the Tortoise, Turkey, and Wolf clans
(the three chief clans of the tribe),^ among the
Sauks the Fox, Eagle, Bear, Beaver, Fish, Antelope,
and Raccoon clans,* among the Menomini the Bear,
Golden Eagle, Wolf, and other clans,* and among
the Ottawas the Carp clan,^ are specified as tracing
their lineage to the animals after which they are
named ; and in the last-mentioned tribe the Bear
clan ascribed its origin to a bear's paw without
explaining the precise nature of the relationship.
However this may be, the Ojibwa Bear clan was
held to resemble the bear, its totem, in disposition.
The members were surly and pugnacious, the
acknowledged war-chiefs and fighting men of the
community ; the Avar-pipe and war-club were com-
mitted to their custody. The Crane clan took its
name (Bus-in-as-see, ' Echo-maker ') from the loud,
clear, ringing cry of the crane; members of the
clan were thought to possess naturally a loud
ringing voice, and they were the acknoAvledged
orators of the tribe.^ We are not informed
Avhether in their personal appearance, dress, or
ornaments the Ojibwa totem-clans were ordinarily
in the habit of imitating the totem-animals, as
some other tribes do. The Abenaki, also an
Algonquian tribe, painted their totems on their
arms, breasts, and legs.'' An Ojibwa sometimes
had the figure tatued on him, or carried some

1 J. G. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, iii. 46 ff., citing
various authorities.

2 lb. p. 40, quoting J. Heckewelder, Trans. Hist, and Lit.
Com. Amer. Phil. Soc. i. [1819] 246 f.

3 Mary A. Owen, Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians,
London, 1904, p. 8.

■» W. J. Hoffman, lU RBEW [1896], pt. i. pp. 39-41, 43.
* Frazer, iii. 55-67, citing Lettres Mifiantes et curieuses, new
ed., Paris, 1781, pp. 168-172.

6 lb. p. 55, cituig W. W. Warren, Coll. Minnesota Hist. Soc
V. [1885] 43 ff.

7 Hoffman, p. 65 n., quoting J. A. Maurault, Eist.des Abenakis,
Quebec, 1866, p. 23.

TOTEMISM

395

other token by which his totem might be known. ^
Unfortunately our reports are chieHy confined to
the social aspects of the Ojibwa organization, so
tiiat we have little or no information as to the
religious outlook. Religion is inextricably mingleil
with other aspects of savage life; hence we may
be sure that it reacted upon social and political
life. Among their neighbours, the Sauks or
Musquakies, dances in honour of the totems were
held. At these dances — a religious exercise —
those who took part were covered with masks and
dresses to resemble the totemic animals, so dread-
ful that the women were seriously frightened, and
the old masks were therefore destroyed and milder
ones substituted.' Special ceremonies were per-
formed by the Bear clan of the Ottawas to soothe
a bear when they killed it, including an offering
to the dead animal of its own flesh. When a
member of that clan or of the Carp clan died, he
was buried, whereas by command of the totem a
member of the Great Hare clan was cremated —
at least, whenever he died at a distance from
home.* Among the Menomini a member of the
Bear clan who, when hunting, met a bear would
apologize and ask forgiveness before killing it ;
and no member of the clan could eat of the meat
(though members of other clans might do so)
except the hunter himself, who was permitted to
eat of the paws and head, the bones of the head
being carefully preserved in a place of honour in
the wigwam as a relic of the totem-animal to which
due reverence must be paid.'* The Ojibwa reckoned
descent and kinship through the father only ; but
there is some evidence that they formerly reckoned
through the mother only — a change possibly
accelerated by white, and particularly missionary,
influence. Such a change is known to have occurred
elsewhere."

The Iroquois, a confederacy of six tribes in what
is now the state of New York, on tlie other hand,
were matrilineal. They were organized in totemic
clans, of which all of them possessed three — the
Bear, Wolf, and Turtle— some of them eight.
There is some reason to think that the larger
numbers were derived by segmentation from the
three original clans, though it is possible that, in
some of the cases at all events, the number of the
three clans may have been augmented by the
adoption of captives from other tribes, who formed
separate clans. The clans were exogamic, but in
the eight-clan tribes they were formed into two
phratries. The members of the clans were not
allowed to marry indiscriminately into any other
clan ; they could marry only into a clan of the
opposite phratry, the phratry thus becoming the
exogamic unit in place of the clan. On the social
side of Iroquoian totemism we have fairly full
information. The members of a clan were united
for mutual defence and the resentment of injuries ;'
and the phratries, where the tribe was organized
in phratries, had certain important functions at
the death of a chief and the election of his
successor.® On the religious aspect, however,
our information is sadly deficient. There is one
account by a chance traveller, in which the
Iroquois were stated to believe in their descent
from the turtle (or tortoise), the bear, and the
wolf— their three chief totems;'' and among their

1 Frazer, p. 59, quotings Edwin JameB, Narrative of the
Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, Lomlon, 1S30.

2 M. A. Owen, p. 51 f. 3 Frazer, iii. 67, 60. ^ HofFinan, p. 65.
BE. S. Hartland, Mem. Amer. Anth. Assoc, iv. [1917] 48;

cf. Frazer, iii. 58 ; cf. also the derivation of ' totem ' at the
beeinning of this article.

0 L. H. Morgan, Ancient Society, London, 1877, pp. 70-98,
Leagtie of the Ho-de-no-sau-ne, or Iroquois, new ed., New York,
1904, i. 74-120 ; H. Hale, The Iroquois Book of Hites, Philadelp)iia,
1883, pp. 48-75. These are all summarized by Frazer, iii. 7 ff.

7 Frazer, iii. 18, citing T. Dwight, Travels in New Enrjlani
and ffew York, I,ondon, 1823.

myths one lias been preserved by a scientific
inquirer relating how the turtle became a man
and the progenitor of the Turtle clan.' But
neither L. H. Morgan nor Horatio Hale, to whom
we are indebted for nearly all that we know of
the organization of the Iroquois, has told us any-
thing concerning the intimate relations between
the totem and its clan, or the aspect in which the
totem was regarded by the clan, or the members
by one another.

The Iroquois, however, had one custom common to a number
of N. American tribes. Kach clan had a stock of personal names
appropriated to it only, which other clans of the same tribe
were not permitted to use, so that, if a person's name was known,
it was possible to say to what clan he belonged. To such a
length was this custom carried by some tribes that, when
the clan organization began to decay, a child could be
assigned to another clan tlian that into which by hereditary
descent he was born, by the .simple process of giving him one of
the personal names belonging to the latter clan — at all events
if the clan recognized the child and thereby confirmed the
choice.2 The clans of some of the N. American tribes per-
formed ceremonies for the control of their totems for the
common good of the tribe. This was the practice, e.g., among
the Omaha. 3 P>ut its utmost development is found in the south-
west of the United States among the various tribes of Pueblo
Indians.'*

(6) Australia. — In Australia totemism has been
crossed, and among some tribes superseded, for
exogamic purposes by a system of marriage-classes."
The consequent variation in the social arrange-
ments of the different tribes has introduced a
confusing factor into the totemic organization.
Among those tribes whose organization has been
least affected is the Dieri, inhabiting part of the
Lake Eyre basin in S. Australia. They possess a
number of clans of which the names of 27 are
known. Their totems belong chiefly to the animal
world ; but the list includes some vegetable totems
and such objects as rain and red ochre. It seems
to be common to all the tribes in the Lake Eyre
basin, though it is not ascertained whether all the
totems are recognized by every tribe. Each tribe,
like some of the Iroquois tribes, is divided into
two moieties, or phratries, some of the clans be-
longing to one phratry and the rest to the other.
These phratries are called by the Dieri Kararu
and Matteri respectively ; and, as among the
Iroquois, not only the clan but also the phratry is
exogamous. A Kararu man must marry a Matteri
woman, and conversely a Matteri woman a Kararu
man ; but within the limits of the opposite phratry
the mate may belong to any clan. Both the clan
and the phratry descend in the female line, the
children in all cases taking those of the mother."
The Dieri clans do not claim their totemic animals
or plants as ancestors. More than one legend
accounts for them.

According to one story, the totems {murdus, properly madas)
came out in an unfinished condition from the earth in the midst
of Lake Perigundi and lay on the sandhills around the lake
until the warmth of the sun strengthened and raised them up
as human beings, whereupon they separated in all directions.
Hence the madas (totemic clans) are now scattered all over the
country. According to another story, a malignant imira-7nura,
or supernatural being, was killed by the people for his misdeeds,
but came to life again. He followed footprints, and, finding
the peojjle busy fishing, opened his mouth and swallowed
water, fish, and "men. Some escaped, running off in all direc-
tions, and to every one as they ran he gave a mada. In proof
of the story, rocks are pointed out which are said to be the body
of the mura-inura in question, and his teeth.'

If we may trust one account, the Dieri do not
regard the animal or plant which is their totem as
sacred, but will kill or eat it.^ It is not, however,
certain that we can rely on this statement. Its
author, for a long time a mounted constable in the
district, and hence brought much into contact with

1 2RBEW [1883], pt. ii. p. 77.

2 Morgan, Ancient Soc, p. 78 ; Hartland, pp. 35, 40. See, on
the organization of Iroquoian clans, Amer. Anthrop. xix. [1917]
392 ff. ; also Frazer, iii. 13, 42.

3 3RBEW [18S4], pp. 238, 2401., 248 ; of. p. 227.

4 See below, § 4. ^ See below, § 4 (6).

e Howitt, p. 90ff. 1 lb. pp. 476, 779-781.

8 JAI xxiv. [1895] 168.

396

TOTEMISM

the natives, was, we know, mistaken in other
matters with respect to them. In general through-
out Australia the clansmen regard their own totem
with reverence.

Thus, in the Wakelbura tribe we are expressly told that the
totem-animal is spoken of as ' father.' 'For example, a man of
the Binnung-urra (Frilled-lizard totem) holds that reptile as
sacred, and he not only would not kill it, but would protect it
by preventing another person doing so in his presence. Simi-
larly a man of the Screech-owl totem would call it "father,"
and likewise hold it sacred and protect it. ... A man who was
lax as to his totem was not thought well of, and was never
allowed to take an.y important part in the ceremonies.' i In the
tongue of the VVotjobaluk yauerin, ' flesh,' is used for totem,
indicating the close relationship of the totem and the totem-
clan. 2 Grey, writing of the tribes of W. Australia, reports that
' each family [clan] adopts some animal or vegetable as their
crest or sign, or kabonq, as they call it,' and that 'a certain
mysterious connection exists between a family and its kohoag,
so that a member of the family will never kill an animal of the
species to which his kobong belongs, should he find it asleep ;
indeed he alwajs kills it reluctantly, and never without affording
it a chance to escape. This arises from the family belief that
some one individual of the species is their nearest friend, to kill
whom would be a great crime. Similarly a native who has a
vegetable for his kobong may not gather it under certain circum-
stances and at a particular period of the year.' 3 So far is this
belief in a connexion between the totem-clan and its kobong
carried that in the Wakelbura tribe, ' when a man could not get
satisfaction for an injurious action by another, he has been
known to kill that beast, bird, or reptile which that man called
" father," and thus obtain revenge, and perhaps cause the other
to do the same, if he knew of it.''* Such is the influence of
belief that the killing of a man's totem has been known to
hasten his death.

An interesting development of totemism in
Australia is the assignment of a number of sub-
totems to each totem. Thus in the Wotjobaluk
tribe the Deaf Adder totem has for sub-totems the
Native Cat, Black Swan, Tiger-Snake, Sulphur-
crested Cockatoo, Crow, and Dingo ; and the other
totems have similar lists.'* Where, according to
the peculiar exogamic regulations, the phratries
developed into marriage-classes, the sub-totems
were attached to the latter. Ultimately the result
was to divide the universe between the various
classes and sub-classes — a result expressed in
diagrammatic form in accordance with the points
of tiie compass by the Wotjobaluk, who buried
their dead orientated to agree with the diagram
thus obtained.^ What the reason was for assign-
ing these sub-totems to the different totems and
classes has not been ascertained ; to us it seems
arbitrary. At any rate the Australian native
extended the regard for his totem to the sub-totems
comprehended in the totem-clan or class to which
he belonged.

A man of the Buandik tribe, we are told, ' does not kill or use
for food any of the animals of the same sub-division with him-
self, excepting when hunger compels ; and then they express
sorrow for having to eat their warigong (friends) or tuviang
(their flesh). When using the last word they touch their breasts
to indicate the close relationship, meaning almost a part of
themselves."?

Another custom developed extensively in Aus-
tralia, but (as already intimated) not unknown
among the Sioux in N. America, and elsewhere,
is that of the performance of ceremonies by a
totem-clan for the purpose of exercising control
over the totem — e.g., for multiplying its numbers,
especially where it was edible, or for ensuring its
capture, or, where it was injurious, for driving it
away. The infichiuma ceremonies of the Arunta
have by the investigations of Spencer and Gillen
become the best known ; they are perhaps the most
elaborate, but by no means the only, ceremonies of
the kind. The Dieri and other tribes perform such
ceremonies, though it is not clear in all cases that
the performers are conHned to members of the
totem-clan. P'rom the analogy of cases both in
Australia and in the islands of Torres Straits we

1 Howitt, p. 147 f. 2 76, p. 241.

3 Journals, ii. 228. 4 Howitt, ]i. 148.

5/6. p. 121. 6/6. p. 453 f.

■? L. Fison and A. W. Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, Mel-
bourne, 1880, ]i. ICS f., quoting a correspondent ; cf. E. M. Ourr,
The Australian Race, do. 1886-87, iii. 460.

may probably assume that they are. Whether
these ceremonies should be called religious or
magical is a question of terminology, though it
seems certain that the performers are under the
influence of emotional excitement such as we
usually connect with religious rites.

Little is known about the relations of the clans-
men ill Australia among themselves. From vague
references by Howitt and others it would .seem that
they enjoyed mutual defence and responsibility.
But offences were brought before a tribal council,
by whose decision blood-revenge was pursued in a
quasi-legal manner and, if resisted, ultimately in-
volved the whole tribe in the blood-feud.

(c) Africa. — Another area in which totemism has
been found is that large portion of Africa which is
occupied by the Negro and Bantu races. Of the
totemism of some of these peoples, particularly
of the Negroes, our information is fragmentary.
Concerning the Tshi-speaking Negroes of the Gold
Coast we have on the whole most information.
They are divided into totemic clans, or ' families,'
of which the principal are twelve in number, viz.
Leopard, Buffalo, Dog, Parrot, Plantain, Corn-
stalk, Servant, Red-Earth, Palm-oil-Grove, Abadzi,
and Dumina or Dwimina. The meaning of the
names of the last two clans is uncertain. The last
is probably a local variant of the name of the
Nsonna, or Bush-Cat, clan ; and, according to some
accounts, Abadzi, which may mean ' cannibal,' is
another name of the Ntwa, or Dog, clan. About
certain of the clans little or nothing beyond the
name is known, and questions of identity arise on
some of them. These difficulties are incidental to
traditional lore where we are dependent upon
natives who are not familiar with all the clans
about which inquiries are made. To the Leopard
clan the leopard is sacred, though members of it
are reported now to abstain from the flesh of all
thefelidm. No member may kill a leopard ; if he
were to do so by accident, he would exclaim, 'I
have killed my brother,' and would put palm-oil
on the wounds. If he sees a dead leopard, he must
scatter shreds of white cloth upon it and anoint the
muzzle with palm-oil, as a sign of respect and
sorrow. If a dead leopard is brovight into the
town, the members of the clan smear themselves
with chalk (a sign of mourning) and bury the body.
If on a journey a member of the clan were to meet
a leopard, he would turn back. The Buflalo,
Bush-Cat, Dog, and Parrot clans abstain from
eating the totem-animal. The Bush-Cat clan, it
is said, abstain from killing not only a bush-
cat, but also a crow, under penalty of sores
on their bodies. Formerly, if they found a crow
or a bush-cat dead, they would bury it, and with
the crow a piece of white cloth, with the bush-cat
a piece of speckled cloth. The traditional accounts
which have reached us of the origin of these clans
do not generally claim genetic descent from the
totem.

One account states that 'people originally came from the
earth, sky, sea, mountains, and the animals, etc., that came with
them are their totems'; e.g., the Parrot clan came with the
parrots on their loads ; the Dog clan came from a river with a
broom and with a dog carrying fire.

Other clans, fewer in numbers and conjectured to
be of more recent origin, claim that they are
descended from an actual animal which possessed
the power of assuming human shape at will. In
the case of two such clans tales belonging to the
Swan Maiden type are told to account for them.
The totem -animal is revered. It is addressed as
'grandfather,' a title of respect used in addressing
the kings of Ashanti. It is supposed to help the
clansmen in various ways ; and restraint is said to
be placed upon it in order to compel it to grant the
wishes of the tribe. There are no marks or di-esses
distinguishing the clans ; but, when a member of

TOTEMISM

397

the Leopard clan dies, the mourners (clansmen)
make spots on their bodies with red, white, and
black clay to represent a leopard, and scratch the
figure of a leopard on the wall of the house and on
the coffin. The Nsonna clan in the like case put
white clay or white cloth round their necks,
because tlie crow which the clan respects has a
white band round its neck. The clan is always
matrilineal and exogamous ; and it has a common
burial-place. There is said to be a belief that at
death a clansman becomes or transmigrates into
an individual of the totemic species, and, further,
every clansman's life is bound up with one such
individual, so that, if it dies, he will also die.^

The Bantu have for the most part advanced
from maternal to paternal descent, though among
some tribes we find an intermediate stage. This
has not been without its effect upon their totem-
ism, which in several ways varies from the pattern
of true matrilineal totemism. The Bechuana, who
occupy the centre of S. Africa, are divided into a
number of independent 'tribes' generally called
by totemic names and having totemic practices and
beliefs. In many cases, however, these ' tribes '
are not true totemic clans. Since the wife always
goes to reside with her husband, the result of the
change to paternal descent is to collect the mem-
bers of the clan together, instead of distributing
them as in a matrilineal people, and hence the clan
tends to become identified with the geogi-aphical
and political tribe. Evei-y Bechuana tribe is ruled
by a chief, whose totem is recognized as that of
the tribe. The political conditions were such that
before the European occupation of the country
members of a tribe who were discontented with
their cliief used to desert him and go to a neighbour-
ing rival, with whom they were sure of a welcome.
Thus a powerful chief was liable to be reduced to
weakness, and perhaps conquered by a neighbour,
if his rule was unpopular. It followed that a
tribe frequently comprehended members of many
totemic clans. But they all accepted the chief's
totem, and in time became indistinguishable from
the true clansmen, though Ave do not read of any
formal adoption into the clan or of any blood-
covenant. The chief is always addressed by the
name of the totem, as 'O Crocodile !' 'O Lion !'
The Bechuana word for ' totem ' is siboko, which
has led Van Gennep to propose the name ' sibok-
ism ' to distinguish the S. African variety of totem-
ism. The chief's totem is held sacred, and the
animal, plant, or other object is regarded with fear
and reverence.

Thus the Banoku, 'they of the porcupine,' are reported to
' sing,' i.e. ' feast, worship or revere ' that animal. ' When they
see any one maltreat that animal, they afflict themselves,
grieve, collect with religious care the quills, if it has been
killed, spit upon them and rub their eyebrows with them,
saying : " They have slain our brother, our master, one of ours,
him whom we sing." They fear that they will die if they eat
the flesh of one.' Yet they doctor a new-born child with it,
mixed with the juice of certain plants.2 The Bakuena, ' they
of the crocodile,' call the animal their father ; ' they celebrate
it in their festivals, they swear by it, and make an incision in
the ears of their cattle, by which they distinguish them from
others.' They call it 'one of them, their master, their father.'
Similar practices are recorded of other clans. ' No one dares
eat the flesh or clothe himself with the skin of the animal the
name of which he bears. If this animal is hurtful, as the lion,
for instance, it may not be killed without great apologies being
made to it and its pardon being asked. Purification is neces-
sary after the commission of such a sacrilege.' The Bataung,
'they of the lion,' 'carefully aliatain from touching his flesh as
other people do ; for how could one think of eating his ancestor?'
Nor does even the chief dare to wear, like other chiefs, a lion's
skin by way of royal mantle.s

1 A. B. Ellis, Th,- Tahl-Kpfakinfi Peoples of the Gold Coast,
Lond.jii, 1SS7, p. 200; J. M. Sailiuli, h'aiiti Custinnan/ Laws,
do. 1897, p. 4 ; JAI xxxvi. [1900] ITS ft".

'- T. Arbousset and F. Uaumas, Narrative of an Exploratori/
Tour to the M.E. of the. Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, tr.
J. C. Brown, Cape Town, 1846, p.'l76.

^ lb. p. 213 f. ; E. Ca-Jalis The na^ulos, London, 1801, p. '211.

But totemism is decadent among the Bechuana,
and has been so for a period which probably dates
from before the coming of the European,^ due
partly to the change to paternal lineage, partly to
the political conditions, and partly to the keeping
of herds of cattle, a custom that seems to have
been adopted from the Hottentots.

America, Australia, and Africa are the three
chief areas in which totemism has been found
widely spread and fully developed. It will be
perceived that each of them has its own type,
though variations in detail are found in individual
tribes and peoples. The remaining areas ai'e India
and Melanesia.

(d) India. — In India totemism is found only
among the non-Aryan tribes, and chiefiy among
the Dravidians. Of these we may take the Oraons
on the plateau of Chota Nagpur in Bengal as
representing the type. Though they have to a
great extent emerged from the hunting and pas-
toral stages of culture, totemism ' still forms the
fundamental feature of their social organization
in so far as kinship, marriage, and relations of
the sexes are concerned.' They are divided into a
number of exogamous clans distinguished by names
supplied by ' the fauna and flora of their past and
present habitats ' ; and to these, ' with the acquisi-
tion of a knowledge of agriculture and the use of
metals, a few new totem names have been since
added.' The animal and vegetable names amount
in number to 62. There are also (probably of more
recent origin) two mineral totems, those of Iron and
Salt ; two which may be called place-totems, viz.
Baudh, an embanked reservoir of water, and Jubbi,
a marsh or surface-spring ; and two which belong
to a class known elsewhere, called ' split-totems '
as involving tabus of a portion only of an animal
or vegetable, and frequently known by the name
of that portion. Among the Oraons these split-
totems are Anvir (rice-soup) and Kispotta (pig's
entrails). Sexual union Avithin the totem-clan is
reckoned incestuous, though at the present day, if a
marriage takes place in which the rule is infringed
wittingly or unAvittingly, the offending pair, after
paying a fine and giving a feast to the clansmen
by analogy with the usual caste practice in India,
are formally re-admitted to the tribe and their
union is thus legalized. The remaining ordinary
totemic tabus are observed. ' An Oraon must
abstain from eating or otherwise using, domesti-
cating, killing, destroying, maiming, hurting or
injuring' his totem. A wife, in addition to the
tabus of her own clan, is required to observe those
of her husband's while she actually resides in his
village. Men of the clan whose totem is any kind
of tree may not go under the shade of the tree or
use its produce in any shape. But some modifica-
tions have been introduced where the totem is an
indispensable article of diet or household use.

Thus members of the Paddy clan abstain only from eating the
thin scum on the surface of rice-soup when left standing in a
cool place ; members of the Salt clan abstain only from taking
raw salt, the tabu not extending to food or drink in which salt
is an ingredient or flavour; members of the Iron clan abstain
only from touching iron with their lips or tongue ; members
of the Pig clan are forbidden only to eat the head of the
pig; members of the Bara clan, of which the Fi<y<(S IndKa
is "the totem, may eat the fruit whole, but not by dividing it
in two.

On the other hand, the tabus of some clans have
been extended to objects having a real or fancied
resemblance to the totem or bearing the same or a
similar name.

Thus members of the Tiger clan not only have to observe
various tabus in reference to the tiger and to the wolf, but also
must abstain from eating the squirrel's flesh, since the squirrel
is strijied like the tiger, and they may not marry in the
month of Magh (December-January) because the name Mag^h
rhymes with bdgh, the Hindi word for 'tiger.'

1 W. 0. Willoughby, J A I xxxv. [190.SJ 298.

398

TOTBMISM

In this case the foreign word bCigh points to a
late and highly artificial origin for sucli a tabu,
Avhich is obviously due to the timidity of super-
stition. Other additional tabus have been sug-
gested to be due to the fusion of clans, just as some
'split-totems ' may have arisen from the opposite
process of the division of clans.

' The general attitude of an Oraon to his clan-
totem is that of a man to his equal — to lii.s friend
and ally,' though some periodical practices seem to
indicate a more religious regard — at any rate for
its effigy. But totemism is now in decay, as it is
over tlie rest of India. An unintentional breach of
a tabu is no longer believed to entail any serious
consequences, tliough looked upon Avith social dis-
approval. There is no difference between the
clans in personal dress or adornment, nor is a man
supposed to partake of the qualities of the totem.
There are very few traditions of tlie origin of
totem-names. Such as there are do not reveal any
belief in the descent of the clan from the totem,
but rather in some other relation between the
totem and the human ancestor of the clan. The
Oraons are patrilineal.^

(e) Melanesia. — In Melanesia (including New
Guinea and the islands of Torres Straits) there is
a tendency to associate with the principal totem of
a clan a number of subordinate totems which have
been called ' secondary,' 'subsidiary,' or 'linked'
totems. The western islands of Torres Straits
have for many years been tiie scene of successful
missionary enterprise. Under this influence the
totemism Avliich formerly existed among the people
has almost disappeared. But twenty years ago
the members of the Cambridge Anthropological
Expedition, who spent some time on the islands,
Avere able to recover very definite evidence of its
existence. The population Avas divided into a
number of exogamous totemic clans. As a rule
each clan had subsidiary totems in addition to its
chief totem. ' In some cases tAVo or more clans
might have the same chief totem, Avhile differing
in their subsidiary totems ' — Avhich looks like the
fission of an original clan. Members of a clan
Avere distinguished by Avearing an emblem of the
totem, or more rarely bearing it in cicatrices or
keloids on the flesh. Personal belongings also, it
is said, were adorned with a representation of the
owner's totem. Descent was reckoned in the male
line ; but adoption seems to have been practised.
In conformity Avith patrilineal reckoning there Avas
a tendency to a geographical distribution of the
clans. This, hoAvever, Avas apt to result in quarrel-
ling ; and the missionaries had accordingly suc-
ceeded in inducing the people, at all events of one
of the islands, to abandon the localization of the
clans.

' The solidarity of the totem-clan was a marked feature in
the social life of the people, and it took precedence of all other
considerations ; not only so, but there was an intimate relation-
ship between all members of the same totem [-clan] irrespec-
tive of the island or locality to which they might belong and
even warfare did not affect the friendship of totem- brethren.
Any man who visited another island would be looked after and
entertained as a matter of course by the residents who belonged
to the same totem as himself.' 2

The clans were grouped in two classes or
phratries. On the island of Mabuiag these tAvo
phratries Avere respectively known as ' the children
or people of the Great Totem ' and ' the children or
people of the Little Totem.' The former com-
prised the Crocodile, CassoAvary, Snake, and Dog
clans (all land animals) ; the latter the Dugong,
Shovel-nosed Skate, Sliark, Ray, and Green Turtle
clans (all water animals). On this island there is

J S. Chandra Roy, The Oraons of Ohotd Ndgpur, Ranchi, 1915,
p. 324 ff. ; cf. Frazer, ii. 2S4ff., and the authorities there
referred to.

^ A. C. Haddon and W. II. R. Rivers in Reports of the Cam-
bridije Anthrop. Exped. to Torres Straits, Cambridge, 1901-OS,
V. 181.

no sufficient evitlence that the phratries regulated
marriage during recent times ; but there is reason
to think that they were exogamous on some other
of tiie islands. Members of a clan might not kill
or eat the totem ; but this did not apply to the
Dugong and Turtle clans, for both dugong and
turtle were important articles of food on the
islands, which are someAvhat barren. Members of
the clan, hoAvever, were not allowed to eat of the
first dugong or turtle caught, but might partake
of those subsequently caught. They performed
ceremonies to entice the animals to tlie island
and ensure a good season. They could, on the
other hand, by magical rites with the contrary
intention, prevent them from coming. A mys-
tical relation was held to subsist betAveen the totem
and the clan. He Avas said to be ' all same as rela-
tion, he belong same family.' The Cassowary,
Crocodile, Snake, Shark, and Hammer-headed
Shark clans Avere reputed to be truculent and to
like fighting. The peaceable clans Avere the Shovel-
nosed Skate, Ray, and Sucker-fish ; while the Dog
clan was sometimes peaceable and at other times
quarrelsome — all like the totem-animal. Certain
of the clans, possiblj^ all, had formulae which they
repeated in going into a fight, and Avhich Avere
either magical or in the nature of invocations to
tlie totem. The prayer is in some stages of civil-
ization near akin to the spell. ^

4. Decadence of totemism. — The foregoing
examples will sufficiently indicate the chief char-
acteristics of totemism in the five great areas in
Avhich it has been found. It is apparent that in
each area totemism was by no means a new pheno-
menon. It arises in a low condition of savagery
and is connected in its typical forms Avith matri-
lineal descent. But, even before contact Avith
Europeans, it had begun to assume forms very
divergent from Avhat we understand by normal
totemism, leading in some cases to degeneration
and disintegration.

(a) America. — Among the divergences found
in N. America those of the coast-dAvellers of tlie
north-Avest are the most remarkable. The Tlingit,
inhabiting S. Alaska, are divided into tAvo exo-
gamous phratries or classes, called after the raven
and the wolf respectively ; ^ and these tAvo phratries
are again divided into a number of totemic clans.
The members of a clan are believed to be related
to one another more closely than to those of otlier
clans even of the same phratry. They reckon
descent through the mother and as a consequence
are not gathered at one place, but distributed as
social groups and not geographical. Yet each
clan usually derived its origin (and most of them,
at the present day, their names) from some village
or camp which it once occupied. They seem,
however, to have had alternative names (if F.
Boas's account is correct) derived from the animal,
or one of the animals, Avliich they claimed as a
badge. In point of fact the emblems or representa-
tions on the north -Avestern coast, generally called
totems, are rather badges or crests. The clans of
each phratry, indeed, all use the totem of the
phratry ; they also use a number of other badges,
some of which are the special property of the clan,
or of some sub-clan, and are guarded Avith much
jealousy. They carve and paint thf badge on the
so-called totem-poles erected in frcmt of the dwell-
ing-house, or on a grave. These poles are, how-
ever, less frequently erected bj' the Tlingit than
by some of their neighbours. The badge is also
e\hil)ited on many other articles of property, Avorn
as a mask or hat used as a disguise at dances,
potlatches, and funeral ceremonies, and painted

1 Haddon and Rivers, ih. v. IB0-IS6.

2 J. R. Swanton, 26 RUEW [1908], p. 407, suggests that these
two plnatrieci may have liad a racial orij;iii.

TOTBMISM

39y

on the faces of the clansmen. It is not now held
that the clan or phratry is descended from tlie
totem or animal represented, though it may he
suspected that in former times this was believed.
At present stories are told by the clan or sub-clan
claiming a badge of its acquisition by an ancestor
through an adventure with the animal in question,
such animal being often conceived as of super-
human power.

As Frazer points out, many of ' these tales have the true
totemic ring about them ; they point clearly to the former
identification of the olanspeople with their totems, which is
only another wa.y of saying that the present people are sup-
posed to be descended from the totemic animals.' 1

To this it maj' be added that, according to Boas's report,
'the animal and a member of its clan are considered relations.
Thus the wolf gens will pray to the wolves, " We are your
relations ; pray don't hurt us I " But notwithstanding this
fact they will hunt wolves without hesitation.' ^
The truth is that the more or less permanent
settlement of all the tribes along the coast — at
least from the Tlingit to the Kwakiutl — in villages,
and their increasing civilization, have led to the
division of the population into ranks or castes and
to a continually higher value being set on the
crests or badges as marks of rank and wealth, and
as symbols, if not guarantees, of descent from a
distinguished ancestor. This has resulted in an
accumulation of crests, some clans or sub-clans
obtaining a larger number than others ; and some
of the crests were used by more than one clan.

'The great majority of Tlingit personal names referred to
some animal, especially that animal whose emblem was par-
ticularly valued by the clan to which the bearer belonged.' 3

Of these names many seem to have been peculiar
to one or otlier of the clans. The solidarity ordin-
arily subsisting between members of a clan is
found, among the Tlingit, rather between the
members of a phratry.

'According to the unwritten Tlingit law it was incumbent
u))on everyone belonging to a phratry to house and feed any
other member of that phratry who should visit him, no matter
from how great a distance he might come ' ; and it was a mark
of good manners, therefore of high caste, not to abuse such
hospitality.*

Any serious collision at a potlatch arising out of
the rivalry of opposing parties of dancers Mas
averted or stayed by the host's people, who rushed
between them bearing the emblem of their phratry
or making the call of the animal whose name was
that of the phratry. When a man died, the
funeral ceremonies were conducted by the opposite
phratry, who were afterwards entertained at a
mourning feast by the relatives of the deceased.
On the whole it may be conjectured that the two
phratries represent original totem-clans, out of
which the existing clans or groups, whether socia,l
or local, have developed. There was also reckoned
among the Tlingit population a small group at
Sanya, called the Nex4di (' People of Nex,' a creek
in the neighbourhood), who stood outside both
phratries and might marry into both. They bore
the Eagle crest or badge and had personal names
having reference to the eagle. They were doubt-
less a small intrusive i)opulation, which Swanton,
the latest investigator of the Tlingit, suggests as
perhaps of Athapascan derivation.^

Coining down from north to soiith along the
coast and islands of Alaska and liiitish Columbia,
we Knd a similar organization, dill'ering however
in detail, among the various peoples, with an
increasing emphasis laid on rank and the possession
of crests, until we reat^h the Kwakiutl. The
Kwakiutl proper (or Southern Kwakiutl, as they
are often called to distinguish them from the
Heiltsuk, their north(}rn congeners) are organized
in ' tribes,' which in turn are subdivided into

1 iii. 273 f.

2 Report of 59th Meeting of Dritlsh Astmc. ISS9, p. 819.

3 Swanton, 36 HBEW, p. 421. ■* Jb. p. 427.

5Je RBEW, pp. 396-449; Boas, Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1SS9,
p. 819fif.

exogamic groui)s distinguished not, as a rule, by
totemic names but by the collective form of the
name claimed as that of an ancestor, by geo-
graphical names, or by 'names of honour.' The
evidence seems to show that they are neither
deliaitely patrilineal nor matrilineal in descent,
but in a state of transition, since a child may
belong to any ' clan ' or exogamic group to which
one of its ancestors belonged at the arbitrary dis-
cretion of its parents. Each exogamic group, like
the ordinary clan of several of the tribes east of
the Kocky Mountains, had a number of personal
names appropriated to it ; and to assign a child to
such a group it was enough to give it one of these
names. In this way it appears to have become
ijiso facto a member of the group ; it might even
belong to more than one at the same time. What
was more important in Kwakiutl society was the
possession of crests and the privileges that they
carried. These were obtained in three several
ways: (1) they might be inherited by direct patri-
lineal descent from an ancestor who acquired them
through an adventure in the course of which he
obtained the protection and guidance of a manitu,
or spiritual helper, for himself and his descendants ;
direct inheritance of this kind, however, was
comparatively rare ; (2) more usually they were
obtained by marriage ; the payment of a bride-price
secured not onljf the bride, but also the right of
membership in her ' clan ' or exogamous group, the
crest and privileges of the bride's father, and a
good deal of otiier property ; (3) the third method
was to obtain them by killing the owner, as in the
case of the position and privileges of the King of
the Wood of Nemi. The privileges include not
only the use of the crest but also the right to the
membership of certain societies and the ownership
and exclusive right to practise certain dances
connected with the ceremonials of the societies.
They are, however, not acquired for the beneht
of the son-in-law in the case of marriage, but for
his successor, whoever he may be. Seeing, more-
over, that the number of noblemen is tixed, and
tliere is only one person at a time who personartes
the ancestor and has his rank and privileges, the
person entitled must wait for a vacancy before he
can be admitted to them. He may wait in vain ;
for before a vacancy occurs the owner may change
his mind, or even after tiie person entitled has
obtained the privileges he may devest them and
confer them upon some other successor.

This is manifestly not totemism, for the societies
oiierate only during the winter, when they domin-
ate the social organization to the exclusion of the
kinship and local groups. It may have been
influenced by true totemic conceptions, from which
it may even have sprung. But its cause must be
sought in the increasing power of wealth, the con-
sequent development of rank, and the desire for
display.^

The transformation that thus seems to have
overtaken totemism among the Kwakiutl is in
process also among the Pueblo tribes of New
Mexico and Arizona. Here the cause is ditt'erent.
In these tribes, originally organized in totemic
clans and phratries with matrilineal descent, the
struggle for existence in an arid country has
evolved a sense of deiiendence upon the super-
natural powers and a religious ritual and elaborate
ceremonies, partly religious and partly magical,
for the production of rain and maize. At first
these ceremonies appear to have been jierformed
l)y the appropriate dans, as we imvp found in
other ureas. In sonie cases they are so si ill, as
among the ZuDi, but .aided and superintended by
the priests of the various deities. In other cases,

1 Boas, Rep. U.S. Hationai Musewn, 1S95, Washington, 1897,
pp. :J34, 338, 340, 342, 368.

400

TOTBMISM

as among the Hopi, the Snake clan has been super-
seded for this purpose by an 'order' or society, the
members of which were probably at the beginning
recruited exclusively from the clan. The rule is
now somewhat less strict, embracing others besides
members of the clan, though the members of the
societj'^ are limited.^ In fact the latest inquiries
appear to show that the societies or fraternities
have broken away and become quite independent
of the clan organization.^

{h) Australia. — Turning to Australia, we find
that among the Central tribes the totemic clans
have been carried far towards their complete con-
version into societies performing magieo-religious
rites, the object of which is the multiplication of
the totemic animal or plant. The Warramunga
hold that the totem-clans originated each from
a single ancestor, half-beast, or half-plant, from
whose body emanated a number of spirit-children ;
and the descendants of the clan are all animated
by these spirit-children. The ceremonies are here
performed by the clan in a dehnite order, repre-
senting in dramatic fashion the traditional history
of the clan. The Warramunga and the tribes to
the north of them are dehnitely patrilineal with
exogamic clans ; but the members of the clan in
every generation are believed to be continual re-
incarnations of deceased ancestors. The Arunta,
on the other hand, have ceased to regulate their
marriages by totemic exogamy and now regulate
them solely by class-divisions consisting of the
pristine moieties of the tribe, which have been
doubly subdivided, so that they are now eight in
number. There are various places in the territory
of the tribe which are totemic centres believed to
be haunted by the spirit-children of the original
ancestors. One of these spirit-children is held to
have entered the body of every pregnant woman,
according to the totemic centre near or at which
she first felt herself pregnant. In this way the
' clan ' of the child is ascertained, and in no case
does it depend upon that of the father or mother.
The resulting group passing under a totemic name
is clearly no true clan.

' There is no such thing as the members of one totem [-group]
being bound together in such a way that they must combine to
fight on behalf of a member of the totem [-group] to which they
belong.'

Inasmuch as every death is supposed to be due to
witchcraft, revenge has to be taken by somebody.
Normally this duty would fall on the clansmen of
the deceased. But among the Arunta it would
seem to be the members of the local group who
undertake it.

' In fact ' say Spencer and Gillen, summing up the subject, ' it
is perfectly easy to spend a considerable time amongst the
Arunta tribe without even being aware that each individual
has a totemic name ' ; but the fact of his belonging to one or
other of the divisions governing marriage is soon apparent.

These groups thus passing under totemic names
perform under the direction of their respective
headmen from time to time, as the headman
concerned decides, the ceremonies known as
intichiuma. These ceremonies are not, like those
of the Warramunga, the property of the entire
group, but each of them belongs to a specific
individual, who alone has the right of performing
it or of requesting others to do so. One conse-
quence of this is that they are not performed in a
definite series : they are fragments and may be
given in any arbitrary order. They have ceased
to be a representation of the traditional history of
the group ; they have become mere magical rites.
Further, in the tribes both south and north of the

1 The various minutely detailed accounts of the Pueblo
Indians and their ceremonies have been admirably summarized
by Frazer, iii. 195 fif.

2 A. L. Kroeber, ' Zuiii Kin and Clan,' Anthrop. Papers of the
Am. Mus. Nat. Hist, xviii. [New York, 1917] 145 n , 150 fl". •
J. W. Fewkes, 19 RBEW [1900], pt. ii. p. 905

Central group, consisting of the Arunta and their
immediate neighbours, a man is forbidden to kill,
injure, or eat his totem. In some of the tribes,
though patrilineal, the prohibition also applies
more or less absolutely to the totem of the clans-
man's mother — probaljly a relic of an older matri-
lineal condition. Among the Arunta, however,
there is no such prohibition. Indeed the members
of a totem-group are expected to eat of the totem
during the ceremonies ; and they have liberty to
do so at other times, though only sparingly. The
conclusion from these and other facts is irresistible
that the Central tribes of Australia are finding
their way out of normal totemism, and that of
these tribes the Arunta and their immediate
neighbours to the north (the Kaitish, Unmatjera,
and others) are the farthest advanced on the road.
Their totemic organization is not merely decadent ;
it is obsolescent. Such remains of it as persist are
preserved only as societies held together for the
performance of certain magical or religious rites
and as the carriers of certain religious traditions,
but no longer as organic social groups.^

But decadent totemism often takes another
course in its transformation. In most totemic
communities it is customary to assemble the grow-
ing youths for the purpose of what are generally
called the i^uberty ceremonies. By means of these
ceremonies the youths of the tribe are taken from
their mothers' care and out of the society of women
and children, are submitted to tests of courage and
endurance, educated in sexual matters and in the
customs and traditions of the tribe, and fitted hence-
forth to take their part in the life of the tribe as
adult and fully admitted members. Such initiation
rites are prominent all over Australia. Among
tiie Central tribes they have been developed beyond
all others. They have been made very severe, not
to say cruel ; they have been elaborated into four
distinct stages and protracted through years,
though not of course continuous during that period.
Their performance is everywhere one of the im-
portant occasions on which the tribe comes to-
gether. The members are summoned by special
messengers with traditional formalities. But the
actual performance of the greater part of them is
secret, in the sense that no one is allowed to
witness or take part in it who has not previously
been in a similar manner initiated.

(c) Africa. — There is evidence of the existence
of totemism in W. Africa from Senegambia south-
ward in almost all the populations. In many
places, however, where it is decadent or obsolete
it is replaced by secret societies which dominate or
supplement the nominal government. Thus at
Old Calabar there is a very powerful society known
as Egbo, divided into numerous grades. The king
is the head. It has in a rough and ready way the
whole administration of the law in its hands.^
Farther south, in the cataract region of the Lower
Congo, is a secret societj' known as Nkimba.
According to the latest researches, it is entered
about the age of puberty. The candidates are
chosen by the nganga, or medicine-man. The
ceremonies take place in the forest, where tlte
camp is jealously guarded from all intrusion.
There the candidates remain for a period variously
stated as from one or two months to five or six
years. They are painted white, and a narcotic is
administered. They are subjected to a number of
tests, such as the imposition of a new name and an
oath of secrecy, and to flagellation. They are
circumcised, if not already in that condition.
They are taught a new language, and it is believed

1 Spencer-Gillen^S pp. 34, 112-127, 167-211, 467-473 ; Spencer-
Gillenb, pp. 143-i!-'5.

2 H. Web.ster, I'rhidtioe Secret Societies, New York, 1908, p.
115 ff.; Journ. African Snc, iv. [1905] 306. Cf. art. Skcret
SociKTiEs (African).

TOTEMISM

401

by the women and other non-initiated that they
are put to death and brought to life again. They
are instructed in the religious beliefs and moral
rules to which they must in future conform.
Various prohibitions are enforced during and after
their retirement. If approved for the purpose,
they may become fetish-priests or medicine-men ;
otherwise they become simply adult men, ready to
take part in public life. This is obviously little
more than the puberty rites of ordinary totemic
peoples; but there is reason to think that the
Nkimba tends to become more magical in its pur-
view. Those who have passed through it have
acquired a character in some degree sacred and
mysterious; a special tie is established between
them ; they regard one another as brethren and
render mutual aid. Another society called Ndembo,
often confounded with the Nkimba, exists on the
Congo. A Ndembo is not held periodically, but
one is established whenever the elders of the village
direct. It appears to have a specially sexual aim ;
men and women are admitted, and sexual licence
is said to be encouraged in the camp ; and to such
a length is the comedy of death and resurrection
carried that, on returning after the conclusion of
the ceremonies, those who have been subjected to
them pretend to have lost all remembrance of their
previous life, act in the most foolish manner, and
are only gradually recalled to ordinary sense and
behaviour. The object of the Ndembo appears
moreover to be more specialized, more decidedly
magical, than that of the Nkimba. ^ It seems
probable that all these secret societies have been
developed from, or at least deeply influenced by,
the initiatory rites of totemic tribes.

The Herero of S.W. Africa, who have been
massacred and almost entirely destroyed by the
Germans, offer a peculiarly difficult problem, not
yet entirely solved. They were divided into clans
called eanda (plur. omaanda) reckoning descent
exclusively through the mother. A tradition of
their origin is related, deriving it from a pair who
emerged from the trunk of an omborombonga tree
in the far North, whose children were all daughters
fructified by contact in some way or other with
various objects of the external world. These
objects became the totems of tlieir descendants.
Among them may be enumerated the sun, rain,
thetree, the marmot, the koodoo, the chameleon,
besides others the significance of whose names is
disputed. The members of an eanda called them-
selves brothers-in-law (not brothers) of the totem.
The blood-feud attached to the eanda, which more-
over, formerly at least, was exogamic. Side by
side with the eanda stands another organization,
apparently of more recent origin, the oruzv (plur!
otuzo). The oruzo descends exclusively in the
paternal line. It is also totemic ; and among the
totems appear the chameleon, the sun, the koodoo,
rag, necklace of beads. The members of an oruzo
are distinguished by the mode of dressing their
hair, by their food-tabus, and by special sacrificial
regulations. The colour and shape of the horns of
the cattle which an oruzo possesses also difler from
those of every other oruzo. The institution of the
oruzo is attributed to the medicine-men ; and there
can be little doubt that it is specially a religious
organization for the maintenance of tlie sacred fire
of the family and the worship of ancestors. All
cattle belong to the oruzo, for the Herero are a
pastoral people, and their M-ealth consisted of cattle
until the Germans deprived them of their stock.
The cattle never descended to or through females,
at all events if there was a male descendant to
inherit them. The food tabus of the Herero are
probably not all totemic. The Herero have no

^^^^ "^^ Jo"?he, Les SociiUs secrites au Bos-Congo, Brussels,
iifvi, p. 15 ff.

VOL. XII,— 26

totemic badges or signs.^ The totemism prevalent
among them is thus widely divergent from the
common type. Its twofold organization is mani-
festly the result of a conflict between matriJineal
and patrilineal institutions. How that conflict
originated is obscure ; but it is obviously not un-
connected with the growth of ancestor- worship
and the introduction of herds of cattle among a
hunting and perhaps rudely agricultural people,
and the consequent changes of mode of life and
social arrangements. The country which they now
inhabit is steppe, almost desert, and quite unsuit-
able for agriculture. After the rains there is for
a time abundant pasture, which at other seasons
must be sought in the deep and sheltered dales
with which the land is intersected. The change
to a pastoral life may be surmised to have occurred
when or shortly before they penetrated to their
present possessions, not probably more than five or
six centuries ago. The consequent development of
their institutions is even yet incomplete.

At the other extremity of the area occupied by
the Bantu are found the Baganda, the most highly
civilized of the race. They were governed by
kings probably descended from a Hamitic stock
which conquered the country several centuries ago.
' The Baganda are divided into a large number of totemic
clans, the members of which observe the two fundamental
canons of normal totemism, since they abstain both from
injuring their totem and from marrying a woman of the same
clan. Each clan has a principal and a secondary totem, and
talses its name from the former. ' Both totems are sacred to
members of the clan, who may neither kill nor destroy them.
Other people, however, may kill or destroy them for a reasonable
purpose, without hurting the feelings of members of the clan.' 2
The Baganda trace their lineage in the male
line ; but a Avoman's children were taught in
infancy to respect her totems and to avoid'them.
A\ hen they grew up, they adopted their father's
totems and ceased to regard those of their mother.
Yet they were forbidden to marry into their mother's
clan. For these and other reasons it seems clear
that descent had originally been reckoned in the
maternal line, and that, as in the case of the
Herero, though on different lines, the transition
had been recently and incompletely efl'ected.s
Like the clans of certain N. American tribes, each
clan had special names appropriated to its children ;
hence the clan to Avhich a man belonged was re-
cognized by his name.^ The king had a large
harem. His children, however, took the totem of
their mother; and it was naturally deemed an
honour for a clan to give a king to "the realm by
means of the union of one of its female members
with the king. From this honour certain clans
were excluded for reasons which are now unknown.
To obviate this some of the excluded clans joined
more favoured clans, so that their daughters might
marry the king and have children who might be
in the succession to the throne. Another reason
for the union of clans was to better the position of
a despised clan. Clans so associated obtained the
right to use the totem of the more honourable clan ;
yet they were so little regarded as relations by the
members of the latter that intermarriage between
members of the two clans Avas not forbidden. The
Lung-fish clan (the largest of all) also was in an
exceptional position in that its members were not
subject to the rule of exogamy.^ The totems are
usually some species of animal. A few species of
trees and other vegetables are found as totems,
besides beads and other articles of human manu-

1 F. Me.ver, Wirtsehaft und Rcekt dcr Herero, Berlin, 19115, p.
25 ff. ; E. Dannert, Zum Jiechte dcr Herero, do. 1906 p. 11 ff •
Fiazer, li. 356; [S. African] Folklore Joximal, i. [Capet..wn,'
1S,9] 37 ff.. II. [ISSO] 61 ; Report on the Natives of S.W.Africa
aiut their Treatment hy Germany, London, 191t>,'p 37.

2 Frazer, ii. 472 f.

3 Ilartland, Mem. Amer. Anthrop. Assoc, iv. 18.
•* J. Roscoe, The Baijanda, London, 1911, p. 135
6 lb. pp. 187, 137, 148, 134.

402

TOTEMISM

facture ; and 'split-totems' and other anomalous
totems (as a tailless or a spotted cow, and rain-
water from roofs) are not unknown. ^ Notwith-
standing the existence of a system of law and
administration of justice, the sense of clan-solid-
arity remained strong. The blood-covenant M'as
practised and was considered more binding than
common oaths.^ Murder was rare ; but cases of
murder and manslaughter, when they occurred,
were taken up by the clan. The clan of a murdered
man might accept and share a fine, instead of in-
sisting on the jmnishment of death ; and, on the
other liand, the clan of the wrong-doer contributed
to the payment. ' When a member of a clan
wished to buy a wife, it was the duty of all the
other members to help him to do so'; when a
person got into debt, or Avas fined, the clan com-
bined to assist him to pay the debt or tine.^ Thus
the totem ism of the Baganda, while preserving
many, if not most, of the essential features
normally present, departs widely from more typical
totemism. The religious aspect, though not quite
absent, has fallen into the background before poly-
theism and the cult of the dead. The kingship
and the organization of the kingdom have been
imposed by a non-Bantu conquering people, which
brought a military class, imperfectly assimilated
by the bulk of the people when the English occu-
pation took place. Tliis people probably intro-
duced domestic animals, some of which have
become totems ; and its influence is perhaps also
to be traced in the ' split- totems.' Secondary
totems are met with elsewhere, as we have seen.

Totemism is decadent also among the tribes of
the Congo. It there manifests itself chiefly in
tabus, though totemic tabus are only a few of the
tabus observed. Among the Bangala of the Upper
Congo the totem-animal may not be killed or eaten.
A woman after marriage observes her husband's
totem as well as her own. A child born to them
takes the totems of both parents, until a council of
both families determines which totem it is to take
permanently — usually the father's. The Bangala
are patrilineal.''

(d) India. — In continental India the decadence
of totemism has been caused chiefly by the spread
of Hinduism, and with it the extension of the
caste system. The origin of caste has not yet been
entirely cleared up. Within the Hindu system it
is largely, if not mainly, occupational. As applied
to the Dravidian and other races of the peninsula,
it is transforming, or has transformed, independent
tribes into castes ; and by means of legends, some
of them doubtless consciously forged to manu-
facture claims, these tribes have succeeded in
gaining reluctant and often strongly contested
admission as castes into the Hindu social hierarchy.
The Keddi or Kapu, the largest caste in the
Madras Presidency, are probably descended from
a Dravidian tribe which in the early centuries of
our era was powerful in India. They are now a
great caste of cultivators, farmers, and squireens
in the Telugu country and rank next to the
Brahmans in Hindu society there. They are
divided into a number of sections, for whose names
fanciful etymologies have been found, and for some
of them legends have been invented. One of these
sections, the Panta Kapus, are again severed into
two endogamous divisions. But they are said also
to have true totemic septs, of which the following
are examples :

(1) Magili {Pandanus fascicularis) : the women of this sept
do not, like tliose of other c.istes, adorn themselves with the
flower-bracts ; and a man of the sept ' has been known to refuse
to purchase some bamboo mats, because they were tied with
the fibre of this tree ' ; (2) Ippi (Bassia longifoiia) : this tree and
its products must not be touched by members of the sept ; (3)

1 Roscoe, p. 1 33 ff. 2 /j,, p. 268.

8 lb. pp. 20, 208, 268, 12. 4 JRAI xl. [1910] 305.

Mancham (cot) : members of this sept avoid sleeping' on cots ;
(4) Arigala {I'aspaluin scrobiculatum): members of this sept do
not use this grain as food ; (5) Chintaginjalu (tamarind seeds) :
these seeds may not be used or touched by members of the
sept ; (6) Puccha (water-melon) : the fruit may not be eaten by
memlaers of the sept.

Moreover, the names of various exogamous Kapu
septs are suggestive of totemism, such as the Cow,
Grain, Builalo, Sheep, Fowl, Goat, Elephant, as
well as various plant-names, though others, such
as Cart, Army, Hut, Harrow, Woman's Skirt,
Plough, are more doubtful.^

This is not an uncommon type of caste. It suggests that the
caste in question is a transformed tribe, and tliat the divisions
of the caste originate from totemic clans, many of which retain
their totemic names and some of their tabus, though other sub-
divisions have forgotten them or originated in a different
manner. The Khangars are a low caste of village watchmen
and field-labourers in the Central Provinces, almost certainly
of non-Aryan origin. They are divided into numerous exogam-
ous septs, all of which are said to be totemic. 'The members
of the sept usually show veneration to the object from which
the sept takes its name.' Thus the Barha sept is named from
bnrdh, 'pig,' this sept worshipping the pig; the Ohirai from
clti.riya, 'bird,' this sept revering sparrows; the Ghurgotia
from ghora, ' horse,' towards which the members practise certain
observances; the Kasgotia from kdusa, 'bell-metal,' which is
tabued by the sept ; tlie San from san, ' hemp,' pieces of which
are placed by members of the sept near their family god. Tlie
Hanuman sept is so called from the monkey-god, and the Visnu
sept from Visnu, the god worshipped by it.2

In the United Provinces there are also many
tribes and castes, probably of Dravidian origin,
among whom totemism is traceable. Such are the
Agariya of Mirzapur, wlio have seven septs, all
exogamous and apparently of totemic origin : the
Markam named from the tortoise, which the
members will not kill or eat ; the Goirar from a
certain tree wliich they will not cut ; the Paraswan
from a tree (Butea frondosa) which they will not
cut and whose leaves they will not use for platters ;
the Sanwan from hemp (san), which they will not
sow or use ; the Baragwar from a tree [Ficus
Indica) wliich they will not cut or climb and
from the leaves of which they Avill not eat ; the
Banjhakwar, said to be named from heiig, 'frog,'
which the members of tlie sept will not kill or eat ;
and the Gidhle, the members of which will not kill
or even throw a stone at a vulture (gidh). The
Agariya are patrilineal ; and they have been deeply
inlluencedin other ways by Hinduism. Indeed they
call themselves Hindus in religion, though they
worship none of the regular Hindu deities. There
are, however, traces of a previous matrilineal con-
dition. They practise tatuing, and many of the
marks inscribed on their bodies are probably
totemic in origin, ' but the real meaning has now
been forgotten, and they are at present little more
than charms to resist disease and other misfortunes,
and for the purpose of mere ornament.'^ The
social and political conditions of India are such
that almost the only possible relics of totemism
consist in the names of the septs and the pro-
hibitions of marriage within the clan and of eating,
killing, or using the totem. Hindu influence leads
to the ascription of descent to human beings rather
than to animals or plants, concerning wiiich tales
are told to account for the totemic name and
observances. The organization of the tribe or
caste by means of a council and the police regula-
tions render unnecessary the union of members for
mutual protection. Hence, and owing to the uni-
versal tendency of caste to subdivision, the sense
of solidarity is greatly weakened and is daily
decreasing in force.*

1 E. Thurston, Caates and Tribes of S. India, Madras, 1909,
iii. 222 n.

" R. V. Russell, The Tribes and CasUs of the Central Provinces
of India, London, 1916, iii. 439.

S W. Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the N.W. Provinces and
Oudh, Calcutta, 1896, i. 1 ff.

4 See H. H. Risley, 7'he People of India"^, ed. W. Orooke,
London, 1915, pp. 95-109, for a general consideration of the
evidence ; and, for the evidence itself, also his Tribes and
Castes of Bengal, 2 vols., Calcutta, 1891-92, passim; Crooke,

TOTEMISM

403

(e) Melanesia. — There are signs tliab totemism
was developing in tlie islands of Torres Straits
into an anthropomorphic cult. Traditions are
found of culture-heroes associated with various
clans. Of these Sigai and Maiau on the island of
Yam appeared first in the likeness of a hammer-
headed shark and a crocodile respectively. For
each of them a shrine was erected, the essential
feature of which was a turtle-shell model repre-
senting either a hammer-headed shark or a croco-
dile ; under each of these was a stone in which the
spirit, the so-called augud {' totem '), resided.

Uninitiated persons were not allowed to visit these shrines,
' nor did they know what they contained : they were aware of
Sigai and Maiau, but they did not know that the former was a
hammer-headed shark and the latter a crocodile ; this mystery
was too sacred to be imparted to uninitiates. When the heroes
were addressed it was always by their human names, and not
by their animal or totem names.' 1

Each was associated in his animal form with one
of the two phratries or groups of totem-clans.
Warriors before going to battle prayed to them.
Totem-dances were celebrated and songs were sung,
which were believed to have an effect upon the
weather, by the shark-men and crocodile-men,
dancing separately and wearing feathers coloured
white or black according to the party to which
they belonged. On Mabuiag and Muralug the
hero was Kwoiam, a warrior-hero, who himself
was called an augud. In the Muralug group of
islands he was regarded as the 'big augud' and
' the augud of every one in the island.'

He is said to have made and worn ' two crescentic objects of
turtle-shell, which blazed with light when he wore them at
night-time, and he nourished them with the savour of cooked
fish. These objects were termed augud ; . . . and they became
the insignia of the two phratries into which the old totem-clans
of Mabuiag were grouped.' 2

' When attacking an enemy the warriors formed into two
columns, each of which was led by a head-man who wore the
Kwoiam emblems.'*

Like Sigai and Maiau, he possessed a sacred shrine.
It was situated on the island of Pulu ; there his
crescentic emblems were kept, and thence they
were taken witli certain ceremonies to be borne
before the appropriate phratry in Avar.^
A similar evolution has been observed in Fiji.

' The peojsle of the interior of the island [of Viti Levu] form a
number of independent communities which may probably be
regarded as tribes, and each of these has a number of divisions
and subdivisions, which in the relatively high development of
Fijian society have departed widely from the character of the
septs into which a totemic community is usually divided. The
animals from which descent is traced, and whose flesh is pro-
hibited as food, are usually associated with the larger groups
which seem to correspond to tribes, tliough the divisions of the
tribe often have sacred animals or plants jieculiar to themselves
in addition to those which are tabu to them as members of the
tribe.' 8

Rivers goes on to give examples.

The tabued animal of the people of Cawanisa is an aquatic
creature called the dravidmvi, from which they believe them-
selves descended ; and none of the divisions have restrictions
peculiar to themselves. The sacred animal of the Nadrau or
Navuta people is the qiliyago ; some of its divisions have re-
strictions peculiar to themselves, the Wailevu division eating
neither the dog nor a fish called dabea, the Kaivuci respecting
the snake. Other animals were held sacred in other parts of
the island, the people believing in descent sometimes from the
tabu animal of the tribe, sometimes from that of the smaller
group. Marriage is regulated by kinship alone, and there is no
evidence at present of totemic exogamy. It is manifest that
this kind of totemism ia widely divergent from what is usually
reckoned normal totemism. Nor is this to be wondered at,
seeing how far Fijian civilization has progressed. Yet it pre-
sents ' the three characteristic features of the institution :
belief in descent from the totem, prohibition of the totem as an
article of food, and the connection of the totem with a definite
unit of the social organization.' Rivers discovered evidence

Tribes and Castes of N. W. Provinces and Oudh, passim ; and
the other works referred to in Crooke's notes to Kisley's ob-
servations. Cf. also Crooke's observations in I'R'^ ii. 14«-ir)9.

1 A. 0. Haddon, in Anthropological Essays presented to E. B.
Tylor, Oxford, 1907, p. 185.

- lb. p. 184. 3 lb.

* Reports Camb. Anthrop. Exped. v. 373 £f., 3U7£f., 80;
Frazer, ii. 18-24.

6 W. H. R. Rivers, Man, viii. [lOdS] 134.

among these hill-tribes 'that the sacred animals had become
gods, which had, however, retained iheiranimal fonudelinitely.'
Certain rules of conduct given to the Nadrau people by the bird
qiliyago showed an early stage in the evolution of a god from
the totem-animal. In the Kewa district in the low countrj'
things had gone a step farther. ' Here each village had a deity
called tevoro, with a name which usually showed no sign of an
animal origin, but in many cases these deities had the power of
turning into animals, and in such case the people of the village
in question were not allowed to eat the animal.' Thus the
people of Lasakau, a division of Bau, had a teooro who turned
into a bird called sese. ' The bird could not be eaten, and here,
as in the hills, it was clear that the restriction extended to the
whole peo))le and was not limited to either of the two divisions
of which the Lasakau people are composed.' i

These are not the only cases which he mentions ;
but they are probably enough to render the evolu-
tion plain.

It is almost unnecessary to remark that totem-
ism may decay, especially where it comes under
European influence, by simple neglect.

Thus the Winnebago, a Siouan tribe of N. America, tracing
their descent from animals who were transformed into human
beings and became ancestors of the various clans, treat the
totem-animal in no way differently from other animals, hunting
it and eating it if edible. Descent is patrilineal, and a child
used always to take a name of his father's clan ; but this is
falling into desuetude. The reckoning of descent has become
irregular ; and the sacred bundle of the clan occasionally now
passes out of clan-possession. 2

Again, the Diegueno of California were all formerly totemic.
Descent is paternal. Clan exogamy is still observed by many
of the clans, but not by all. Some, like the Blue Wild-Cat clan,
regard the totem-animal as brother. But many of the clan-
names have ceased to be totemic, and the clans have become, or
are becoming, mere local groups. The clan-name is frequently
taken as a personal or family surname under modern conditions.3

Such cases may be found elsewhere than in
America.

5. Traces of totemism among non-totemic
peoples. — Over a large area of the globe, embrac-
ing Europe, the greater part of Asia, S. America,
and Polynesia, the north of Africa, and the
extreme north of N. America, inhabited by the
Eskimo, totemism is now unknown. But among
many of the peoples of these regions certain beliefs
and practices have been reported which seem to
bear traces of a former prevalence.

(a) Polynesia. — Rivers' discoveries, just referred
to, in Melanesia find their analogies in Tonga and
Tikopia.

In the former he learned that ' each family had its otua [a
Polynesian word, usually written atua, meaning "god" or
"ancestor"], some of which were animals and some stones,
while a man might also be an otua. Examples of animal otua
were the octopus, the flying fox, and the pigeon. . . . An
animal was never eaten by those whose otua it was, and I was
told,' he says, ' that there was definite belief in descent from
the animal.' Similarly on the island of Tikopia he found a
number of animals called atua. ' Some of these animal atua
belong to the whole conununity and may be eaten by no one
on the island ; others belong to one or other of the four sections
into which the people are divided.' Thus the octopus is the
atiia of the Kavika ; but it is forbidden as food not only to
them but also to the whole people. The Taumako may not eat
the sea-eel or a bird called rupe — prohibitions limited to this
division of the people. The Pangalele may not catch an mie
fish. The Tafua may not eat the fresh-water eel, the flying fox,
or the turtle, the two latter ' being also prohibited as food to
the whole community, though regarded as especially sacred to
the Tafua.' There" was also evidence that the Kavika were
believed to be descended from the octopus, the Taumako from
the eel, the Tafua from the flying fox ; and it was believed that
one man of this division became after death a fresh-water eel,
while two men of the Fangalele became, the one an one fish,
the other a inoko bird. There are also plant and vegetable
atua, to which corresponding restrictions attached.4

Thus there is reason to think that totemism had
at one time existed and had left traces attribut-
able to no other cause. Elsewhere in Polynesia
there are relics more or less distinct of the same
conditions.

(b) Egypt. — We are naturally reminded of
Egypt. The origin and early development of
Egj'ptian religion are obscure. What we find is
that in tiie earliest period known to us by the

1 Man, viii. 134 f. ; JRAI xxxix. [1909] 1")S.

2 Amer. Anthrop., new ser., xii. [1910] 21'i, 214.

^ Unio. of Cali/ornia I'ublications, xiv. [1918] 167 ff.
*JHAIx\xi\. 166 fif.

404

TOTEMISM

monuments each nome or district had its own
peculiar object of adoration in some animal, which
was regarded with indifference or, in consequence
of local quarrels, with hostility in the adjacent
noraes. Moreover (in spite of changes during the
country's long history, in spite of the evolution
into higher polytheism and of the syncretism which
gradually won its way, at all events among the
educated classes), the same attitude towards these
animals prevailed to the end. One nome vener-
ated the ibis, one the crocodile, one the cat, one
the gnat; one the ram, one the oxyrhynchus fish,
and so on. Some of these are domesticated
animals ; in the earliest period, however, domesti-
cated animals do not appear. The monarchy seems
to have been introduced by a people which in-
vaded Egypt and conquered the aborigines. The
invaders carried the standard of a falcon, from the
name of whicli (heru) that of Horus, later regarded
as the last of the gods who reigned over Egypt, is
derived. When the objects of adoration took
human form, becoming anthropomorphic gods,
these were identified with various animals, and
are represented on the monuments -with the heads
of the appropriate animals. The animals remained
sacred, as their numerous mummies attest ; and
various legends were told to account for their
relation to the respective gods. At Bubastis,
where the cat was venerated, the goddess Bast
had her seat ; Ombos, where the crocodile was
honoured, was the sacred town of the crocodile-
headed god, Sebak ; the ram-headed god, Khnum
or Ammon-Ra, was worshipped at Thebes, and
there precisely was the place where the sheep was
revered. As a result of the unification of the
country under the kings, syncretism in theology
spread, and the various gods tended to be identi-
fied with one another and with the animals
honoured in the different towns. At length the
myth and worship of the culture-hero, Osiris, pre-
vailed throughout the land ; and his myth in-
cluded a story of how the various gods fled,
'disguised in brutish forms,' from the rage of his
enemy Typhon. In short, all sorts of devices are
adopted to account for the local gods and animals
venerated in the different cities and districts and
to unify the religion. These devices were probably
known to, or at least accepted by, the ediicated
classes only. All the other classes remained attached
to their local deities.^ The evidence points to the
prevalence at one time in the valley of the Nile of
a form of totemism, which possibly included various
trees and other vegetables (for these, though less
prominent than animals, are not unknown in
Egyptian religion), and which by a series of steps
was slowly merged and elevated into a polytheistic
worship tending ever in the minds of the educated
more and more to monotheism.^

Of the original social organization, however, we
know little beyond the fact that it was matrilineal.
The woman was mistress of the house ; the
husband on marriage was received as a guest or
went to reside with her. Those men who could
afford it kept harems, the members of which were
under the governance of the chief wife. It is a
probable conjecture from the available informa-
tion that society was constituted of clans, in later
ages directly or indirectly giving birth to trading
and other gilds. The custom of the husband
going to reside with his wife secured the local con-
centration of the clan and facilitated the conver-
sion of the clan-settlement into the nome and the
dominance of a single animal-totem in each nome.

1 A. Lang, Myth, Ritual and Reliqion, ii. ch. xv. ; E. Naville,
RER lii. [1905] 357 ff. ; RHR li. [1905] 238; A. Wiedemann,
Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, Eng. tr., London, 1897, chs.
vii.-viii.

2 A. H. Sayce, The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia,
Edinburgh, 1902, p. 116.

All this was doubtless the result of the agricultural
occupations of the people. What were the rela-
tions of the members of the clan to one another or
to the totem we are not informed.

(c) Greece. — Scientific controversy has raged over
the question whether remains of totemism are dis-
coverable in ancient Greece. Salomon Reinach,
Toutain, and Van Gennep have been the protagon-
ists. Andrew Lang pointed out the various
remains of animal-worship among the Greek
peoples — in Thessaly the Myrmidons claiming
descent from the ant and revering ants ; in the
Troad and the islands the mice sacred to Apollo
Smintheus and a tribe referred to by an oracle as
mice ; the adoration of the wolf at Delphi and
Athens and of the sheep on Samos ; the descent of
Tennes, the hero of Tenedos, from a swan ; the
invocation of Hecate as a dog and the sacrifice to
her of adog;^ the Artemis of Arcadia, identified
with Callisto, a nymph who is fabled to have been
metamorphosed into a she-bear, from which the
Arcadians claimed descent ; the similar tale of the
Brauronian Artemis in Attica, served by girls
called bears, dancing with the gait of bears and
probably in archaic times wearing bear-skins ; and
a hundred other such myths, rituals, and meta-
morphoses.^ Nor has he been alone in discerning
that such cases pointed to a primitive totemism,
outgrown and misconstrued before the dawn of
authentic history. The social organization of
Athens has also been examined. The yivos and
(pparpia have been pronounced parallel in all
essentials with the organization of the Australian
totemic clan and phratry.' There are good reasons
for suspecting that originally matrilineal descent
was the rule, of which vestiges subsisted down to
historical times.* Though this view has been
challenged,^ and it is undoubted that agnatic
descent prevailed in historical times, the suspicion
is not without solid foundation. Probably the
pre-historic population of the period called the
Mycenaean age was matrilineal and was conquered
by a patrilineal military people from the north,
who formed the dominant classes in the Homeric
age, and under whom Greek society was trans-
formed and reorganized. On the whole we are
justified in accepting with L. R. Farnell the
theory that various remarkable cults — the Arcadian
worship of Zeus Lycseus and of Artemis Calliste,
the Attic worship of Zeus Polieus, and perhaps
some others — can be explained only by a survival
of what is in effect totemism.* But, if so, then
other cults and myths of which the connecting
links have been lost may with the more likelihood
be assigned to the same origin.

(d) Ireland.— Oyer the rest of Europe the traces
of totemism are still more uncertain. They will
be found, as in Greece, if at all, on the side of
belief and practice which may be called quasi-
religious rather than in social observances such
as marriage restrictions ; for under the dominance
of Christianity and the social ideas, Hebrew and
Roman, carried with it society has been shaped
for two millenniums. In Connemara and the
islands off the west coast of Ireland persons bear-
ing the name of Conneely, who are descended from
the clan Conneely, an old family of lar-Connaught,
claim 'that they have seal's blood in them, and
that is why they are such good swimmers.'

A story is told of some members of the clan who at a distant
period were changed into seals. Since then, it is said, no
Conneely can kill a seal without afterwards having bad luck.

1 Myth, Ritual and Religion, i. 277. 2 /ft. ii. 211.

3 A. W. Howitt and L. Fison, JAI xiv. [18S5] 142 ff.

4 Hartland, Primitive Paternity, London, 1909, i. 265, ii. 18.
6 L. R. Farnell, ARW vli. [1904] 70; H. J. Rose, PL xxii.

[1911] 277 ff.

6 CGS, Oxford, 1896-1901, i. 41, 58, 91, ii. 434, 441 (cf. iv. 116,
V. 106 ; and J. E. Harrison, Themis, Cambridge, 1912, passim,
esp. ch. v.).

TOTEMISM

405

Seals are said to be regarded with profound veneration. They
are called Conneelys, and are said to be the souls of departed
friends. We are told that 'in some places the story has its
believers who would no more kill a seal, or eat of a slaughtered
one, than they would of a human Conneely.' i

Both in Ireland and in the Scottish isles are
stories and customs which point to an extinct
totemism as the best explanation ; and the same
explanation has been ottered, with more or less
probability, of various beliefs and practices in
Wales and England as well as in other European
countries.^

(e) W. China.— In W. China among the Lolos,
an aboriginal mountain people of Szechwan, there
is something more than traces of totemism.

Their ' surnames always signify the name of a tree or animal or
both tree and animal,' and ' these are considered as the ancestors
of the family bearing the name. This name is often archaic.
Thus the surname Bu-luh-beh is explained as follows : — Bu-luh
is said to be an ancient name for the citron, which is now
known as sa-lu. The common way of asking a person what
his surname is, is to inquire " What is it you don't touch ? " and
a person of the surname just mentioned would reply " We do not
touch the sa-lu or citron." People cannot eat or touch in any
way the plant or animal, or both, which enters into their surname.
The plant or animal is not, however, worshipped in any way.

People of the same surname may marry if there is no obvious
relationship. There are, however, groups of two or three
surnames amongst whom intermarriage is forbidden ; and no
explanation of this is given. There are also groups of two or
three surnames who are called comrades, and intermarriage
amongst them is favoured.' ^

The Chinese themselves are on a higher plane
of civilization, and totemism is unknown. But
from sundry prohibitions its existence has been
suspected. Among some other peoples of S. W.
Asia and various islands of the Indian Archipelago
totemism has been either found or suspected. In
Madagascar and in the Polynesian islands a number
of superstitions have been ascribed with more or
less probability to an original totemism no longer
forming part of the social organization.

(/) American. — In Central and S. America also
customs and beliefs have been interpreted as traces
of totemism. Thus in Peru, where the various
clans were localized, each clan worshipped its
ancestor, and the tendency seems to have been for
such objects of worship to assume the form of an
animal, vegetable, or some other natural pheno-
menon. Each clan, moreover, had a distinctive
dress. But our information is too imperfect to
permit of a definite opinion on the subject.* The
Bororo of Brazil claim to be araras (a bird with a
red plumage) and believe a neighbouring tribe, the
Trumai, to be water-animals, while a certain
cannibal tribe is descended from the jaguar.^ In
N. America it was usual for a young man at
adolescence, or a man who wished to acquire
special powers, to go out into the woods and fast
for days in order to acquire a guardian spirit,
which usually took the form of an animal. It
was revealed to him in a vision in which his
austerities culminated ; and when it took the
form of some animal, a portion or symbol of that
animal became his fetish or medicine. Thereafter
he obeyed the restrictions and prohibitions believed
to have been communicated to him by the vision.
There was a tendency among some tribes, particu-
larly in the north-west, for the guardian spirit
(sulia or manitu) to be inherited by his descend-
ants. And some writers have seen in this the
origin of totemism." A variety of the practice in

1 FLJ 11. [1884] 259 ; FLR iv. [1881] 104 ; C. R. Browne,
Proc. Roy. Irish Academy, 3rd ser., v. [1899] 262 ; JAI ii.
(1873] 448 f. ; G. L. Gomme, Archaol. Rev. iii. [1889] 219.

2 O. L. Gomme, loc. cit. ; N. W. Thomas, FL xi. [1900] 227 ff. ;
RHR xxxviii. [1898] 295 ; S. Eeinach, Cults, Myths and
Religions, Eng. tr. i. 1.

3 J4/xxxiii. [1903] 105.

* E. J. Pa\-ne, Hist, of the New World called America, Oxford,
1892-99, i. 400, 403 n., 462, 463 ; Man, xiii. [1913] 116.

5 K. von den Steinen, (Inter den Naturvoltxm Zentral-
Brasihens, Berlin, 1894, p. 352.

6 0. Hill-Tout, Trayis. Roy. Soc. Canada, 2nd ser., ix. [1903]
01 ; and JAI xxxiv. [1904] 326 ff.

Central and S. America is known under the name
of nagualism (Quiche naual, ' the knowing one '
or 'sorcerer'), in which some natural object,
commonly an animal, is believed to have a parallel
relation with a human being, so that for weal or
woe their fates are mutually dependent. The
nagual is sometimes cho.sen by divination for an
infant at birth, but more often obtained, like a
manitu, by fasting and prayer.^ It seems that
the nagual is a purely personal acquisition and is
not inherited like the siilia. It should, however,
be pointed out that neither the belief of the Bororo
nor the manitu or nagual of other tribes has the
marks of true totemism. It has no relation to a
clan, nor is it in any way related to the social
organization : where the manitu descends, it is
only to the children or remoter issue of the original
pos.sessor, and in such case the descent has only
taken place under the influence of patrilineal
kinship.

(g) Australia. — In Australia among the Kurnai
and some other tribes of the south-east the two
sexes have animals respectively regarded as their
protectors, with whom the life of individual
members of the sex is supposed to be bound up.
Fights between the sexes on behalf of their sex-
totems often occurred, as a means, or a preliminary,
to marriages. ^ Here again, and for the same reason
as in nagualism and the other American beliefs
just referred to, the sex-totems are, whatever their
origin, entirely unconnected with true totemism.

6. Origin. — The origin of totemism has been the
subject of much discussion and speculation among
anthropologists. It is only necessary here to refer
to a few of the hypotheses ottered. That which is
identified with the name of Hill-Tout has already
been incidentally dealt with. Though accepted
by some American anthropologists, it has not
generally found favour on either side of the
Atlantic. Frazer, having previously adopted the
theory that the totemic clan was in its primitive
form and purpose a society for the multiplication
by magical ceremonies of the totem-animal or
vegetable, and so for ensuring a continuance of
provision for the food and prosperity of the com-
munity, so far as the totem-animals and vegetables
were edible or otherwise available for use,* has
relinquished that hypothesis. Instead, in his
latest conjecture he is now inclined to the opinion,
suggested by observation on the part of Spencer
and Gillen of the peoples of Central Australia, and
on the part of Rivers of the Melanesians, that
totemism originated in a primitive explanation of
conception and childbirth. The latter people hold
that their mothers were impregnated by the
entrance into their wombs of spirit-animals or
spirit-fruits, and that they themselves are sever-
ally nothing but the particular animal or fruit
which effected a lodgment in the mother and in
due time was born into the world as a human being.
Hence they partake of the character of the animal
or fruit in question and refuse to eat all such animals
and fruits. The supposition is that these beliefs
become in particular cases hereditary and result
in the evolution of clans derived respectively from
ancestors who originated from the animals or fruits.*
Such a theory, however, encounters the same diffi-
culties as the theory wliich ascribes the origin of
totemism to the manitu become hereditary.

Earlier than either of these theories Frazer had suggested
' that the key to totemism might be found in the theory of the

1 O StoU, Die Ethnologic der Indianerstdimne von Gvatfmala
(Suppl. to A El), Levden, 1889, p. 57 ; D. G. Brinton, The Myth.<i
of the New Worlds, Philadelphia, 1896, p. 122, and Xaiiualism,
do. 1894, p. 59 ; D. D. Granada, Reseda nidorico-descriptiva de
antiguas y modernas Supersticiones del Rio de la I'lata, Monto
Video, 1896, p. 591.

2 Howitt, p. 148.

3 Fortnijhily Rev., new ser., Ixv. [1899] 647flF., 835 ff.
* Frazer, iv. 57 ff.

406

TOTBMISM

external soul, that is, in the belief that living people may
deposit their souls for safe keeping outside of themselves in
some secure place, where the precious deposit will be less
exposed to the risks and vicissitudes of life than while it
remained in the bodv of its owner.' i This hypothesis, though
founded on a widely spread practice and belief, has not, he
frankly admits, been confirmed Ijy further research, inas-
much as ' the evidence which connects this theory of external
human souls in animal bodies with totemism appears to be
insufficient to justify us in regarding it as the source of the
whole institution. '2

Andrew Lang, towards the close of his life, was
led to emphasize the social aspect of totemism.
He advocated a theory similar to that first pro-
pounded by Herbert Spencer, and adopted by the
German scholar, J. Pikler,* that the origin is to be
sought in names. According to this theory, bands
of men, having been given names from outside,
either by way of distinction or as nicknames,
accepted these names and came to fancy that they
themselves were in a mystical connexion with
them, or rather with the things signified by the
names, and then the course of social organization,
from one cause or another, led first to the prefer-
ence for wives of another band having a dilferent
name, and subsequently to a positive prohibition
to marry a woman of the same band and necessarily
having the same name — in other words, to clan-
exogamy. •• The influence of names, and the invet-
erate tendency to regard a name as a real objective
existence belonging to and having a mystical con-
nexion with the person or thing signified by it, are
practically universal in the lower culture. But
why these names were appropriated and accepted
by the various bands is left unexplained. Lang
apparently agrees with Frazer that the institution
of exogamy is distinct from totemism, and that
totemism as a matter of fact preceded exogamy."
It certainly is a usual, but not quite invariable,
accompaniment of it. Lang indeed otters explana-
tions of the origin of exogamy, but it cannot be
said that his speculations are more satisfactory
than those of previous inquirers.

A. C. Haddon some time ago hazarded a sugges-
tion of the ' possible origin of one aspect of totemism. '
It is that there were numerous small human groups
in favourable areas, each occupying a restricted
range in which a certain animal or plant or group
of animals or plants might be specially abundant,
and that they consequently utilized these as a
food-supply and for other purposes, the superfluity
of which could be bartered for the superfluities of
other groups.

Thus ' the group that lived mainly on crabs and occasionally
traded in crabs might well be spoken of as " the crab-men " by
all the groups with whom they came in direct or indirect con-
tact. The same would hold good for the group that dealt in
clams or in turtle, and reciprocally there might be sago-men,
bamboo-men, and so forth. It is obvious that the men who
persistently collected or hunted a particular group of animals
would understand the habits of those animals better than other
people, and a personal regard for these animals would naturally
arise. Thus from the very beginning there would be a distinct
relationship between a group of individuals and a group of
animals or plants, a relationship that primitively was based,
not on even the most elementary of psychic concepts, but on
the most deeply seated and urgent of human claims, hunger.'

Here Haddon agrees with Lang that the name
of the group was probably imposed from without
and adopted by the group thus named. Once
accepted, the name and the regard for the animal,
or whatever was the object signified by the name,
would result in a mystical connexion being held to
exist between the object and the human group,
which might issue in the object being tabued
instead of used as originally, and, on tlie other
hand, in magic being worked to secure a continuous
supply of the object. As part of the tabu, or
incident to it, exogamy, originating in a prefer-

1 Frazer, p. 52. 2 i

s Der Ursfprung des Tntemismufi, Berlin,
4 Lang, Till' Secret of the. Totem, ehs. vi.
s iv. 9.

- lb. p. 55.
ismufi, Berlin, 1900.
'n/i»',M <^Via \ti and vii

ence for women of contiguous groups, might be
developed.^

E. Durkheim, envisaging chiefly the Australian
evidence, considers totemism as a religious institu-
tion. According to him, it is the religion of a sort
of anonymous and impersonal force manifested in
various animals, men, and emblems, none of which
possesses it entire, but all of M'hich participate in
it. It is the god adored in all totemic cults ; but
it is an impersonal god without name or history,
immanent in the world, diflused in an innumerable
multitude of things. It is, in short, mana (q.v.) or
orenda. It is not, however, represented under its
abstract form, but is conceived as a species of
animal or vegetable— in a word, under a sensible
form — each group of men taking for ensign the
animal or vegetable diffused most plentifully in the
neighbourhood of the place where the group was
accustomed to assemble. The totem is really only
the material form under which this immaterial
substance, this energy diffused through all sorts of
heterogeneous beings (which is the sole object of
the cult), is represented to the imagination. It is
the symbol not only of the impersonal totemic
principle or god, but also of the definite society,
the clan, of which it is the totem. It is the
standard, the emblem, by which each clan distin-
guishes itself from the others, the visible sign of
its personality, the mark borne by every one that
makes part of the clan, whether men, beasts, or
anythiiig else. All are sacred in varying degrees ;
but most sacred of all— more even than the totem-
animal or other object itself— is the artificial
standard or emblem of the clan. Since all who
communicate in the same totemic principle are
sacred, the totem is the source of the moral life of
the clan, and all are morally bound to one another,
with definite duties towards one another of help,
vendetta, and so forth. The totem is thus not oiily
a material but a moral force, which may easily
transform itself into a divinity properly so called.
Totemism therefore is bound up with the organiza-
tion of society. It is practically assumed as the
earliest form of religion and of society everywhere.*
In the striking work of which the main thesis is
here imperfectly summarized Durkheim elaborates
this thesis with infinite pains and abundance of
illustrations. But everything rests on the assump-
tion of primitive universality, which no attempt is
made to prove. Large spaces of the world, how-
ever, remain in which totemism has never yet been
found. More or less probable traces of it may,
indeed, be discerned in these areas ; or they may
hereafter be discovered. Meanwhile Durkheim's
theory remains a brilliant conjecture, and nothing
more.

In its insistence on an attitude towards nature
and on a psychology different from that of civilized
mankind it avoids the rock on which most of the
hypotheses heretofore considered have split. This
was also emphatically laid down, as the condition
of success in solving the question of the origin of
totemism, by E. Reuterskiold, a Swedish scholar,
in an article which appeared almost contemporane-
ously with Durkheim's work. This article is an
extension of part of a previous essay by the same
author published in 1908. He urges that totemism
is connected with an impersonal conception of life.
A group of men are allied with a group of animals.
There is nothing personal, nothing individual, in
their union. It is an association peculiar to the
primitive mode of thought, which does not compare
one thing with another : if it finds likeness between
them, it identifies them. For primitive man the
individual is nothing ; the group or the species is

1 A. C. Haddon, Presidential Address to Anltii-'>poli)gy Section,
Report of 727id Meeiiiujoi BrI.t. Assoc, 190i, p. 74ri (T.

2 Le.s Formes 4Uvient aires de la vie religievie, I'aris, 191 '2, pi>.
269, 294, 334, etc.

TRADE UNIONS

407

everything. Man did not picture hiuiself as lord
of creation. He did not sever liimseif in thought
from other living creatures ; he was only a part of
a great community. He felt himself closely united
with a kind of animal living in his neighbourhood
and coming in touch with him. It Avas no accident
that he associated himself with one or otlier species.
Toteniism has its various sides — religious, magical,
and social. These were in the origin undistin-
guished from one another. The distinction be-
tween them came later, with the development of
individualism and analysis.^

In this way Reuterskiold would explain the
origin of totemism. Witliout saying that he has
completely solved the (juestion, the opinion may
be expressed that he has realized the conditions of
primitive life and thought sufficiently to deline at
all events some of the conditions to be fulfilled and
so lead to a solution. In endeavouring to expl.ain
the attitude towards nature of the tribes of Central
Brazil Von den Steinen not only says that they
draw no strict line of demarcation between man
and brute ; he uses the emphatic e.xjjression that,
to understand it, ' we must think the boundary
completely away.' There is thus no impediment
to their assimilating themselves to one or another
animal. Indeed, the Bororo declare, as we have
seen, that they are red araras, not tliat they will
become araras after death, nor that they were araras
in a previous existence, but that they are araras
here and now. From this attitude of mind we can
see how it follows that in their stories human modes
of life and thought are attributed to the lower
animals, and indeed, as frequently in savage tales,
it is often impossible to say whether the actors are
human or brute ; it follows also that maiTiages
between the former and the latter are in the tales
contemplated without aversion or are even i-egarded
as natural, and that interchanges of shape are
quite ordinary incidents. It is no question of
naming. Totemism is founded on something
deeper than that. It assumes a community of
nature between men and other creatures ; and the
existence of the individual is ignored, except as a
small and subordinate part of a group, thoiight of
as a whole. It was part of the organization of
society which is bound up with the general concept
of the world indicated above — a concept by no
means confined to totemic peoples, but not always
issuing in the same type of organization. How or
why particular totems were chosen is a difficult
question, but, however interesting, relatively
unimportant.

In strict acceptation of the term totemism is not
a reUgion. The respect of the clan for its totem
arises out of the attitude of mind just explained.
The relation of the clan to its totem assumes a
mystical aspect and generates an intense feeling of
kinship. This frequently is expressed in the belief
that they are descended from the totem-species.
As civilization evolves, this belief becomes modihed
into the shape of a story of the adventure of a
human ancestor witii the totem-species. Although
regarded with reverence and looked to for help,
the totem is never, where totemism is not decadent,
prayed to as a god or a person witli powers which
we call supernatural. In fact, in that stage of
culture totemism usually co-exists with the cult of
the dead and often with tlie worship of other .spirits
and gods accurately so called.

Its connexion with the social organization, on
the other hand, is very intimate. Pr()l)ably begin-
ning in a more or less inchoate recognition of kin-
ship, it develops the clan- feeling and the clan-
organization and by means of clan-exogamy binds

^ ARW XV. [1912] 12 ff. The author's previous work, to which
reference is made, is entitled Till frd'jan oin vpfhimslcn af
sakraiiuntala mUtider med sdrskilil /idnsiin till TotemisDien,
Upsula, 1908.

the whole tribe together. Whether exogamy
actually precedes totemism in point of time or not,
there can be no doubt that the interaction of the
two strengthens and develops it, until exogamy is
seen as an essential element of totemism in its mil
force. When, in the course of evolving civilization,
totemism begins to decay, exogamy may and often
does continue to exist independently. And the
cases are numerous where the clan-system and
exogamy have arisen and existed for long periods
without any other element of totemism, so far as
we know. So various are the forms of totemism
that it has been maintained with plausibility that
they are due to a fortuitous concurrence of causes
which has united elements originally diverse but
tending to converge into a system on the whole
marvellously similar wherever it obtains, just as
the disintegration, and in many cases the dissolu-
tion, of the system have historically been due to a
concuirence or a sequence of causes of the opposite
kind.

LiTRRATURE. — The most comprehensive account of totemism
is J. G. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, 4 vols., London, 1910.
It is indispensable to every student of the subject, and it
includes a reprint of his early work, Totetnism, Edinburgh, 1887,
and of his subsequent artt. in The Fortnightly Review, new ser.,
Ixv. [1S99] 647 iT., 835 ff., and Ixxviii. [1905] 162 ff., 452 £f. Other
important works are Andrew Langr, Social Origins, London,
1903, The Secret of the Totem, do. 1905, and his earlier work,
Myth, Ritual and Religion, 2 vols., do. 18S7 ; W. Robertson
Smith, 2Vie Religion of the Semites'^, Edinburgh, 1894 ; F. B.
Jevons, An Introd. to the Hist, of Religion, London, 1896 ;
four artt. by L. Marillier, on ' La Place' du tot6misme dans
revolution religieuse,' in RHR xxxvi. [1S97] and xxxvii. [1898] ;
Salomon Reinach, Cultes, Mythes et Religions, vols. i. and ii.,
Paris, 1905-08, Eug. tr., London, 1912, Orpheus, Paris, 1909 ; J.
Toutain, ' L'Hist. des reliaions et le tot6misme,' in RHR Ivii.
[1908], and A. van Gennep's reply in RHR Iviii. [190S] ; A. A.
Goldenweiser, 'Totemism, an Analytical Study,' in JAFLxxni.
[1911], with replies by R. H. Lowie in American Anthropologist,
new ser., xiii. [1911], by A. Lang-, ib. xiv. [1912], by W. D.
Wallis, ib. xv. [1913], and the consequent discussions, including
an art. by A. A. Goldenweiser, in ib. xx. [1918]. Articles
bearing on totemism will be found in various volumes of ASoc,
1897-1907. Works in German are numerous, but of less import-
ance. The remaining literature in English will be found in the
usual anthropological periodicals and other works published in
England and America, many of which have been referred to in
the text. Other important works have been indicated in the
course of the article. E. SIDNEY HartlAND.

TRACTARIANISM. — See Oxford Move-
ment.

TRADE.— See Commerce.

TRADE UNIONS.— A trade union has been
defined as ' a continuous association of wage-
earners for the purpose of maintaining or improv-
ing the conditions of their emploj^ment.' ^ This
definition would not be regarded as an adequate
account of the objecsts of a trade union by many
labour leaders of the present time, but it may
stand with the proviso that there are large ques-
tions of politics and industrial reconstruction which
under modern conditions have a direct or indirect
bearing upon the ' improvement of conditions.'
The underlying basis of the movement is the power
of combination, and the progres.sive realization of
this power by the masses of the workers in various
countries has gone far to revolutionize the face of
civilization. Labour is no longer a suppliant plead-
ing for justice, but a stiong nuin arnied, presenting
demands which he has the power to enforce. How
will that power be u.sed ? The time seems ajjpro-
priate for a consideration of the ethical aspects of
the trade union movement.

I. Historii.al. — ^Trade unionism, like parliament-
ary government, is the child of the passionate in-
stinct of the British peoi>le for civic freedom. It
has been transi)Iauted to the colonies, adopted by the
working people of every nation in Europe, carried

1 Sidnc\- and Beatrice Webb, Tlixtory of Trade Uninnism,
p. 1.

408

?RADB UNIONS

across the Atlantic to America. It per\ades the
whole world of intelligent white labour, but
England was its cradle.

Attempts have been made to trace its descent
from the craft gilds (q.v.) of the Middle Ages, but
those institutions are to be regarded as associations
of masters rather than of men, and there is little
or no evidence of the existence of permanent
associations of wage-earners before the 18th cen-
tury. It was then that the differentiation between
employer and employed became more and more
marked until a great gulf was finally set between
them by the transformation of industry efi'ected
bj' the introduction of macliinery and the institu-
tion of the modern factory system of production on
a large scale. The trade union movement was a
direct response to the change of conditions.

In the early part of the 18th cent, continuous
associations of wage- earners generally took the
form of friendly societies, witli sick and funeral
funds attached ; but, as the century wore on, and
the effects of the industrial revolution, in divorcing
the worker from the instruments of production and
degrading his position, became more apparent, they
inevitably assumed a different character. The
meetings of the clubs afforded opportunities for
talk about questions of wages and conditions of
labour, and we lind Adam Smith writing :

' People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for
merriment and discussion, but the conversation ends in a con-
spiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise
prices. ' I

This was what the early trade unions appeared to
be to the governing classes of those days — 'a con-
spiracy against the public ' — and they were only
taking the same view as had been taken by the
governing classes long before. Combinations of
workmen were held to constitute a danger to the
State, and from early times a series of statutes
had been directed against them. The earliest of
these appears to have been the statute 33 Edw. i.
c. 1 (1305).

It stamped as conspirators ' all who do confeder or bind them-
selves by oath, covenant or other alliance, as relates or extends
to combinations or conspiracies of workmen or other persons to
obtain an advance of, or fix the rate of, wages, or to lessen or
alter the hours or duration of the time of working, or to decrease
the quantity of work, or to regulate or control the mode of
carrying on any manufacture, trade, or business, or the
management thereof.'

From this it may be seen that labour questions,
including the limitation of output, were much the
same in the first part of the 14th cent, as they are
to-day. The statute goes on to declare ' combina-
tions or conspiracies of masters, manufacturers, or
other persons' to be equally illegal ; thej' too were
regarded as constituting a danger to the State ;
and the principle that all combinations, whether
of masters or of men, should be suppressed in the
interest of the public may be said to underlie most
of our earlier industrial legislation. But, as time
went on, the tendency was for the laws against
labour to be rigidly enforced, while those in its
favour were very laxly administered or allowed to
fall into oblivion.

The Act of Edward I. was followed by a series
of others of the same nature. In the 18th cent,
they became more and more frequent with the
rise of the new associations. At least fifteen were
enacted in the reign of George III. before the year
1800. That j-ear marks an epoch. The whole of
the existing Combination Acts were consolidated
in a new law which made all associations of work-
men (and of employers) illegal, and membership of
such an association a criminal offence (39 and 40
Geo. III. c. 106).

The position of the workers now was that, while
no attempt was made to extend already existing
State regvdations as to wages, hours, and condi-
1 Wealth of Nations, bk. i. ch. 10.

tions of employment so as to apply them to the
altered circumstances of the times — and many of
them had become practically inoperative — they
were debarred by statute from what seemed the
only chance of escape, association for mutual pro-
tection. But, in spite of this, associations were
formed, some of which, as the direct result of this
repressive legislation, took the form of secret
societies with strange oaths and revolutionary rites,
and the next twenty-five years were full of trouble
and discontent. Eventually by the Acts 5 Geo. IV.
c. 95 (1824) and 6 Geo. IV. c. 129 (1825) the Com-
bination Laws were repealed and association for
the purpose of regulating wages or hours of labour
was expressly legalized.

The position of the trade unions was now secure.
Some forty-five were discovered in 1824 to have
managed to maintain a precarious existence in
spite of the Combination Laws, but, when the laws
were repealed, trade unions sprang into life all
over the country. The next few years were a
period of great industrial activity, and the work
of organization was taken in hand in earnest. It
was also a time of great political activity, and
soon after the passing of the Reform Act of 1832
we find that the unions had already accumulated
members and funds sufficient to make them a dis-
tinct power in politics. They threw themselves
heartily into the movement initiated by Robert
Owen — the membership of his ' Grand National
Consolidated Trades Union' in 1834 has been
estimated at half a million — but on the whole
stood aloof from the Chartist movement which
played such an important part in the history of the
working classes between 1837 and 1848. Between
1850 and 1860 trade unionism made rapid strides
on the old lines, and then there was a marked
increase of political interest with the Reform Bill
of 1867 as its centre.

The Trade Union Act of 1871 marked another
stage. Though the repeal of the Combination
Laws had left the workers free to combine, all
combinations 'in restraint of trade' were still
illegal. The funds of any such society therefore
did not enjoy the protection of the law, but were
at the mercy of any official who had access to
them. As a matter of fact the trust had been verj'
seldom abused, but the position was unsatisfactory,
and the Act remedied it, and also strengthened
the position of the unions in other respects. In
1875 a further Act recognized employers and work-
men (they were no longer called master and servant)
as equal parties to a civil contract, and ' peaceful
picketing' during a strike was expressly permitted.
Thus ' collective bargaining, with all its necessary
accompaniments, Mas after fifty years of legislative
struggle finally recognized by the law of the land.' ^

Ten years later the movement entered upon a
new phase. The leading spirits were no longer
content to proceed steadily upon the old lines, and
John Burns and Tom Mann became the apostles of
a more militant and aggressive creed. A 'new
unionism ' came into existence which was inspired
by the doctrines of socialism {q.v.). Its spirit was
manifested in the labour unrest of 1889-90. This
has been in its turn outpaced by the still newer
unionism of the 20th cent., which is .syndicalist
instead of socialist and regards the general strike
as its weapon. But, at all events up to the out-
break of the war in 1914, the great bulk of trade
unionists seem to have been content, as Joseph
Clayton has said,

'to proceed steadily on the old lines— distrusting revolution-
ary sentiments, favouring the return to Parliament of their
officers, of whose abilities and honesty they are well aware,
believing that by collective bargaining they can achieve a
more comfortable life for themselves and their families and that

1 Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 275.

TRADE UNIONS

409

legislation of a social character is also needed to improve
their position.' 1

Beyond the outbreak of the war we do not propose
to go.

The total number of trade unions in existence at
the end of 1913 is given in the Labour Year Book
as 1135 with a membership of just under four
millions— more than double what they had been
ten years before.

2, Moral and economic justification of trade
unionism. — No one would be likely to deny that
trade unions are a necessary feature of modern
industrial life, and most people would admit that
they are on the whole a salutary feature. Our
forefathers may have been sincere in their belief
that the State could not aflbrd to allow such
associations to exist, that they constituted a real
danger to the public ; but in those days there was
little knowledge of the conditions under which the
' lower classes ' lived and little sympathy with the
workers themselves. Moreover, the existing order
was taken for granted. It was recognized that
there were evils which called for alleviation, but
the ideas of the most sympathetic did not get
farther than palliation ; prevention was beyond
their scope. Such attempts as were made in early
times to regulate industry by legal enactments
were crude ; and, when the great crisis of the 18th
cent, arrived and there was the most urgent need
of strong and intelligent control, there was no one
Avho saw the meaning and implications of the
change. The industrial revolution went its way
unfettered ; the old industrial order was swept
away and chaos supervened ; whole classes of
workers became involved in a condition of unpar-
alleled servitude, poverty, and degradation. But
the governing classes failed to realize that, if there
was a possible element of danger in the existence
of combinations of workers, the existence of such
a state of things was a far greater danger and in
addition an intolerable disgrace to any civilized
country. From the fetters riveted upon us in
those evil days we as a nation have been for a
century endeavouring with infinite struggles and
effort to set ourselves free. The conscience of the
public was at last aroused, but long before it was
aroused the workers had learnt to help themselves ;
the State at last awoke to some sort of a sense of
its responsibilities, but the driving power which
lay behind the various enactments was the power
of the associations of workers. This is the first
and broadest ground of justification of unionism.
It has laid the foundations of a new industrial
order, and those foundations were laid in the
power of two far-reaching ideas — the realization
of the power of combination and the conception of
the organization of labour.

Another debt which the country owes to trade
unionism is the emancipation of large sections of
its population from the cold and selfish individual-
ism of past days. It is a debt which is not
generally realized and seldom acknowledged ; but
no one who knows anything of the actual working
of trade unions, or is brought much into contact
with their members, can fail to see how strong the
bonds of fellowship are, how clearly the members
realize their dependence upon one another, how
ready they are to bear one another's burdens if
occasion arises. Trade unionism is full of para-
doxes, and none of tliem is more striking than
that action which appears to be hard and selfish is
found sometimes upon investigation to be based
upon the most unselfish motives, or that practices
which intelligent workers themselves admit to be
unjustifiable in theory are invested with a strong
moral sanction as the only means for the protection
of the weak.

1 Trade Unions, London, 1913, p. 27.

On these two broad general grounds — that it
has pointed the way to the establishment of a new
industrial order, and that it has recalled us to a
sense of a forgotten side of our social order — it
may be said that the trade union movement has
abundantly justified itself. We shall now proceed
to consider some of the special manifestations of
its activity which have been at different times the
subject of criticism.

(a) Strikes. — The strike {q.v.) has always been
the trade unionist's most effective weapon. He
can do much to protect himself by the method of
mutual insurance or collective bargaining, but the
strike gives him tlie power of bringing pressure to
bear if he desires to enforce an agreement or to
secure an improvement <n Avages or conditions of
labour. The question whether it is a fair weapon
is therefore fundamental. At present the right to
strike has been practically acknowledged by the
law, but the concession has only been gradual.
At first all strikes were regarded as conspiracies
and illegal ; then there came a stage at which the
right to strike was tacitly acknowledged, but the
courts condemned them on the ground of assumed
'malicious intent'; next attempts were made to
discriminate between difierent kinds of motive ;
and now tlie tendency seems to be to uphold the
right to strike as such.

The relation between employer and employed
has been regarded in law since 1875 as a civil
contract between two theoretically free and equal
individuals. It is in some cases a contract of very
short duration, but it does not differ in nature
from longer contracts. A weekly-wage-earner is
in this respect in the same position as a highly
placed salaried official. He therefore has the
right to terminate his contract when he pleases,
so long as he does not contravene its terms. But
the essence of a strike is that it is the simultaneous
termination of many contracts, and it derives its
power from the fact that it is inconvenient or
even harmful to the employer, and generally
meant to be so. Now no one would deny that
any worker where wages are inadequate or con-
ditions intolerable has the right to say to an
employer, ' I will not work for j^ou for such wages
or under such conditions.' Nor will it be denied
that many of the workers have a right to say this
simultaneously as a joint protest. Finally, it is
hard to see how they would be wrong in endeav-
ouring to persuade others to do the same. If these
three points are conceded, the right to strike is
established in principle.

The strike tlien, regarded as a protest, is a law-
ful weapon, but the days are long past when
strikes were simply protests. To-day in the
majority of cases they are used as weapons of
offence. Even as such they are doubtless often
justifiable, but weapons of offence are used to
threaten or to inflict injury: that is what they
are for ; and, if it is conceded that the use of such
weapons is allowable in industrial warfare, there
would seem to be need of some controlling power
to see that they are used fairly. A strike may be
simply an instrument of tyranny and oppression.

jSIoreover, the whole question has assumed a
new aspect in recent years as the result of closer
association between different classes of workers
and the enormous increase of power which the
strike has derived from their simultaneous action.
A strike on a large scale is no longer a mere matter
between employers and employed : the whole nation
may be affected. An unpleasant feature of some
recent strikes has been the frank admission l)y
their promoters that it was their deliberate in-
tention to cause such general inconvenience and
even injury as would force a settlement in their
favour, simply to put an end to them. Such

410

TRADE UNIONS

action is narrow and selfish and is condemned by-
public opinion. In no civilized country can any
one body of men be allowed to hold the nation to
ransom at their pleasure. The State is greater
than any of its component parts, and is morally
bound to take measures to protect the nation as
a whole from exploitation by any section of it.

The question of picketing is closely connected
with that of strikes. A strike really is a device
to starve an employer out ; its efficacy depends
upon the completeness with which his supplies
of labour can be cut off. It is therefore of the
first importance to the strikers to see that no one
else takes their place, and that none of the workers
continue their work. Hence an elaborate system
of sentries and pickets. There is nothing to be
urged against 'peaceful persuasion,' but it is
obvious that, at a time when strong emotions are
aroused, such a practice needs careful watching
if the persuasion is not to be allowed to degenerate
into intimidation or even violence.

The Act of 1875 rendered liable to a fine or imprisonment
' every person who, with a view to compel any other person to
abstain from doing or to do any act which such other person
has a leyal right to do or abstain from doing, wrongfully and
without legal authority watches or besets the house or other
place where such other person resides or works ' ; but declared
that attending at or near the house or place ' in order merely
to obtain or communicate information ' shall not be deemed
watching or besetting.

(6) The limitation of output. — There are some
things about trade unionism which will never be
understood unless they are regarded as projected
against a background of injustice and petty
tyranny. The deliberate limitation of output
is one of them. It has been, and is still, the
practice of some unions not to allow their members
to do more than a given amount of work in a
given time. A bricklayer, e.g., may not lay more
than a given number of bricks in a day. This
practice is unjustifiable from the economic point
of view, because the object of industry is produc-
tion and the worker who systematically produces
less or worse work than he might is not true to his
trade. It is also morally unjustifiable because
every one is bound in honour to accomplish to the
best of his ability the task which he has taken in
hand. And intelligent labour is ready to admit
this. On what grounds then is it defended ? On
the ground that it is the only protection that can
be devised for the weak against the lowering of
the rate of wages by an unscrupulous employer.
It was found that an employer who had already
agreed to a certain piece-rate, on finding that the
best of his men were earning wages which seemed
to him in his short-sightedness preposterous, went
back upon his word and proceeded to cut the rate,
with the result that the slow or weak among the
workers were no longer able to earn the weekly
wage which he himself had considered as fair when
he fixed the original piece-rate. Labour, in order
to remove any such excuse for a lowering of wages,
resolved that no member of the trade, whatever
his strength or speed, should be allowed to outpace
the rest. The best workers were called upon to
make a sacrifice, but it was made readily and it
rested upon altruistic motives. It is an anomaly,
and it is injurious to industry. As the progressive
organization of industry proceeds, the need of it
will probably disappear. Meanwhile it remains,
not without a touch of pathos, as an indication of
the dislocation which has invested in the eyes of
the workers a practice which they would not really
defend with the sanction of self-sacrifice,

(c) ' Co! canny.' — The policy of limitation of out-
put is sometimes adopted upon less defensible
grounds. We do not refer to those cases in which
a man does less than lie mi,t:ht, or as little as he
can contrive, out of personal resentment towards

an employer or as a protest against a system which
he believes to be unjust. Such cases are not un-
common, but it is doubtful Avhether any union
M'ould deliberately support them with its formal
sanction. But many unionists believe that there
is only a certain amount of work to be done, and
that tliere will not be enough to go round if the
standard of production per man is too high. This
' lump-of-labour ' doctrine of the worker is the
complement of the old ' wages-fund ' theory of the
capitalists of the 19th cent., who believed that
there was only a certain sum available for wages,
and that, if one set of workmen got more, it meant
that of necessity another set would get less. Both
Avere equally fallacious. There is neither a fixed
amount of work nor a fixed sum available for
wages ; both are elastic. The way to increased
wages lies through increased production, for it is
out of the value of the product that wages, like
salaries and the cost of raw materials, are paid.
To limit production is to lessen the fund out of
which wages are paid. There is also a belief that,
if the best workmen are allowed to force the pace,
the result will be a subtle reduction of the standard
of earnings of the average worker — a ' bell-wether'
is regarded as an abomination— and the best pro-
tection against this danger (which is a real one)
is held to be a sort of standardization of output
comparable to the standardization of hours and
wages in which the workers have found protection
and safety. But it seems indisputable that, if
the best workers in a trade are circumscribed and
shackled, the whole trade must be the worse for it,
workers included.

(d) It is difficult to estimate the truth of the
charges of tyranny, intimidation, and violence
which have often been brought against the trade
unions. There have doubtless been many cases
of such things in the industrial history of the
last 150 years. Violence has been used against
employers ; intimidation and violence have been
used against other workers who failed to come
into line. What we want to know, and what is
very difficult to find out, is to what extent, if at
all, the unions have condoned such action. We
should be safe, however, in asserting that violence
forms no part of the trade union programme, and
we may go further and say that with the growth
of trade unionism tliere has been a distinct im-
provement in the conduct of strikes. Violence
and bloodshed are certainly less common now than
they were.

(e) It has been said that the organization of
labour on modern lines is an idea Avhich we owe
to the trade unions. Has this organization in
some cases been carried too far ? Employers often
complain that they find themselves fettered and
obstructed by trade union regulations which seem
to them to be merely meticulous and vexatious.
There is probably some truth in this. Trade
unionism, on its defensive side, has surrounded
itself with an elaborate system of bulwarks against
every conceivable possibility of an attack. These
regulations are not arbitrary ; the initiated know
that they are applications in detail of some prin-
ciple which the workers regard as important.
They are born of mistrust, and they will not
disappear until employers and employed learn to
understand one another better ami feel that they
are co-partners in the same enterprise. But it
should be realized that industry cannot work in
chains.

Trade unions are *an inevitable product of
modern economic life.' They are now almost
universally recognized, and the recognition is
based upon the fact that the conditions of labour
are now group conditions and that the worker who
forms a simple unit of a large group is powerless

TRADITION

411

to bargain successfully with an employer. The
employer occupies a superior strategic position,
and the worker's only hope is in association. It
is undeniable that, where large associations of
industrial units are formed, there is a danger of
tyrannous action, and the larger the association,
the greater the danger ; but it is equally undeni-
able that the circumstances of the time seem to
call for such associations, and the danger should
be confronted. The advantages to be gained are
great, and the danger can be met with the assist-
ance of the legislature and the law-courts.

Literature. — Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Hist, of Trade
Unionism, London, 1902, Industrial Democracy, do. 1911 ;
H. H. Schloesser, Trade Unionism, do. 1913 ; A. and M. P.
Marshall, Economics of Industry, do. 1881 ; G. Howell, Trade
Unionism Neiv and Old, do. 1907 ; C. M. Lloyd, Trade Union-
ism, do. 1915 ; C. Watney and J. A. Little, Industrial War-
fare, do. 1912. L. V. Lester-Garland.

TRADITION.— The word 'tradition' means,
etymologically, 'handing over.' The conception
of tradition, therefore, implies (a) a ' deposit '
which is handed over, and (6) 'depositaries,' i.e.
persons who are in possession of the deposit, and
are commissioned to preserve it and transmit it to
successors. Most religious systems claim to bear
within themselves a deposit, consisting of cere-
monial, myth, dogma, or ethic, or of some of these
elements, revealed by some ultimate divine or
quasi-divine authority, and meant to be handed
down to posterity by a succession of duly qualified
trustees. This article discusses the part which the
principle of tradition has played in the history of
Christianity.

I. Christ and Jewish tradition. — There is not
much uncertainty regarding the attitude of the
Founder of Christianity towards the Jewish tradi-
tion which He found already in existence. He was
Himself a member of the Jewish Church, and dis-
claimed any idea of being a rebel against it :
' Think not that I came to destroy the law or the
prophets : I came not to destroy, but to fuliil' (Mt
5'''). It would be generally agreed that His object
was, not to abolish the traditional INIosaic deposit
or to annihilate the depositary society — the ' con-
gregation of the Lord,' the ' Israel of God ' — but
rather to develop and expand the then existing
Jewish Ecclesia into the ' Kingdom of God ' and to
reform and purify the deposit by blending it with
the gospel, or ' good news,' of a glorious age to
come. In regard to the reform of tlie deposit, He
insisted primarily upon its re-moralization. The
classical passage for this is, of course, the famous
saying about Corban (Mt 15'-2o, Mk 1^-^), with the
affirmation, which follows, that it is not the things
which go into a man, but those which come out of
the man, that defile the man. This may appear,
at first sight, to challenge in principle the whole
conception of the ceremonial deposit and brusquely
to deny any spiritual value to outward observances.
It certainly claims an infinitely higher place for
ethical values as compared with ceremonial pre-
cepts ; it might be taken, further, to imply that
the sole seat of religious authority for a pious Jew
lay in the written Word, the T6rdh, and that tlie
oral tradition of the Kabbis was comparatively
worthless. An even stronger implication as to the
transitory nature of the Rabbinical tradition is
contained in the saying about the ' new wine ' and
the 'old wine-skins' (Mk 2'-"-, Mt Q^*^'-), though it
is to be noted that Luke (5^**) appends a saying
which may seem to point in the other direction —
' The old (M'ine) is better.'

It may perhajjs be said also that, to a certain
extent, Christ demanded the re-intelleetualization
of the deposit. Tiie authoritj' of tradition is sub-
ordinated, not merely to that of the moral law
embodied in the written WonI, Init to tliat of

common sense. This is illustrated by His various
sayings on the subject of the Sabbath, The im-
pression which we gain from a review of the teach-
ing of Christ, as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels,
is that His attitude towards the Kabbinical tradi-
tion was simultaneously both reverential and
critical, both conservative and progressive. There
are two other pieces of evidence which should be
considered in this connexion. Opinions differ as
to the amount of historical value which should be
assigned to the Fourth Gospel ; but it is to be
presumed that the exceedingly hostile attitude
assumed by the Johannine Christ towards ' the
Jews ' is at least ba.sed upon genuine reminiscences
of one side of the teaching of Jesus ; and the
declaration that the worship of the future was to
be conducted neither on Mount Gerizim nor at
Jerusalem, but throughout the whole earth, 'in
spirit and in truth,' represents an attitude as anti-
Rabbinical as it is possible to conceive. On the
other hand, sayings recorded by ' Matthew,' the
specifically Jewish evangelist, seem to represent
Jesus as a whole-hearted supporter of tradition,
though a severe critic of the moral shortcomings
of its depositaries. ' Not one iota or one vowel-
point shall pass away from the law until all be
fulfilled' (Mt 5^8) is a passage in which the char-
acteristic Jewish doctrine of the eternity of the
T6rah seems to be proclaimed ; He adds that,
unless the zeal of His converts for the literal
observance of the Law exceeds even that of the
scribes and Pharisees, they cannot hope to enter
into the Messianic Kingdom (5'^"). The official, as
distinct from the personal, authority of the Rabbis
appears to be attirmed in the saying, 'The scribes
and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat : all things
therefore whatsoever they bid you, these do and
observe : but do not ye after their works,' etc.
(23^'- )• Another saying in the same chapter con-
tains the warning that Christ's insistence upon the
supreme importance of moral conduct is not meant
to imply any contempt for ceremonial minutiae, in
their proper place : ' Ye tithe mint and anise and
cummin, and have left undone the weightier
matters of the law, judgement, and mercy, and
faith : but these ye ought to have done, and not
to have left the other undone' (v.^^). On the other
hand, it is fair to remember that the denunciations of
the hypocrisy and quibbling casuistry of the Rabbis
recorded by St. Matthew equal in intensity and
bitterness the Johannine Christ's most vehement
invectives against 'the Jews.' It seems probable
that the Rabbinizing utterances in the First Gospel
represent ironical sayings of Christ, which the first
evangelist has misunderstood and taken literally,
in accordance with his Judaistic presuppositions.

We may sum up this section of our inquiry b}' observing (a)
that, in the view of the Founder of Christianity, the Jewish Church
was in any case destined to be expanded and transformed into
the ' Kingdom of God,' and that His attitude towards Jewish
tradition must, therefore, have been of an interim and pro-
visional nature, which will not necessarily ^ve us the clue to
His attitude towards the whole principle of tradition, as such,
in religion ; (6) that, for the time being, He had no desire to
deny the value or divine origin of the main body of the Jewish
deposit; it seems that His invectives against the de/ac<o de-
positaries had reference rather to their personal shortcomings
than to the official authority which they claimed ; (c) that He
insisted upon the subordination of the existing oral tradition to
the authority of Scripture, the moral law, and common sense ;
and (d) tlial He was a deadly foe to that tendency towards the
hypertrophy of ceremonialism, and the evanescence of moral
and intellectual content, which is familiar to the historical
student as the weakness to which traditional religions are
peculiarly liable.

2. Christ and Christian tradition. — We now
approach a question on which opinions are, and
have been for niany centuries, acutely divided. It
seems clear that Christ did not, on any showing,
contemplate the eternal permanence of the Jewish
tradition ; but did He Himself mean to found a
new one ? Did He design to promulgn,te a new

412

TRADITION

deposit, a body of dogmatic and ethical truth
revealed by Himself for the first time? Did He
mean to found a society as the guardian of this
deposit and its authorized expounder? Did He
institute a class of depositaries within the society,
empowered to decide as to its true contents in
cases of dispute ? Or did He mean to make a
complete breach, in theory and principle, with the
great religions of the ancient world as they had
historically grown up, and to propagate, not so
much an organized religion as a philosophical
point of view or a mode of emotional feeling ? In
other words — Is Christianity to be regarded as the
perfect traditional religion, the crown and flower
of that whole process of traditional evolution which
may be traced down the centuries, possessing a
deposit of immutable truth and authentic, life-
giving sacraments, and preserved by a majestic,
supernatural society, a Kingdom which is in this
world, yet not of it ? Or was Christianity, as
designed by its Founder, meant to involve a com-
plete break with the past, and an entirely fresh
start upon non-dogmatic, non-sacramental, non-
ecclesiastical lines?

3. The ' Catholic ' view of tradition. — It is a
well-known fact that at the present day three-
quarters of Christendom would return an un-
hesitating affirmative to the question. Did Christ
intend to be the Founder of a traditional religion ?
We may refer to this great majority of Christians
as the ' Catholic ' part of Christendom — not with
the object of begging any controversial questions,
but merely in order to have a convenient label for
denoting that system of faith and practice which
is, in its general outlines, common to the ' pre-
Reformation ' Churches — i.e. to the Roman, Eastern
Orthodox, Coptic, Abyssinian, Armenian, Syrian
Jacobite, Chaldaean, and Malabarese communions
— and which was inherited by them from the
ancient undivided Church of the Grseco-Roman
Empire, of which they are fragments. The
' Catholic ' view of tradition maintains that the
deposit of faith (depositum Jidei) was partly taken
over by Christ from the existing Jewish Church
and partly revealed by Him to His apostles and
other hearers during His earthly life and especially
during the ' great forty days,' which, according to
St. Luke (Ac P), intervened between His resurrec-
tion and ascension, and during which He spoke of
'the things jjertaining to the Kingdom of God.'
He thus committed to them — either by stamping
with His own approval certain already existing
Jewish beliefs or by Himself revealing fresh truth
for the first time— in germ and essence the great
doctrines of the orthodox faith and the system of
sacraments which He instituted for the salvation
of mankind. He told His adherents that they
were to consider themselves as being the true
Israel, His Ecclesia, which, in some sense, He
would build upon Peter as a foundation (Mt 16^^).
With this divinely-founded society He promises to
be present all the days, even unto the consummation
of the age (28'-"), and to it He promises to send the
Paraclete, who would guide its members into all
truth (Jn 16^^). These promises are interpreted by
'Catholics' as guaranteeing the 'infallibility' of
the Church in the interpretation and definition
of the authentic contents of the deposit. It is,
further, believed that within the Church the
special task of preserving (and, when need should
arise, of defining) tlie deposit was committed by
Christ to the twelve apostles and to their suc-
cessors, the bishops.

According to this view, therefore, all that Christ
instituted was (1) a deposit (no doubt embodied at
first in a way of life, rather th<an in an exactly
formulated creed, and expressed, so far as it was
verbally expressed at all, in pictorial rather than

logical or metaphysical terms), and (2) a depositary
class, consisting of the twelve men whom He had
designated, in apocalyptic language, as the satraps
of the future Kingdom. It would be hardly correct
to speak of Him as having instituted the depositary
body, the Church, inasmuch as this was conceived
of as being, not a new society, but the only
orthodox remnant of the old Jewish Church. But
in these rudimentary beginnings the possibility of
a magnificent development was given. The living
force of the Christian tradition spontaneously
generated the same complex mechanism for its
own preservation and perpetuation as may be seen,
endeavouring to struggle into existence, in the
fields of Zoroastrianism and Buddhism. The first
element in this apparatus to appear was the canon
of Scripture. At first the only Scriptures which
the Christian Church possessed were those of the
Jewish Church, or, rather, of the Jewish Church
as it existed outside Palestine. The Bible re-
cognized in most parts of the earliest Christian
Church was the Septuagint Old Testament, con-
taining the books now called Apocrypha ; so that,
from the first, the oral tradition, vested in living
depositaries (the apostles and their successors),
was, to a certain extent, controlled by the existence
of written documents, believed to embody some at
least of the main constituents of the deposit. The
Marcionite controversy of the 2nd cent, compelled
the Church to form a collection of apostolic writ-
ings for the purpose of demonstrating the identity
of the deposit, as she maintained it, with that
committed by Christ to the original depositaries,
and refuting the Gnostic claim to jjossess a secret
tradition other than, and opposed to, the ecclesi-
astical tradition. This apostolic collection became
canonized as ' the New Testament ' of equal
authority and inspiration with the original Scrip-
tures, the ' Old Testament' of the Jewish Church.^
In the 2nd cent., too, we observe the first begin-
nings of the baptismal creeds, brief formulse whose
threefold structure was derived from the threefold
invocation of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in
the solemn words of baptism, and intended to sum-
marize the essentials of the orthodox faith in a
form which could be committed to memory by
persons of the weakest intellectual capacity.^ The
canon of Scripture and the baptismal creeds were
thus the two great contributions of the 2nd cent,
to the organization whereby the Catholic deposit
was perpetuated and safeguarded against any
essential change of content. The last great de-
velopment of apparatus for safeguarding the
authenticity of the deposit is to be found in the
institution of ecumenical councils — the character-
istic invention of the 4th century.* In the 2nd
and 3rd centuries it had been possible for Hippoly-
tus, Irenaius, and Tertullian to appeal to the un-
broken succession of the bishops and to point to
their unanimous consent as a proof of the authen-
ticity of the ecclesiastical tradition, as against the
alleged secret traditions of the various Gnostic
sects. But towards the end of the period of perse-
cution it came to be realized that the bishops
themselves, the chief depositaries of the faith,
might disagree as to its content ; and tliese dis-
agreements could only be resolved, in Christianity
as in Buddhism, by the expedient of summoning
a council representing, in theory or in fact, the
complete body of chief depositaries, i.e. the total
episcopate of the world. The object of a council
Avas not so much to discover fresh truth as to
determine what, as a matter of fact, was the
doctrine which had been believed in the Church
from the beginning. Hence, though each bishop

1 See art. Bible in the Church, I. i f.

2 See art. Confessions, 8.

3 See art. Councils (Christian : Early, to a.d. 870).

TRADITION

413

had, in theory, the riglit to put before the council
that version of the faith -whicii he had received
from his predecessors and which had been handed
down to his local church from its first founder, the
greatest weight was naturally attached to the
testimony of the great 'apostolic sees.' Complete
unanimity in the acceptance of one particular
version of the faith would, of course, have stamped
it in the minds of Catholic Christians as unquestion-
ably authentic and apostolic ; but, if complete
unanimity had been possible of attainment, it
would probablj' have been unnecessary to summon
councils. The principle was, therefore, arrived at
that an overwhelming majority of the depositaries,
especially if it included the occupants of one or
more of the great apostolic sees, had the same
authority as the whole body. This principle is
expressed by St. Vincent of Lerins when he says,
or implies, that the consensus of ' paene omnes ' is
as good as that of ' omnes [sacerdotes]. ' ^ Hence
it follows that a small minority of the depositaries,
contumaciously refusing to submit to the authority
of the majority, necessarily becomes schismatic.
Another famous expression of the right of a
majority among the depositaries to decide what
is the true version of the deposit is to be found in
St. Augustine's celebrated aphorism : ' Securus
iudicat orbis terrarum, bonos non esse, qui se
diuidunt ab orbe terrarum in quacumque parte
terrarum. ' ^

It 18 true that most of the so-called ecumenical councils were
not actually representative of the total episcopate of the world.
They became ecumenical in virtue of their acceptance, im-
mediate or gradual, by the majority of bishops. We are here
concerned solely with theory, and need not go mto the question
as to how far theoloijical controversies during the first thousand
years of Christianity were merely the reflexion of political,
national, or racial antagonisms. It is sufficient to note
that each of the great decisive doctrinal formulations of
the conciliar period was followed by a split between the
majority, which accepted, and the minority, which rejected,
it. Thus, after Nicsea and Constantinople, a separate, ' non-
juring,' Arian Church came into existence among the Goths and
other northern barbarians ; after Ephesus a ' non-juring '
Nestorian Church 3 was constituted in Syria and Persia ; after
Chalcedon the Monophysite Church,-* which still includes most
of the Christians of Egypt and Armenia, split off from the rest
of Christendom. But, whilst shedding, so to speak, these
dissentient bodies round its periphery, the ' great Church,' the
Church of the majority of the depositaries, the Church of the
Grseco-Roman Empire, the ' Melkite ' or ' Imperial ' Church, as
it was derisively called by the Eastern schismatics, held to-
gether round the imperial throne and the great apostolic see
of Rome, maintaining its majestic unity unbroken, with the
brief exceptions of the Zenonian and Photian schisms, for a
thousand years. In the 'Great' or 'Melkite' Church, as it
stood on the eve of the Great Schism of 1054, the fourfold
structure of traditionalism, towards which the Buddhist and
Zoroastrian faiths had been dimly groping their way, had
come into full, explicit, and conscious existence, in the most
imposing and magnificent form which has ever existed upon
earth. The Church, the hierarchy, the canon of Scripture,
and the ecumenical councils are all there, each fulfilling its
harmonious part in the task of preserving, elucidating, and
defining the apostolic deposit.

4. The Reformation and tradition. — The
Reformation {q.v.) was, in essence and in its
earlier stages, a revolt not so much against the
authority of the deposit or of its Founder as
against that of the existing depositary class in
Western Europe — a revolt occasioned by the
corruption and exactions of the pope and the
hierarchy. In the first fervour of indignation
against the vices of the clergy it seemed necessary
to deny the whole principle of a body of men
divinely commissioned to safeguard the Christian
revelation. The mental outlook and Weltan-
schauung of the earlier Reformers was just as
scholastic as that of the mediawal theologians,
and demanded, just as imperiously, a clear-cut
body of dogmatic theology as an essential element
in religion. Hence, only those elements in the
deposit were discarded the rejection of which
followed immediately from the rejection of the

1 Commonitmium, iii. 6. 2 c. Epht. Parmen. iii. iv. 24.

3 See art. Nbstorianism. * See art. Monophvsitism.

hierarchy ; and a new basis of authority had to be
found for the Christian tradition. This basis was
found in ' tiie Bible, and the Bible only.' We have
seen that, for Catholic Christians, the structure of
the orthodox faith was raised upon two pillars —
the oral tradition of the Church and the Scriptures.
The logical etl'ect of the Reformation was to
knock away the first of these pillars, leaving the
second standing ; and so adamantine was (and is)
the cohesion and solidarity of orthodox Christi-
anity that for three hundred years it was able to
remain practically intact throughout Protestant
Europe, balanced upon the solitary surviving pillar.
The last hundred years have witnessed the gradual
erosion of this pillar, through the continual
dropping of the rains of Biblical criticism, and the
consequent collapse in those regions of tlie super-
incumbent structure. This result, however, could
not then have been foreseen. The great orthodox
Protestant theologians of the 16th and 17th
centuries only designed to modify the Catholic
theory of authority in the following sense :

' We quite agree with the Catholic in holding that there is
a changeless deposit of eternal truth, and that this was im-
parted by Christ our Lord to the apostles as depositaries,
during His earthly life and the " great forty days " ; but we
deny that the functions of the apostles as depositaries were
meant to be transmitted, or were transmitted, by them to any
successors. Their functions as guardians of the truth were
purely temporary, and ended at their deaths. They were,
however, divinely inspired to write the New Testament, in
which, together with the Old Testament, the deposit is fully
and sufficiently contained. Thenceforward, the sole authority
for the content of revealed truth was and is to be found in the
written Word of God ; and councils and synods have no
authority other than that which may attach to the piety and
learning of their members.'

It would, perhaps, be unfair to assert that this
doctrine of the Bible, isolated and abstracted from
the life of the teaching Church, as the sole fount
of religious truth, necessarily presupposes the
mechanical theories of ' verbal inspiration ' which
prevailed during the era of Protestant scholasti-
cism, though it certainly did much to encourage
them. Two difficulties, however, at once made
themselves felt: (1) 'If the authority of the
Church is practically nil, how do we know what
"the Bible" is, i.e. what books ought to be in-
cluded in the canon and what not ? Because,
hitherto, it has only been on the authority of the
Church that we have believed in the canonicity
and inspiration of these particular books.' (2) ' As
some parts of the Bible are admittedly written in an
obscure style, how are the unlearned to decide what
the true meaning is ? ' The former difficulty, which
the Catholic theologians of the counter-Reforma-
tion were not slow in pressing upon their opponents,
at once raised the question of the canonicity of the
Apocrypha, books which were uncongenial to the
Reformers because of the passage (2 Mac 12*^'**)
commending prayers for the dead. A similar
difficulty was created for many Protestant Christ-
ians by the prima facie incompatibility of the
Epistle of St. James with Lutheran solifidianism —
a fact which caused Luther to describe it as an
' epistle of straw.' The second was emphasized bj'
the fissiparous tendencies Avhicli immediately
began to manifest themselves in reformed Christen-
dom, converting it into a chaos of sects, which
ranged from the high scholastic orthodoxies of
Luther and Calvin down to the Arianism of Socinus
and the crazy extravag<ances of the Miinster
Anabaptists. The patent contradiction between
the Protestant theory of the simplicity and
obviousness of the meaning of Scriptiire and the
infinite diversity of opinions held by those who
professed to accept it as the sole authority for the
outlines of the Christian deposit was .satirized in
the celebrated couplet of Werenfels of Basel :

' Hie liber est in quo quaerit sua dogmata quisque
Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua.'

414

TRADITION

To the former of these objections the Reformers
replied by taking the short Palestinian canon of
the OT, as now held by the Jewish Church, on the
ground that (as Jerome had urged) the Jews must
surely themselves know what their own Scriptures
were (thus abandoning the primitive Christian
tradition which had taken over the longer, Septna-
gintal canon from the Hellenistic Jew) and by
affirming that, so far as the NT Scriptures were
concerned, their authority was manifest on the
face of them, in virtue of the sublimity and
elevation of their style and doctrines. This reply
obviously settled nothing as to the disputed case
of the Epistle of St. James, inasmuch as the
question at issue between Luther and his opponents
on the subject of this book was precisely this —
Were its doctrines to be called 'sublime' or
pernicious ? To the second question, also, no very
satisfactory reply was ever given. In logic the
orthodox Protestant divines were compelled to
maintain, and did in fact maintain, that the whole
system of Nicene and Chalcedonian doctrine could
be deduced with unerring certainty from the text
of the NT, given a prayerful and reverent spirit on
the part of its readers. But the ' subordination-
istic' passages in St. Paul's Epistles (cf. 1 Co 11^
15^^ etc.) and those in which the Logos and the
Spirit are apparently identified (cf. Ro 8"^-, 2 Co
3^^), together with the patent fact that Socinus
and his followers regarded themselves as ' prayer-
ful' and ' reverent,' must have made the orthodox
Protestants doubt in their inmost hearts whether
the matter really was as simple as this ; and hence
they sometimes show signs of being, unwillingly,
driven back upon the conception of a teaching
Church as the authorized interpreter of Holy
Writ.^ The Thirty-Nine Articles characteristically
take up a position which may be interpreted as
consistent either with the Catholic view of tradi-
tion and Scripture as joint authorities for the truth
of the deposit or with the Protestant conception of
the book of the Scriptures as the sole authority,
independent of any living exponent.

So we are told that 'Holy Scripture containeth all thing^s
necessary to salvation,' ^ that the three creeds are apparently
only to be believed ' because they may be proved by most
certain vparrants of Holy Scripture,' 3 that 'General Councils
may err, and sometime have erred,' and that ' things ordained
by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor
authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of
Holy Scripture.'* On the other hand, 'the Church . . . hath
authority in controversies of faith ' and is ' a witness and a
keeper of Holy Writ.' b

So far as a coherent conception of the relations
of tradition to Scripture can be wrought out from
these statements, it has been attained by Hooker,
whose Ecclesiastical Polity appears to be based on
the now antiquated assumption that the Chalce-
donian theology can be deduced from the text of
the NT as directly and irresistibly as the move-
ments of the heavenly bodies can be deduced from
a set of astronomical tables. A characteristic and
explicit expression of the thoroughgoing Catholic
view within the Anglican Communion is to be
found in Thorndike's declaration that an indis-
pensable mark of the true Church is ' the preaching
of that word and that ministering of the sacra-
ments which the tradition, of the whole Church
confineth the sense of the Scriptures to intend.'^

It is well known that the new Protestantism of the Continent
would go much farther than the old in its attack upon the
Catholic tradition, and that it would in fact dispute not merely
the authority of the depositaries, but that of the deposit and
the Founder Himself. Its contentions may be summed up
under two headings, (1) philosophical and (2) historical. (1)

1 Cf. the affirmation of the Confession of Wiirtemberg :
'Oredimus et confitemur qnod . . . haec ecclesia habeat jus
judicandi de omnibus doctrinis,' quoted by E. O. S. Gibson,
The Thirty-Nine Arti^clcs, London, 1896, p. 513.

2 Art. 6. 3 Art. 8. 4 Art. 21. 8 Art. 20.
6 Theological Works, 10 vols., Oxford, 1844-56, iv. S95.

Philosophical. — Starting from Kant's denial of the validity of
the categories of the theoretical understanding within the
noumenal spliere, RitschI (g.«.) and his followers would deny
the possibility of a deposit of intellectual truth altogether.
Owing to the creaturely limitations of man's understanding,
intercourse with God is a matter of emotional feeling and right
conduct, not of strictly intellectual apprehension. (2) Histori-
cal.— It is admitted that the essence of the Catholic deposit and
of the traditional conception of Christianity can be traced back
from the ecumenical councils, through the sub-apostolic writers,
into the NT itself ; and the modern liberal Protestant finds no
difficulty in allowing their natural sense to such passages as
2 Th 216 : ' Stand fast, and hold the traditions (tA? TrapaSocrei;)
which ye were taught, whether by word, or by letter of ours ' ;
36 : ' Withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh
disorderly, and not after the tradition which they received of
us ' ; and notably to the Pauline, or deutero-Pauline, injunction,
TTjv TrapaOrjKriv (pHXa^ov (1 Ti 6^0), in which 'the deposit' is
expressly mentioned.

It would now be conceded that St. Paul regarded Christianity
as a dogmatic, sacramental deposit, of which the 'apostles'
were, in a general sense, the depositaries. But it is contended
that in this respect there is an absolute gulf between the teach-
ing of Jesus and that of Paul ; that Jesus regarded Himself
merely as a teacher of ethics, or as the prophet of a new
eschatological enthusiasm ; that the movement which He in-
itiated was of a purely emotional kind, though fraught with an
Interimsethik valid only for the very brief period of time which,
in His view, remained before the collapse of the existing world-
order and the inauguration of the New Kingdom ; and that, as
Jesus believed in the inmiinence of this catastrophe, He could
have had no idea of promulgating a deposit or constituting a
depositary class. On this view it is Paul himself who was the
real founder of Catholic Christianity. It was he who trans-
formed the vague and formless apocalyptic enthusiasm of the
first Christian generation into a mystery-cult, with wonder-
working sacraments ; it was he who taught Christendom to
identify the Prophet of Nazareth with the Logos of Platonic
and Stoic metaphysic, thereby laying the foundations ujion
which later ages were to build the elaborate structure of Trini-
tarian and Christological dogma ; it was he or his immediate
successors who taught primitive Christians to regard themselves
as members of a mystic international brotherhood, the new
Ecclesia or Congregation of God, thereby institutionalizing
Christianity as a Church and a hierarchy. It is obvious that
this view, if it can be historically sustained, destroys the whole
traditional conception of Christianity by severing tlie connexion
between the deposit, as it stands, and its alleged founder. The
history of Christianity then becomes exactly analogous to the
history of Mazdseism and of Buddhism. It is the history of the
gradual overlaying of the teachings of the founder by dogmatic,
sacramental, mystical, and hierarchical integuments derived
from other religions : ' Catholicism ' is to authentic Christianity
what Lamaisni is to primitive Buddhism. The classical ex-
pression of this view is still, perhaps, Harnack's great History
of DiHjma, in which the majestic pageant of Church history is
exhiljited as a gradual working out of that ' acute secularization '
of Christianity initiated by the well-meaning, though mistaken,
desire of St. Paul to commend the new religious movement to
persons who had grown up in the atmosphere of the Hellenic
and Anatolian mystery-religions. It follows from this view
that the whole of the 'Catholic' deposit, including the great
central doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement,
must be discarded, and not merely those comparatively peri-
pheral portions of it which were dropped by the great 16th
cent. Reformers ; so dogma as an essential element in Chris-
tianity will disappear entirelj', and institutionalism will be
reduced to the minimum consistent with the practical efficiency
of religion. Despite the many conscious or unconscious
attempts that have been made to becloud the issue, this question,
Is the Catholic deposit in toto substantially what was promul-
gated by Christ, or is it a vast mass of GrEeco-Roman accretion
which has nothing whatever to do with His authentic teaching?,
is the primary and crucial question that lies before the religious
thought of Europe at present, and will probably have to be
answered decisively, in one sense or the other, before one
hundred years are over.

5. Recent developments. — Within the sphere of
traditional Christianity three additional develop-
ments deserve brief mention. These are all, it
may be observed, confined to the Western or Latin
Church, as in the East the era of petrifaction,
which set in with the death of St. John of
Damascus and precludes the possibilitj^ of develop-
ment, still holds sway. (1) The first of these is
analogous to what may be noticed in the case of
Lamaism, viz. the tendency to concentrate the
functions of the depositary class in the hands of a
single chief depositary or .supreme pontiff. So,
within the Roman Church, the pope Avas declared
by the Vatican Council of 1870 to be endowed,
when performing his office of supreme pastor and
teacher of Cliristians, with the same infallibility
iq.v.) as that which Catholic traditionalism attri-
butes to the Church ; and this belief is concisely

TRAINING (Religious)

416

summed up in the 'I am tnulition ' of Pius IX. ^a
remark in which an unfriendly critic might discern
€a recrudescence of the old priest-king idea. (2)
The second development is the tendency, analogous
to what we see in Judaism, with its attempts to
form 'a hedge around the Law,' to protect the real
deposit by surrounding it with a kind of secondary
deposit as with an armour. In Judaism this pro-
tective armour or integument was supplied by the
dictn of the Rabbis. In Latin Catholicism the
opinions of theologians have, in practice, come to
assume the same position. Outside the central
nucleus of the deposit, consisting of doctrines
which are strictly de fide, there is a fringe, or
penumbra, of ' pious opinions ' which are proxima
fidei, based, not upon the decrees of ecumenical
councils, but ui»on the consensus theologorum. To
deny these opinions is not indeed heretical, but
may be censured as ' temerarious ' or ' offensive to
pious ears.' In practice the distinction between
the dogmas of the primary deposit and the pious
opinions of the secondary does not appear to be
very clear ; and even local traditions regarding the
authenticity and sanctity of particular holy places
and objects, which in principle are merely a matter
of ordinary human evidence, are sometimes treated
with as much respect — and criticism of them is as
much resented — as though they belonged to the
inner nucleus of the deposit of faith. (3) The third
development represents a reaction against the
former two, and is popularly called 'Modernism.'
In its extreme French and Italian forms, Modern-
ism (q.v.) is logically identical with the extreme
Ritschlian Protestantism sketched above. It denies
that Christ meant to promulgate a deposit, or
would have had any authority to do so if He had
so meant ; and regards Him rather as a religious
genius, not exempt from the errors and limitations
of His age and country, who merely gave the first
impulse to a wave of emotional feeling, which has
reverberated down the centuries and is still affect-
ing myriads of human souls. This view is, of
course, entirely destructive of Catholic traditional-
ism as described above. In England, Germany,
and America, however, the Modernist movement
has taken a more moderate form ; and, within the
Anglican Church, the corresponding movement
has raised a very interesting problem — that of the
relation between the spiritual contents of the
deposit, which the Anglican Modernist would not
deny that Christ promulgated, and the conceptual
forms borrowed by the early Fathers and councils
from Greek metaphysic to contain it. Whilst the
Anglo-Catholic would maintain that the Church
was divinely inspired to choose the right conceptual
forms, and that these, having received ecumenical
sanction, cannot be discarded by the individual
believer, the Anglo-Modernist regards the forms
as having no more than a purely human authority,
and as capable from time to time of variation or
even of supersession.^ The question of the deposi-
tary class does not seem to have been directly
raised in these discussions, but it is probable that
the Anglo-Modernist would regard the whole
Church or Christian people, and not any specialized
class within it, as being the depositary.

Literature. — J. L. Jacobi, Die kirchl. Lehre von der Tradi-
tion und heiligcii Schrifl,UeTl\n, lSi7 ; H.J. Holtzmann.iTanon
«nd Tradition, Ludwigsbiirg, 18.59, art. 'Tradition' in RGG;
A. Tanner, tfber das kathol. Tra(fit. und protest. Schrift-
princip, Lucerne, 1862; A. W. Dieckhoff, SSchrift und Tradi-
tion, Rostock, 1870 ; P. Tschackert, art. ' Tradition ' in PRE'i
XX. 8-13 ; Otto Ritschl, Dogmengcsch. des /'rutestantismus, i.
' Biblicismus und Traditionali8iini.s in der altprotc.'itant. Theo-
logie,' Leipzig, lonS ; A. M. Fairbairn, Cathniicism : Roman
and Anglican^, London, 1899; A. Sabatier, The Reli(jians of
Authority and the Religion of the Spirit, Eng. tr., do. 1904 ;

1 Cf. W. Sanday and N. P. Williams, F(n-tn and Content in
the Christian Tradition, for an exhaustive comparison and
contrast of these two points o( view.

W. Sanday and N. P. Williams, Form and Content in the
Christian Tradition, do. 11)16. The Roman Catholic point of
view may be studied in J. B. Franzelin, De divina traditione
et scriptura'^, Rome, 1875 ; L. de San, De divina traditione et
scriptural, Brujres, 19ua ; J. V. Bainvel, De ilagisterio vivo et
Traditione, Paris, 1905. N. P. WILLIAMS.

TRAGEDY.— See Drama.

TRAINING (Religious). — Religion is an atti-
tude towards God. It expresses itself in acts of
ajjpreciation of values bj' individuals and groups.
These actions are rooted in the basal instincts.
They may be few and irregular ; they may be
gioss expressions of wild passion ; or they may be
refined and well-disciplined reactions of the whole
personality in the presence of eternal values. The
differences are determined chiefly by training the
inner life to react consistently to higher ideals and
motives, and by training conduct to habitual and
adequate expression of appreciation.

There is a broad sense in which religious train-
ing is a feature of all forms of religion, from
primitive animism with favourite incantations up
to the cultured forms of ritual, all transmitted
to successive generations by imitation and other
educative processes. But this article deals only
with the specific types of religious training now
practised or proposed in the English-speaking
world.

By religious training is meant a systematic
effort to preserve, improve, propagate, and trans-
mit religious life, by methods commonly u.sed in
education, such as imitation, instruction, discip-
line, and inspirational and ideal-forming agencies,
in correlation with other means of promoting
religion. It goes even farther in some minds ; and
not without justification the claim is made that
educational training, no matter how secular or
technical, is not complete or adequately motivated
unless in its aim and spirit it leads up into that
social purpose which is the chief part of religion
(Herbart, Coe).

I. Background. — The types of religious training
■which now prevail have arisen by connected de-
velopment (1) out of a long and diversified history
of maladjustment between childhood and the
Christian Church, (2) out of numerous artificial
theologies and individualistic theories of religion,
and (3) out of an utter lack, until recently, of any
psychology of religion or of childhood.

(1) The historical background of religious train-
ing may be found (a) in the stereotyped forms of
worship and religious expression handed down to
successive generations through church and family
life ; (h) in the catechism and confirmation class,
where formal drill and authoritative doctrine and
precept have long produced educational results of
some importance in religious life, (c) A nearer
background exists in the modern Sunday schools,
first with their memorized Bible lessons, and since
1870 with their uniform lessons taught by rather
feeble hortatory methods.

(2) The theoretical background is found in an
individualistic theology. The corner-stones of this
theology were the natural sinfulness of every man,
the impending judgment of punishment therefor,
and tlie miraculous atonement of Jesus Christ,
which made possil)le the repentance and pardon of
the individual sinner. The supernatural factor
was magnified ; the human ways and means were
subordinated, and tlie ethical tliscrepancies passed
unnoticed. The process was conceived as judicial on
the basis of a retributive penology now discarded
in the best judicial practice. The instruction given
was not regarded primarily as educative, but rather
as dogmatic, evangelistic, and hortatory. No
important significance Avas attached to the teach-
ings of Jesus about the growth of the spiritual

416

TRAINING (Religious)

life or the conditions of the ground into which the
seed shall fall.

The social gospel lately found to be so conspicu-
ous in the teaching and life of Jesus was unknown.
For lack of it the process of salvation was essenti-
ally self-regarding, which is doubtless the main
reason why Christianity has been so long and slow
in making its way in the world. When the era of
modern missions dawned, three significant things
happened. («) The individual gospel was pro-
claimed from social and really Christian motives,
and the result was good so far as it went, but
incommensurate with the eflbrt expended. (b)
Actual conditions in mission fields and the emer-
gence of social ideals at home forced an expansion
of missionary aims so as to include social service —
a gospel which was not always well correlated with
the other, (c) As soon as this social gospel had
time to reveal its character and possibilities,
results became overwhelming ; and the missionary
prayer is no longer for the opening of doors, as it
was a half-century ago, but for teachers, doctors,
nurses, farmers, and skilled workmen, by hundreds,
to carry a full-orbed Christian civilization into all
the lands whose Macedonian calls are coming un-
solicited.

(3) Until the last quarter of the 19th cent, psy-
chology was a thing remote from religion. It had
not then as now stressed the unity of the self, as
against a number of more or less independent
'faculties' bearing little relation to religion. Nor
had child psychology made known the extent to
which the mind is at first rudimentary, and subject
to the continuous and slow changes which the long
human infancy makes possible.

Psychology and social and educational science
have found no place in the theory of religion until
the last generation, and even yet there are those in
every religious body who shudder at the thought
of applying scientihc methods to the propagation of
religion. But it is out of these diverse conditions
ancient and modern that a theory and practice of
religious education is now rapidly taking shape.

2. Theory and aim. — There is a type of religious
education which perpetuates the theoretical back-
ground of intellectualism and individualism. Its
propositions are arranged in logical order, and not
in the order in which they arise in human experi-
ence. They are held to be authoritative, and are
taught in dogmatic form. Under this theory the
service which education renders to religion is to
make these formulae known, and here the service
ends.

Under the other type the service rendered by
education to religion is much broader. The know-
ledge to be imparted is not dogmatic but inspira-
tional ; not an end, but a means to spiritual values ;
not generalized and abstract, but presented con-
cretely and made illuminating to the pupil's present
life. This type of religious training includes
habits of worship, attitudes towards the natural
world, ideals of life, deeds of service, the relations
sustained to the smaller and larger groups of one's
fellow-men, and, in fact, every form of useful ex-

{•ression which can be given to inner spiritual
ife.

(1) The theory on which any adequate plan for
religious training is based includes the following
fundamental ideas as to the development of religion,
(a) The presence of the religious life is felt not only
in worship and in the conventional forms of religi-
ous expression, but especially in character and in
social purpose, which subordinates all interests to
the supreme values of life. (6) The religious life is
a continuous growth, not a thing produced arti-
ficially, or judicially instituted at the moment of a
passing experience, (c) This growth involves not
a special organ or faculty, but the whole person-

ality. It involves even the group of persons, and
it tends to realize in them their oneness with the
larger whole of society and of the world in God.
(d) Finally, the growth of the religious life is
normal, vigorous, and healthy, in proportion as its
true nature is understood, as favourable conditions
for its growth are provided, and as consistent work
and painstaking devotion are given to its cultiva-
tion.^

(2) The following educational facts and principles
are also involved in the theory of religious train-
ing, (a) The subject of an educative process is
a person with all his inherited equipment of race
instincts and family traits, as well as his unde-
veloped mental, moral, and religious powers. It is
the business of education, not to eradicate or sup-
plant any of these, but to develop and cultivate
them, and subordinate them to the highest ends.
(b) Education is more than instruction. It not only
builds up many and rich concepts, which shall
serve as a basis for judgment and action by a mem-
ber of society ; but it also takes measures to estab-
lish desirable habits, and to create ideals of com-
manding dignity and emotional power, (c) Edu-
cation uses concrete materials for this purpose. It
selects for its use those human experiences best
fitted in character and grade to accomplish the
particular purpose in view. The treasures of the
race have become very rich in such material, so
that the selection and preparation of it is a task
demanding the skill of educational experts.

(3) The thing that is aimed at in religious edu-
cation is (a) to put one as early and as completely
as possible in possession of that rich treasure of
experience which has come down from the past,
and has been gathered from the ends of the earth,
especially those parts of it which are richest in
their meanings for a man's life in the world with
other people and as a worker with God. (b) A
further aim is to turn the full force of that experi-
ence, in the form of socialized ideals and purposes,
as a motive power upon conduct and upon the
ordering of the programme of life. This is an
individual aim, but it is far more. It enlists
churches, homes, and communities in this motiva-
tion of conduct for the well-being of society at
large, (c) It is believed that the instruction to be
gathered from the parable of the soils (Mk 4--*'') is
a lesson of education, in which the minds mellowed
by long processes of nurture are those which
respond quickly and whole-heartedly to the evan-
gel. Such nurture would seem therefore to be the
most direct and effective way of co-operating with
the Spirit of God for the evangelization of the
world.

3. Content. — Since religion and its promotion
are understood to be, to some extent at least, an
enterprise in education, it is necessary to choose for
such instruction that material which will be most
fruitful religiously. Rather vague ideas prevail
on this subject, due to lack of critical analysis of
the values to be sought, and to incomplete know-
ledge of how to produce and conserve those values.

The educational reformers of a century ago estab-
lished the principle of gradation of material — i.e.,
that the abilitj' of children to understand and
master material changes as they grow older. The
material must therefore be chosen with reference
to this changing ability ; e.g., the incident of a boy
robbing a bird's nest can be understood and remem-
bered by a five-year-old child, but the moral inter-
pretation of the same incident is better suited for
a mind several years older.

The fallacy of catechetical instruction is parti}' a pedagogical
one. It consists in presenting adult abstractiois to children —
in offering strong meat instead of milk to babes. A similar

1 George A. Coe, A Social Theory of Religious Education,
New York, 1917.

TRAINING (ReUgious)

417

fallacy has vitiated much of the Bible teaching in Sunday
schools where ' uniform ' lessons have been chosen for young
and old alike. If the children had a story which they could
understand and remember on one Sunday, they must feed on
Prophets and Epistles for several weeks before they might
expect another children's lesson. Of course adaptations by
editors and teachers could do something to overcome the dis-
crepancy in grading, but it is only making the best of a bad
case. It is wholly unnecessary for religious instruction to be
subjected to these hindrances, now that the principles of grad-
ing are understood and have been applied to the materials used
in religious training.

There is also a religious fallacj' in catechetical instruction,
appealing as it does exclusively to the intellect with logical
propositions dogmatically conceived and expressed. The
emotional and social aspects of the child's religious life are
the fli-st to be required for the development of ideals and the
motivation of conduct. The intellectual formulations satisfy
better the mature religious needs of adults, and the different
needs of children should be provided for.

In selecting and grading the materials for religi-
ous education there are a number of considerations
to be provided for.

(1) The language of religion must be acquired.
As in any field of human experience, the language
and the thought develop together. Some terms
are advanced and technical, but many are elemen-
tary. The history and practice of religion, the
reading of the Bible, and the social environment
offered by a religious community can make familiar
to children, nurtured in such an atmosphere, all
the elementary concepts of religion, and the words
and phrases which express those concepts. They
can make known a few of the landmarks of religi-
ous history, at least by their names and by some
characteristic incidents associated with those
names.

A properly graded curriculum therefore provides
for young children a selection of simple Bible
incidents on subjects within their experience, or a
like class of subjects taken from biography, litera-
ture, and life. For this purpose one maj' clioose
stories about children, animals, natural objects, and
the things familiar to childhood, especially those
which contain some of the language and forms of
religion, but none of the generalizations and ab-
stract principles in which religious teaching is so
often couched.

(2) The child inherits certain capacities for a
moral and religious life. But each individual must
shape his concepts of that life from the examples
of other experiences seen and heard by him. His
education consists in becoming acquainted with
these selected experiences of others, in reading
meaning into them, and in shaping his own habits,
judgments, and ideals, with reference to the experi-
ences so set before him. This formation of con-
cepts represents a later stage of religious develop-
ment than the language stage mentioned above,
but the later mingles Avith the earlier sta^e, and
they move forward together. A class of more
meaningful experiences is chosen for this purpose,
such as the parables of Jesus, tales of moral hero-
ism, events in which service and sacrifice are
exemplified, the revealings of motives and of char-
acter and of loyalty to persons and to ideals, and
the superiority of moral and spiritual values over
those values which are chiefly carnal and com-
mercial.

It is therefore the business of religious education
to bring into the life of youth an abundance of
human incidents rich in moral and religious mean-
ing ; to present these experiences with sufficient
detail and pedagogical sKill to assure them an
atmosphere, an emotional vitality, and some
permanence ; and to give definite guidance to
each youth in the construction of his own habits,
judgments, and ideals, out of the concrete materials
furnished to him. The selection of material for
this purpose out of the Bible or from other sources
is the most responsible and difficult task of religious
education. It is also the point at which failure
VOL. XII.— 27

has been most complete in nearly every curriculum
thus far proposed for religious training.

(3) While it belongs to the province of science
and general education to develop in youth a con-
ception of the causal connectedness of the world
and of its unity, consistency, and organization
under natural law, it is a well-known fact that
this is not generally done. Such reflexions arise
more frequently in connexion with religion than
elsewhere, and it is proper that religious education
should provide in place of discarded cosmologies
a better instruction, which can serve the common
people as a credible philosophy of nature. Noth-
ing can do more to disintegrate religious faith and
moral integrity than lack of a believable philo-
sophy of the world. Such a philosophy is entirely
within the mental compass of enlightened youtlis ;
and they have a right to it as a support for their
faith and as a part of their education. Indeed
they will have it. The only uncertainty is as to
how good or how poor a philosophy they shall
work out for themselves if wise help is withheld
from them.

For the few but important lessons on this subject
the creation stories and a few other portions of
Scripture will serve as occasion for wise and
modern instruction. A few of the great chapters
in the history of science are required. These need
to be correlated, not only with the names of dis-
coveries and inventors, but with the forward
movements in the world's life, and the human
values which they have enhanced.

(4) A task of religious education still more im-
portant is the interpretation to young minds of
the world of human life. We live and act in a
world of purpose and meaning, as well as in a
world of natural law and causal connexion. It is
out of this purposive life that real values arise ;
and it is with those values that religion is con-
cerned. There is no gain for religion in knowledge
of the Scripture, or of the facts of nature, and no
benefit in formal covenants and ordinances, unless
in the human heart there is an ideal which throws
over all these things an emotional glow that
enriches them with meaning and value. It is
doubtless the same thing that is spoken of as the
Spirit of God in the human heart taking the things
of Christ and showing them to us.

Religious teachers generally try to do this.
Most expository Bible teaching is so intended.
So also is the preaching. But the efibrts are
desultory, and the results are not cumulative. A
need is felt for a programme or a definite policy,
based on a sound philosophy and on educational
principles, to give continuity and cumulative efi'ect
to the propagation of religion. It can hardly be
claimed that such a programme has yet been
proposed, although efibrts have been made in
that direction, and in some cases with gratifying
results.

The choice and arrangement of material awaits a fuller
agreement upon Christian ideals and the fundamental philo-
sophy of religion. In this task the interpretation of the world
of human life is the chief factor. What is called the social
gospel has already gone far to supplement and modify the
individualism of the former day. But 'a theology for the
social gospel,' as Walter Rauschenbusch calls his book,i has
not yet formulated itself in popular thinking. In the light of
such a theology and philosophy, there is required a re-defining
of the virtues and of the unifying principle by which those
virtues are correlated in the good man. The new sense of the
structural character of society, the place and function of the
individual within the structure, and the interactions between
the structure and its members must have much weight in
determining what the content of a religious education curri-
culum ought to be, and what educational aims and values
ought to be conspicuous in that material.

(5) The great issues over which men and nations
have struggled in the world's forward movement
need to be made known to young people, and

1 New York, 1918.

418

TRAINING (Religious)

their meanings interpreted. Such issues were
drawn in OT times by the prophets against
royal and ecclesiastical dignitaries. Jesus defined
an issue between the Pharisees and the new re-
ligion of the inner life. E%'ery forward step, every
reform, every moral and spiritual achievement
from that day to this, can be of great service to
those whose motives and ideals are forming.
They are needed as a background for the tasks
and problems of to-day, as a guide in defining
present and future issues, and as an inspiration
to loyalty in tr^'ing situations. Here will appear
biographies of men and women who have caught
visions of an improved world and have helped to
realize those visions. Here also belong the rise
and fall of institutions in response to the changing
needs of the world. Out of such rich and varied
sources are being selected the graded and sifted
materials for a curriculum of religious training.

4. Method and organization.— While the history
of pedagogy has been progressive, and general
education has profited by every improvement,
religious training has been slow to take up im-
proved methods. Memoriter catechetical teaching
is still common. Hortatory and semi-expository
teaching of the Bible is quite general in church
schools, the aim being evangelistic and not
primarily educative.

There is a marked tendency to reconstruct, not
only the curriculum in ways already indicated,
but also the method and organization. In method
these changes consist in a larger use of dii'ect
narrative in connexion with concrete story material
used in the lower grades ; the immediate oral re-
production by pupils of the narrative so presented ; ^
the increased use of pictorial and graphic repre-
sentation, and the tendency to substitute for the
leaflet, pamphlet, or bare Bible specially prepared
text-books of a more permanent and attractive
character.

But the most important tendency is towards
things to be done, as an expression in real life of
the moral and religious impulses, as they awaken
in childhood and yoiith. Daily conduct, positions
taken on moral questions before associates,
missionary work, commuuity betterment, neigh-
bourly and charitable work, and worthy social
activities in general, offer a welcome field for
religious training in this growing aspect. Out
of such activities arise deeper and truer thinking
and finer emotional responses than any didactic
method can produce.

Modern forms of church organization provide
for a department of religious training in the local
church. This department is free to adopt methods
in harmony with improved educational and re-
ligious ideas, and to introduce a curriculum
something like that outlined above. Only in
those local churches where the broad full meaning
of religious education has been discussed and
appreciated has the reconstruction taken place.
But the number of these churches is increasing ;
they are profiting by experience ; and their results
are watched and reported.

In several American communions, notably' the Protestant
Episcopal, the Congregational, and the Presbyterian, important
steps have been taken to reconstruct the denominational
machinery on educational lines. Numerous officials are em-
ployed to propagate the principles and ideals of religious
training in the local churches, and to aid in the installation of
better systems. These methods are especially successful in
missionary fields, (1) because there the need is more obvious,
and (2) because these fields are not bound by tradition to
antiquated methods as many of the churches are.'

While the prospect for the future of religious
education is best in the direction of denominational
organization, there is also a distinct movement on
foot for community organization disregarding
ecclesiastical divisions, or at least bringing them
1 W. J. Mutch, Graded Bible Stories, Ripon, Wis., 1914.

into co-operation. 1 This plan calls for a local
board and a superintendent, who shall inaugurate
a scliool system parallel to the other system or
systems in the same community. Less time would
be required for the religious than for the general
and vocational schools ; yet the effectiveness of it
cannot be estimated by the time spent. In addi-
tion to the direct values of such training the
material of general education is re-interpreted
and given new meaning and dignity from the
spiritual aspect. Teachers who have training in
the principles of education, as well as personal
fitness and inspiring leadership, soon make ap-
parent the large possibilities of religious training,
both in its own field and in its effects on the whole
structure of society.

In Britain and in some other European countries the schools
supported at public expense are expected to furnish some
instruction of a religious nature. Recognition is made of
denominational preferences, and teachers are assigned to
groups w-ith this in mind. In France religious instruction is
entirely excluded from all public and private schools of general
education, and the members of religious orders are disqualified
as teachers. This of course does not prevent the teaching of
religion in the churches. In the United States of America
religion is excluded by the laws of the States from the public
schools; but entire freedom is given for this instruction under
church or community supervision. In some States the pupils
are released for one session each week from required attend-
ance at a public school on condition of spending that time
under ajjproved religious instruction, proportionate credit being
given if such work is satisfactorily done.

In general it may be said that the ideals and
content of religious education have been recon-
structed in accordance with modern ideas. The
realization of the better ideals has been achieved
in a limited degree, and every year marks distinct
gains. But the progress is retarded (1) by con-
servative traditions among earnest religious
people, who have not seen the spiritual values
in a religious life conceived developmentally and
socially ; (2) by inadequate conceptions of and
facilities for training in religious activity and
self-expression, and (3) by lack of united and
trained leadership in the re-organization of re-
ligious education in local communities. It seems
to be the task of Christian colleges to raise up a
generation of men and women who have the re-
ligious and educational ideals and the ability and
enthusiasm to organize them into the life of our
time.

A good central organization for the study of
religious education, for the comparison of results,
and for the promotion of this large interest in the
life and thought of the world exists in the Re-
ligious Education Association (Henry F. Cope,
Secretary, 1440 East 57th Street, Ciiicago, 111.).
It was founded in 1903 by representatives of all
religious faiths. It has held important annual
conventions, mostly in American cities. These
conventions have done much to shape thought,
guide effort, and stimulate experiment. The vol-
umes of the bi-monthly magazine of the Association
entitled Eelicfious Education furnish much material
in the history and discussion of this subject.

Other related articles in this Encyclopaedia may
be referred to as follows : Education (Moral),
Christianity, Church, Confirmation, Cate-
chisms, Bible, Sunday School.

Literature. — H. F. Cope, Religio7(s Education in the
Church, New York, 1917 ; B. S. Winchester, Religious Educa-
tion aiid Democracy, do. 1917 ; W. W. Smith, Religious Edu-
cation, Milwaukee,' 1909; W. S. Athearn, The Church School,
Boston, 1914 ; G. A. Coe, Education in Religion and Morals,
New York and London, 1904, The Psychology of Rfliyion,
Ciiicago and London, 1917 ; E. S. Ames, The Psychology of
Religious Experience, London and Boston, 1910.

William James Mutch.
TRANCE.— See Hysteria, Dhyana, Yoga.

TRANSCENDENCE.— See Immanence.

1 W. S. Athearn, Religious Education and American De-
mocracy, Boston and Chicago, 1917.

TRANSCENDENTALISM

419

TRANSCENDENTALISM. — The term
' transcendental ' plays an important part in
Kant's Critique of tlic Pure Reason — ' transcen-
dental aesthetic,' ' transcendental analytic,' etc. —
and through the influence of the critical philosophy
the term has become familiar in modern thinking
and even in popular literature. Kant did not
originate the term ; but he gave it new vigour
and a new orientation.

I. Pre-Kantian transcendentalism. — (1) Use of
the term in scholastic logic. — Before Kant'.s time
' transcendental ' and ' transcendent ' were familiar
terms in the scholastic logic and were practically
equivalent in meaning, although he sharply dis-
tinguished between them. To the scholastic
logicians these terms were used of those most
general notions that could not be subsumed under
the ten Aristotelian categories. They rose beyond
or transcended them. Spinoza uses ' transcen-
dental ' in this sense of the most general notions
and gives his view of how psychologically they
originate.^ Strictly speaking, these transcen-
dentalia or transcendentia belonged to a realm
above ordinary categorical logical thinking and
as such were beyond the province of logic proper.
Various enumerations of these transcendental
notions are given. Albertus Magnus gives ens,
unum, honum, and veruTn ; and very generally
these, along with res and aliquid, make up the
list of the six tram^cendentalia. Their interrela-
tions are stated and various subtleties regarding
them introduced bj' different schoolmen. Ens was
as a rule regarded as super- transcendental, the
rest being passions or modifications of being
(passiones entis). This category in scholastic
philosophy was pretty much what the ' Absolute '
is in modem philosophy.^

(2) Use of the term in theology. — To the school-
men, however, logic was only the handmaiden of
theology, and so we find these terms more or less
always moving into the area of theological specula-
tion. These transcendental notions had their
reality in the mind of God, who is transcendent
par excellence. The passage in Augustine ^ where
lie posits the transcendental ideas in the divine
mind became classical and is quoted by all the
great media^valists. It is historically the fusion
of Greek thought with Christian experience.
Plato speaks of the good (rb dyadSv) as transcend-
ing being {iir^Keiva rrjs oialas),* and Plotinus uses
the phrase often.^ Transcendent is simply the
Latin equivalent of iiriKeiva, 'bej'ond.' At times
this tendency became extreme, as in the case of
Erigena and the mystics who speak of God as
above all predicates — virepoK-qdiis, vTvipao<pot, iirepai-
wvLos, 'above truth,' 'above wisdom,' 'above
eternity.'

Transcendentalism in theology, then, means the
position that God's knowledge and character are
perfect, absolute as distinct from man's knowledge,
which is imperfect, and from man's virtue, which
is immature ; as such it is part of the very essence
of theology and the unmovable conviction of re-
ligion. But it may become falsified through over-
empliasis and dangerous through over-refinement
of subtlety. Ordinary living religious experience
speaks of the divine in plain speech, ascribing to
God organs, actions, passions, movement, change,
purposes, and this is done without any feeling of

1 Ethics, pt. ii. prop. xl. achol. 1.

3 For the scholastic logical usage consult C. von Prantl,
Gesch. der Logik im Abendlatide, Leipzig, 1855-70, iii. 245 flf. ;
J. Veitch, Imtitutes of Logic, Edinburgh, 1859, p. 175 ; Sir
W. Hamilton, Lectures on Hetaph ysicx and Logic, Edinburgh,
1860, iii. 198 ; also Reid, Works'^ (ed. Hamilton), do. 1849, p.
687 {. ; R. Eucken, Gesch. der philosoph. Terminologie, Leipzig,

3 De Diversis Quoestionibus, 1. 46. * Rep. 509 B.

, ^,^-9-> Enneades, v. i. 6, where God is described as (ircKdva
anavTuiv, 'beyond all things.'

incongruity — even when the divine spirituality is
clearly recognized. Transcendentalism becomes
over-subtle when it objects to this, and it is usually
when religious experience is at a low ebb and
beset by foes that this form of transcendentali.sm
gains a hearing. Even in the OT, as Schultz
points out,i we have the beginning of rellective
transcendentalism. It is more evident in "the
Septuagint translation and Ln the post-Biblical
Jewish literature, and it operates dominantly in
Philo until God becomes the Great Unknowable.
In the history of Christian theology we find the
superimposition of this metaphysical and mystical
transcendentalism on the direct religious tliought
of the NT. Edwin Hatch, in his famous Hibbert
Lectures,- maintains that the great creeds of
Christendom buried religion under tliis meta-
pliysic ; and in his zeal he has overstated the
case ; for transcendentalism in the sense of God's
absoluteness is an integral part of religion and of
theology, but, when it makes this a mode of
throwing discredit on man's knowledge and of
undermining man's notions of right and wrong,
when it empties God of feeling, purpose, and
initiation, then it becomes false and dangerous.

It is better to deal here M'ith the special forms
of transcendentalism in this sense, before discuss-
ing the Kantian and post- Kantian usage of the
terra, as these forms of thinking have their roots
in a soil different from that which is specifically
and dominantly under the influence of Kant.

2. Extra- Kantian transcendentalism. — Tran-
scendentalism in the theological and philosophical
sphere means, in a general way, the recognition
of God as exalted in thought and character above
man and sensible objects. It is thus contrasted
with phenomenalism, naturalism, and materialism,
and, one may say, also agnosticism, for, although
the agnostic may grant the existence of such a
Being, the concession is of no value either for
knowledge or for morality. In this sense every
religious view of the world is transcendental.
When, however, we ask what the relation between
man's knowledge and virtue and God's is, the real
problem of transcendentalism emerges, and, ac-
cording to the answer given, thinkers fall into
different classes, which for purposes of clearness
may be distinguished as follows.

(1) Extreme transcendentalism. — Those who hold
that God is utterly incomprehensible to us, and
that knowledge and virtue in Him are quite
diflerent, not only in quantity but also in quality,
from what we mean by these terms, are extreme
transcendentalists in the sphere of ontology.
Modern examples are Hamilton and Mansel, who,
borrowing a Kantian distinction, maintained that
our predicated knowledge of God is regulative not
speculative truth, that it was given, not to satisfy
the reason, but to guide the practice of man, not
to tell us what God is in His absolute nature, but
what He wills us to think of Him in our present
conditioned state. This phase of transcendentalism
arose as a protest against what Hamilton calls
' the scheme of pantheistic omniscience so pre-
valent among the sequacious thinkers of the day.''
Speculative theologians have always had leanings
towards this mode of reasoning regarding the
divine, and its influence can be traced in theology
from the days of Origen. While the ordinary re-
ligious consciousness speaks of God as wise and
good, and cannot help so doing, yet these terms
in reality do not apply to Him, and are to be
understood anthropopathically. He has deigned

1 OT Theology, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1892, ii. 114.

2 The Inflxience of Greek Ideas and Usages vpon the Church,
ed. A. M. Fairbaini, London, 1890, ch. ix.

3 Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, etc., London,
1S52, pp. 1-37, quoted by H. L. Mansel, The Limits of Religious
Thought*, p. 191.

420

TRANSCENDENTALISM

to accommodate this revelation to our limited
intelligence, but it is, after all, only an accom-
modation ((TvyKaTa^acns), and the true method of
theology is to strip away all these predicates and
to proceed via negationis. The danger here is
obvious, viz. forgetting of the truth that man is
made in the iuiage of God, and forgetting that
thinkers are apt to cut apart God and man, and
thereby religion and reason alike become unreal
and untrustworthy. Under this impulse religious
men fall back on an authority which has no basis
in our rational or moral nature, or on some occult
faculty apart from reason ; and others, strictlj'
adhering to the working of the understanding,
leave the transcendental sphere of Being alone.
Outside the small circle illuminated by the under-
standing there may be Something, but to us it is
unknown and unknowable. Agnosticism as re-
gards ultimate reality is the result of this attitude.

(2) Religious transcendentalism. — Others, again,
maintain also God's transcendental character, but
they hold that man's knowledge is accurate as far
as it goes, that in quality, though not in quantity,
it is the same as God's, and that morality in man
can not be different in essence from what it is in
the divine, that the pathway of true knowledge
and moral progress leads to God. God's revelation
is certainly an accommodation, but this accommoda-
tion itself is an education of man by God, progress-
ing from less to more and conserving in its more
perfect stages continuity with the earlier, and
besides the process is self-correcting. J. B.
Mozley^ gives a very fair view of this position
as regards the OT. God dealt with men as they
were, but in such a way as to lead them onwards
and upwards. Man makes God in his own image,
but it is because God first made man in His image.
Augustine, who often speaks of God as incompre-
hensible— as indeed every religious mind must do,
so that Hamilton has no difficulty in compiling a
catena of such passages from various writers —
yet maintains that our intellectual and moral
strivings are but a returning to the Source whence
intelligence and goodness spring. The human
mind and heart participate in transcendent know-
ledge and goodness, and the aim of theology is to
ascend by this road to God ; only to man the
grace of the Holy Spirit is necessary to initiate
and guide this quest. The method here is not so
much that of negation as of eminence (via emin-
entice), and it differs from pure philosophical or
epistemological transcendentalism both in its in-
sistence on the need of grace and in its proper
valuation of other aspects of experience besides
the pure intellect. It is this that 'Rabbi' Duncan
has in view when he defines transcendentalism as
' the denial of that which renders man's knowledge
an inferior kind of knowledge ' : ^ and it is in this
sense that F. D. Maurice is a transcendentalist
when in somewhat exaggerated fashion he fathers
on Mansel's theory such frightful consequences.

(3) Epistemological transcendentalism. — Distinct
from this again is what one may call pure epistemo-
logical transcendentalism, according to which the
highest knowledge in man becomes identical with,
and indistinguishable from, the divine knowledge.
Thus Boethius :

' Sense judges figure clothed in material substance. Imagina-
tion figures alone without matter. Thought transcends this
again, and by its contemplation of universals considers the
type itself which is contained in the individual. The eye of
intelligence is yet more exalted, for overpassing the sphere of
the universal it will behold absolute form itself by the pure
force of the mind's vision.' 3

1 Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, London, 1877.

2 Cdlloquia Peripatetica^, ed. W. Knight, Edinburgh, 1871,
p. 111.

* Consolation of Philosophy, tr. H. R. James, London, 1897,
p. 189.

From the plane of intelligence, according to
Boethius, all the contradictions of the ordinary
experience are reconcilable. Thus to God they
harmonize, and to us as far as we look at them
from this point of view. No one can fail to notice
the similarity between this and the method of
modern absolutist transcendentalism, with its
solving of contradictions and its transcendental
intuition. This school speaks in such a way as
to lead the ordinary reader to suppose that the
individual can attain by knowledge to the divine
point of view — a claim which it is extremely
difficult to distinguish from omniscience.

(4) Moralistic and mystical transcendentalism.—
The term, however, may be applied, and often is
a])plied, to those who are keenly conscious of the
limitations of the human mind, and impatient and
sceptical regarding its slow ratiocinative processes,
but who hold that man's moral nature or his feel-
ings or intuitions can give immediate access to the
divine. Typical thinkers of this school are Pascal,
Schleiermacher, and Ritschl. They lay stress on
the supremacy of the heart — 'The heart makes
the theologian ' — or on the value of feelings or
intuitions ; and a strong current to-day draws
many along the pathway of the subconscious to-
wards God. Thus we have schools of moralistic
and mystical transcendentality. They disparage
reason and logic, and find refuge in the alogical
departments of the soul. The so-called New
England transcendentalism ^ combines both mysti-
cism and moralism with a large element of vague
eclecticism, but it may, for purposes of classifica-
tion, be included here.

3. Kantian transcendentalism. — To appreciate
modern transcendentalism both in its philosophi-
cal and in its more popular application, we must
briefly review Kant's view of knowledge.

(1) The factors in knowledge. — To Kant knowledge — mathe-
matics and the physical sciences— involved two factors, one due
to the activity of the mind, the other due to sense-data. He
did not doubt the fact of knowledge itself, nor did he concern
himself with its psychological origin. He found in knowledge
a synthesis of these two elements. Nothing could form the
subject-matter of knowledge but what came from sense-data,
but then sense-experience itself was a chaos without the prin-
ciples supplied by the understanding and the activity of the
mind ; even perception itself required space and time — mental
forms. To him God, the world, and the soul could not become
the objects of scientific knowledge and therefore they were
transcendent; i.e., they were outside the limits of possible
knowledge. There can be no doubt that Kant had a horror of
those who spoke familiarly of God, as if He were an object of
sense-perception, and that his real anxiety to mark clearly the
boundaries of possible knowledge was largely due to fear of
intrusion from this quarter. He thus distinguishes clearly
between ' immanent principles which apply solely within the
hmits of possible experience ' and transcendent principles
' which are intended to reach beyond these limits.' 2

Kant did not deny the reality of God, or of the soul, or the
ultimate essence of matter, but he did strongly insist that the
pure reason got into hopeless difficulties when it tried to apply
the principles valid in the sphere of phenomena to these extra-
phenomenal entities. To him we owe the very prevalent
modern view that science has its own domain— it includes all
knowledge, though not all reality— and religion and morality
have their domain ; that the marches between them should be
clearly defined ; and that there should be no raids, excursions,
or alarums from one side or the other.

(2) Transcendental principles. — Having thus
excluded transcendent realities from the domain
of the understanding, because we can have no
scientific knowledge of them, he shows that in
knowledge itself there were principles like causal-
ity—the categories, in short— which were not due
to sense-data. Those principles are transcendental
(as distinct from transcendent), which means both
that they are not due to sense and that they can
be shown to constitute knowledge. Without sense-
data they are empty, but sense without them is
blind.

Transcendental to Kant then means constitutive

1 See § 4 (1) below.

2 Kritik der reinen Vemunft, ed. G. Hartenstein, Leipzig,
1853, iii. 245.

TRANSCENDENTALISM

421

of valid knowledge, and a transcendental inquiry,
such as his own critical method, ' concerns itself,
not so much with objects, but with the way in
which we know objects in so far as this may be
possible a priori.' ^ What reality in itself may be
IS not the aim of the critical philosophy to deter-
mine, but to find out that element in knowledge
which makes it valid and to guard knowledge
against the admission of anything which cannot
be scientifically known. Kant is not concerned
with ontology but with epistemology, and the two
to him are not identical. Kant thus sharply dis-
tinguishes between transcendent and transcen-
dental. He uses the former term in a disparaging
sense, while the latter means constitutive of know-
ledge— what makes knowledge possible.

' The term transcendental,' says R. Adamson, ' probably has,
for English ears, an unpleasant ringf, and will suggest meta-
physical efforts to transcend experience. It must be under-
stood, however, that transcendental method is simply the
patient and rigorous analysis of experience itself. For any
question or theorem which might pass beyond possible experi-
ence, Kant reserved the term transcendeiit ; and the distinction,
if not the mode of expressing it, is accepted by all his suc-
cessors. Neither in Kant nor in Fichte is there anything in
the slightest degree resembling what is commonly called meta-
physics.'2

David Masson' traces through all history two
tendencies in regard to the origin of knowledge —
one fathering all knowledge on sense-experience
(this may be called empiricism), the other main-
taining that ' there are elements in knowledge,
the origin or reason of which transcends or lies
beyond the horizon of historical conditions.' His-
torically it is the conflict of these tAvo that we find
in the controversy between Locke and Leibniz or
between Mill and Hamilton. The transcendental
position is summed up in the famous phrase :
'Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in
sensu — nisi ipse intellectus. ' There is no doubt
that Kant is a transcendentalist in this sense, yet
for him transcendental meant something different.
He is not interested in innate ideas or intuitions.
He is dealing with knowledge as it exists, not as
it grows, and he finds in it what sense alone does
not explain, but rather what explains sense, uni-
fying forms or principles, supplied by the mind
itself, which give receptivity to sense-data and
combine them together into adequate knowledge.
Ultimately the formal unity of the mind itself is
involved in knowledge. Thus he might agree
even with the physiological psychologist in his
analysis of knowledge and yet maintain the neces-
sity of the unity of the mind.

(3) Pure and practical reason. — Although Kant
maintained that God, the world, and the soul as
noumenal realities could not be objects of know-
ledge or constitutive of knowledge — that they were
not transcendental in his strict sense of the term
— yet he allowed that they were present in know-
ledge regulatively. The mind was constrained to
aim at unity, and this striving was due to the
regulative influence of these ideas of the reason.
It is this part of his system that he himself calls
transcendental or critical idealism. As ideas in
the mind they were transcendental, though only
regulativelj' so ; yet in themselves as realities they
are transcendent as far as knowledge goes — they
are beyond the bounds of knowledge. Sometimes
indeed he speaks of the reality of the material
world as the ' transcendental object,' where we
might expect him, if lie were strict in his own use
of terms, to use transcendent. And he speaks of
it in such a way as to suggest a snhstratum which
is the outward cause of our perceptions, but for the
understanding it is simply x, an unknown quantity.
His transcendental object is the limit which our

1 Kritik der reinen Vemun/t, iii. 49.

2 Fichte (Blackwood's Philosophical Classics), Edinburgh,
1881 p. 112, note.

» Recent British Philosophy, Edinburgh, 1865.

understanding can reach in dealing with piien-
omena from the side of the receptivity of mind, just
as ' the transcendental unity of apperception ' is
the limit on the side of the mind's synthesizing
activity. Neither of these is noumena for the
understanding, for it knows nothing of noumena.^
If one were to regard this only as Kantianism, the
first review of the Kritik — that of Christian Garve
of Breslau, in the Gottingische Gelehrte Anzeigen
of 1 9th Jan. 1782— might have force :

' This work ... is a system of the higher or transcendental
idealism — an idealism which embraces both mind and matter,
transforms the world and ourselves into ideas, and represents
the objective world as derived from appearances which the
understanding combines in the interdependent whole of experi-
ence. . . . The cause of these ideas is to us unknown and
unknowable.' 2

But what pure reason cannot attain to, practical
reason can. Morality needs transcendent realities
as postulates, and, because the sphere of morality
is to Kant more real than, or as real as, the sphere
of knowledge, this postulation is necessary and
valid. The transcendent of knowledge becomes
the transcendental of morality. God, the world,
the soul, freedom, and immortality become real
here. We cannot prove their existence, it is true,
by cognitive methods, but they are imperatively
demanded by the facts of the moral life, of which
facts he had no doubt.

4. Post-Kantian transcendentalism. — Kant's
system was profound in its effects, different thinkers
adopting those parts of it which served their turn,
so that the complexion of their transcendentalism
is determined by their point of contact with his
view. His influence touched the English-speaking
world at first largely through the works of Cole-
ridge, Carlyle, and Emerson.

(1) The teaching of Coleridge, Carlyle, and
Emerson. — Coleridge's philosophical function ' may
be defined by saying that through him was trans-
mitted an opportune suffusion of Kant and Schel-
ling into England as of light softened through a
stained-glass medium, and that into this suffusion
he also resumed whatever of Anglo-Platonism had
been floating long neglected in the works of old
English Divines.'^ Thus the distinction between
the ' reason ' and the ' understanding ' became
familiar, and • transcendental philosophy ' acclim-
atized in English speech. The reason could over-
come tlie impotence of the understanding and get
hold of unseen realities.

' As the elder Romans distinguished their northern provinces
into Cis-Alpine and Trans-Alpine, so may we divide all the
objects of human knowledge into those on this side, and those
on the other side of the spontaneous consciousness ; citra et
trans conscientiam communem. The latter is exclusively the
domain of pure philosophy, which is therefore properly entitled
transcendental, in order to discriminate it at once, both from
mere reflection and re-presentation on the one hand, and on the
other from those flights of lawless speculation which, abandoned
by all distinct consciousness, because transgressing the bounds
and purposes of our intellectual faculties, are justly condemned,
as transcendent.' *

It is clear that Coleridge has no interest in accur-
ately reproducing Kant. To him transcendental-
ism is just emphasis on the spiritual side of man's
nature, and tiiis is the meaning also to Carlyle :

' The grand unparalleled peculiarity of Teufelsdrockh is, that
with all this Descendentalism, he combines a Transcendental-
ism, no less superlative ; whereby if on the one hand he
degrade man below most animals, except those jacketed Gouda
Cows, he, on the other, exalts him beyond the visible Heavens,
almost to an equality with the Gods.' 6

Under the influence of Coleridge and Carlyle,
and the general romantic movement of the time,

1 See J. P. Mahaffy and J. H. Bernard's ed. of Kant's Kritik,
London, 1889, ch. xiv., and also his Prolegomena to any
Future Metaphysic, ed. J. P. Mahaffy, London, 1872, Appendix
B.

2 Quoted bv W. Wallace, Kant (Blackwood's Philosophical
Classics), Edinburgh, 1882, p. 60.

3 Masson, Recent British PhiloBophy, p. 54.

■* S. T. Coleridge, Biographia Litcrana, London, 1817, vol. i.
ch. 10 (Everyman's Library ed., do. 1906, p. 129).
s Sartor Resartus, bk. i. ch. 10.

TRANSCENDENTALISM

transcendentalism came to mean the recognition of
supersensible realities, and the spiritual nature of
man— that man was more than 'an omnivorous
biped that wears breeches.' A passage from Cole-
ridge shows the influence of this attitude in the
sphere of interpretation :

'The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty
That hnd their haunt in dale, or piny mountain.
Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring:,
Or chasms, and watery depths ; all these have vanished ;
They live no longer in the faith of reason.
But still the heart doth need a language.' i
The faith in ' the light that never was on sea
or land,' ' the vision and the faculty divine,' the
fight against a crude interpretation of man'.s
spirit as ultimately matter, and the protest
against literalism in all its forms, characterize
transcendentalism at this stage ; and this is still
the sense of the word in extra- philosophical
literature. In New England Emerson and others,
rebelling against an orthodoxy that tended to
make men wholly sinful and corrupt and the will
of man necessarily in bondage, and impatient of
dogmas derived from a revelation confined to one
book, initiated a movement that got the name
'transcendentalism' more in derision than in
honour, but the term was accepted, and the claim
made that all the best in the world's thought
was here included. Carlyle, who, in spite of his
sympathy with Emerson, saw in this movement
an extravagant disregard of facts and an enthusi-
astic eclecticism, warned Emerson against the
dangers ahead :

' You seem to me in danger of dividing yourselves from the
Fact of the Universe, in which alone ugly as it is can I find any
anchorage.' 2

James Martineau — himself a transcendentalist in
the Carlylean sense, whose intellectual history is
a pilgrimage from the bondage of empiricism-
does not take Emerson seriously. No doubt New
England transcendentalism became extravagant,
welcoming the ravings of the Swedenborgian and
of the unregulated myistic as possible revelations,
yet it never became a system, and its airy optimism
is explicable and defensible as a protest and a
reaction ; yet to its influence is largely due the
fact that to many, if not to most, in our day
transcendentalism means hopeless and unwarranted
idealism — unworkable dreaming. It was not
patient enough to be lasting, and, with all its
boasted catholicity and insight, it was blind to
the facts that gave the old orthodoxy its serious-
ness and its power of rejuvenescence. On the
other hand, it was a refreshing and liberalizing
movement.

(2) Science and transcendentalism. — Kant's in-
fluence was felt in a very different quarter— among
those whose interests were devoted to science.
Thus Lange, the historian of materialism, inter-
preting Kant, as he thought, confines man's
knowledge of reality to the results of science,
but contends for a world above this created by
our moral and spiritual needs— an unsubstantial
world of ideals, a transcendentalism which is like
a painted cloud ; and this attitude has more or
less existed since, differing according to the amount
of reality the individual thinker gives to this
beautiful but airy realm. It is found in the
historian Buckle, and has been well described
as a 'consolatory private transcendentalism.'*

Herbert Spencer's magnanimous handing over of
the Unknowable to religion is an example of this
' private transcendentalism.' It is due to a one-
sided exploitation of Kant without regard to

1 The Piccolomini, act ii. sc. iv. 1. 123 flf.

2 Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, London, 1883,
ii. 11.

3 Masson, p. 249.

Kant's moral certainty. To Kant the moral
nature of man planted man in an intelligible real
world, although knowledge left him only in the
phenomenal, with just a glimmer of the noumenal
breaking through, but this transcendentalism
which, as in Lange's case, pretends to be its law-
ful heir finds the phenomenal the real, and the
transcendental the vague and the shadowy.

Others more alive to the reality of religion have
sought to place this transcendentalism side by side
with scientific results, while conscious all the time
of the hostility between the two. Thus W. H.
Mallock 1 attempts to hold by the results of
science and yet to allow the demands of religion
validity ; and this attitude was prevalent in the
past century.

In psychology the theory of psycho-physical parallelism
exhibits' the same tendency— a species of eirenicon between
phenomenalism and transcendentalism. The results of science
are accepted ; its principles are unquestioned ; and then these
same facts are explained as if nothing but psychical data were
involved. It is a truce born of perplexity— a compact that real
issues will not be raised on either side. It is not difficult to see
how closely related to Kant these tendencies are, for it may not
unfairly be said that he himself adopted without questioning
the results of science and also the deliverances of a spiritual
philosophy due to religion and held them both vrithout con-
sistently uniting them.

Paulsen, one of Kant's most faithful modern
disciples, contends that science will never give up
its claim to explain everything mechanically ; yet
metaphysics must give to this realm of science an
idealistic interpretation. One may be the most
rigid materialist at one moment, and yet be wholly
transcendentalist as a philosopher at another.
The scientist will never admit any supernatural
agent, and the only way of peace is to admit his
cfaim ; yet somehow to transform all into spiritual
reality is the task of the philosopher. It is because
of this felt dualism that transcendentalism in its
pure form as absolutism claims for itself to be the
true heir and rightful corrector and interpreter
of Kant.

(3) Absolute transcendentalism. — 'Transcen-
dentalism' in modern philosophy is used of that
world-view known at times as absolutism, objective
idealism, neo-Hegelianism, or rationalism. The
term 'transcendentalism' traces this system
historically to Kant's theory of knowledge. As
we saw above, 2 'transcendental' to Kant meant
at least two things, (a) Those principles in know-
ledge which in the nature of the case did not
originate in sense-experience are transcendental.
In this sense of the term Kantianism allied itself
with that tendency in British thought which re-
cognized a priori or original data both in know-
ledge and in morality— what may be generically
named intuitionalism. Leibniz's famous revision
of the empirical formula may be taken as the
watchword of this school : ' Nihil est in intellectu
quod non prius fuerit in sensu nisi ipse intelleetus.''
The controversy between Hume and Reid, between
Mill and Hamilton, is one between psychological
empiricism and psychological transcendentalism,
just as the controversy between hedonism and
intuitionism is a phase of the same in the sphere
of ethics. This was the outstanding question in
British philosophy for many a day. Masson in
his Recent British Philosophy gives a readable
account of the state of matters in his time, and
'transcendentalism' is used by him of those
systems which recognize in the mind more than
sense-data. Spencer considers it one of the merits
of evolution that it supplied a means of reconcilia-
tion between these opposing views. According
to him, what was native to the individual was
the residuary deposit of racial experience. Thus
evolution reconciled empiricism and transcen-

1 Religion as a Credible Doctrine, London, 1902.

2 See § 3.

TRANSCENDENTALISM

423

tientalism. (b) But 'transcendental' meant to
Kant constitutive of knowledge — those principles
which, though not due to experience, yet made
experience itself coherent, above all, the unity
of tlie self. All the content of knowledge came
from experience, but tlie active self made know-
ledge. Besides, reason had as regulative principles
the ideas of the self, the world, and God, and in
its practical working reason got into touch with
these realities. It was this side of Kant's teaching
that issued in transcendentalism, as it came to be
understood in English-speaking countries in the
first half of the 19th century. Hamilton welcomed
the Kantian system chiefly because he found it
in harmony with the limits of our knowledge as
propounded by himself, but others welcomed it
because in their view it taught that man by his
reason was more than a mere creature of the
senses. Thus Carlyle, in his paper on Novalis,^
points out that German transcendentalism denies
the absolute existence of matter, that it makes
space and time forms of the understanding ; there-
fore to God ' Time and Space are not laws of His
being but only of ours,' and so He is omnipresent
and eternal ; and ' the black Spectre, Atheism . . .
melts into nothingness.' Again the transcendental-
ists recognize a higher faculty than understand-
ing, viz. reason. Thus the invisible world is
brought near us, and we feel in every thought
that in God 'we live, and move, and have our
being.' It was in this way that transcendentalism
also at first became known in America.^

The transcendental unity of the self which Kant
understood of the individual knower, and which
by theoretical reason gave him no substantial
subject or soul, was raised by Kant's successors
in Germany to the level of a universal principle
and an active subject, and thus knowledge was
made adequate to grasp all reality. Reality now
became subject and object, and epistemology
became ontology. The transcendent of Kant
vanished completely ; it became immanent in
knowledge. Fichte laid stress on the creative
activity of the self in such a way that the object,
the world, was called into being by the subject.
Schelling, whose views changed considerably from
one stage in his history to another, regarded the
Absolute as the background of subject and object
alike, but itself a neutrum of indiflerence, and he
made intellectual intuition the eye by which in-
telligence grasped this whole. Hegel tried to do
equal justice to both subject and object: 'the
real is the rational,' and 'the rational is the real,'
and Absolute Spirit is the whole, which becomes
conscious of itself through a dialectical process.
For some time this mode of thinking, through its
novelty and obscurity, was unintelligible and
obnoxious to English thinkers,^ but, when it did
take a hold in Britain, it was with such force that
it conquered the philosophical chairs in our uni-
versities with few exceptions, and exercised an
orthodox tyranny against which it was difficult
to contend. To Hamilton,* who viewed with
extreme repugnance the philosophy of the Absolute,
must be attributed the revival of philosophical
speculation in Britain, and his pupils were able
to understand the German philosophy which then
was an enigma and a puzzle to others who in
Britain interested themselves in speculation.

1 Miscellaneous Essays (People's Edition), London, 1872, ii.
183 ff. The essay was originally published in the Foreign
Review [no. 7] in 1829.

2 See J. Veitch, Memoir of Sir William Hamilton, Edinburgh,
1869, p. 421 ff.

» See J. H. Stirling, The Secret of Hegel, 2 vols., Edinburgh,
1865, Preface.

^ See his ' Philosophy of the Unconditioned' (Discussions on
Philosophy a7id Literature, pp. 1 ff., 605) where he ascribes the
theory of Schelling and Hegel to Cardinal de Cusa — a sufficient
indication of the value he placed on it.

(4) Modern developments. — Ferrier's Institutes
of Metaphysic^ was perhaps the first systematic
exposition of transcendentalism in our tongue,
altliough others had by that time acquainted
themselves at first hand with its varied exposi-
tions in Germany — some repelled by it (e.g., John
Cairns),'^ others enthusiastic in their advocacy
(e.g., Hutchison Stirling, Avhose Secret of Hegel
was an elaborate attempt to make Hegel intellig-
ible to English-speaking students). It was, how-
ever, through the teaching and writings of Thomas
Hill Green (q.v.) that transcendentalism became
a philosophical force in Britain. Evolutionism,
while it attempted to reconcile the older empiri-
cism and transcendentalism, did so from below,
by trying to relate man's knowledge and man's
morality with animal life and animal activity in
general, but the new transcendentalism, while
acknowledging that in one sense man is a part
of nature, yet explained knowledge and morality
from above. Knowledge, according to this view,
is explicable as the reproduction in man of the
eternal self-consciousness of God, and morality is
the realization of the immanent Eternal. The
following passage from William James describes
the spread of this movement in Britain :

' For many years adherents of this way of thought have
deeply interested the British public by their writings. Almost
more important than their writings is the fact that they have
occupied philosophical chairs in almost every university in the
kingdom. ... It follows from their position of academic
authority, were it from nothing else, that idealism exercises
an influence not easily measured upon the youth of the nation
— upon those, that is, who from tlie educational opportunities
they enjoy may naturally be expected to become the leaders
of the nation's thought and practice. . . . Carlyle introduced
it, bringing it as far as Chelsea. Then Jowett and Thomas
Hill Green, and William Wallace and Lewis Kettleship, and
Arnold Toynbee and David Ritchie — to mention only those
teachers whose voices are now silent — guided the waters into
those upper reaches known locally as the Isis. John and
Edward Caird brought them up to the Clyde, Hutchison
Stirling up the Firth of Forth. They have passed up the
Mersey and up the Severn and Dee and Don. They pollute
the bay of St. Andrews and swell the waters of the Cam and
have somehow crept overland into Birmingham. The stream
of German idealism has been diffused over the academical
world of Great Britain. The disaster is universal.' 3

' Transcendentalism ' came to be used of this
new movement, although the term was not a
favourite one with the idealists themselves. It
was used by Henry Sidgwick* especially of the
teaching of Green ; by A. J. Balfour,^ who con-
tributes a chapter of criticism, and who even then
could say :

' In English-speaking countries it is within the narrow circle
of professed philosophers, perhaps the dominant mood of
thought ; whUe without that circle it is not so much objected
to as totally ignored.' t>

William James used it of all objective idealists,
however these may differ among themselves, while
Caldwell uses it of Bosanquet's teaching in his
Gifford Lectures, which he describes as ' the last
striking output of British transcendentalism or
absolutism.'^

(5) Neo-Hegelianism and Christianity. — What
gave this philosophy its vogue, to begin with at
any rate, in Britain was undoubtedly the fact that
to many minds it appeared as a defensor fidei.
It seemed to supply an answer to materialism and
empiricism on the one hand, and a vague scepticism
ana agnosticism on the other. It could be preached,
and was preached often, by men who adopted the
familiar phrases of sacrosanct religious thinking
which were associated in the public mind with
Christian values, and thus it came to be regarded

1 Edinburgh, 1854.

2 See A. R. MacEwen, L%fe avd Letters of John Cairns,
London, 189.'), pp. 160-163.

3 A Pluralistic Universe (HL), London, 1909, p. 53 f.

4 Outlines of the Uist. of Ethics'^, London, 1S8S.

5 The Foundations of BelieP, London, 1895.
8/6. p. 137.

7 Pragmatism and Idealism, p. 14.

424

TRANSCENDENTALISM

as a type of Christian philosophy. Hutchison
Stirling found in Hegelianism a new version of
Calvinism. Green used it to demolish the tra-
ditional English sensationalism and hedonism,
and amidst the scepticism which prevailed re-
garding the historical elements of Christianity
used it to rear a Christianity of ideas and ideals,
from which dualism we are still sutiering — witness
the controversies concerning the historic Jesus and
the eternal Christ. John Caird, afraid of the
inroads of Spencerian and Manselian scepticism
and Huxley's agnosticism, found in Hegel's
teaching an ark of refuge and a citadel of defence.
It was thus a movement of deliverance, of reform,
and of religion. Not a few of its most zealous
advocates were men destined for theology who
found here a more congenial home. But, as time
went on and this system began to be developed,
the difficulties, tendencies, and obscurities in-
herent in it, as well as the dangers, revealed
themselves. Just as in Germany Hegel's system
allied itself at first with orthodox theology and
then, in the hands of Strauss and Feuerbach,
swung back to practical atheism and materialism,
so also in our own country time has made it plain
that this system is no guarantee of Christian faith
or morals. Green ^ speaks with philosophic sorrow
of those who find in poetry and religion the satis-
faction for their ideals and aspirations, though
they harbour scientific views which contradict
these. He is sorry because such people do not
proceed to frame or adopt a coherent philosophical
system ; forgetting that what gave transcendent-
alism its interest and vitality among the educated
was not its speculative scheme — that was always
a puzzle more or less — but the idea that this
philosophj' conserved spiritual values, and that
what is fast loosening its hold on this class to-day
is the feeling, rightly or wrongly entertained, that
these interests are being betrayed or disregarded
in the interests of the coherence of the system
itself. To begin with, it is widely felt that tran-
scendentalism speaks too confidently of its own
power to present a perfectly explicable view of
the world — to exhibit all reality in thought cate-
goiies. Its manner is apt to strike the observer
as being haughty and supercilious, and its language
would lead one to think that a claim to something
like omniscience is arrogated — a claim so contrary
to our broken experience as human beings, and so
opposed to that humility which serious thinkers
have always regarded as the fitting attitude for
all searchers of truth.

(6) Faith and knowledge. — No one has done more
among our professional philosophers to abate this
soaring gnosticism than Campbell Fraser, with
his insistence on the function of faith as lying at
the very basis of knowledge itself, as accompany-
ing and regulating its advance all along its opera-
tions. Reality is richer than thought, nor is it
possible to factorize reality into thought terms.
The limits of human knowledge are obvious even
in the most daring schemes of rationalism, and
philosophy has again to face the problem of the
relation between faith and reason.

Again, it is felt that transcendentalism does
not do justice to the reality of the external world.
To it the external world is only an object for a
Bubject, and the tendency of all idealistic schemes
is to lapse into solipsism. This solipsism may be
of the human individual or of the One Supreme
Subject, but in essence it is the same. Sidgwick
suggested the term • mentalism ' ^ as ' a more
adequate description of this tendency. Whatever
term we use, the tendency itself is undeniable, and

1 Prolegomena to Ethics, Oxford, 1883, p. 2.

2 The term ' mentalism ' or ' immaterialism ' is also used by
James S. Ferrier.

the reaction is seen in the movement known as
neo-realism,i but the tendency is acutely felt by
reasonable idealists, as, e.g., by A. S. Pringle-
Pattison;*^ yet one wonders if his own view of
creation is not just a residuum of this old leaven
of mentalism which he cannot purge out of his
system. He has no difficulty in regard to the
creation of souls, which, if it means anything,
means something new, but he cannot admit the
creation of matter. Yet, if God existed in His
fullness before any person now living existed — if
such an assumption is tolerable — why should
creation as applied to matter be considered in-
credible? It is futile to try to explain matter as
thought-elements, either in the mind of man or
in the mind of God. When a philosopher airives
at such a view, it is surely the sane course for him
to examine his reasoning again.

(7) The problem of personality. — The personality
of man in this system, as we see from its modern
developments, becomes insecure, or, if that danger
is avoided, it is at the price of God's personalitj^
that man's is safeguarded. Thus there are those
who, like Bosanijuet, lay stress on the Supreme
Personality or Individuality, and tend to make
men but aspects of this Being's life. Others lay
stress on man and make God the totality of men —
a college or community of spirits, eternal a parte
ante as well as a parte post. To conceive of God
as a perfect personality, above and apart from
men and the world, and yet originating and sus-
taining both, seems an absurdity to this scheme
of thinking.

' History is the biography of the Absolute ; science the
natural history of the Absolute ; philosophy the self-conscious-
ness of the Absolute, recalling and arranging its past being in
unconsciousness, and discovering thereby the laws of its own
thought.'^

The outcome is seen in a book like Bradley's
Appearance and Reality, in which the Absolute is
everything— God, men, nature, spirits good and
evil — and yet somehow it is all that in the bliss of
an absolutely consistent whole. Personal idealism,
pragmatism, and, above all, theism, will never
take such a theory seriously.

S. The task of philosophy, — The modern world
is alive to the fact that the intellect alone is not
man, and that reality is not to be construed solely
hy its means. Emphasis is now laid on the will
and the emotions as well, with the result that the
moral life— the sphere of ideals — is given its own
place. When this is recognized, then it becomes
clear that reality is not a perfection which the
mind has to mirror, but an ideal which has to be
achieved. Nothing is more deadening and more
untrue than to think of reality from man's point
of view as a perfect ' is ' ; for the moral life at any
rate reality is in ideals — 'the best is yet to be.'
Thus only can man's freedom be saved from the
cloudland of illusion, and thus only can evil and
sin — the root of all our intellectual as well as of
all our moral problems — be faced as our moral
nature imperatively calls on us to face them.
Our duty in regard to these, unless our whole
nature be itself a delusion, is not so much to
explain them as to abolish them. To tell us that
' this very presence of ill in the temporal order
is the condition of the perfection of the eternal
order ' * is to treat man's moral nature with in-
sincerity. Transcendentalism has no eschatology,
because to it the Absolute — i.e. all that is — is
already perfect and cannot be more so, and yet a
philosophy or a religion without an eschatology
offers notning to man's needs, imposes a veto on
man's passion for reformation, and does away with

1 See art. Realism.

2 The Idea of God (Gifford Lectures), Oxford, 1917, ch. x.

3 Cairns, in Life, by MacEwen, p. 163.

* J. Royce, The World and the Individttal (Gifford Lectures),
Xew York and London, 1900-01, ii. 385.

TRANSMIGRATION (Introductory and Primitive)

425

his felt need of redemption. These are some of
the difficulties that most modern thinking men
feel in regard to modern transcendentalism, and
the recognition of them has led to a very general
revolt against it in recent years from within the
philosophic world itself. Pragmatism, neo-realism,
neo-Kantianism, personal idealism, are but some
of the phases of this revolt. It cannot be said
that these views, any or all of them, are free from
difficulties ; and at the present moment it is im-
possible to say what the future may have in store
for philosophy. The best we can wish for it is
that it free itself from the tyranny of phrases and
become intelligible and interesting ; that it may
have the humility to attempt to solve real prob-
lems that perplex men ; that it be freed from its
disdain regarding men's abiding convictions ; that
it abstain from any language which would throw
doubt on the great ideals and values of life ; and
that it realize the necessity of satisfying the heart
as well as the head. God, nature, man — these are
the realities. Transcendentalism tends to forget
the second, and to make the first and third co-
equal ; pragmatism forgets the first, and natural-
ism the first and third. The task of philosophy is
concerning these three, and transcendentalism is
valuable when the claims of naturalism become
exorbitant ; but it must not, without becoming
false, succumb either to humanism on the one
hand or to pantheism on the other.

LiTBRATURE. — The OED gives an idea of the variety of mean-
ing attached to the word ' transcendental,' and R. Eisler,

Worterbuch der philosoph. BegriffeS, 3 vols., Berlin, 1910, gives
the philosophical usage. For the pre- Kantian logical usage and
the mediisval theological usage the Histories of Piiilosophy and
of Theology must be consulted. For New England transcen-
dentalism see art. Emerson. Joseph Cook, Transcendentaiism,
Boston, U.S.A., 1877, is a vigorous popular criticism of Emer-
sonianism in the interests of orthodoxy. The literature under
artt. Coleridge and Carlyle is instructive for the early
influence of German transcendentalism in a popular form in
Britain.

A short account of the history of British transcendentalism,
or absolutism, is given by Robert Mackintosh, Hege.l and
Hegelianisrn, Edinburgh, 1903, chs. vi. and vii. Q. Pfleiderer,
Religionsphilusophie auf geschichtl. Grundlage, Berlin, 1878,
and Development of Theology, Eng. tr., London, 1890, gives the
history of post-Kantian idealism from a theological point of
view. J. H. Stirling, T. H. Green, John Caird, Edward
Caird, J. Watson, H. Jones, W. Wallace, J. Royce, J.
Macbride Sterrett, G. S. Morris give a version of Hegelian
transcendentalism of a religious character. F. H. Bradley,
Appearance and Reality-, London, 1902, is mainly negative.
For the revolt against transcendentalism in Germany see H.
Vaihinger, Die Philosophie des Als Ob, Berlin, 1911. French
philosophy since Cousin and Renouvier, down to Bergson, has
been more or less generally anti-rationalistic and personalistio.
James Setb, English Philosophers and Schools of Philosophy,
London, 1912, is instructive for English thinking ; an older
book by D. Masson (quoted above) deals with Mill and
Hamilton — the conflict between transcendentalism and in-
tuitionism. The works of A. Campbell Eraser, Henry
Sidgwick, and A. J. Balfour laj' stress on primitive con-
victions and are in spirit against Hegelian gnosticism. See
the literature under artt. Neo-Kantianism, Realism, and
Pragmatism. William Caldwell, Pragmatism and Idealism,
London, 1913, gives ample information as to anti-rationalistic
literature in Britain, Gerumny, France, and America.

D. Mackenzie.

TRANSFORMATION.— See Metamor-
phosis.

TRANSMIGRATION.

Introductory and Primitive (N. W. Thomas),

p. 425.
Buddhist (M. Anesaki), p. 429.
Celtic (G. DOTTIN), p. 430.
Egyptian (W. M. Flinders Petrie), p. 431.

TRANSMIGRATION (Introductoryand Primi-
tive).— Keincarnation is the passage of the soul
from one body to another, usually of the same
species, among higher races often with ethical
implications, the lot of the soul on earth being de-
termined by its behaviour in a former life. Trans-
migration, metempsychosis, and other terms are
often used in an almost identical sense, but also in
a vaguer way, implying at times that the soul
itself assumes an animal form, sometimes per-
manently, sometimes only as a prelude to another
reincarnation or to final destruction or absorption.
Somewhat difJerent is the creed which may be
termed ' alternation of existences ' ; it involves
the belief that man is double, a counterpart in
another world corresponding to the earthly body
or embodied soul in this world and taking the
place of the latter when its turn comes to quit
this world. Separate existence, reincarnation,
annihilation, and transmigration are the possi-
bilities that present themselves to the primitive
mind when it inquires into the fate of the soul.
We cannot say why one belief rather than
another has been adopted in any specific instance ;
but it is clear that the resemblance of children
to parents (or other relatives) has played some
part, especially in W. Africa. The complex of
beliefs is therefore to some extent a semi-scien-
tific creed, taking the place of a biological account
of heredity, and based on reasoning that we can
follow. It seems equally certain that the wide-
spread belief in transformation (or change of bodily
form) during life must have had its efi'ect on escliato-
logical doctrine ; and here the creed goes back to
what must be some of the most archaic elements
of human speculation. Those two factors are.

Greek and Roman (A. C. Pearson), p. 432.
Indian (R. Garbe), p. 434.
Jewish (M. Gaster), p. 435.
Teutonic (B. Dickins), p. 440.

however, at times to some extent combined, when
a rise or fall in the scale of existence is put down
to the merit or demerit of previous births. Both
in reincarnation and in transmigration doctrines
the life or lives that succeed the human life on
earth are sometimes regarded as limited in duration,
sometimes as indefinitely prolonged ; where some
accident interferes with the due course of reincar-
nation, the lot of the soul may be a kind of third
state, neither reincarnation nor annihilation (or ab-
sorption), but separate existence (as an evil si)irit).
Many widely distributed customs appear to be
connected with the belief in reincarnation. Thus,
in Africa and America children are buried by the
wayside, near the mother, under the eaves, or in
other situations that would in the eyes of the
natives facilitate reincarnation ; in parts of Central
Australia and in Africa people are buried in the
place of their birth. ^ But it must be recalled tliat,
generally speaking, the common feeling that it is
well to be buried with one's own people implies no
more than the view that this is necessary to ensure
the solidarity of the family in the future life. The
custom of killing the first-born ^ has been explained
for some areas by the belief that this child is, in
special measure, an embodiment of the father or
grandfather ; and the abdication of a king, as in
Tahiti, in favour of an infant son has been put
down to the same cause. The belief in transmigra-
tion again in certain areas has led to the sacro-
sanctity of certain species, and the totemism {q.v.)
of some regions, such as S. Africa and Oceania, has
been referred to this origin.

1 See art. Death axd DispoaAL op the Dead (Introductory and
Primitive), § VII. 3(e).
-' See art. First-born (Introductory and Primitive), § 3.

426

TRANSMIGRATION (Introductory and Primitive)

A well-developed scheme of reincarnation or
transmigration, if we except the anomalous case of
the Central Australian tribes, as to whose real
belief there is some doubt, is generally found only
among peoples who either have attained a certain
stage of culture, as in India, or have almost
certainly been in contact with or influenced by a
higher culture, as among W. African tribes. The
W. African tribes among Avhich a reincarnation
creed has been recorded in more or less detail are
the Mandingo, Ewe, Edo, and Ibo. The belief is
also known among the Yoruba, who lie geographi-
cally between the Ewe and the Edo ; but details
of their ideas on the subject are lacking.

I. West Africa. — (a) Mandingo. — As regards
the Mandingo, Ave have only a summarized account
of their beliefs,^ which differs widely from another
account from a portion of the area ; ^ a summarized
account is always liable to mislead, and, in view of
the large divergences recorded in other areas in
the transmigration and reincarnation beliefs, it is
prudent to await further details from the French
territories before classifying the belief as aberrant.

According to Delafosse, every living being and every natural
phenomenon depends for its nature on a niama, ' dynamic
spirit' ; the word nia is applied to a genius, nimna to a spirit,
which may be that of a genius, a human being, a sacred object,
an animal, a rock, etc. The niama of a dead man can reside
where it likes — in the coipse, in the hut, in a sacred object, or
in the body of a living being whose niama it absorbs. Certain
magicians attribute their powers to the possession of the niama
of a genius or of a dead man. The niama of a man for whom
the due rites have not been performed may reincarnate itself in
a solitary animal, or in a human being, who goes mad. It is
therefore clear that, though the niama may be reincarnated, it
is by no means invariably the case, and, where reincarnation
takes place, it differs in kind from the reincarnation in which
the more easterly tribes believe (see below). Side bj' side with
the niama we have the dia, or breath of life, which passes at
death into another being ; it is not the object of any cult ; it is
found only in living beings and passes only into another being
of the same species, save on the rare occasions when it animates
the body of a totem. This belief is, in form, on all fours with
those of other Negro tribes ; but it is hardly possible to speak of
reincarnation, which implies some degree of identity, some
measure of personality.

According to Monteil, the Khassonke believe that dya is soul,
force, or shadow, while ni means breath ; if this is correct, the
meanings are just the reverse of what they are in the foregoing
account of Mandingo beliefs, and it seems clear either that we
are in the presence of a far-going disintegration of creed or
that, as has probably happened farther east, the belief has come
from without and has been worked up by each tribe in its own
fashion. In an}- case it seems improper to give a generalized
account of the beliefs of a mass of tribes if such varied views
have to be regarded as identical.

{b) Ewe. — According to the Ewe belief, every
man has two souls — a luwo agbedo, or life-soul,
and a luwo kuto, or death-soul ; the former is
vi.'iible when a man casts a short shadow, the latter
when he casts a long shadow. The death-soul
accompanies a man into the grave and then goes
to the land of the dead ; the life-soul leaves the
body at death and goes sighing mournfully and
seeking for a resting-place ; each man has also a
breath-soul. That the shadow-soul is more than
a shadow is clear from the fact that sleep is
attributed to the absence of the shadow -soul,
Avaking to its return, and dreams to its activity
outside the body.

The land of the dead appears to be the same as
Amedzowe, the place of man's origin — a land not
on earth, but in heaven, where everything cor-
responds more or less closely to the things of this
life. In Amedzowe are yams, corn, cotton, bush,
and all that surrounds a man in this life, not, how-
ever, in bodily form, but spiritually, so to speak ;
and the human inhabitants of Amedzowe live and
thrive on these things in their spiritual form.
Life in Amedzowe, however, is more than a dupli-
cation of this world ; for, when a child dies soon
after birth, a priest may declare that it was a
great king in Amedzowe and has died in order to

1 Delafosse, Haut-Sinigal-Niger, iii. 165.

2 C. Monteil, Les Khassonkd, p. 142.

return to the scene of its former glories. Con-
versely, the things of this world may influence the
course of events in Amedzowe ; if a man remains
too long away from the other world, he will fall
ill, for the dwellers there prepare to break down
his hut ; and, to save him, his associates in this
world nmst each bring a blade of grass and lay it
on the roof of his house, as a symbol of the re-roofing
of his spiritual house. In Amedzowe a man has a
spiritual aunt (tasi) and other relatives ; from her
he must obtain permission to leave the world of
spirits and come to the world of men.^ Some of
those who come to this world are so dearly loved
by their spiritual relatives that they have to give
a promise, called gbetsi, to return after a short
time ; these are the children who die young ; this
promise has been per.sonified and is regarded as in
some measure an evil genius, for it incites men
who break it to evil deeds and especially to suicide
or to acts that will bring about a violent death.
Generally speaking, the lot of a man in this life
and his abilities are determined by the fate
announced to him by his tasi ; but here, as else-
where, there is a fundamental contradiction in the
creed of the Ewe, for, as will be seen below, the
aklama, or genius, is also held responsible for a
man's lot in this life.

Side by side with this curiously untheological
creed we find the belief that Mawu, the supreme
god, is a dweller in Amedzowe and is the king
who sits in judgment on the departing soul before
it takes up its abode in this world. Not only so,
but we find also the view that the lot of man, or at
least his term of life, is determined, if not by
Mawu, at any rate by Mawu's intercession with
Death, whom he begs to spare one of his earthly
children. If, as appears to be the case, the Ewe
beliefs are the result of syncretism, there can be
no doubt as to which are the older elements in
their creed ; for the god of death, Ogiuwu, is found
also among the Edo, from whom they were
separated by the Yoruba influx, and whose views
as to reincarnation at the present day come much
closer to those of the Ibo, their neighbours on the
east.

There is, however, another side to the Ewe
beliefs ; this is the aklama, kla, or, in the lan-
guage of the neighbouring Twi, okra ; it is often
identified with the luwo, but an older and more
correct conception seems to be that it is a genius
or tutelary spirit. Another authority saj's that
kra is the collective name for riunu, all the
spiritual beings that surround a man, whether
they be evil or good, human or demonic. Wester-
mann connects the word aklama with Efik a.karia,
a promise to return to the other world. If this
derivation is correct, the conception of aklam,a as
a tutelary spirit has arisen in the same way as
that of its counterpart, gbetsi, by the personifica-
tion of a promise, but Efik is a member of a
different group of languages and topographically
remote ; the derivation must therefore be received
with caution ; it is none the less possible that both
words are derived from the same root or form,
especially if it should be the case that the reincar-
nation idea has been introduced from A\'ithout or
fostered in its growth by foreign influence.

Every man has a kla, or, perhaps, properly
speaking, one or more, for the aklama figurines
worshipped by a man are often in duplicate, male
and female, in any case with only a single arm, as
an indication of the identity of aldarna and human
being. Children sometimes carry an aklama

1 It is perhaps not without significance that the tasi is the
father's sister ; for the Ewe are matrilineal, or at most in a
transition stage ; and we can hardly suppose that the father's
sister has normally such influence in the family ; the belief in
question therefore either must be young or, more probably, has
come to them from without.

TRANSMIGRATION (Introductory and Primitive)

427

figurine on their backs, and, in the case of twins,
each carries the figurine of the other ; it is not
without importance that these twin figurines are
found in areas, such as Sierra Leone, where the
reincarnation belief is not found, at any rate at
the present day. One name for these figurines is
anie we luwo, ' the soul of a man ' — a phrase which
makes clear the present deeply-rooted confusion
between luivo and aklama. The aklama lives in
Mawuwe, probably the same as Amedzowe, till
Mawu gives it permission to enter a man, which it
does before birth ; the child to which it is assigned
is known in advance, however ; for the priest can
interrogate the aklama as to the future lot of the
unborn child. In some places the kla receives
ollerings annually, probably on the birthday of
the child, for the kla is named from the day of the
birth and is also known as the younger brother of
Mawu. The aklama seeks only the welfare of his
ward, so long as the latter fulfils his obligations ;
otherwise he may punish him with disease, mad-
ness, or other ills, or, more properly, may allow
him to fall a victim to them. The obligations just
mentioned include abstention from certain foods,
generally, or for a period, or on certain days. In
some unexplained way the aklama is associated
with a man by virtue of his being made by Mawu
out of certain earth ; for, when a thief has a
thievish son, it is said that Mawu formed both of
the same earth, and hence their aklama are alike.
A man comes to the world with his character
formed once for all, and it seems in reality to be
that of his aklama ; a man's nature (dzogbe) is
said to leave him at death, and, though it is
believed to be conditioned by his aklama, it seems
difficult to distinguish them.

So far as we have gone, there has been some
confusion between aklama, dzogbe, and hiwo ;
after death this confusion is increased. The
images of the aklama are broken in pieces or
thrown away, for their owner needs them no longer.
The aklama seems now, like the luwo, to be termed
noli { ' ghost ' or ' spirit ') and is questioned a few
days after death to find out wlio was responsible
for his death. The final destination of the noli is
Tsie or Agume, the place under the earth, the
road to which passes through a river ; Kutiame
is the ferryman, and his fee is twelve cowries.
Another account says that the dead man meets
Liagbe at the entrance of a town, and she ques-
tions him as to his deeds in this life ; she has a
great wound, which he must lick ; and, though
this is a detail on mIucIi we have no other infor-
mation, it seems highly probable that Liagbe
should be identified with the spiritual aunt (tasi).

Native beliefs are rarely so clear and unambigu-
ous as a written account commonly assumes them
to be ; but it is impossible to study the foregoing
summary without feeling that syncretism must be
reckoned with as a possible explanation. A know-
ledge of the beliefs of tlie peoples to the east of the
Ewe can only strengthen the probability of this
explanation ; for here too we find diverse ideas
combined, and some of them agree so closely with
the Ewe creed that any possibility of separate
origin must be rejected ; at the same time, the
general balance of the elements of the creed is so
difierent, and the terminology so difierent (except
where the creeds agree, as noted above), that we
can hardly accept the theory of a common origin
of the whole complex as the explanation of the
points of agreement, which are not relatively
numerous.

(c) Edo. — The Ewe language is closely akin to
the Edo and forms a member of the group of
languages named from the best known niemoer,
which is spoken in Benin city and the neighbour-
hood. It IS somewhat surprising that as regards

the subject of this article the terminology difi'ers
in toto from that of the Ewe, as is made clear by
the following table :

Ewe

Edo

1
Ibo 1

Genius .

Shadow (soul)
Breath .
Spirit .
Ghost .
Ward .
Other world .
Promise

aklama,

kla
luwo
gbogbo

tioli

Amedzowe
gbetsi

ehi, ekosi,

ima
agogo
eti
orio (})

Elwoi

6i, eri ; cf. ike1^ga^ '

onyinyo, ndb. \
Adb, ume, uzu. I
mwo. 1
cf. akalagoli.^ j
(ino)ngo.
Owainwo, Okwa.
akafia ; cf. ikenga.

Broadly speaking, ehi corresponds to our idea of soul, for the
agogo is said to disappear on the day that a man's body is put
into the grave ; in the Kukuruku country there are traces of
belief in a breath-soul (eti), which does not, however, correspond
to the dya, for eti is said to be the breath of ehi, which dies in
Elimi before it comes to this world. Osa (god) is said to take
a man's eti to Elimi, where it turns into a man with 51 body
(i.e. ehi). Two ehi are usually distinguished, ehinehi (ehinoica)
and ehinoha, sometimes identified with ekosi, sometimes with
ehogai, the ehi ol a childless person. Some say that ehinowa
is in Eliim', while ehinoha is on the back of a man's neck ; others
6a3' that ehinoha is a man's shadow in Elimi, or that ehinowa is
on the top of a man's head ; the latter statement was qualified
by the addition that there was another ehi in Elimi. Some say
that ehinowa comes to earth when a man dies, thus reproducing
the idea of alternation already found among the Ewe, others
that ehinoha lives in Elimi and comes to earth a.sehi7iehi when
a man dies. It is also said that ehinowa goes at death to Elimi
and returns for sacrifices and offerings ; in Elimi this ehi may
lay claim to a woman for whom his earthly counterpart paid
bride-price without being able to secure her as a wife. Some
say that ehinoira is sent by Osa to animate a child already con-
ceived, others that it brings a child to a man, others again that
it 'does things for a man,' i.e. is his genius. Ehinoha's
functions are equallj* a matter of opinion ; it is on the back of a
man's neck, or is the servant of ehinoioa and takes sacrifice to
him in Elimi, or lives in Elimi and comes to earth when its ward
dies, or is a man's shadow in Elimi, where ehinowa is also, or
corresponds to ere — a man's enemies (perhaps, rather, evil
spirits), to whom he sacrifices on the road.

We reach a somewhat different cycle of ideas when we find
ehinoha regarded as a ' bush soul,' injury to which means sick-
ness for the human being. It is also said to be the ' king of the
bush ' and to be richer than ehinmea ; when it receives a sacri-
fice, it is satisfied and turns its back. The prevailing view is
undoubtedly that ehi brings a child from Elimi but is not identi-
cal with it ; some say that the dead go to Elimi and are
reborn seven times in the same or another family, alternately
as male and female. Though there is some confusion between
the ehi, they seem to be clearly distinguished from the man
himself ; they are real genii, but so far bound up with their
human counterpart that his health is sometimes regarded as
dependent on the state of the bush ehi. On the whole, the
ehinoha is a bad genius that leads a man astray, spoils things,
and, so far as the identity of man and ehiis accepted, refuses to
remain in this world. The word ehi is found in Kukuruku in
the form ezi, with which may be compared the Ibo eri,^ efi.

{d) Ibo. — Among the Ibo, who number several
millions, there is much diversity of view ; but only
a small percentage of the tribes have been ade-
quately investigated ; the following summary
relates to the Awka and Asaba districts. West of
the Niger the belief is that an entity known as ci,
sometimes identified with eri, sends the new human
being into the world ; the reincarnated person and
the reincarnation are known respectively as ago
and riwago. The ci is normally a dead person, but
in some areas may be the father or mother of the
child. East of the Niger the ci is in the main,
like ikeiiga, a personal protective deity, with only
slight traces of a connexion with the reincarnation
belief ; there is no explicit statement that the ci
sends a child into the world. The ikeiiga maj'^ per-
haps be equated with the Ewe gbetsi, especially if,
as seems proV)able, it is etymologically connected
with Efik akaha, the promise to return to the
other world. The Ibo are quite clear in their
belief that a person is reincarnated, normally in
his (or her) own family, at any rate if he has been
buried with his fathers ; children of tender years
will assure the inquirer with the utmost solemnity

1 A personal protective spirit. ^ Evil 3pi^i^

8 f represents a breathed r.

428

TBANSMIGRATION (Introductory and Primitive)

that they are their deceased grandfathers or grand-
mothers ; and the identity of the ancestor is deter-
mined by divination. A child that speaks before
it opens its eyes is said to be relating what it saw
in Owamwo and is at once exposed in the ajoifia ; it
is also asserted that a man who has been unlucky
in one existence may decide, on opening his eyes
for the first time in a new life, that it is the same
world in which he was unhappy before, and resolve
to give up the struggle, whereupon the new-bom
child dies on the spot.

The relation between ci and ago, west of the
Niger, may be compared with that of godchild and
godparent ; the relation sets up a bar to marriage,
and a man may not even marry into the urmmna
{sept) of his ci ; two people who have the same ci
may not marry, nor yet may their children, though
apparently a man may marry the fellow iiwago of
his sister. There is a saying that the child who
is one's ago (iiwago) should have been the child of
a man's own loins ; both must be of the same
•quarter ; if the ci has no heir of his own, the
ago inherits the property. Curiously enough, the
onye bi oioe, the reincarnated person, who is sent
into the world by the (living) ci, and who ought by
analogy to stand to the child in a closer relation
than the ci, is in point of fact regarded as a com-
parative stranger ; he may come from another ebo
(quarter) or from a different tribe altogether, and
his ritual prohibitions do not concern the child,
who has to observe those of his ci.

There are traces of the view that ci and iiwago
form two links in a continuous chain, at any rate
where the ci is not a living person, the riwago of
one generation being the ci of the next ; and this
affords a satisfactory explanation of the views as to
prohibitions. At the same time, it must be re-
membered that the ci is properly a personal pro-
tective deity, in fact a personal alose, and that
the facts are, in other directions, best accounted
for on this hypothesis; it must not, however, be
forgotten that east of the Niger an alose may be
the ci, or, according to another account, may itself
be reincarnated. East of the Niger also we some-
times find the view that the ago goes to the next
world with a dead man, while the oglisi pegs that
represent it are thrown away ; so that here the
ago is regarded as the ci ; it is, at any rate for a
time, to some extent represented by the ndicie,
or ancestral figurines. Curiously enough, the
umunna (sept) claims to have a collective ago, just
as it has a collective ndicie, though in the nature
of things an ago which sends to this world a cor-
poration, not individual human beings, is unthink-
able.

West of the Niger there is a good deal of con-
fusion between ci and ej-i, which is properly a
genius, and may perhaps originally have been a
breath-soul (cf. Kukuruku eti, ' breath ').''■ If this
is the case, eri is now none the less distinct from
the man, for ceremonies are performed to bring it
to the house, and in many cases it is identified with
ci. Perhaps two streams of belief flowing together,
one placing ci in Owamwo, the other locating eri
in this world, have coalesced, so that ideas associ-
ated with ci came to be attached to eri, and vice
versa.

1 The following' forms may be compared :

Edo

Sobo

Kukuruku

Ibo

ehi, eti

eri

ezi

eri.

Cf. also the undoubtedly related words for ' ear '

fi'io ero I ezo nti(=eH).

It has been pointed out that the words akaiia
and ikeiiga are in all probability connected ety-
mologically ; it is by no means unlikely that kla
and aklama are from the same root ; for la and na
may well be alternative forms of a suffix, and the
transition from kala to kla is a well-established
phonetic change in W. Africa. There is some
reason for supposing that the original idea is that
of a promise, though in Ewe the term gbetsi is noAV
used in that sense, while aklama has become a
genius ; but further research is needed in other
areas before any definite pronouncement can be
made. It is tempting to connect the root ka with
the Egyptian ka, which was a double of the man
and believed to be after death, with the mummy, a
denizen of the tomb ; ^ but, though there are clear
traces of mummification in W. Africa, probably
due to Egyptian influence, and though nothing is
more probable than that Egyptian ideas in tra-
versing the continent would have undergone fun-
damental changes, there is no positive evidence to
connect any of the beliefs mentioned above with
any article of the Egyptian creed. ^ The possibility
of Egyptian influence must, however, be kept in
mind, for Egyptologists appear to accept the evi-
dence produced by L. Frobenius* as to Egyptian
influence in the present Yoruba area in the 6th cent.
B.C. That the terras of the Yoruba language show
no connexion with those cited above is of no import-
ance, for there can be little doubt that the Yoruba
tribe has come down from the north and may
not have been in occupation of the area in
question, if indeed it existed, at the period in
question.

2. South Africa. — In many parts of S. Africa,
and sporadically in other parts of Africa, there
is a belief that the dead are transformed into
certain species of animals, or at any rate that they
assume this form to appear to the survivors ; it
has been maintained, not quite convincingly, that
some Bantu tribes* suppose themselves to be
transformed at death into their totems. This
belief is, however, definitely reported from the
west coast, among the Siena and the Twi, as well
as in the north-east of the Congo Free State.
Among the Zulu the transformation is supposed
to be into a species of serpent.

3. Madagascar.— In Madagascar the belief in
transformation is also found, though here doubtless
of Indonesian origin ; and we see a different lot
in the future state assigned to various social
grades; this is of course a common feature of
eschatological doctrine not connected with the
theory of moral retribution.

4. Central Australia. — According to Spencer and
Gijlen, the tribes of Central Australia believe that
children are reincarnations of their ancestors
(totem) and are continually reborn ; " but the
testimony of Strehlow, a witness well acquainted
with the language of the Arunta tribe, directly
contradicts this ; ® for he maintains that the native
belief is that the soul of eveiy man goes at death
to the Isle of the Dead, there to be annihilated
by a flash of lightning; in certain cases it is
believed that a totem-ancestor is himself reborn,
but after this reincarnation he does not return.

1 See art. Drath and Disposal of the Dead (Egyptian).

2 In modern Egyptian folklore the quarina, equated hy
Seligman with the ka, is held to be the spiritual nounterpart
of a man, which has nothing to do with his immortal soul ; it
plays the part of a good or bad angel. It is of course possible
that this resemblance to present-day W. African beliefs is due
to convergence ; we can hardly assume that both are simple
replicas of ai cient Egyptian beliefs, nor yet that the course of
development has been identical ; but there is at least a, prima
facie case for inquiry.

3 Und Afrika Sprach, Berlin, 1912.

■* See art. Bantu and S. Africa, § 3f.

5 Spencer-Gillen*, pp. 123, 127 ; Spencer-Gillenb, pp. 145, 174.

6 Globus, xci. [1907] 285, xcii. [1907] 123 ; see also literature
below.

TRANSMIGRATION (Buddhist)

429-

Strehlow's account of Aranda (Aninta) belief
is as follows :

The totem-ancestors dropped some of their churinga, which
were transformed into trees, rocks, etc., from which proceed
ratapa ; these are completely formed boj'S and girls of reddish
colour and have both body and soul ; they are invisible to ordin-
ary mortals. When a woman passes a spot (kuanakala) where
the transformed body of an ancestor is, and where consequently
the ratapa associated with that ancestor dwell, one of the
latter, when it recognizes a suitable {i.e. of the correct clan)
woman, enters her body and causes various symptoms. The
child belongs to the totem of the ancestor associated with the
spot.

There is a second method by which an ancestor imprecates
a woman, but this does not seem to imply any kind of reincar-
nation, though the ancestor is called in both cases the iningukua
of the child. The ancestor is said to come out of the earth and
throw a small bull-roarer {namatxma) at a suitable woman, in
whose bod}' it takes human form.

Both kinds of impregnation are said to be equally frequent,
and the difference is recognized in the face of the child, which
is narrow in the first, broad in the second kind.

An iningukua can also, very rarely, enter a woman's body
in person ; and a child thus originated has light hair ; in such
a case the soul goes at death like other souls to the Isle of the
Dead, and is annihilated by a flash of lightning. There is
therefore no question of repeated reincarnations, and only in
the third case can we really speak of an Aranda belief in the
doctrine, so far as can be seen from Strehlow's narrative.

This account agrees with much of what is
reported by Spencer and Gillen ; ^ though these
authors speak of reincarnation of ancestors, they
really mean an incarnation of spirit-children left
behind by the totem-ancestors. And even among
the Aranda we hear of the totem-ancestors ^ living
in water-holes.

Perhaps it is most probable that large local
variations of belief account best for the differences
between Strehlow and the English authors. In
this connexion the account of R. H. Mathews * is
of interest, though it must be remembered that
he is probably relying on information derived from
others. Some of the Chingali believe in repeated
reincarnations of ancestors, and a change of sex
occurs each time ; * others say that women are not
reincarnated and consequently deny at any rate
the change of sex ; the northern Chingali deny
the reincarnation creed altogether and come very
near the doctrine set forth by Strehlow for the
Aranda.

5. Other areas. — The totemism of Indonesia^
and Oceania ^ has been traced both by Wilken and
by Rivers to the belief that the sacrosanct animal
species is the residence of ancestral souls. Trans-
naigration theories are also found sporadically in
New Guinea (q.v.) and N. and S. America. The
Bororo Indians of Brazil believe that they become
arara birds after death and in dreams ; other
tribes say they pass into other birds. The arara
is kept as a pet and mourned at death, though
the wild bird may be killed for its feathers ; yet
the Bororo say, 'We are arara.' According to
%^on den Steinen, the earliest form of the belief
was that the native said, ' I have a bird,' not ' I
am a bird,' which flies at night and which remains
as the natural form of the person when a magician
or other evil-disposed being hinders his return to
human form [i.e. causes his death). But it is only
in parts of Australia and W. Africa that these
forms of eschatological creed are an element of
real importance.

Literature.— J. G. Frazer, GB^, xii., Biblioqraphy and
General Index, s.v. ; RHR xxxvii. [1898] 385 ; N. W. Thomas,
Anthropological Report on the Edo-Spcaking Peoples of Nigeria,
2 pts., London, 1910, Anthropological Report on the Ibo-Speak-
ing Peoples of Nigeria, 6 pts., do. 1912-14; K. von den
Steinen, Unter den. Naturvdlkern Zentral-Brasiliens, Berlin,
1894, pp. 353, 512 ; B. Hagen, (Inter den Papuas, Wiesbaden,
1899, p. 225 ; A. van Gennep, Tabou et totimisme d Madagascar,

1 Spencer-Gillenb, pp. 156 f., 161.

2 Spencer-Gillena, p. 445.

8 Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc. Queensland, xxii. [1907] 75 f.

* Cf. Spencer-Gillenb, p. 148.

B See art. Indonesians.

« See artt. Australasia, Melanesianb.

Paris, 1904; Baessler-Archiv, ii. [1911] 73; M. Delafosse,
Haut-Sinigal-Niger, Paris, 1912 ; C. MonteU, Les Khassonki,
do. 1915 ; C. Strehlow, ' Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stiimme in
Zentral-Australien,' in Verof. stddt. Volker-Mxiseum Frankfurt
a. M., 1908 ff., I. ii. [1908] 51 ff., etc. N. W, THOMAS.

TRANSMIGRATION (Buddhist).— Theoreti-
cally Buddhism teaches neither the existence of
the soul nor its transmigration, but insists on the
revolution, or ' stream ' (sai'nsdra), of existences.
In its practical influence on the popular mind,
however, this doctrine amounted to much tlie same
as any other doctrine of transmigration. It amal-
gamated everywhere with the animistic conception
of the soul, whether human or other ; it inspired
the people with the feeling of a certain continuity
of life-relationships through various existences ; it
impressed the popular mind with a degree of fatal-
ism— the belief that every event in one's life was
the result of past deeds. The doctrine, when for-
mulated, contained more or less sensuous descrip-
tions of the better lives in the heavens, besides
horrifying details of purgatorial existences ; and
these aspects of the teaching resulted in the growth
of a respectable volume of visionary literature
during the course of the history of the religion in
various countries.' Thus, in spite of the higher
doctrine of the ideal Buddhist perfection in nirvana,
and in spite of the psychological and metaphysical
formulations of the teaching of karma and chitta,
the Buddhist conception of transmigration may be
treated in the same category as other doctrines of
the same kind.

According to the regular teaching, the saihsdra
consists in an indefinite revolution of renewed
existences produced and prolonged according to
the qualities of the karma (q.v.), Avhich is the
matrix as well as the vis a tergo of the enduring
existences. It is said repeatedly :

' No beginning is known of the eternal revolution (aaihsdra)
of the beings, streaming and flowing to and fro [in the ocean of
births and deaths], being covered by ignorance {avijjd) and
fettered in thirst {tarihd).'"

In this vast ocean of renewed births there are
innumerable streams of existences, conditioned bj^
their respective deeds and retributions, flowing
uninterruptedly not only in the continuity of the
individual being but also in the solidarity of a
group of existences. Now the groups of existences
are classified into five gatis ('courses,' 'modes of
life') — the heavenly life, the human life, the
animal life, the ghostly life, and the purgatorial
(or hellish) life ; or into six, by adding the asura
(or furious spirits).* Another classification is that
of the bhava (' being ') or loka ('realm,' the cosmic
installation of beings) into three — the formless
heavens, the heavens with forms, and the material
worlds with desires and greed. ^ In this connexion
it is to be noted that the Buddhist doctrine of
transmigration emphasized the affinity and solid-
arity of tiie karma and all its consequences within
a group of existences, whether a specific world in
the cosmic .system, the local division of the abode,
or the class division in social life ; in short, any
and every link, material, physical, moral, emo-
tional, intellectual, or social, is the cause and a
manifestation of the solidarity of existence due to.
the common karma. The principle of the solid-

1 In Saihyutta-nikdya, ii. 254-262, Maha-Moggallana, the
great disciple of Buddha, well versed in supernormal attain-
ments, narrates to his fellow-monk Lakkhana his visions of
beings tortured and purified in the purgatories and the causes
of their sufferings. Thence we have a long series of similar
narratives, for which see, e.g., the opening of the Mahnraxtu
(ed. E. Stinart, Paris, 1S82-97, i.), or B. Nanjio, A Catalogue »f
the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka, Oxford,
1883, nos. 561, 677, 679, 706, etc.

2 Sat'nyjitta-nikdya, ii. 178 f., etc.

s See art. Cosmoqont and Cosmology (Buddhist), esp. §§ 5-8
•• The five or six circles are graphically represented in the

bhavachakra (the cycle of existence), for which see art. Ajanta, .

on the Niddna (vol. i. p. 258'').

430

TRANSMIGRATION (Celtic)

arity is the karma, and its manifestation is the
bhava or dhatu, the latter of which means the
characteristics (common to the beings within a
group), the specific circle of existence, community,
common destiny.

How the different dhatus are produced; what are the
reciprocal actions and reactions of the psychical factors and en-
vironmental factors in the processor the development of karma-,
what are the conditions of the individual karma being attracted
to and incorporated into the common dAritrt— these and associ-
ated questions gave rise to varied speculations in the Buddhist
schools, the whole forming a web of subtle argument and
grotesque fancy, in which are mingled Buddhist cosraologj',
psychology, ethics, and sociology. This is a subject which
awaits further investigation.!

Tlie practical effects of the Buddhist doctrine of
saihsara were a deepening and broadening of the
feeling of the continuity of life. Though often
vulgarized through its amalgamation with animistic
beliefs, the effect of the doctrine was to extend
affection and attachment in human relationships
to the former and coming lives, even to animal
and plant life, which was held to be continuous
ami closely associated with human life, and to
elaborate those sentiments through the belief in
deeper causes, remoter connexions, and wider
aspects of being than those of the present life.

This point can be illustrated from the folk-lore and literature
of every Buddhist people, and one of the flowers of romantic
literature— the Japanese literature of the 11th cent.— is domin-
ated by this sentiment of continuity. There the delicate yet
strong tie of human affection was associated with the idea of its
continuity through lives beyond death, as well as with the idea
of nature as inspired bv physical surroundings and their
changes. Unfortunately both \V. G. Aston and Karl Florenz,
in their histories of Japanese literature, hardly touch this point.
Another point in the effect of the teaching of
samsara is the belief in the occasional appearance
of persons who can remember their former lives.
In fact, it seems that Buddha himself regarded
this faculty as one of his supernormal attainments
(iddhi) and one of the criteria of saintliness.
Everywhere in Buddhist literature we find mention
of the three special faculties (tevijja)—i\\^ divine
vision, the divine hearing, and the clear recalling of
one's former lives (pubbe)iivasa). This belief gave
rise to a rich literature of Jataka (q.v. ) and the allied
literature of Nidana and Avadana, which aimed
at supplying that belief with concrete illustrations
and impressing believers with the close association
of tlie lives of Buddha and Buddhist saints with
those of all other beings, besides inculcating morals
by the stories. Thus it was no wonder that some
persons claimed to have the same faculty, whether
by chance or as a result of training. The folk-lore
and legends of Buddhist countries are full of
instances, and a noteworthy point in them is that
many of those endowed persons are children, whose
remembrance of their own former lives is mostly
said to lose its vividness as they grow older. ^

LiTEKATURE.— See artt. Cosmogony and Cosmology (Buddhist),
JiTAKA, Karma, and the literature cited there.

M. Anesaki.

TRANSMIGRATION (Celtic).— i. There are
two passages which clearly assert the belief in
metempsychosis among tiie ancient Celts. Caesar
(de Bell. Gall. vi. 14) tells us that the principal
point in the teaching of the druids is that the soul
does not perish, but, after death, passes from one
body into another. Diodorus completes the
evidence of Caesar and states it precisely :

' Among the Galatse [Gauls or Germans] the doctrine of
Pythagoras prevails, namely, that the souls of men are immortal
and after a fixed number of years begin to live again, the soul
entering into a second body' (v. 28).

But is Diodorus giving the teaching of Pythagoras
or that of the Celts? If the former, it would be
wise to attach only a relative importance to the

1 Of. Saihyutta-nikaya, ii. 140-177, and artt. Abhiduarma
KoSa Vyakhya, Cosmogony and Cosmoloqt (Buddhist).

2 See Lafcadio Hearn, Gleanings in Buddha-Fields, Boston
and New York, 1897, ch. x. ; H. Fielding, The Soul of a People,
London, 1898, pp. 324-343.

precision of his words; if the latter, it must be
admitted that, according to the belief of the Celts,
the passage of the soul into another body does not
follow immediately upon death, and that, while
the soul awaits its reincarnation, it continues to
live, though under conditions which are not those
of the life on earth. This interpretation would
make it possible to reconcile the passages in Csesar
and Diodorus with the evidence of ancient writers
who have transmitted Celtic conceptions regarding
the future life in which the idea of metempsychosis
does not occur.

Diodorus goes on to say :

' Therefore, during the funerals of the dead, they throw into
the funeral pyre letters written to the dead relatives in the ex-
pectation that the dead will read them.'
It seems, therefore, that the man whose body ^yas
burned acted as a messenger between the living
and the ancestors whom he was about to meet
again in the other world. It is the idea of the
immortality of the soul and of another world that
is emphasized by the Latin writers.

Valerius Maximus (lI. vi. 10) tells that there
was an ancient custom among the Gauls of lending
each other sums which were repayable in the lower
world, so (irmly were they persuaded of the im-
mortality of the soul. Pomponius Mela (iii. 2),
after stating that, according to the druids, the soul
is eternal and that there is a second life among the
manes, adds that they burn and bury along with
the dead things which are useful to the living, and
that, formerly, they postponed the settlement of
business affairs and debts until the time when
debtors and creditors would meet in the lower
world ; there were even people who voluntarily
cast themselves into the funeral pyre of their
kindred in the expectation that they Avoukl rejoin
them in the new life. The idea of a new life after
death and before reincarnation was thus one of the
most cherished and deep-seated beliefs of the
ancient Celts. As to where that new life was
spent, Valerius Maximus and Pomponius Mela
employ the ordinary terms of Koman mythology
for the other world (inferos, manes) ; but Lucan is
not content with that superficial assimilation :

'You assure us, Druids, that it is not the silent dwellings of
Erebus nor the pale kingdoms of Dis who inhabits the depths,
at which the souls arrive ; the same breath directs their
members in another world ['orbe alio'], and, if your songs
declare what can be known, death is in the heart of a long life '
(Pharsalia, i. 449-456).

There has been an endeavour to fix the meaning of
' orbe alio,' In the Latin of the time of Lucan it
can mean only ' another region of the earth ' and
not ' another celestial globe ' (see S. Reinach, liCel
xxii. [1901] 454).

The commentaries on the few and vague Greek
and Latin texts which bear upon the ancient Celtic
belief in metempsychosis do not lead to any further
precision. In particular, we cannot determine
whether the teaching of the Celts was borrowed
from the Pythagorean school. Such was, however,
a tradition of antiquity. The passage from
Diodorus quoted above lacks clearness, but as
early as the beginning of the 1st cent. B.C.
Alexander Polyhistor (frag. 138 [FHG iii. 239])
wrote that Pythagoras had the Gauls (FaXdras) as
disciples. Timagenes (ap. Ammianus Marcellinus,
XV. 9) seems to connect the organization of the
druidic corporations with Pythagoras with regard
to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
Valerius Maximus (II. vi. ) declares that he would
consider the belief in the immortality of the soul
a foolish thing if it were not for the fact that the
belief of the Gauls on that matter agreed with
that of Pythagoras. But the Celtic doctrine,
though showing analogies with the Pythagorean
doctrine, was not identical with it : it did not
distinguish between the fate of the wicked and

TRANSMIGRATION (Egyptian)

431

that of the just ; the other life is neither a punish-
ment nor a recompense, and, in fact, the idea of
justice is entirely absent from the Celtic conception.

2. We have another source of information in the
legends preserved by Irish epics, which tell of
historical personages and seem for the most part to
be anterior to Christianity.

In the middle of the 6th cent, of our era St. Finnen met at
Mag: Bile (Moville, Co. Down) a warrior named Tiian Mac
Cairill, who lived all alone in his den ; at first he would not
allow the saint and his disciples to enter his dwelling, but he
ended by making them welcome and showing them hospitality.
They refused to accept anything from him, however, until he
had told them of his adventures, which were by no means
ordinary. Tiian Mac Cairill had come from Spain to Ireland
312 years after the Flood along with the first inhabitants,
Partholon, the son of Sera, and 24 couples. When the number
of immigrants had increased to 5000, an epidemic destroyed
them one after another, until only one survived to tell the
tale, that one being Tiian Mac Cairill. For 22 years he was
the only inhabitant in Ireland ; then Nemed, son of Agnoman,
who also came from Spam, landed on the island, after a storm,
with four men and four women. On his arrival Tiian went into
hiding ; he fasted for three days, and, having lain down to sleep
one night, he awoke in the morning in the form of a stag. He
led the herds of deer in Ireland until the extinction of the race
of Nemed. Then he became a boar, and remained in that shape
as long as the men of Semion, son of Stariat, from whom the
Firbolg are descended, were in possession of Ireland. He next
became a vulture during the reign of Beothach, son of larbonel,
an ancestor of the Tuatha D6 Danann ; and, once more, a fish,
when the sons of Mil6 conquered Ireland. One day he was
caught by a fisherman, brought to the wife of king Cairell,
cooked, and eaten by her. At the end of the usual period he
was born again as an infant and was called Mac Cairill, i.e. son
of Cairell. Up to his second birth as a man Tiian had lived 320
years : 100 as a man, 80 as a stag, 20 as a boar, 100 as a vulture,
and 20 as a fish.

Certain details of this metempsychosis should be
noticed : in all his successive shapes Tiian pre-
served the consciousness and recollection of his
previous existences, and his human intelligence
persisted during his lives in the bodies of animals ;
his metamorphosis took place only when he had
reached the extreme limits of old age and decrepi-
tude ; it occurred only in the neighbourhood of
the house in which he lived during his first life as
a man ; and, finally, his change of body took place
only after a fast of three days.

There is another Irish legend dealing with
metempsychosis, though in a less varied and
definite manner than that of Tiian — the history of
Mongdn, son of Fiachna.

One day Mongan had a discussion with his fili, Forgoll, as to
where king Fothad Airgdech, who was slain by the Fian Caoilte,
had fallen. It was agreed that if, in the space of three days,
Mongdn failed to prove that Fothad had fallen at the river
Lame in Ulster, and not at DufCry in Leinster, as Forgoll main-
tained, his goods and his person should become the property of
the fiU. Mongdn's wife broke into lamentations which in-
creased as the time went on, but Mongdn waited calmly in the
firm belief that a witness would come from a distant country to
attest the truth of his statement ; for Mongan heard the steps
of the mysterious traveller from afar. On the third day, at
nightfall, a warrior appeared, who, when brought into the
presence of Forgoll, pointed out the exact spot where Fothad
had been buried, and even gave the inscription on his tomb.
While narrating the death of Fothad, the warrior called Mongan
as witness to the truth of his story, and named him by the name
of Fionn. The warrior was Caoilte, and Mongdn was thus a
reincarnation of Fionn, living about three centuries after him.
The legend gives us no information about the incarnations of
Fionn between the end of his first life and his reincarnation in
Mongan, but probably they were similar to those of Tiian Mac
Cairill.

Other Irish legends allude to cases of meta-
morphosis, but they do not seem to take place
at the end of a life. There are also epic stories
presenting beings which have had a second birth,
but those beings belong to the world of fairies and
have no bearing upon the study of human metem-
psychosis.

3. The Welsh romances also contain numerous
examples of metamorphosis. Perhaps there are
traces of metempsychosis in the romance of
Taliesin, in which he tells in verse of all the places
where he has been since the beginning of the
world, and in the poem entitled Kat Goddcu
('Battle of Goddeu'), in which the poet enumer-

ates all the shapes which he has taken : sword,
star, book, eagle, ship, serpent, etc. But the
story of Taliesin is preserved only in MSS of the
17th cent., and the ancient poems attributed to
the celebrated bard of the 6th cent, cannot be
earlier than the 12th. It is ditiicult to disentangle
the real archaic elements contained in them.

To sum up : it is practically only in the texts of
the writers of antiquity that definite evidence is
found of a Celtic belief in metempsychosis : among
the Irish, metempsychosis is an exceptional pheno-
menon, a kind of privilege enjoyed by heroes ;
what we find among the Welsh is a literary tradi-
tion rather than the traces of an ancient belief.
Whatever may be the ingenuity of modern scholars,
it cannot on this subject make up for the lack of
documentary evidence.

Literature.— H. d'Arbois de Jubainville, Le Cycle mytho-
logique irlandais et la viythulogie celtique {Cours de littirature
celtique, ii.), Paris, 1884 ; The Voyarje of Bran, xon of Febal,
ed. K. Meyer, 'With an Essay upon the Irish Vision of the
happy Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth,' by A.
Nutt, London, 1895-97. (^ DOTTIN.

TRANSMIGRATION (Egyptian).— There are
three difterent ideas which refer to changes of
personality: (1) the union with a god, (2) the
transmigration of the soul into an animal for a
life-time, (3) the voluntary metamorphosis of the
person temporarily into another form for his own
benefit.

(1) The divine xmion is often stated in the Book
of the, Dead, as ' I am Ra ' or ' I am Thoth ' ; this
was the person entering into such union with the
god that he had all the compelling power and
safety of the god. Even in the earliest inscriptions,
on the cylinders before the 1st dynasty, the dead
is sen, or brother, to a god ; or senscn, allied,
associated, in touch, or united, with a god.

(2) The question of trmismigration has been
disputed. The Greek authors refer to it as an un-
doubted belief ; but there seems to be no Egyptian
text Avhich refers to the idea. Two scenes have
been supposed to indicate it; these are judgment
scenes (Seti I. sarcophagus and tomb of Barneses
lll.)i showing a pig being driven from the judg-
ment. Yet, as referring to justified men, it cannot
be the soul driven away as a pig. In most judg-
ment .scenes there is present the devouring monster,
a blend of hippopotamus and crocodile, waiting to
devour the guilty ; but no such monster appears
vi^here the pig is, and so it seems likely that the
pig is the flesh-eating animal, driven away so as to
be quite apart from the justified king. The Greek
testimony is so strong that it seems unlikelj^ to
have all been derived from the metauiorphoses.
As all the authors are post-Persian, it is possible
that the idea really did blend with Egyptian belief
during the Persian occupation, when other Indian
ideas came into Egypt, such as asceticism. Trans-
niigTation is plainly stated in the Kore Kosmou, of
the Persian period, probably about 500 B.C.- After
this it is natural that tlie Greek writers, Herodotus,
Plato, Theophrastus, Plutarch, and others, should
ascribe the belief to the Egyptians of their times,
unconscious that it Avas a new importation.^

(3) The belief in metamorphosis (5-.^.) was general,
as a magic process. The earliest Egyptian tale
turns on a wax model being transformed into a
living crocodile. The Book of the Dead has a series
of magic chapters (76-89) to give power to the dead
person to be transformed into ' whatever form he
pleases,' into a golden hawk, a divine hawk, a god,
a lily, the god Ptah, a phoenix, a heron, a swallow,

1 I. Rosellini, Monumenti del Cvlto, Ixvi., Pisa, 1^31 ; J. 0.
Wilkinson, The Manners and Cuatoms of the Ancient
Egyptians, new ed., London, 1878, iii. 467.

- W. M. Flinders Petrie, Personal Ri'h'gion in Egypt before
Christianity, London and New York, 1909, pp. 43, 47.

3 See passages quoted in Wilkinson, iiL 462-404.

432

TRANSMIGRATION (Greek and Roman)

an earth-worm, or a crocodile ; and lastly the
power of being united to its own body. The
following examples are parts of chs. 86, 89, and all
of 88:

' I am the Swallow ; I am the Swallow. I am the Scorpion-
bird (or white bird), the daughter of Ra. . . . And that which
I went in order to ascertain, I am come to tell. Come, let me
enter and report my mission. And I, entering:, and ascertain-
ing who cometh forth through that gate of the Inviolate one, I
purify myself at that great stream, where my ills are made to
cease, and that which is wronij in me is pardoned, and the spots
which were on my body upon earth are effaced. . . . Here am
I, and I come that I may overthrow mine adversaries upon
earth, though my dead body be buried ' (86). ' For I am the
Crocodile god in all his terrors. I am the Crocodile god in the
form of man. I am he who carrieth off with violence. I am
the almighty Fish in Kamurit. I am the Lord to whom one
bendeth down in Sechem ' (88). ' Oh, thou who bringest ; oh,
thou runner who dwellest in thy Keep, thou great god ; grant
that my soul may come to me from whatsoever place wherein
it abideth. . . . Let my soul (ba) be caught and the spirit (^kku)
which is with it, wheresoever it abideth. Track out among the
things in heaven and upon earth that soul of mine, wherever it
abideth . . . ' (89).

Literature. — J. H. Breasted, Development of Religion and
Thought in Ancient Egypt, London, 1912, p. 277, and works
quoted above. W, M. FLINDERS PeTRIE.

TRANSMIGRATION (Greek and Roman).—
I. Greek. — The notion of transmigration (ira\iy-
yeveaia),'^ i.e. the passage after death of the human
or animal soul from the mortal body to a ncAv
incarnation in another body of the same or an-
other species, necessarily rests upon a belief that
the soul itself is immortal, or at any rate more
lasting than the body. Pherecydes,^ who was
born about 600 B.C. and is reputed to have been
the teacher of Pythagoras^ — which does not
necessarily mean more than that he was earlier
in time — is said to have been the first to introduce
the doctrine. On the other hand, Herodotus*
declared that it was the invention of the Egyptians
and was derived from them by those Greeks who
adopted it, and whose names, though he knew
them, he declined to mention. It has been recog-
nized that this is an allusion, at least in part, to
Empedocles ; for Herodotus would have had no
scruple in giving the names of Pherecydes and
Pythagoras, who were already dead. It is, how-
ever, impossible to accept Herodotus' account,
because (1) the best authorities are inclined to
doubt whether the Egyptians ever held the
doctrine in question,' and (2) the Greek evidence
indicates that the belief, if not indigenous, goes
back to a remote past. Moreover, the notion that
Pythagoras was influenced by Indian modes of
thought with which he became acquainted in
Ionia or elsewhere^ is altogether unconvincing.
The truth seems to be that a belief in the trans-
migration of human souls into other bodies after
death Avas a relic inherited from the primitive or
savage ancestors of the European peoples. It is
expressly attributed to the Gauls,* and less ex-
plicitly to the Thracians and Scythians.* In fact
it must have developed independently in many
parts of the world, ** without direct transmission
from place to place, especially in connexion with
the idea that the limited supply of souls neces-
sitates the reappearance of the same soul in
various earthly bodies. Thus in popular tales
the change of a man into a beast involves the
assumption that, though the body is different, the
soul remains the same ; e.g., in the raetamorpho.sis
of Odysseus' companions into swine their intelli-
gence remained unaffected.^" Not that this popular
tradition ever became widely effective : except for

1 Serv. on uEn. iii. 68. 2 Suid. g.v.

3 Diog. Laert. i. 118, viii. 40. -i ii. 123.

5 How and Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, London,
1912, ad loc. ; cf. art. Trans.migration (Egyptian).

"T. Gomperz, Gi-eek Thinkers, Eng. tr., London, 1901, i. 127.

7 CsBS. de Bell Gall. vi. 14 ; Diod. v. 28.

a Pomp. Mela, ii. 18. a pc ii. 2 ff.

10 Horn. Od. X. 240 and the schol.

one not very clear example,^ stone inscriptions
show no trace of a belief in transmigration, while
Euripides refers to a second incarnation as an
actual impossibility, whose realization might have
been welcome as a divine instrument of discrimina-
tion between the good and the bad.^ But, although
there is nothing to show that the belief struck
deep, or was cherished outside certain particular
circles, it was brought into prominence by the
religious upheaval which undoubtedly took place
in the 6th cent, and became associated with the
worship of Dionysus and the Orphic cults. Thus
the notion that the soul is imprisoned in the body
as in a dungeon is attributed by Plato and his
commentators to the Orphic mystics.' Two
famous passages in Pindar presuppose the doctrine
of transmigration. In one of these Persephone
sends the souls back to earth in the ninth year
when they have been purified from their ancient
sorrow ; * and in the other those who have thrice
made their abode on either side of death are
destined at last to reach the islands of the blest.*
It seems more likely that Pindar derived this
doctrine from the Orphic mysteries than indirectly
through the Pythagoreans.^ The prevalence of
this mystical belief and its religious potency are
illustrated with remarkable clearness in certain
inscriptions on golden tablets found in S. Italy,
near Rome, and in Crete, which are chiefly attri-
buted to the 4th or 5th centuries B.C. and published
as an Appendix to J. E. Harrison's Prolegomena to
the Study of Greek Religion, Cambridge, 1903, p.
660 ff. One of these contains some words which
form part of the appeal of the purified soul : ' I have
flown out of the sorrowful weary Wheel ; I have
passed with eager feet to the Circle desired.' This
refers to the mystical Wheel of Fortune which in
its revolutions symbolizes the cycle of successive
lives necessary to be traversed by the harassed
soul before its final release. This specific cj'cle
of progress, as well as the more general conception
of a kvkXos in human affairs, is traditionally attri-
buted to the Orphic - Pythagorean sphere of
thought.'' In the Orphic hymns* this has so far
developed as to include a statement that an exact
reproduction of the movements characteristic of
the present world-era may be expected when the
revolving wheel comes round to the same point
again ; but it is not easy to reconcile this with
the opportunity which, as we have seen, is given
to particular souls to obtain their release.®
Aristotle's reference to the Orphic poems as an
authority for the opinion that the soul enters the
body from outside in the process of respiration
accords well enough with the doctrine now under
discussion.'** Further, the Orphic prohibition of a
diet of animal flesh, evidenced by Euripides and
Aristophanes," points in the same direction.

In popular estimation'^ transmigration is par-
ticularly associated with the name of Pythagoras.
Much of what has been established as belonging
to the Orphics, the imprisonment of the soul in
the body as a retribution for past ill-deeds, the
undeviating recurrence of the cycle of existence,'^
the prospect offered of ultimate escape after puri-
fication,'* and the abstinence from a flesh diet —
limited, however, by the reservation that it did
not apply to the flesh of such animals as are

1 Epigr. ed. G. Kaibel, Berlin, 1878, p. 304.

2 Here. Fur. 653 ff. ^ Phced. 62 B, Cratyl. 400 C.
4 Frag. 96 Schr. * oi. ii. 68.

6 E. Zeller, Pre-Socratic Philosophy, Eng. tr., London, 1881,
i. 71 ; but see schol. on v. 104.

7 See a note by the present writer en Soph. frag. 871.

8 Frag. 225. * Frag. 226.

10 De Anim. i. v. 4106 28. " Hipp. 951 ; Ran. 1032.

12 Cf. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, iv. L 131, Twelfth
Night, IV. ii. 54.

13 Diog. Laert. viii. 14 ; Zeller, i. 474, note 2.

14 E. Eohde, Psyche^, Tiibingen, 1910, p. 165, note 2.

TRANSMIGRATION (Greek and Roman)

433

oflFered in sacrifice to the Olympian gods^ — is
established for the Pythagoreans by not less
convincing testimony. It would seem, therefore,
that, when founding his brotherhood, Pythagoras
appropriated much that was characteristic of con-
temporary religious asceticism. Nevertheless the
reincarnation of souls in various bodily shapes is
so closely associated with the person of Pythagoras
that he must be held to have inculcated it with
peculiar vigour. There is a good deal of legendary
matter relating to him, most of which can be
traced to the authority of Heraclides Ponticus.'

To this source we owe the famous story that it was permitted
to Pythajforas to retain the memory of his previous incarnations,
and that he established his credibility on the occasion of a visit
to the Heraeum at Argos by identifying as his own, before
seeing the inscription, the shield of Euphorbus, son of Panthus,
which he was bearing when slain bj' Menelaus before the walls
of Troy.3 Heraclides was also responsible for the statement
that Pythagoras claimed to have lived as JEthalides, the son
of Hermes and herald of the Argonauts, before he became
Euphorbus, that as ^thalides he obtained from his father
Hermes the offer of anj' gift he might choose save immortality,
and that thus he received the privilege of remembering his
previous fortune while on the earth and in Hades. After
Euphorbus died, he became Hermotimus and subsequently
Pyrrhus, the Delian fisherman, before his final re-birth as
Pjfthagoras.'* Further, Pythagoras declared that after the
lapse of every 207 years his soul returned to the light of the
sun.5 Accordingly, if the birth of Pythagoras is placed in 572,
the date of Euphorbus will be 1193 and of jEthalides 1400.

There is, however, much better evidence than
these fables that Pythagoras seriously taught the
doctrine in the almost contemporary verses of
Xenophanes : ® they say that once, as he was
passing by, he pitied a dog that was being beaten
and exclaimed : ' Beat him no more ; for his soul
is my friend's, as I recognized wlien I heard his
voice.' It was therefore his belief that the same
soul could dwell in a beast as in a man, and that
there is a universal kinship between all living
things.'' He did not hesitate to ascribe reasonable
souls to animals, holding that the activity of their
reason was impeded by the unsuitability for its
exercise of their physical organs. ^ Aristotle de-
scribes the possibility of any soul taken at random
passing into any body as a Pythagorean fable.''
The punishment of souls for their misdeeds by
successive incarnations in corporeal dungeons was
a theme developed by the Pythagoreans in a
manner hardly to be separated from the Orphic, ^^
and the results of their joint influence are to be
found in the Platonic myths.

Empedocles in his poem entitled 'Purifications'
{Kadap/jLol) took over the doctrine of transmigration
from the Orphic-Pythagorean school without
making any attempt to combine it with his philo-
sophical system. Indeed it is difficult to see how
it was possible for him to advocate the immortal-
ity of the soul consistently with his doctrine that
the vitality of the soul is the result of an aggrega-
tion of corporeal substances. Thought and con-
sciousness are concentrated in the blood which
envelops the heart." Aristotle's assertion that,
according to Empedocles, the soul is compacted
from all the elements ^'^ is generally discredited as
a misconception ; and his further remark in the
same passage that each of the elements is soul is
equally misleading. But, even if the materialism

1 Iambi. Vit. Pyth. 85 ; Aristoxenus, ap. Diog. Laert. viii. 20,
makes the prohibition apply only to the ram and the plough-ox.

2 Pauly-Wissowa, viii. 476.

3 Hor. Od. I. xxviii. 10; Ov. Met. xv. 160 ff.; achol. Horn. II.
xvii. 28.

■* Diog. Laert. viii. 4, 5 ; scbol. Ap. Rhod. i. 645 ; schol. Soph.
El.&l.
s Diog. Laert. 14. 6 B 7 Diels.

7 Porph. Vit. Pyth. 19.

8 Aet. Plac. V. xx. 4 (H. Diels, Doxographi Greed, Berlin,
1879, p. 432, 15).

9 De Anitn. i. 3. 4076 22.

10 For an attempt to distinguish Pythagoreanism from
Orphism see F. M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy,
London, 1912, p. 198 ff.
11 B 105 Diels. 12 De Anim. i. 2. 4046 11.

VOL. XII. — 28

of Empedocles is somewhat less explicit than is
sometimes represented, logical justification is still
to seek for his pronouncement concerning the
punishment of guilty souls in a purgatory lasting
for 30,000 years ^ and his personal experience of the
wretchedness of the wandering spirit which is har-
assed by its weary passage through air and sea and
earth : ' Ere now have I been a youth and a maiden,
a bush and a dumb fish in the sea.' ^ A discrimina-
tion of the degrees of transgression is involved in
the assignment of the less base souls to the higher
forms of animal or plant life : these inhabit the
bodies of lions among beasts or appear as bay
trees in the world of vegetation.* The best of
them become prophets, bards, physicians, and
chieftains, and at last return as divine beings to
the company of the gods.* As a consequence of
this doctrine Empedocles, like the Pythagoreans,
prohibited the eating of flesh and the slau,i;hter of
animals, which he stigmatized as the shedding of
kindred blood, the murder of a son by his father
or of a father by his son.*

In several of his dialogues, particularly in the
Phcedo, Fhcedrus, Reptiblic, and Timceus, Plato
associates the doctrines of the immortality and
pre-existence of the soul with its transmigration.
The variations to be found in his descriptions are
not of serious moment and do not admit of being
discussed in detail.

According to the Phcedo,6 those who in this life have failed
to emancipate themselves from the burden of the corporeal ele-
ment cannot rise to the purer element above, but, being
dragged down into the visible world, haunt burial grounds as
ghostly apparitions until they are again imprisoned in another
body. Of these the sensual become asses or similar animals,
the violent and unjust wolves or kites, but those who, though
lacking the philosophic impulse to virtue, have lived an ordinar3'
respectable life may become bees or ants, or even men who in
their next incarnation prove themselves just and moderate.
Only those who have devoted themselves in this life to philo-
sophy are entirely exempt from any further incarnation and
pass to the pure ethereal homes destined for them in the upper
world. 7 In the Phcedrus^ the souls of the dead are punished
or otherwise treated according to the measure of their human
actions for 1000 years, until the period of reincarnation arrives,
when they are allowed a limited area of choice, so that it often
happens that the soul of a man comes into life as a beast, and
that of a beast which had formerly been human again enters
into the body of a man. A much more elaborate account is
given in the myth of Er the son of Armenius, how a great
variety of choice comprising the lives of every animal and of
men in every condition is offered to the allottees whose time
for reincarnation has arrived. The order of choice is deter-
mined by ballot, but even the soul which drew the last lot had
plenty of opportunities for selection left. The narrator of the
myth was a witness of the choices made by some of the famous
heroes of antiquity ; how Orpheus chose to be a swan, Thamyras
a nightingale, Ajax a lion, Agamemnon an eagle, and Thersites
a monkey, while Odysseus, who drew the last lot, wearied of
his former ambition, was delighted to find still available for
him the life of an ordinary man free from all anxiety.9 In the
TiinoKxis 10 the creator fashions as many souls as there are stars,
and distributes one to each star, in order that later, after a
period of contemplation, they may be embodied inhuman form.
If during the time of probation the soul lived well, he would
return to his ethereal habitation ; but, if he failed, he would
suffer a new incarnation as a woman ; and, if his wickedness
continued, he would sink down among the beasts until his cor-
poreal taints had been thoroughly purged away. In the same
dialogue Plato explains the evolution of birds and other
animals as arising from the deterioration of human souls.
Birds, with their feathers taking the place of hair, are developed
from men who are harmless but light-minded. The four-footed
beasts of the earth were originally men who had never given
themselves up to the study of philosophy, since they no longer
heeded the revolutions in the head, but followed the impulses
of those parts of the soul which are situated in the bre.ist.ii

Critics have not been entirelj agreed as to how
far Plato was a serious believer in transmigration,'*
some holding that the entire description was
purely a play of fancy, and others that, though
he may have credited the successive incainatiims

1 B 115, 6 Diels. 2 b 117 Diels.

3 B 127 Diels. * B 146, 147 Diels.

6 B 136, 137 Diels. « 81 E.

V /6. 114 C. 8 249 B.

9 Republic, 617 D-620 D.

10 41 D. 11 76. 91 E.

1- See the authorities quoted by J. Adam in his note on iJ< p.
618 A.

434

TRANSMIGBATION (Indian)

of human souls, he cannot have extended his belief
to their passaf,^e into animal shapes. It should of
course be noticed that all these descriptions, if
not actually parts of a myth, have a mythical
colouring, and must be read subject to the warn-
ing given by tlie Platonic Socrates in the Phcedo : ^

' No sensible man will affirm that these matters took place
exactly in the way that I have described. But to hold that
either this or something like it is the truth in regard to our
souls and their habitations, appears to me, no20 that the soul has
been shoion to he immortal, to be no unreasonable or unworthy
venture.'

So long as this limitation is borne in mind, there
is no valid reason for mistrusting Plato's sincerity.

Transmigration does not cohere with the Stoic
doctrine of the soul's nature ; but there are some
grounds for thinking that Posidonius held the
pre-existence and immortality of the soul in the
limited sense in which it was possible for a Stoic
to affirm them consistently with a belief in the
iKTTvpwai.s.'^ It was, moreover, natural that a Stoic
shoiild speak of a periodic reincarnation ^ as a
consequence of the dogma that every conflagration
introduces a new era in which the experience of
the past will be exactly repeated. But that either
Posidonius or any of the Stoics believed in a series
of successive incarnations within the limits of
the current world-period is, notwithstanding the
isolated statements of certain of the doxographical
sources,^ open to very grave doubt. ^

According to Plotinus, the future destiny of the
soul depends on the use it has made of its several
functions and capacities during each particular
incarnation. Hence we should constantly strive
upward, not yielding to the images of sense or
carnal cravings.

Thus he who has exercised his human capacities again
becomes a man, but those who have lived by sensation alone
become animals. If, without yielding to active passion, they
have remained immersed in sluggish perversity, they may even
become plants. •> There is always retribution for an ill-spent
life : the bad master becomes a slave, the abuser of wealth a
poor man ; the man who has murdered his mother becomes a
woman and is murdered bj' a son.' On the other hand, those
souls which are pure and have lost their attraction to the
corporeal will cease to be dependent upon body. So detached,
they will pass to the region of being and the divinity, which
cannot be apprehended by a human vision as if it were akin to
the corporeal. 8

II. Roman. — There is no evidence among the
Romans of an indigenous belief in transmigration,
but several of their poets acknowledged the influ-
ence of Greek speculation, and of Plato and
Pythagoras in particular. Horace mentions ^ the
'Pythagorean dreams' of Ennius, who thought
that his soul had once inhabited the body of
Homer and earlier that of a peacock.'" Vergil, in
a famous passage,^' takes more serious notice of
Pythagoreanism, when he describes the purifica-
tion of souls in the under world, and their retui'n
to human bodies after the completion of the cycle
of 1000 years. Ovid '^ introduces Pythagoras him-
self making an eloquent appeal against the
slaughter of animal life, based upon the identity
of the soul-substance which permeates our bodies
and theirs.

Literature. — The best sources of information are the works
of E. Rohde, T. Gomperz, and E. Zeller mentioned above.
For Pythagoras see art. Pythagoras; also A. E. Chaig-net,
Pythagore. et la philosophie pythagoricienne, 2 vols., Paris,
1873 ; and for Plato J. A. Stewart, Myths of Plato, Oxford,
1905 ; and E. S. Thompson's ed. of Plato, Mnio, London, 1901,

pp. 286-297. A. C. Pearson.

TRANSMIGRATION (Indian).— The doctrine
of the transmigration of souls is in India the pre-
1114D.

2 A. Schmekel, Die Philosophie der mittleren Stoa, Berlin,
1892, pp. 250-255.

3 M. Ant. xi. 1.

4 Diels, Doxographi Greed, pp. 175, 571. 19, 587. 19, 614. 13.
B Rohde, ii. 325 n. 6 Enn. iii. 4. 2.

7 lb. iii. 2. 13. 8 76. iv. 3. 24.

9 Epist. 11. i. 51. 10 Pers. vi. 10.

U .-En. vi. 748. 12 Met. xv. 98-142, 153-258.

sumption which underlies not only Buddhism and
Jainism, but also the philosophical systems of the
Brahmans and the whole of Hinduism. In the
ancient Vedic period it had as yet no existence.
At that time the Indian peoples were still filled
with a keen delight in life, and the righteous
man looked forward to eternal continuance of
existence after death. They believed that good
men ascended to heaven to the companionship
of the gods, and there led a painless existence,
free from all earthly imperfections — a happy life,
which was usually depicted as an enjoyment of
sensual pleasures, but was yet occasionally con-
ceived in a higher spiritual sense. The necessary
consequence of this belief was the view (very
rarely expressed in the Veda) that the souls of
the wicked sank down into the abyss of hell.
This naive representation of the soul's fate after
death experienced a real change whes, suddenly
and without any transitional stages that we can
perceive, the Indian people was seized by the
oppressive belief in transmigration, which holds
it captive to the present day. The conviction that
every individual enters again after death upon a
new existence, in which he gathers the fruit of
merit earlier acquired, and has to endure the con-
sequences of sins previously committed, meets us
for the first time in a work belonging to the
second period of Indian literature, the Satapatha
Brdkmana, 'the Brahmana of the hundred ways.'
Since then this thought has been regarded in India
as a doctrine that needs no proof, which only
the adherents of a crude materialism could doubt.
It is a significant fact — to which H. Oldenberg
first drew attention — that belief in transmigra-
tion at its very first appearance in the literature
assumed the form of the harassing thought of a
continual recurrence of death. How this belief,
which lies at the root of Indian pessimism, could
take the place apparently immediately of the
innocent joy in life which greets us in the ancient
times in the hymns of the Rigveda is an inter-
esting question, but one that can be answered with
only a certain measure of probability. Certainly
the Indian doctrine of transmigration is not to be
derived from one definite source alone ; there are
undoubtedly several streams of thought, which
hardly admit of being definitely traced, but which
were distinct in their origin. In order to ascertain
the main source, we must have recourse to general
folk-lore.

Among peoples in a low stage of civilization in
very many parts of the earth there is found the
belief that the souls of men after death pass into
the trunks of trees or the bodies of animals, but
especially into the bodies of birds, reptiles, and
insects. Hence a choice is open to us between the
following alternatives. We must suppose either
that the Arj^ans of India, when they came into
closer contact with the rude aboriginal inhabitants
of the Indian peninsula, received from them the
idea of the continued existence of men in animals
and trees, and appropriated it to themselves ; or
that this conception had maintained its hold upon
the lower strata of the Aryan people themselves
from savage times, and then in an age adapted to
consti'uctive speculation thoughtful men had set
themselves to develop from it the theory of trans-
migration. The second of these two possibilities
is the more probable. Whatever vieAv, however,
may be accepted as correct, under any circum-
stances the primitive belief — whether it be that
of the Indian aboriginal tribes or that of the lower
strata of the Aryan people — gave merely the first
impulse to the formation of the doctrine of trans-
migration ; for no primitive people possesses more
than the conception of the immediate prolongation
of human existence in animals and trees. Among

TRANSMIGRATION (Jewish)

435

the Aryans of India the theory, as it meets its for
the first time in the literature, appears already fully
formed in the shape of belief in a permanently
continued but ever-changing existence. And the
diflerent forms under which the individual lives
are in their rank, and the measure of happiness
or misery which they experience is regarded as
dependent on moral conduct. At the basis of
the Indian conception of transmigration lies the
immovable conviction that there is no unmerited
happiness and no unmerited misery, that each man
shapes liis own fortune doAvn to the smallest details.
This conviction has given to the Indian people a
power to endure suffering M'hich has often enough
excited the Avonder of foreign observers.

Since the Indian recognized that no explanation
of the apportionment of happiness and misery, of
joy and sorrow, by the moral state of the individual
was to be found in the present life, he concluded
that man's fate is determined by his good and evil
deeds in a former existence. A moral qualification,
therefore, according to this view, attaches to the
soul ; and this corresponds exactly to the sum of its
good and evil deeds, and demands reward or punish-
ment in the next existence, if not in the present.

Granted, then, that we endure in the present life
the consequences of our own behaviour in the past,
the conditions must have been precisely the same
in the previous existence ; the joy and sorrow that
we experienced therein were again the consequences
of our own actions in a preceding life, and so on
without end. For that part of the individual,
therefore, which was involved in the cycle of
existences no beginning could be assigned. It
was thus that quite early in India the theory of
the endless pre-existence of the soul was developed ;
and the doctrine of the soul's eternal duration in
the future was inferred according to the law that
that which is without beginning is also endless,
and in accordance with the ancient popular view
of the permanence of personal existence in heaven.
The belief in the eternity of soul was followed by
belief in the eternal existence of the universe.

Life for the ease-loving Indian was overshadowed
by the belief in transmigration. The thought
of wandering perpetually through the bodies of
men, animals, and plants, of being compelled in
each existence to experience more pain than joy,
and perpetually to renew the pangs of death,
occasionally also to sojourn for a time in hell — this
thought must have been dreadful for the Indian.
Nor would he be sufficiently compensated by the
prospect of being able to gain heaven by his merit,
and to raise himself to divine honours. For with
the very ascent to divine honours no more than
a transitory success has been gained. Even the
gods, according to the transmigration theory, are
involved in the cycle of existence, the samsara,
and must again descend to lower forms of life
when their time comes round, that is, when the
power of former merit is exhausted through the
enjoyment of divine position and honours. The
popular gods, therefore, have ceased to be eternal and
omnipotent beings, as they were in Vedic times.

According to this view, therefore, the wheel of
existence rolls on without rest or intermission, and
hurries living creatures perpetually to renewed
suffering and renewed death. Naturally, then,
the question must have been raised whether there
is no deliverance, no release, from this constantly
renewed existence upon earth.

The hypothesis that once in the course of time
the previous deeds of a living being may meet
witli their complete reward or punishment, and
that, therefore, tlie basis for a re-birth may and
will disappear, was not made in India. According
to the Indian view, when a living being dies there
always remains a remnant of merit and guilt still

unrewarded and unpunished, from which is derived
the germ of a new existence. Even sacrifice and
deeds of piety or asceticism cannot deliver from
the necessity of renewed birth and death. In the
Satapatha Brahmana it is said that the powers
of death which pursue men from one existence to
another may be appeased by sacrificial offerings,
and that by such offerings release may be obtained
from the return of death. This thought, however,
is soon abandoned, and is supplanted by the con-
viction that no sacrifices can do more than secure
temporary happiness in higher forms of exist-
ence.

Since, then, in India it had become the supreme
aim of spiritual endeavour to find this release, the
issue could not fail to be the conviction that
success had been attained ; not by the way which
had been previously followed and which no longer
afforded inward satisfaction, but by the way of
knowledge, which, in fact, might be trodden only by
a few. In the knowledge of the essential nature
of things, which is veiled from ordinary sight, was
found the means of deliverance from the pressure
of worldly existence. This saving ' knowledge '
removes ' ignorance,' i.e. the empirical view of the
universe which is natural to man, but is mistaken
and perverted. With ignorance disappears also
desire, which fetters man to existence, and is the
cause of all action ; as, on the other hand, successful
resistance to the desires of the senses promotes the
entrance of knowledge. Saving knowledge has the
power — to use the technical Indian expression — of
' consuming the seed of works,' and so making impos-
sible for all future time a continuance of migration.

The entire course of thought as hithei'to developed
is already contained in substance in the ancient
Upanisads (q.v.). For them saving knowledge
consists in the recognition of the sole existence
of the Brahman, the soul of the universe, of the
illusory nature of the phenomenal world, and
especially of the identity of the individual soul, the
utman, with the Brahman. In what way the saving
knowledge is conceived in Buddhism, in the religion
of the Jains, and in the philosophical systems of
theBrahmans(Sahkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, Vedanta,
Vaisesika, Nyaya), must be ascertained from the
respective articles. Cf. also art. MOKSA.

Literature. — Leopold von Schroeder, Indiens Literatur
und Cultur, Leipzig, 1887 ; A. Barth, Religions of India^,
London, 1891 ; E. W. Hopkins, Iieligio7is of India, London,
1896; P. Deussen, Philonuphie der Upanishads, Leipzig, 1899,
Ensf. tr., Edinliur^h, 190t) ; A. E. Gough, Philosophy of the
Upanishads^, London, 1891 ; H. Haigh, Leading Ideas of
Hinduism, London, 1903. R. GaRBE.

TRANSMIGRATION (Jewish).— Metempsy-
chosis, or the migration of the .soul (Heb. gilgul,
'rotation' or 'cycle'), is a doctrine whicli forms
part of a system of esoteric mj'sticism tolerated
rather than approved or furthered by Judaism.
Its beginnings are difficult to trace. Whether
they were Egyptian or Indian — probably through
Gnostic or Manicha^an intermediaries — this doc-
trine, no doubt, had to accommodate itself toother
Jewish conceptions before it could be assimilated
and adopted, and it had to undergo such a profound
modification as to give to Jewish metempsychosis
a character of its own.

The belief in the migration of the soul presup-
poses tlie existence of the soul ; and a whole esoteric
system about the creation of the soul, and tlie
conception of sin and redemption, are the funda-
mental principles upon which such a doctrine must
rest. The relation between spirit and matter, soul
and body, must be determined, as must the ques-
tion of pre-existence as w*^ll as that of the finality
of soul and body. An attempt will here be made
to do justice to these problems, however succinctly.
The qnestions of punishment and reward, of God's

436

TRANSMIGRATION (Jewish)

justice and mercy, are also involved. It must be
boi"ne in mind that any theory, if it was to be
accepted by Jews, had to be subjected to a process
of close adaptation to the fundamental principles
of Judaism, and must not run counter to the Law.
Now, if migration of the soul is to be accepted as
a part of philosophic speculation concerning sin
and redemption, it has to formulate its theory in
accordance with Judaism.

I. Creation of souls. — God is the creator of
everything ; therefore souls are His creation. But
does God continue His act of creation ? Does He
continually create souls as soon as any human
being is on the point of being born ? The answer
of the believer in metempsychosis is that He does
not. His creation came to an end with the close
of the sixth day. At the beginning the souls were
created. The power of God is thus limited to
what He had done on that occasion. Before creat-
ing Adam, God had finished the creation of all the
.souls of man, but. His Avork of creation being
overtaken by the end of the sixth day, He did not
continue it, and produced only those evil spirits
which hover between the pure divine soul and the
earthly matter (the mazziqim ; see art. Magic
[Jewish]).

A distinct line of demarcation is not drawn,
however, and, as ■wdll be seen, a soul can assume
the form of a demoniacal spirit. The souls created,
then, are of a limited number, as the creation was
only a limited act, and liad to come to an end at
a definite period of time. These souls are God's
creation, not any emanation from God. This
very essential point should be remembered, for
it separates Jewish metempsychosis widely from
Buddhist. The souls at the end of the migration
are not absorbed into a kind of divine pantheistic
fluid ; they are conceived as having an individual
existence ; they live separately and fully conscious
of their individuality ; they dAvell in the heavenly
halls or in Paradise in rapt contemplation of the
divine glory ; thither they are allowed to return at
the end of their peregrination through the lower
world. The souls of the born and the unborn, of
those who have already been in the sublunar world
and of tliose who have not yet been in that world,
are dwelling together in the heavenly halls, or in the
treasury of God (Dt 32^^). No clear distinction is
made between these two categories of souls. It
is all so vague in this world of theosophic specula-
tions, and contradictions are not seldom found ;
schools of thought have sometimes blended their
teaching without any successful attempt at har-
monizing contradictory views. All that comes is
readily accepted, so long as it is not diametrically
opposed and so long as it comes as an ancient
mystical tradition. Thus the pre-existence of all
human souls affects the Messianic eschatology.
The soul of the pre-existing Messiah is fully con-
scious of its own individual pre-eminence in tiiis
world. Though a spirit, the Messiah dwells among
the other souls, and He is fully aware of the tribu-
lations of the people of Israel ; He weeps over their
sufferings and anxiously asks the angel who is in
His company when the time will arrive for His
revelation (M. Gaster, Chron. of Jerahmeel, Lon-
don, 1899, XX. 9). Moses in his ascent to heaven
sees the souls of the great and pious, of those who
have lived upon earth, and of those who are to
come to life hereafter — among others David and
Aqiba (ib.). This view is found also in the book
of Enoch and in other Apocalypses, though the
theory of migration is not there clearly connected
with it.

The one definite outcome is that no new souls
are created for each child that is born, the number
of souls being limited. Everything created has
a specific purport. Even the angels have not

been created without purpose. They are God's
messengers ; they carry out His wishes and com-
mands in the heavens above and on the earth
beneath ; above all, they are created for the pur-
pose of singing to their Master and of praising
Him in angelic choirs. Such, then, is the purpose
of the entire creation. The angelic action is typi-
cal of the human man, the highest and most perfect
creature after the angels. He must by his action
approach the divine, and his whole life must be a
long-sustained hymn of praise to God. But man,
made of the dust of the earth, cannot rise to such
perfection unless the divine soul lifts him up and
unless the divine Law guides him steadily upwards
towards heaven. His life is a constant struggle
between the grossly material inclinations inherent
in his earthly nature and the high spiritual prompt-
ings of his divine soul. According to the way in
which he inclines, his soul will become more or
less contaminated by the contact with matter ; it
will lose more and more of its spiritual lustre and
purity. For man has absolute free will ; he is
master over his own actions. This is an axiom ;
otherwise the whole principle of reward and punish-
ment has to be abandoned. And yet, with that
naive inconsistency so characteristic of this mystic
philosophy, predestination is not excluded. No-
thing happens which has not been pre-ordained,
yet no attempt is made to bridge this gulf.

2. Incarnation of souls. — The souls have been
created for a specific use ; they must enter human
bodies ; but the choice is not left to them, either
of the bodies to be selected or of the time of entry
and the time and manner of exit. As soon as a
woman conceives (see art. BiRTH [Jewish]), an
angel appears before God ■with the sperm, and God
decrees the future life of the yet unborn babe. Its
whole life is thereby determined — whether it will
be rich or poor, high-stationed or lowly, wise or
foolish, long-lived or short-lived, good or bad, pious
or wicked ; even its future helpmeet is proclaimed
in heaven to the joy and satisfaction of the heavenly
hosts. In order to obviate too glaring a contra-
diction in a later version of this legend of the
'Creation of the Child' (see Gaster, Jerahvieel,
ix. 19f. ), the moral qualifications of the future
man and woman have been omitted. The soul,
which is very reluctant to give up its heavenly
abode and enter the human body, especially if the
shell is that of a wicked one, is forcibly seized
by the angel and carried through the bliss of
heaven and the agony of hell, to see the reward
for good actions and the punishment for evil deeds.
Although the soul forgets it all with entry into
this world, yet a dim recollection remains, a sub-
conscious image, which is the guiding principle in
elementary recognition of good and evil. Every
man has within himself a standard of right and
wrong given to his soul in its premundane exist-
ence. Another version {Zohdr, li. 966 ff.) describes
the incarnation of the soul in the following manner :

God created all the souls from the beginning, in the very
form in which they would afterwards appear in this world.
He beheld them and saw that some of them would be wicked.
At the time when the soul is to descend, the Lord calls it and
says, ' Go to such and such a place.' The soul replies, ' Let me
remain here and not be defiled in that other world." The Lord
answers, ' From the beginning thou hast been created for the
purpose of getting into this world.' Then the soul submits,
and descends against its will. The Law which helps the soul
says to it, ' See how the Lord had mercy on you. He has given
you His precious pearl (the Law) to help you in this world, so
that ye may return pure.' But, if laden with sin, the soul must
obtain pur&cation so as not to be delivered to Gehinnom ; for
two rows of angels and demons are waiting for the soul ; the
good to lead to Eden and the evil spirits to Gehinnom ; and
to be saved from punishment the soul migrates from body to
body.

3. Life of the soul on earth ; migration ; defeat
of evil spirits. — Now the soul begins its course
upon earth. It must endeavour to obtain the

TRANSMIGRATION (Jewish)

437

absolute mastery over the body and not to become
its slave. In the first entry the soul is absolutely
pure and without blemish. It is not met by the
obstacle of 'original sin.' The principle upheld
throughout is that ' each man dietli by his own sin '
(Ezk 18^). But the weakness inherent in matter
soon makes itself felt, and, moreover, there are
the temptations placed in its way through the
envy and spite of the evil spirits (mazztqim), who,
though they partake of some spiritual character,
are imperfect compared with the pure soul, and
are anxious to drag it down to their o\vn level.

A still greater cause lies at the root of this
attempt of the evil spirits to lead the pure soul
away — a desire to frustrate by the means of sin
and transgression the divine plan of creation.
God has created the world and man in it for His
glory. Through trial and trouble man must win
the crown of eternal bliss. The finite number of
souls forms part of this divine plan. A term is
thereby set for man's spiritualization, for an in-
finite number of souls might make that end im-
f)Ossible of being reached. But, as there is a
imited number, it is obvious that the desired
consummation would set in as soon as the last
soul had passed through the human body, or,
rather, had entered the last human body. For
then all the souls created would have fulfilled
their mission upon earth, and all the human beings
through whom they had passed would have reached
the highest degree of moral development of which
they were capable, so that the progress of mankind
and of the world would have attained its ultimate
goal, or, to put it in the words of the mystics, tlie
Kingdom of Heaven upon earth would then be
established, the time reached for the advent of the
Messiah. Already in the Talmud the saying is
found, ' The son of David will not come before all
the souls in bodies will come to an end.' The
power of the evil spirits would then be entirely
broken, and only good would reign in the world.
The spirits, therefore, try to entice the soul and
defile it by all manner of temptation and sin. The
result is that the contaminated soul must be kept
out of the heavenly bliss, and the divine plan is
efl'ectively checked. Like a ' shell ' (q'ltfdh), the
evil spirits surround the soul, making the material
covering still more impenetrable to light and truth,
as they are clinging close to the body like an addi-
tional covering. In the later development of this
system the evil spirit 'cleaves' to the body of the
person whose soul is to be obstructed, and the spirit
is then called dibbfiq. It has entered into a more
intimate connexion with the body, and is no longer
an outer covering, or qHifdh, originating from the
'other camp,' the sitrd ahardh.

But the demons strive in vain to impede the
steady development and unfolding of God's plan.
They may delay its speedy consummation ; they
cannot indefinitely frustrate it. The soul which has
been contaminated can be purified again ; the sin
committed can be atoned for, and even liere the
means is given to the soul to achieve its own
purification. The soul retains its own conscious-
ness and is sensible to its own failings ; it realizes
the bitterness of punishment and the tragedy of
not being allowed to ascend on high and stand
again before God in its pristine purity. For it
flits about the world as a disembodied spirit,
hovering between heaven and earth, and waiting
for the chance of atonement or punishment. This
comes to it by being re-embodied, and thus the
soul migrates from one being to another. It is
not made clear, however, whether the soul in this
new incarnation remembers its former existence
or whether it realizes it wlien it is leaving this
second body, and continues its migration until all
the blemish has been eliminated. This transmigra-

tion is thus the means of defeating the work of the
evil spirits, of hastening the emptying of the
divine treasury of unborn souls, and of bringing
about the close of the cycle and the advent of the
Messiah.

4. The justice of God. — (a) Theories of rewards
and punishments. — The migration of souls is made
to serve another and still higher and more direct
purpose, the justice of God. The grave problem
which has haunted every form of faith has been :
how to reconcile the happiness of the sinner and
the trials and sutierings of the pious and good
with the justice of God. Every religion has
endeavoured to form a theodicy. Most of them
have relegated the solution of this problem to the
life after death, finding the answer in rewards
and punishments to be meted out in another world
filled with bliss and unutterable torments. Such
teaching presupposed the eternity of the soul, and
in some form or another a combination of soul and
body if the latter is to suffer the torment of hell,
unless it was supposed that the souls would con-
tinue an individual conscious existence capable of
enduring torments as well as rejoicing in heavenly
bliss. This is, however, not the place to follow
further this extremely complicated problem. It
was, after all, a subtle Avay out of the difficulty,
and it was not quite free from a possible reproach
of selfishness. The goodness of the soul or the
purity of life obtained for that individual soul
alone happiness and bliss. No one else was
directly benefited by it, except perhaps that such a
good and pious man served as an example to others.
But the world in general apparently had nothing
from him, and his virtuous life led nowhere
except to his own exaltation. Not so with the
belief in the migration of the soul. Here, upon
earth, in the sight of all, the sinner — whosoever
he might be — had to expiate his sins. Here he
had to sufl'er for the wrong committed, and here
obtain, as it were, the pass for the heavenly
regions. By this slow purification and reunion
with the other purified souls, moreover, a cycle
was completed, at the end of which the Messianic
period would begin. By his actions the whole
world would benefit, and the general progress and
welfare of mankind would be hastened and con-
summated.

Thus the soul of Adam, because he had sinned, had to begin
a period of migration through other bodies and thus pass
through David, who, by the sin which he had committed with
the wife of Uriah, impeded the complete purification of Adam's
soul. But, by its final entrj' into the last descendant, the
Messiah would also bring about the desired result meant by
the divine plan when Adam, the first man, was created.

The soul of Abel passed into Mosea, or, according to another
theory, the soul of Adam passed into Moses, who sinned at the
rock, and then into David, who sinned with Uriah's wife, and,
finally, into the Messiah, thus linking the first with the last.

There are, as it were, successive incarnations of
the same pre-existing soul, and for their sakes the
world has been created. There cannot be any
doubt that these views are extremely old. Simon
Magus raises the claim of former existences, his
soul passing through many bodies before it reaches
that Known as Simon. The Samaritan doctrine of
the taheb teaches the same doctrine of a pre-existing
soul which was given to Adam, but which, through
successive ' incarnations ' in Seth, Noah, and
Abraham, reached Moses, for whom it was origin-
ally formed and for whose sake the world had
been created. The element which is absent here
is that of migration for the purpose of purification.
The latter gives to ' migration of souls' a peculiar
character. Not only is the world perfected there-
by (tiqqiin), but the sinner expiates his sin in this
world in the new existence in which his soul re-
appears. It may enter the body of a pious man,
and by his good deeds he will cleanse the dross
still adhering to the soul and facilitate its ascent

438

TRANSMIGRATION (Jewish)

on high. If the pious sufi'er, it is only and solely
for sins committed in a previous existence, and
thus suffering is not a punishment for sins now
committed, but a ' purgatory ' for evil deeds of a
former life. The explanation of the prosperous
sinner is not quite so clear. Here use had been made
of the other doctrine of punishment and reward
after death. The sinner benefits from the good
deeds that he had performed in a previous exist-
ence. He prospers now, so that all his reward is
eaten up by him in this world, and nothing but
punishment and tortures is reserved for him in
the life after death. This presupposes that the
soul of the wicked is beyond ' redemption ' in tliis
M'orld, and is sent to Gehinnom for punishment.
This seems to be the view taken by ' the Saba ' in
the Zohdr in the passage quoted above (§ 2). The
cycle of the soul is thus broken. It is not made
quite clear how it is to be completed ; but it seems
that, according to some, a soul which has just
sunk to this lowest level of contamination, instead
of being sent to Gehinnom, becomes an evil spirit
in this world, which is anxious to enter living
bodies for torment or for that punishment which
starts from tlie lowest rung of the ladder and is to
lead up to the highest without recourse to punish-
ments in 'hell.' Such a soul becomes a dibbuq.
To exorcize it, to free it from this temporary exist-
ence as quickly as possible, and thus hasten the
new cj^cle of evolution, is a meritorious deed, a
real tiqqun, an ' improvement ' and perfection.

No attempt is made to reconcile these two
separate systems of punishment and reward ; they
are often mentioned side by side in the Zohdr and
other kabbalistic treatises. In the Targum to Ec 8^
the suti'ering of the pious and the happiness of
the wicked have already been explained in a some-
what similar manner, inasmuch as the pious
suffer for small sins in order to enter afterwards
directly into heaven, and the sinner enjoys the
fniit of some good deeds here, so that hereafter he
is to go straight to torment and punishment.

(6) Kabbalistic theory. — The kabbalist, however,
adds and superimposes the new theory of suffering
and happiness, not for sins and good deeds per-
formed in the person's lifetime, but for sins done
during previous existences. The punishment was
expected to fit the crime. Thus, if a man had
sinned by his eyes, he would be reborn blind or
suffering with his eyes, and, similarly, every other
part of the body would then be affected by the sin
committed through that part in the previous ex-
istence. Moral sins would have to be expiated in a
similar manner ; for, according to some of the oldest
and most accredited teachers, transmigration is
not limited to that from one human body to another
human body. The soul of the wicked passes also
into animal bodies corresponding with the char-
acter of the sin. In later schools the transmigra-
tion has been extended also to plants, stones, and
metals. As an example of the former it may be
stated that the soul of an adulterer passes into the
body of a female stork, for it is believed that the
storks punish adultery with death. ^ Thus an
explanation was found for the prohibition of
mixing various kinds of seeds and the cross-breed-
ing of animals, for they disturbed the normal laws
of nature and caused great suffering to the souls of
such mixed products. Similarly, the peculiar
command of marrying the deceased brother's wife
(yibbum) has its reason and justification in this
doctrine of migration. The soul of the childless
man cannot return to its source, for the soul has
remained barren and is cut short in its earthly career
before it has been able to pass through all the

1 The Heb. name for stork is hd»tdhdh, which, bj- a popular
etymology, may be explained to mean ' the chaste ' or ' the
pious.'

stages of purification. Hence the reason why the
child born was to be called ' in the name ' of the de-
ceased, though it does not follow that it must bear
the same name. In fact, the child of Ruth, which
was a ' restorer of souls ' to Naomi, did not bear
the name of Ruth's dead husband. The new-born
babe would receive the soul of the dead and cou-
tinue his earthly life.

5. Number of migrations. — There is a difference
of opinion as to how many times a soul would
migrate before it had run its entire course. The
majority of kabbalists incline to the opinion that
no soul migrates through more than three bodies.
The real course is that in which the soul has
performed the whole of the 613 commandments of
the Law, by which alone perfection is attained.
For the shortcomings in one existence the soul is
punished in the next, and then also performs some
good deeds. Others think that the soul passes
through a greater number of changes. It is held
that the fate of the soxil of the sinner is decided
after three migrations, at the end of which a
thoroughly wicked soul becomes an evil spirit — a
demon — while that of the pious may be reincar-
nated times without number. In this case the
ascent of the soul from the lower to the higher
degree of purity and perfection is asserted.

6. Various other theories ; purposes of metem-
psychosis.—It is held that builders of the Tower
of Babel were divided into three categories, which
were punished in accordance with the degree of
wickedness of which they were guilty. The first
lost the unity of language, and were dispersed
upon the face of the earth. The second — a more
daring categoiy — were changed into all kinds of
animals, and their souls were sent into animal
bodies. The third — the thoroughly wicked section
— were changed into demons. The change of the
body of Nebuchadrezzar into a wild animal, as
told by Daniel (Dn #^), lent further countenance
to the possibility of a human soul dwelling in an
animal body. The rules for slaughtering special
animals and for the blessing by which the cutting
is accompanied rest upon the same principle of
thereby possibly saving a penitent soul from dwell-
ing too long in the body of an animal. It is
liberated by a religious act which assists it in
its further migration. All this forms part of the
tiqqun, the improvement and perfection of the
world, the preparation for the Messianic rule.
The covenant before Mt. Sinai was made by God
with all the souls which He had created : ' Neither
wdth you only do I make this covenant and this
oath ; but with him that standeth here with us
this day before the Lord our God, and also with
him that is not here with us this day ' (Dt 29'""-),
for He did not speak only to those who were there,
but also to those who were not there on that day,
in their material form, i.e. in human bodies.

By this migration of good souls to good men
and contaminated souls to sinners and evil-doers a
certain afhnity of souls was established, which led
to the identification of such souls in the various
stages. As mentioned before, the soul of Abel or
of Adam was that of Moses, and the souls of the
ten brothers of Joseph became the souls of the ten
martyrs whom the legend described as contempor-
aries. In fact, this tendency of recognizing the
older souls in more recent bodies developed in the
later schools of kabbalistic speculations established
by Luria, Vital Calabrese, and others into a
regular system. Lists have been drawn up and
books have been compiled (Sepher hag-Gilgidtm,
Frankfort, 1684), in which the reincarnations of the
good and evil men of the past have been duly
recorded. Such spiritual genealogies — if we may
use such a term — have found their waj' even into
bibliographical and historical compilations. In

TRANSMIGRATION (Jewish)

439

addition to the complete reincarnation, there came
the newer doctrine of impregnation (ibbur). The
soul of a good man is sometimes not strong enough
to fight successfully the temptations of the world,
and another soul is temporarily grafted upon that
which he already possesses, so that it is made
almost unassailable. The older teaching runs that
the spiritual forces of man are regularly heightened
on Sabbath eve by the temporary addition of a
new soul, which departs with the close of the
Sabbath. In the same manner a soul is grafted
temporarily on to the pious man. The object of
all this is to hasten the perfection of the world
and the advent of the Messiah. By means of
migration the soul has fulfilled the object of its
creation — to pass through man and to lift man
higher and to bring him nearer the divine. This
doctrine, being a justification of God's ways with
men, is, at the same time, a source of comfort to
the pious, and a source of terror to the sinner. It
reconciles man to sutt'ering and trials, and at the
same time explains the hidden meaning of many
a law and ceremony which seem obscure. It is a
vindication of the divine character of the Law, for
its ultimate result is to be the rule of heaven
upon earth.

7. Date and origin. — This doctrine of migration
is nowhere to be found systematically developed.
Wherever it occurs, it is tacitly assumed as well
known, and no explanation is given in detail. It
has, therefore, been pieced together and I'econ-
structed by the present ^^Titer mostly from the
Zoharistic literature, viz. the Z6Jmr, the Z6hdr
Haddsh, and the Tiqqumm, which represents a
more or less homogeneous view on migration,
whenever it is referred to. While these are by far
the most complete writings, they are by no means
the oldest. This brings us to the question of the
date and probable origin of this doctrine among
the Jews.

All the beginnings of esoteric teachings are lost
in the mist of antiquity, and, when such doctrines
finally see the light of day, they have, as a rule,
a long history behind them. It is, therefore, a
fallacy to date the origin of metempsychosis among
the Jews from the time when it becomes known
publicly in the 9th or 10th century. The masters
of the occult science never doubted its Jewish
character or its old origin. Was it not part of
that heavenly mystery handed d.o\\n from Adam
on through all the great men of the past ? With
great ingenuity they endeavoured to find proofs
for it in the Scriptures by means of an exegesis
which was fantastic in the extreme. A few
examples will suffice. They are taken at random
from the Zohdr, and they are found in large
numbers in Manasseh ben Israel, Nishmat ifaytm,
bk. iv, chs. 8-10.

' Till thou return unto the grround ' (Gn 31^) is interpreted to
mean that the body alone returns to the ground ; the spirit,
however, is reborn.

' Naked shall I return thither ' (Job 121) ie interpreted liter-
.ally as meaning ' to the womb,' i.e. being reborn.

' The word which he commanded to a thousand generations '
(Ps 1058) is interpreted to mean that it refers to the same soul
passing through innumerable generations, for God's command
had been given once to all the souls, and these souls are re-
incarnated over and over again.

' One generation goeth, and another generation coraeth ' (Ec
l'*). The fact that the passing away of the generation is men-
tioned first is a proof that lliis must have existed before ;
otherwise it ought to read 'one generation cometh and another
generation goeth.' '

' Which are already dead more than the living which are yet
alive ' (Ec 4-) is interpreted to mean that the living are still un-
certain as to the future fate of the migration of llieir souls.

A proof of 'impregnation,' or the addition of a soul, is also
deduced from the following verses : ' Ye shall therefore separate
between the clean beast and the unclean,' etc. (Lv 20-5), mean-
ing that a clean soul shall be added, not an unclean. ' Shall
flocks and herds be slain for them, to suffice them ? ' etc. (Nu
1122), ia taken to mean the addition of souls. ' O God, the God
of the spirits of all flesh,' etc. (Nu 1622), means also those that

are added to strengthen them ' should one man sin ' whose soul
proved too weak, as it had no support. ' Doeth good to his own
soul ' (Pr 1117) means that a man attaches another soul to
himself.

The letters of the name of Ad(a)ni have been
taken as the initials for .^dam, i>avid, J/oses, and
J/essias ; hence it was proved that the soul of
Adam passed through all these. The letters
of the name M(o)sh(e)h (Moses) are the initials of
il/oses, 6'eth, and iTabel (Abel) ; hence the soul of
Abel passed through Seth to Moses. The numerical
value of the letters of the names of the ten
tribes corresponds to the numerical value of the
names of the reputed ten sages who sufi'ered
martyrdom. These examples could easily be multi-
plied from later kabbalistic literature, but they all
follow the same line of argument. There cannot,
however, be the slightest doubt that the doctrine of
metempsychosis was borrowed from other religious
systems, and is not Jewish at all. It will remain
an open question whether the denial of the resur-
rection of the dead attributed by Josephus (Ant.
XVIII. i. 4 [16]) to the Sadducees implies denial also
of reward and punishment, or whether it extended
only to the life beyond the grave, and that they be-
lieved in the reward and punishment in this world.
His allegation that they believed that the soul
died with the body is too strange to be accurate.
The vindication of God's justice would most easily
be found if it means that the soul migrates from
one body to another, as they did not deny the
divine origin of the soul. Whatever the remoter
origin of it may be, it cannot be gainsaid that
the atmosphere of Palestine was saturated with
mystical and esoteric teachings of every kind, one
among them being that of metempsychosis. The
Gnostics and Manichaeans held fast to it ; Neo-
Platonism did not deny its possibility, and thus
almost insensibly it crept into Judaism. The
Palestinian Targumim show traces of it, inasmuch
as in some places they speak of a second death (so
Dt 33^), which can only mean at least a life twice
repeated upon earth ; this is possible only if the
soul migrates from one body to another (so also
Bahya, ad loc. ; cf. also Targum to Is 22'^).
Saadya Gaon (t 942) in the 10th cent, inveighs
against such tenets, held, as he says, by a certain
Karaite sect, although it was probably rather a
mystical heterodox section of Kabbanite Jews
who believed also in the migration of souls. A
few centuries later Abraham Bedaresi (1280), a
rationalist philosopher, in his letter to R. Solomon
ben Adreth, no. 8, protested against this doctrine ;
but they were the only opponents, for the wave of
mysticism was rising steadily with the narrowing
of the political outlook and the change of social
conditions. With the appearance of the Z6hdr
the older kabbalistic literature was pushed into
the background, and many an ancient mystical
treatise was forgotten, unless it became embedded
in the Z6hdr — e.g., the treatise by ' the Saba,' ' the
venerable' (i.e. Rab. Hamnuna), in the form of
a commentary on the Biblical section ' 3Iishpdttm,'
Ex 22, which is found now in the Zuhdr Ex
94*-114*. In older writings, Qdnd and Bdhir, and
in those of Nahmanides (1263), R. Solomon ben
Adreth (c. 1300),' and Isaac of Akko (c. 1330), faint
traces of this doctrine can be detected. They
show that in these mystic schools echoes of the
older theory of metempsychosis had been heard
and roctorded. Whenever referred to, it is always
an ancient tradition. Since the 13th cent, the
Zohdr has swayed the mind of the larger section
of a Jewry despondent and broken by ruthless
persecution.

The dark Middle Ages began for the Jews when
they came to an end for the other nations in
Europe. The writings of Rekanati (14th cent.)

440

TRANSMIGRATION (Teutonic)

and Bahya (14th cent.) prepared the way for the
development.

Palestine — in a lesser degree the adjoining
Babylon — seems to have been throughout the centre
of mystical speculations. Thither Nahmanides had
gone, and a great school flourished in Akko for
some centuries from the 12th onwards. The flow
of the Spanish emigrants at the end of the 16th
cent, was also towards Palestine. In Safed there
arose the school of Luria (1534-72 ; commonly
known by the initials of his name Ari = i?abbi
/saac ^shkenazi), Vital Calabrese, Cordovero,
Poppers, and others. Among other doctrines, they
developed, in the writings Kavvandth, 'Es Haytni,
etc., much further the tenets of metempsychosis as
a punishment for the wicked and an exalted re-
incarnation for the pious. The tiqqun, or improve-
ment of tlie world by delivering souls from the
chain of migration, became one of the prominent
features of this school, which led to that of the
Hasidim. Remarkable legends of such deliver-
ance are henceforth told. Every pious and great
kabbalist performed them, none, however, so
etiectively as the master Luria himself. The
history of the deliverance of such a soul in Safed
is one of the most vivid autobiographies of a
' wandering soul ' (first published in the 'Emeq
ham-Melekh of Naplitali Herz, Amsterdam, 1648).
The belief that certain persons are the gilfjul of
other persons who had lived before them is still
strongly held by those to whom the Zohdr is an
inspired book and the teaching of divine revela-
tion. This belief strengthens in them the concept
of God's righteousness, and the conviction that, if
the time were hastened for all the created souls to
pass through the human body, the advent of the
Messiah and the Kingdom of God upon earth
would be hastened.

Literature. — The books mentioned in the course of this
attempt at a synthetical exposition of the doctrine of nieteno-
p33'chosis — the first of its kind — form the only literature that
can profitably be mentioned. Manasseh ben Israel, Nishmat
Haylm, bk. iv., treats it apologetically. A. Franck, La
KabbaleS, Paris, 1S92 ; A. Jellinek, Beitr. zur Gesch. der
Kabbala, Leipzig, 1S51-52 ; D. H. Joel, Sohar, Leipzig, 1849,
have incidentally, of course, referred briefly also to this
apparently unimportant section of kabbalistic Zoharistic specu-
lation. See also literature to art. Kabbala.

"NL Gaster
TRANSMIGRATION (Teutonic).— It is clear
that the doctrine of metempsychosis was held by
the early Teutonic peoples, though the amount of
evidence is limited and for the most part dates
from a time when heathen beliefs, if not forgotten,
were at least misunderstood. Such evidence as
exists is chiefly derived from Scandinavian records.
The only reference in early poetiy is to be found
in Sigur^arkviha hinn skamma, 45, where Hogni
refuses to hold Brynhild back from self-destruc-
tion :

' Let no man stay her from the long journey, and may she
never be born again (aptrborin).'

More striking evidence for the belief is furnished
by the prose passages contained in Helgakvi]>a
Hjorvar'Qssonar and HelgakvVpa Hundingsbana, ii.
At the end of the former it is said that Helgi
and Svdva, the hero and heroine, were born again
(endrborin) ; in the latter we are told that the
heroine Sigiiin was Svdva reincarnate, and later
that both she and her husband Helgi Hundingsbani
were born again as Kdra and Helgi Haddingjas-
kati. A reference is given to KdraljdS, a poem
now unfortunately lost, which dealt with the
adventures of these persons. Moreover, in the
Gautreks Saga, c. vii., StarkatSr is reviled as an
endrborinn jotunn, a * giant ' reincarnate ; his
grandfather StarkaSr is said to have been & jotunn
(c. iii.).

With the introduction of Christianity metem-
psychosis came at last to be regarded as ' an old

wives' tale.' For a time it still survived among
the half-heathen population : to his horror St.
Olaf found himself regarded as the reincarnation
of a legendary king, one Olafr GeirstaSarAlfr
{Flateyjarbok, ii. 135).

It is not to be overlooked that in all these cases
the men — though not the women — bear the same
names in each incarnation. As among certain
primitive peoples of the present day, the name is
regarded as something more than a mere label ; it
is intimately connected with the soul of its pos-
sessor, so that a child inheriting the name of a dead
person necessarily inherits the soul as well. An
interesting reference to this belief may be cited
from Flateyjarbok, i. 255 : Thorsteinn Uxafot, a
follower of Olafr Tryggvason, is visited in a dream
by the ghost of a man called Brynjarr ; it bestows
a treasure on him and asks in return that one of
Thorsteinn's children should be baptized under the
name Brynjarr, since it desires a Christian rein-
carnation for its heathen soul.

In the Islendinga Sogur there are no actual
references to metempsychosis, though the practice
of naming children after lately deceased kinsmen
[Njals Saga, ch. 89, Eyrbyggja Saga, ch. 12,
Laxdcela Saga, chs. 36, 56) points to the existence
of some such belief. But the passage in Sturhinga
Saga, ix. 42 — ]>6tte Ipeim nu Kolbeinn aptr kominn
ok endrborinn — is no true instance of this kind,
since Thorgils BoSvarsson, referred to here, was
bom in 1226, nineteen years before the death of
Kolbeinn Arnorsson, of whom he seemed to be the
reincarnation. To the present day, however, it is
believed in Norway and Iceland that, if a ghost
appears to a pregnant woman in her sleep, it is
seeking a namesake (gaar efter Navnet) ; and ac-
cordingly the child is baptized with the name of
the dead person (cf. K. Maurer, Zeitschrift des
Vereins fur Volkskunde, v. 99). Sophus Bugge,
moreover, states that he had heard reise upp atte
('raise up again') used in the west part of Tele-
marken with reference to the naming of a child
after a dead person (Home of the Eddie Poems,
London, 1899, p. 333).

Among the other Teutonic peoples the evidence
for anything in the nature oi metempsychosis is
very meagre. An Anglo-Saxon charm (T. O.
Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft
of Early England, London, 1864-66, iii. 66 tf. ; C.
W. M. Grein, Bibliothek der angelsdchs. Poesie,
Gottingen, 1857-65, i. 326 fi'.) advises a woman who
cannot bring forth a child to step thrice over tlie
grave of a dead man, using an incantation for the
safe delivery of her offspring. It is a question
much in need of investigation whether the same
idea can be traced in certain usages said to be
practised in connexion with burial-places of the
heathen age in various parts of Northern Europe.

It may be mentioned in conclusion that Appian
(Hist. Rom. iv., * de Rebus Gallicis,' 3) describes the
Germans who followed Ariovistus as 'scorning
death because of their hope of rebirth' (davarov
KaTa(ppovr)Tal bi iXirlda dva/Siciitrews). In view of
what is said of the Gauls by Diodorus, v. 28, and
Lucan, Pharsalia, i. 454 tf. (with the scholia), it
is not unlikely that the reference here is to a
belief in metempsychosis, though one cannot
deny the possibility that Appian's statement may
be due to a misunderstanding of the Valhalla
doctrine.

Literature. — G. Storm, Arkivfor Nordisk Filolopi, ix., new
ser., V. [1892] 199-222 ; K. Maurer, Zeitschr. des Vereins fiir
Volkskunde, V. [1895] 98 ff.; P. Herrmann, Nordische Mytho-
logic, Leipzig, 1903, pp. 35-37 ; O. L. Jiriczek, ' Seelenglauben
und Namengebung," in ilitt. der Schles. Geselhch. fiir Volks-
kunde, i. 3 [Breslau, 1895] 30-35. BRUCE DiCKINS.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION.— See Eu-

CHARIST.

TRAPPISTS— TRAVANCORE

441

TRAPPISTS. — Trappists is the popular name
for the Reformed Cistercians, or Cistercians of the
Strict Observance, now the chief division of the
order.

The art. MoNASTiciSM ^ outlines the successive
reforms named after Benedict, Cluny, Citeaux.
By 1600 the Cistercians themselves had yielded to
the spirit of luxury, despite the restoration in
Spain promoted by Martino de Vargas, Though
Richelieu and Mazarin furthered many attempts to
recall them to the letter of their vows, and though
their centralized constitution might have facili-
tated this, a general reform was refused. Here
and there a few abbeys did return to the ideals
of St. Stephen Harding, the Jansenist reform of
St. Cyr and of Port Royal being well knoAvn.
Armand-Jean le Bouthillier de Ranc6 (1626-1700),
abbot in commenclam of La Trappe from the age
of ten, abandoned court life in 1662 and entered
one of the reformed abbeys as a novice. Two
years later, having again professed, he came to
take charge of his own inaccessible Norman abbey.
Finding that the few monks had not shared his
experience and would not share his ideals, he
pensioned them off" and colonized the place from
other reformed abbeys. The community improved
on the original austerities, taking only one vege-
tarian meal daily, abstaining from literature and
from speech except for urgent purposes. The
ideals were published by de Ranc6 in his Traite de
la saintet6 et des devoirs de la vie monastique ( 1683),
and in his posthumous R^glemens g6n6raux de
Vabbaye de la Trappe (1701); but only a single
community of nuns and two Italian monasteries
adopted them. For a centuiy they were unim-
portant, though other Reformed Cistercians under-
took missions to Africa which had some temporary
success.

The French Revolution broke up the home ; the
abbey was suppressed, and the premises were con-
verted into a foundry for cannon. This was the real
birth of the order. In 1791 Dom Augustine de
Lestrange, master of the novices, took a score of
monks to Val Sainte, Switzerland, imposing a rule
stricter than ever ; postulants flocked in ; colonies
were sent to many lands ; a congregation was
formed, and Dom Augustine was appointed father
abbot. When the Trappists were hunted to
Poland, Germany, and Italy, their zeal only in-
creased. A nunnery was formed at Stapehill near
Wimborne ; a party of monks that wandered
through Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Missouri, and
Illinois returned to France on the fall of Napoleon,
occupying La Trappe and Belle Fontaine ; presently
five priories were established in France, and a
great college at Soligni. Before his death in 1827
Dom Augustine saw abbeys grow up in Belgium
and Italy, besides two more in France. One was
founded at Coalville in Leicestershire and named
after the great Bernard. The cowl of his friend
Alberic was taken in 1848 by an expedition from
La Meilleraye in Brittany, which settled in Ken-
tucky at an abbey named Gethsemane. Mount
JNlelleray in Ireland sent another colony to
Dubuque in Iowa, and botli establishments thrive,
though all the fathers are aliens. A second Irish
abbey arose at Roscrea in Co. Tipperary.

Outward disasters again intensified the spiritual
life. La Trappe was destroyed by fire in Aug.
1871 ; 1450 fathers and brothers were again ex-
pelled from France in 1880 ; but the austere ideals
were embraced by nearly all Cistercians outside
Austria - Hungary. After two constitutional
changes they were formally recognized in 1892
as the Order of Reformed Cistercians, with an
abbot-general at Rome ; and this success was
crowned six years later by the purchase of the
1 Vol. viu. p. 792 f.

original premises of Citeaux. In 1903 they were
expelled from France in common with most other
congregations ; two communities went to Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick, one to Oregon, one
to Brazil ; two tiny groups have taken refuge near
Kingsbridge and Salisbury. Belle Fontaine has
endeavoured to uphold the agricultural ideals of
St. Benedict, especially by its Canadian offshoots
at La Trappe, where the Ottawa joins the St.
Lawrence, at Lake St. John, and in Manitoba.
No establishment in England offers even to its co-
religionists any educational, medical, or philan-
thropic service. Settlements in Japan, China,
Syria, Asia Minor, Algeria, Belgian Congo, and
Natal have undertaken mission work, but no im-
partial observer has any tiling to say as to results.
The finest Protestant tribute is that an abbey is ' an
asylum for the poor and helpless, the shipwrecked,
the conscience-stricken, and the broken-hearted.'^

Attached to each of the 71 monasteries and
annexes is a body of brothers who do the rougher
field work ; in all there are about 2000 of these,
and 1600 professed fathers. Twenty-one priories
contain 2000 nuns and lay sisters. Three Italian
monasteries still follow the rule of de Ranee as
once used at La Trappe, but do not belong to the
Reformed Cistercians ; they have only 50 members.

Literature. — A. F61ibien, Description de I'Ahbaye de la
Trappe, Paris, 1671; P. de Maupeou, Vie diL Phre A. J. Le
Boutliillier de Ranci'^, 2 vols., do. 1709; J. Marsollier, Vie de
dom Annand Jean le Bouthillier de Ranci, abbe de la Trappe,
2 vols., do. 1703 ; P. H61yot and M. Bullet, Uist. des ordres
monastiques religieux et lailitaires, do. 1860 (orig. ed. 1714-19),
vol. vi. ch. i. ; Dictionnaire des ordres relitjieuz, ed. M. L.
Badiche, 4 vols., do. 1858-59 (forming ser. i. vols, xx.-xxiii.
of J. P. Jligne, Encyclopedie thiologique, do. 1844-66); F.
Pfannenschmidt, Illustrisrte Gesch. der Trappisten, Paderborn,
1873 ; Use of the Cistercian Nuns of the Strict Observance of Our
Lady of La Trappe, London [1886] ; J. L. Allen, in Century
Magazine, new ser., xiv. [1888] 483-496 ; M. Hartry, Trium-
phalia Chronologica Monasterii S. Crucis in Hibernia, ed. D.
Murphy, Dublin, 1891 ; Hyacinthe de Charencey, Cartulaire
de I'abbaye de Notre-Dame de la Trappe, Paris, 1891 ; Us de
I'ordre des cisterciens riformis pr^cid4 de la rigle de S. Benoit
et des constitutions, Westmalle, 1895 ; C. F. R. de Montalem-
bert. The Monks of the West, Eug. tr., 6 vols., London, 1896;
Abregi de I'histoire de I'urdre de Citeaux par un invine de
Thymadeuc, St. Brieuc, 1897 ; Odyssie monastique Dom A .
Lestrange et les Trappistes pendant la Rivolution, Iniprimerie
de la Grande Trappe, 1898 ; Les Trappistes au Japon [Hong-
kong, 1899] ; L'abbaye de Notre-Dame du La/^ et I'ordre de
Citeaux au Ca7iada et dans les Etats-Unis, Montreal, 1907;
Max Heimbucber, Die Orden U7id Kongregationen der kathol.
Kirche'i, 3 vols., Paderborn, 1907-08 ; Wetzer-Welte-, s.v. ;

PRE-^ s.v. w. T. Whitley.

TRAVANCORE. — Travancore (Malayalam
Tiruvitankur, ' place where the goddess of pros-
perity resides '), a native state in the extreme
south-west of the Indian peninsula, takes its name
from Tiruvankod, 30 miles south of the capital,
Trivandrum.

' It has been truly remarked that " it will be difficult to name
another land which, within so narrow limits, combines so many,
so varied, and such precious natural blessings." ' ^

%. History. — Travancore is said to have formed
part of the ancient kingdom of Kerala. During
the 11th cent. A.D. it was conquered by the Cholas ;
in the 13th cent, it was invaded by the Pandyas of
Madura. The present kingdom was founded in
the first half of the 18th cent, by Martanda Varma,
and in 1795 it became a protected state under the
British Government. Since then it has enjoyed
prosperity under a well-regulated government,
and it has been conspicuous for the maintenance
of order, religious toleration, and encoui-agement
of education.

2. Area and population.— The area of the state
is 7593 sq. miles, and the total population at the
census of 1911 was 3,428,975, of whom 938% are
rural and 6'2% urban. The density of the popula-
tion is high : 452 per sq. mile for the whole area,
and 686 if mountains, lakes, and forests are ex-

1 J. L. Allen, Century Magazine, new ser., xiv. 484.

2 IGI xxiv. 2 1.

442

TRAVANOORB

eluded. The people are of the usual S. Indian
Dravidian type, and they preserve many character-
istic usages, in particular the matriarchal forms of
the household and system of marriage.

' Among the Maruiiiakkata.yom [Malayalam maru, ' next,'
' other,' makkal, ' children,' tdyarn, ' portion '] Hindus the
familv is matriarchal, i.e., traces its descent from a common
ancestress. The Tarwad [Mala.v.\Iam taravdtu, tara, ' \iUa.ge,'
pdtu, 'place'], as the farailj' is called, consists of brothers and
sisters and the descendants of the latter along the female line.
The eldest male member, called the Karanavan ['originator'],
manages the Tarwad. In such a system the wives and children
of the male members have no place. It may happen, however,
that a Karanavan may be allowed to bring in his wife and
children to live in the Tarwad, but this is not necessary, nor
have they any legal status in the family. The male members
who are married usually visit their wives in the houses of the
latter. When, however, under modern conditions, they feel
able and inclined to support themselves, living apart from the
Tarwad, thej' settle with their wives in houses of their own. In
this way the putting up of separate homesteads receives a
stimulus. But the Tarwad, as such, is split up only when a
partition takes place with the consent of all the members.
Among Makkatayom Hindus the joint family does not generally
continue single after the lifetime of the parent, especially the
male parent. At the death of the father the sons divide and go
and live in separate houses with their wives and children, the
mother residing with one of the sons in the original household.
The unmarried sons, if any, usually live with the mother. In
regard to the Namputiri Brahmaps, however, the eldest son
alone marries, the other sons living with him in the family.' i

The chief castes are the Nayar ([q.v.] honorific
plural of Nayan ; Skr. ndyaka, ' leader ') number-
ing 592,655, best known on account of their peculiar
marriage customs. ^ The Izhuvans or lUavans,
who take their name from Izham, the Malayalam
name for Ceylon, are immigrants from that island,
cultivate coco-nut and palmyra palms, make
the drink known as toddy (Skr. tala, 'the
palmyra tree'), and distil country spirits; they
number 546,265. The Pulayans (pula, ' pollution '),
numbering 185,314, are agricultural labourers.
The Channan or Shanan CTamil sham, ' toddy ')
cultivate the palmyra palm and make coarse sugar.
Brahnians number 55,643 ; among them the most
remarkable are the Namburi, Nambutiri, or Nam-
budri (Malayalam namhu, 'the Veda'; othu, 'to
teach ' ; tiri, Skr. kri, ' holy '), who aim at following
the original Vedic rites and practise elaborate rules
of puriiication, while they allow the younger sons
of the family to enter into polyandrous relations
with Nayar women.

3. Religion. — Classified by religion, the popula-
tion consists of : Hindus, 2,282,617, 66-57 % ; Chris-
tians, 903,868, 26-36%; Muhammadans, 226,617,
6-61%; animists, 15,617, "46%; Jews, Buddhists,
and Jains, 100.

(a) Hindus. — Of the triad, Brahma, Visnu, Siva,
the cult of Visnu is most popular ; in the form of
Ananta Padmanabha ('the endless, from whose
navel springs the lotus') he is the patron deity of
the state, with a famous temple at the capital
Trivandrum, which is visited by crowds of pilgrims.
Among the minor deities the following are the
chief: Vighnesvara ('obstacle Lord '), the Ganesa
or Ganapati of other parts of India ; Subhramanya,
Skanda, Karttikeya, or Velayudha, like Ganesa a
son of 6iva, the guardian who protects the helpless
and punishes the wicked — a cult special to the
Tamil and Malayalam peoples; Sasta ('ruler'),
Aiyappan or Aiyanar ('honourable father'), the
most popular minor deity, chief of the ghosts
(bhuta), who rides over the land mounted on a
horse or elephant, sword in hand, to disperse all
obnoxious spirits. Besides these the lower classes
worship a host of godlings or minor spirits, male
and female, the females attendants of the goddess
Bhadrakali, the males classed as followers of Siva.

1 Census of India, 1911, vol. xxiii. pt. i. p. 41.

2 H. H. Risley, The People of India'i, London, 1915, p. 206 fl. ;
L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, The Cochin Tribes and Castes,
London, 1912-13, ii. 22 ff.; V. Nagam Aiya, Travancore State
Manual, ii. 352 ff. ; E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of S. India,
Madras, 1909, v. 307 ff. ; E. Westermarck, The Hist, of Human
Marriage, London, 1891, pp. 116 f., 452 f.

{b) Christians. — These show a notable increase,
from 498,542 in 1881 to 903,868 in 1911. The Hindu
compiler of the Travancore Census Report for 1911
writes :

' It may be remarked here that the degeneration of the socio-
economic institution of caste that showed itself in the seques-
tration and neglect of the labouring classes, the indifference of
lay and ecclesiastical Hindu bodies in the matter of the
preservation of their faith as a living force in the intellectual
and moral life of the people, the atmosphere of unsuspecting
toleration one breathes on all sides, the great symjjathj' and
help accorded by the rulers of the State, the stains which the
religion itself enjoys, and last but not least, the self-sacrificing
zeal and devotion of the missionaries as a class and of the
pioneers in particular — all these gave vigour to the work and
assured the results. While natural increase has been unsteady
and irregular, propagandist activity has been such as to make
it difficult to reduce to definite proportions the augmentation
which it succeeds in bringing about— so rapid and great it has
been.'l

The following are the details of the Christian
population : Syro-Roman, 293,407 ; Syrian Jaco-
bite, 202,059; Roman Catholic, 173,724; Con-
gregation al is t, 81,573 ; Reformed Syrian, 74,866 ;
Anglican, 56,251; Salvationist, 16,794. The
Church Missionary Society commenced work in
1816, the London Missionary Society in 1806, the
Salvation Army in 1891.

(c) Muslim^s. — Muhammadan missionaries are
said to have visited Malabar as early as A.D. 710,
and the story of the conversion of the last of the
Perumals suggests that traders from Arabia arrived
as early as the 8th cent. A.D.^ In more recent
times, under the rule of Haidar 'Ali and Tipti
Sultan of Mysore (A.D. 1761-99), compulsory
proselytism added large numbers to the faith.
The present Muhammadans are either indigenous,
immigrants from the Coromandel Coast, or recent
settlers from Arabia, Sindh, Gujarat, Kachh, or
Bombay, who came for purposes of trade. The
first differ little from the Hindu population except
in matters of belief. Those who were converted
by the Mu.salman kings of Mysore are known as
Moplah (Malayalam Mappila, probably 'great
child,' an honorary title conferred on converts), or
Jonaka, Shonaga, a corruption of Yavana, ' Greek.'
The Moplahs are notorious fanatics, and in several
cases bodies of them have fiercely resisted British
troops. The Mettan are descendants of old Musal-
man merchants and of their converts. The Tuluk-
kan (Skr. Turashka, 'Turk') belong to the
immigrant class.

(d) Animists. — Animism prevails widely among
the hill tribes. Spirits (chdvu, chdvar, 'death,'
' the dead ') are invoked by those afflicted with
disease or sufi'ering from starvation, a long string
of the names of ancestors being recited. These
spirits are of two kinds: (1) those who have met
with a violent death from wild animals ; (2) those
who have died before the age of seven. Tliey are
propitiated by animal sacrifice and oblations of
spirituous liquor on a platform erected for the
purpose. The forest spirits must be propitiated
before a tree is cut, and special patches of the
forest are left uncut because they are supposed to
be inhabited by some spirit. The hill people also
worship godlings who possess neither priests nor
temples, the oldest member of the family offering
sacrifices and oblations to trees in wliich they are
believed to dwell. Totemism has not been recog-
nized among the hill tribes, but they respect the
cow and will not kill the elephant, the veliicle and
manifestation of 6asta. In November-December,
the harvest season, they worship their weapons
and tools, bows, arrows, sickles, and knives.

Literature. — N. Subrahmanya Aiyar, Census of India,
1901, vol. xxvi., Travancore, Trivandrum, 1903, Census of India,
1911, vol. xxiii., do. 1912; V. Nag-am Aiya, Travancore State
Manual, 3 vols., do. 1908 ; G. Oppert, Original Inhabitants

1 Census of India, 1911, vol. xxiii. pt. i. p. 195.
2/6. p. 104 fl.

TREATIES

443

of Bhdratavaria or India, London, 1893 ; S. Mateer, Native
Life in Travancore, do. 1SS3, The Land of Chanty, do. 18 a.

•^ W. Crooke.

TREASON.— See Crimes and Punishments.

TREATIES.— I. Their place in international

law and ethics.— The history of treaties, as formal
agi-eements between nations, ratihed by the
respective governments, throws some light on the
development of international ethics ; and the for-
mulae and ceremonies connected with the sanctions
employed at various times, to give validity to the
pacts, are of interest to the historian of religion.
Throughout the whole of antiquity the gods pre-
sided over all treaty-making, and the oath was a
predominant factor; the transition from ancient
to modern times is marked by a steady decline of
this religious element. For the present purpose
the juristic aspect of treaties may be ignored.
But it is necessary to deline their general position
in regard to law. They belong to the sphere of
what is known as ' international law ' ; but the
rules known as international law 'lie on the
extreme frontier of law,' ^ and it is only more con-
venient, not necessarily more correct, to treat
them as a branch of law rather than of morals.
The difficulty of regarding them as properly a
branch of law lies in the fact that there is no fixed
authority (unless it be a universal League of
Nations) that can lay down and enforce these rules
as between nations, and the rules are liable to be
broken with impunity by any nation that has the
power and the will to defy them. No pact between
two nations can bind a third which was not a con-
senting party. But treaties, which are one of the
most important means by which ' international law '
is laid down, are valuable as a record of the develop-
ment of morality, for the very reason that they
' express national opinion in a peculiarly deliber-
ate and solemn manner.' 2 The history of treaties
accordingly illustrates the growing sense of nations
—which, by a legal hction or a bold metaphor, are
moral persons*— for morality in international
relations. It also illustrates the constant struggle
to discover some means of enforcing the observance
of pacts.

' Upon a scrupulous fidelity in the observation of Treaties,
not merelv in their letter but in their spirit, obviously depends,
under God, the peace of the world. Pacta sunt servanda is
the pervading maxim of International, as it was of Roman
Law.' 4

In the earliest times of which we have record this
fidelity Avas reinforced by religious ceremonies,
calling of the gods to witness, with oaths and im-
precations.^ In modern times these religious
appeals, as also the giving of pledges, hostages,
and the like, have generally fallen into desuetude
except in the case of treaties with savages, and
the observance of treaties has been left to the con-
science of the parties ; but, as this could no more
be relied upon than when it required to be fortified
by oaths, one of the chief objects of treaties in
modern times has been the establishment of a
balance of power in one form or other, so as to
make the violation of them a risky undertaking.
Finally, the impossibility of obtaining permaiient
equilibrium between groups of nations has raised
the question of a universal League of Nations,
which, in the form which it has assumed in the
Treaty of Versailles of 1919, may be regarded as
the highest development that the treaty has so
far reached, since, by creating a determinate
authority capable of enforcing the rules, it seeks

1 W E Hall, Treatise of International Lav/*, Oxford, 1895,
p. 17.

2 /6. p. 9. . . , .
s De Garden, Hist, ginirale des traMs de patx, vol. 1. p. n.
•* R. J. Phillimore, Commentaries upon International Law,

ii. 56.
s See artt. Oath.

to merge international law and (so far as law can
make men moral) international morality in one.
Previously to this treaty, little had been done in
this direction beyond the general recognition that
promises and signatures are futile, and that the
only security lies in ' the establishment of a just
and stable order.' ^ But how to ensure that the
wrongdoer who, feeling himself strong enough,
wantonly violates his word and destroys the peace
of the world or breaks the laws of war shall be
punished has seemed an insoluble problem, since
liis very act implies an assurance of impunity.
W. G. F. Phillimore suggested * that each state
that is a party to a treaty should contract with
each and every other state that is a party, that,
in the event of war between it and any other state
that is a party to the treaty, it will observe to-
wards the state with which it is at war all the
agreed rules of the laws of war ; and, if the rules
are violated, then any other state party to the
treaty may consider it an offence against itself
that the law has been violated, such violation being
considered an indirect injury, by reason of the
lowering of the standard of conduct. The weak
point of this arrangement is that interference on
the side of law and order is merely permissive ; it
requires to be made imperative, and its scope
extended so as to cover the maintenance of the
peace of nations, and not merely the observance of
the laws of war.

It is generally agreed that 'international morality — if not
international law— calls upon every State to use every means at
its disposal, without giving offence— tor example, friendly sug-
gestion, moral suasion— to prevent the outbreak of war, or,
when it has begun, to help the contending parties to compose
their differences. A war between two nations directly or
indirectly concerns all nations, members as they are of the
international community. There is not and there cannot be
any principle of law, of ethics or of religion, prohibiting peace-
ful" States from doing their utmost to bring about a cessation
of carnage and devastation.' 3

The League of Nations converts this negative into
a positive injunction to interpose, and removes
the offence from the most forcible methods of doing
so. For art. 16 of the Covenant of the League
declares that any resort to war in breach of its
covenants by a member of the League is an act of
war against aU other members, which is to be met
by a complete severance of relations of every kind,
personal, financial, and commercial, with the
oliender, supported by the necessary military force.
The provisions of this article may even be extended
to cover the case of a state which is not a member
of the League and refuses, in the case of a dispute,
to adopt the obligations of membership. It is
obvious that even this machinery will nut suffice
to suppress the ambitious of a state that feels
itself strong enough to defy the greater part of the
world ; but it is equally obvious that such a state
will be less ready to take the plunge than it would
be if no such machinery existed.

Although the experience of the Great War of
1914-18 dashed the high hopes which were enter-
tained as a result of The Hague Conferences of
1899 and 1907, it is unreasonable to regard those
proceedings as a mere 'misprint in the world's
history.' They were attended by the representa-
tives of nations so numerous and so important
tliat it was possible to say that in the result of
their deliberations ' we have what may be regarded
as the common judgment of mankind expressed in
the most solemn manner in which an international
engagement between nations is capable of expres-
sion '"on such vital questions as the desirability of
substituting arbitration for war.'* For the first
time, too, an international court was established
1 \V. Q. F. Phillimore, Three Centuries of Treaties of Peace,
p. 146.
■•J lb. p. 167.

3 Coleman Phillipson, Termination of Mar, p. 75.
* Choate, The Two Hague Conferences, p. 34.

444

TREATIES

to give effect to the principle agreed upon by the
conference. Now it is true that this solemn judg-
ment was abrogated by the wanton action of a
single one among the signatories, and the whole
fabric of international relations tottered. But
the foundation remains, to which The Hague Con-
ferences contributed certain elements of solidity, if
only by producing unanimity among a greater
number of nations than had ever before been
parties to a treaty. Such unanimity was secured
again among an even greater number, and, when a
fresh start was made in 1919, the problem of secur-
ing adequate sanction for the engagements between
the nations by means of a League of Nations was
attacked with the more insight and chance of suc-
cess, because it was known wherein the old con-
ferences had failed.

Among the chief reasons for the failure of treaties
to preserve the peace are the misconception of
their object as the termination of war merely, and
not also the establishment of permanent peace,
and the lack of elasticity in their terms. If they
are drawn merely to settle the questions out-
standing at the time, without care being taken not
to sow the seeds of fresh conflict by imposing harsh
conditions, restraining progress and liberty and
ignoring the claims of the peoples concerned, they
do little more than temporarily suppress forces
which break out with the greater violence at the
first opportunity. For tlie same reason, they
should not be so rigidly drawn as to prevent recon-
sideration in the light of new conditions, and
should include the necessary machinery for such
reconsideration. ^

2. Historical development: antiquity. — (a) The
earliest treaties of which we have any detailed
record relate to the two cities of Lagash and
Umma, on either side of the Shatt-el-Hai in Baby-
lonia.^

Entemena, patesi of Lagash (about 2S50 B.C.), records an
arbitration of earlier date in the time of Mesilim, king of
Akkad. The actual patesis of Lagash and Umma are not
named ; the dispute is settled by the gods ; the god Enlil pre-
sides over the conference and invites the parties to make the
treaty ; the boundary Is fixed at his command by Ningirsu, god
of Lagash, and by the city -god of Umma ; even Mesilim acts only
at the command of his goddess Kadi. This is obviously an
extreme instance of the religious sanction ; the parties are sup-
posed to live and move and have their being entirely in their
local gods.

A second treaty between the same two cities was made about
2900 B.C. by Eannatum, patesi and king of Lagash, and Ena-
kalli, patesi of Umma. A great boundary-ditch was dug, and
the pMn of Gu-edin, which was In dispute, was restored to
Ningirsu, god of Lagash. Shrines to Enlil, Ningirsu, and other
gods were erected along the new frontier beside the pillars of de-
limitation, and it was doubtless at the altars of these shrines
that the parties took oaths in ratifying the treaty: 'On the
men of Umma have I, Eannatum, cast the great net of Enlil.
I have sworn the oath, and the men of Umma have sworn the
oath to Eannatum." He invokes the vengeance of Enlil on the
men of Umma if they ' alter this word.' He also invokes other
gods, to whom he has made suitable offerings, to enforce the
treaty.

In the third treaty, the terms of which were imposed on
Umma by Entemena of Lagash (about 2850 B.C.), we have a
similar imprecation : ' If the men of Umma ever violate the
boundary-ditch of Ningirsu or that of Nina, in order to lay
violent hands on the territory of Lagash . . . then may Enlil
destroy them, and may Ningirsu cast over them his net, and
set his hand and foot upon them.' The Imprecations recall
those which are invoked on the violators of Babylonian boundary-
stones ; naturally the same means were employed to secure
the validity of legal engagements of all kinds.

(b) The famous treaty between Rameses II. and
Khetasar (Hattusil), prince of the Hittites (c. 1300
B.C.), is recorded in three copies, of which two are
hieroglyphic, at Karnak and in the Ramesseum,
while the third is the Hittite-Babylonian version,
or rather fragments of two copies thereof, from
Boghaz Keui.* Two Hittite envoys brought the

1 Graham Bower, in Grotitis Soc. Papers, iii.

2 L. W. King, Hiit. of Sumer and Akkad, London, 1910, pp.
101 ff., 126 ff., 164 ff.

3 R. von Scala, Die Staatsvertrdge, i. no. 13 ; Mitt, der deutsch.
Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin, no. 35, p. 13 ff. ; J. H. Breasted,

text of the treaty written on silver tablets, the
design of which is described :

On one side 'a figure in the likeness of Setekh, embracing
the likeness of the great chief of the Kheta, surrounded by the
words : " The seal of Setekh, the ruler of the heavens ; the seal
of the treaty which Khetaisar . . . made." That which is
within the frame of the design is the seal of Setekh, the ruler
of the heavens. That which is on its other side is a figure in the
likeness of the goddess of Kheta, embracing the figure of the
princess of Kheta, surrounded by the following words : " The
seal of the Sun-god of the city of Arinna, the lord of the land ;
the seal of Petkhep, the princess of the land of Kheta, the
daughter of the land of Kezweden, the priestess (?) of Ernen,
the mistress of the land, the votaress of the goddess." That
which is within the frame of the design is the seal of the Sun-
god of Arinna, the lord of every land.'

Thus the treaty is reinforced by being placed
under the seals of the gods themselves. In
addition we And the following invocations, corre-
sponding to similar paragraphs usually attached
to other documents which were intended to be
permanently valid :

' As for the words of this contract ... a thousand gods,
male 'gods and female gods, of those of the land of Kheta,
together with a thousand gods, male gods and female gods of
those of the land of Egypt, they are with me as witnesses to
these words: "the Sun-god, lord of the heavens," and various
other gods, including those " of the mountains and the rivers
of the lands of Kheta and of Egypt, of the heavens, the earth,
the great sea, the winds, and the clouds." ' These are invoked
to desolate the house, the land, and the subjects of the violator
of the treaty, and, as for him who keeps it, to preserve his
health, and his life, together with his issue, his land, and his
subjects.

(c) The covenants recorded in the OT are for
the most part between single persons ; but certain
forms and ceremonies were doubtless common to
such covenants and international treaties. Such
were the setting up of a pillar and a heap of stones
as witness, the invocation of the God of Abraham
and the God of Nahor, Jacob's oath ' by the fear
of his father IsEtac,' and the sacrifice and eating
of bread in the mountain,, in the covenant between
Jacob and Laban (Gn SI'"""). The treaty between
Isaac and Abimelech (Gn26'^^-) is similarly accom-
panied by feasting and oath-taking. In Joshua's
peace with the people of Gibeon the princes of the
congregation swore by the Lord God of Israel
(Jos 9^^- ^®). The ceremony of cutting an animal
in twain and passing between the halves was used
by the Hebrews in covenants between God and
man (Gn IS''^-, Jer 34i*^-),^ as by other nations in
connexion with purification and oath-taking ; but
the derivation of the phrase ma mD from this
division of a victim is doubtful, to ' cut a covenant'
being rather parallel to SpKta T6.fi.veiv and fmdus
ferire qt per cuter e or icere ; '^ whether these phrases
refer to the cutting down of the victim, however,
seems uncertain.

[d) The writers of antiquity give details of a
number of more or less picturesque ceremonies
accompanying oath-taking in treaties between less
civilized nations. Of these the most important
is the blood-covenant.*

The Scythians mixed wine with their own blood in a bowl,
dipped their weapons into it, took oaths and uttered impreca-
tions, and finally pledged each other in the mixture. ■! The
Arabians made the incision with a sharp stone, smeared the
blood on seven stones, and invoked Orotalt (Dionysos) and
Alilat (Urania).5 The locus classicus is Tac. Ann. xii. 47 (the
Armenians suck each other's blood) : ' id f oedus arcanum
habetur, quasi mutuo cruore sacratum.' It was also in later
days a Saracen custom, and it was a reproach to Isaac Angelus
that he conformed to it in making peace with that nation.*
Other ceremonies are collected by Dumont.7 In China the

Ancient Records of Egypt, Chicago, 1905-07, iii. [1906] 373-391 ;
S. Langdon and A. H. Gardiner, Journal ojf Egyptian Archae-
ology, vi. [1920] 179-205. The passage quoted is from the
Egyptian version, in which the Egyptian scribe has turned the
Hittite sun-goddess into a male deity.

1 E. J. Pilcher, in PSBA xl. [1918] 8-14.

2 E. McCIure, ib. p. 41.

3 See art. Brotherhood (Artificial). * Herod, iv. 70.
8 Herod, iii. 8 ; of. i. 74 : Medes and Lydians.

6 Nicetas Choniata, de Isaacio Angela, ii. 5 (536) ; PG cxxxi.v
775.

7 Corps universel diplomatique, vol. i. p. xxxiv ff.

TREATIES

445

blood-covenant was also in use, and treaties were confirmed by
oaths and imprecations and accompanied by the sacrifice of an
ox. In a treaty of 544 B.C. the formula is : ' May the gods of
the hills and the rivers, the spirits of former emperors and
dukes, and the ancestors of our seven tribes and twelve States
watch iover its fulfilment. If any one prove unfaithful may
the all-seeing gods smite him, so that his people shall forsake
him, his life be lost, and his posterity cut off.' i

(e) Coming to the Western nations, we find that
the international relations depicted in the Homeric
poems, though primitive, include the making of
truces, with oaths, for the burning of the dead ; ^
oaths, invocation of the gods, imprecation on the
treaty-breaker, with sacrifice and feasting, also
accompany a treaty between Greeks and Trojans. ^
In the historical period in Greece we find certain
primitive survivals, as when Aristeides administered
the oath to the Greeks and took it himself on be-
half of the Athenians, throwing pieces of hot iron
(fiiSpoi) into the sea. But as a rule the oaths are
the ordinary ones (vd/jLifioi SpKoi) in the name of the
chief gods {SpKioi) ; or, as in the alliance between
Athens, Argos, Mantineia, and Elis (420 B.C.), the
instruction is that each party should swear its
most binding national oath over perfect victims
{t6v ^TTtxwp'oi' SpKOv Tov jjAyicTTov KaTo, lepQjv TeXfloov).
The tendency is to increase the number of gods
invoked, in the futile hope of increasing the force
of the oath.

In a treaty between Carthage and Philip v.* in 216 B.C. the
following deities are invoked : Zeus, Hera, Apollo, the Genius
(Sainiav) of the Carthaginians, Heracles and lolaos, Ares,
Triton, Poseidon, the gods of the army (deol ol (j-ua-TparevofMevoL),
the Sun, Moon, and Earth, the rivers, harbours, and waters,
all the gods who rule Carthage, all the gods who rule Macedon
and the rest of Greece, all the gods who preside over the
campaign (oi Kara. o-Tparetav). The Magnesians in allying
themselves with Smyrna (mid. Srd cent. B.C.) 8 swear by Zeus,
Earth, Sun, Ares, Athene Areia, Artemis Tauropolos, the
Sipylene Mother, Apollo 6 Iv Xldi/Sois, all the other gods and
goddesses, and the Good Fortune of King Seleucus. The
Smyrnsans substitute Aphrodite Stratonikis for Apollo and
omit the Good Fortune of the king.

The inscriptions frequently omit the instructions
as to the gods in whose names the oaths are to be
taken, pi-eseribing merely the nature of the under-
taking, as :

' I will fight for the Bottiaeans who enter into the pact, and
will keep the alliance with them faithfully and without guile,
showing all zeal according to the pact ; and I will bear no ill-
will because of what has happened in the past.' 6

Formulae of imprecation frequently accompany
the oath ; in the simplest form (as in the alliance
between Athens and Corcyra in 375 B.C.)^ it is:
' If I keep the oath, may much good befall me,
but if not, the contrary ' ; but destruction is
sometimes invoked on the perjurer and all his
house. ^ The inscriptions give some information
as to the machinery for administering the oath.*
The more distinguished the oath-taker, the more
solemn was the oath. Frequently the oath was
taken en masse ; thus in the peace with Selymbria
(408 B.C. )^'' the Athenian generals, trierarchs,
hoplites, and ' any one else who was there ' took
the oath for Athens, while the whole people of the
Selymbrians swore on the other side. Provision
was sometimes made to keep the consciences of the
parties alive by a periodical renewal of the oath —
e.g., at each Olympiad (Eretria and Histifea)" or
every year (Athens and Dionysius l.).^

The gradual moralization of international rela-

1 C. Phillipson, Intemat. Law and Custom of Ane. Greece and
Rome, i. 387 f., who adds that 'amongst the uncivilized races
of to-day the formal oath, imprecation, and sacrifice— sometimes
of human victims — are the invariable accompaniments of the
conclusion of treaties.'

^E.g., II. vii. 375 f., 408 f.

3 lb. iii. 103 f., 263-301, iv. 156 f. * Polyb. vii. 9.

s Michel, Rectieil d'inscr. grec. 19. « IG i. 52 ; e. 422 B.C.

7 Hicks and Hill, Greek Hist. Imcr. no. 106.

* Michel, loc. cit.

9 See L^crivain in Daremberg-Saglio, s.v. ' Foedus.'

10 See Hicks-Hill, no. 77. " Michel, 7.

12 Hicks-Hill, no. 112, if the restoration is correct.

tions in the Greek world is well illustrated by the
treaties of asylia, which have for their object to
do away with the rough-and-ready methods of
reprisals between individuals or states.^ The most
famous instance is the treaty between Qiantheia
and Chaleion (5th cent.), restricting seizures to
the open sea, imposing tines for breach of the
regulations, and prescribing the proper tribunals
for trying cases. ^ The Greek attitude to the
ethics of treaties does not differ from that of
other nations ; practice also, as usual, fails to
conform to precept, and there is tlie customary
laying of the blame for breach of oatli on the other
party.

Archidamos before Plataea calls the gods and heroes of the
Plataeans to witness that it was they and not the Lacedae-
monians who first broke their oath.3 The Athenians took the
trouble to record a breach of faith by the Lacedaemonians on
the stone on the Acropolis which bore the text of the broken
treat}'. ^ Again, the Athenians and Ceians inscribed on a stone
the names of certain people of lulis who had broken faith and
been condemned to death ; these people, however, returning
to Ceos, tore up the stone ; and, finally, the Athenians ayain
provided for the restoration of the stone with the names of the
offenders (363 B.c.).5

(/) Roman usage shows, as might be expected
from the Roman legal genius, a more highly
organized conception of international relations.
The whole procedure of making treaties was laid
down, and carried out by a definite body of officials,
the college oi fetiales, whose function was® to be
the guardians of good faith in international rela-
tions.'' This religious body represented the Roman
people in all public international acts, such as
making war and peace. Their origin was early,
and was attributed to one or other of the kings ;
in fact neighbouring communities, such as the
Latins and Samnites, had analogous magistrates,
so that the institution must have been Italic in
origin. The derivation of their name is uncertain.
There were twentj' in the college, one from each
curia of the two primitive tribes, Ramnes and
Titienses, men of good family, in early days at
least of course non-plebeians. Their head was
known as the magister fetialium. A fetial mission
for contracting a peace consisted of at least two,
the pater patratns and the verbenarius. The
procedure was as follows, supposing that the peace
was to be made outside Rome.

The verbenaritis inquired whether he and the pater patratus
were to make peace ; if so, he asked leave to take the verbence
(herba pura, or sagmina), i.e. a piece of turf from the soil of
the Capitol, which rendered the persons of the mission inviol-
able (we may compare the legal fiction by which the site of an
embassy is now considered to be the territory of the nation it
represents). The fetials also carried with them sacred vessels,
the sceptre of Jupiter Feretrius, and a flint knife (representing
Jupiter Lapis, a primitive touch) from his temple. The pater
patratus wore priest's clothing, not of linen, and a woollen fillet
on his head. The verbenarivs selected him from his colleagues
by touching his head with the sagmina. They proceeded to
the place selected, and, in presence of the generals and armies,
and the fetials of the enemy, the terms of peace were read,
and the pater patratus swore to them on the sceptre of Jupiter
Feretrius, calling to witness Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus, and all
present. He then slew a pig 8 with the flint knife, invoking
death on the Roman people if they should break the peace.
Then he threw away the stone (a detail recalling the throwing
away of the axe in the Attic Buphonia) saying : ' If I wittingly
violate my oath, may all others prosper, while Jupiter casts me
out, even as I cast away this stone.'

The scene of the swine-sacrifice by fetials is re-
presented on Roman coins of the time of Augustus
commemorating the ancient treaty between Rome
and the Gabines, and an analogous sacrifice by
warriors, evidently engaged in making a treaty of
some kind, is a common type on other Roman
coins, as well as on those of the Italic revolt

1 See L^crivain in Daremberg-Saglio, s.v. ' Foedus,' p. 1204.

a Von Scala, i. no. 68. 3 Thuc. ii. 74.

* lb. v. 66. 3. 6 Hicks-Hill, no. 118.

« Varro, de Ling. Lat. v. 15 (86).

^ See A. Weiss in Daremberg-Saglio, and E. Samter in Pauly-
Wissowa, s.v. ; Phillipson, Int. Imw and Custom of A>\c. Gr.
and Rome, ii. ch. xxvi.

8 Cf. Virg. ^n. viii. 641.

446

TREATIES

against Rome in 91-88 B.C.^ When Livy ^ describes
a similar ceremonial among the Carthaginians,
substituting a lamb for a pig, he is perhaps only-
attributing Roman customs to them ; Polybius^ is
careful to distinguish, saying that the Cartha-
ginians swear by their own gods, while the
Romans perform the ceremony evidently regarded
as peculiar to themselves. After the ceremony
the fetials signed the text and brought it to Rome,
and the whole college pledged itself to secure that
it should be duly observed. It is hardly too much
to say that the account given of the functions of
the fetials reveals as highly organized a system,
and as dignified a conception of the legal essence
of the treaty, as has ever been realized. But it is
a mistake to suppose that this organization is the
expression of a high ethical standard.*

3. Middle Ages and modern times. — {a) The
Pax Bomana makes records of treaties during the
empire scanty." The swearing of oaths lingers on
into the modern period.

In the treat.v between Justinian and Chosroes (a.d. 561) the
12th article contains the invocation of God and the prayer that
God may be compassionate to him who keeps the peace and
may fight on his side, but that he may be the adversary of the
deceitful man who seeks to overthrow the pact. The oath
taken in the treaty of Andelot between Guntram, king of
Burgundy, and Childebert, king of Austrasia (a.d. 587), is 'by
the name of Almighty God and the indivisible Trinity, and all
things divine, and the awful Day of Judgment.' In 842 Louis

II. of Germany and Charles 11. of France swear 'per Domini Dei
amorem et Christiani Populi et nostram communem conserva-
tionem.' A treaty made in the 12th cent, by the city of
Spalato 6 contains an imprecation : ' in the name of the Triune
God, of the 118 Fathers, the 12 Apostles and all the Saints.'
The oath is sometimes taken over relics, but most commonly
over the Holy Gospels ; e.g., in the peace between Pope
Alexander 111. and the Emperor Frederick i. (1177) the repre-
sentatives swear : ' luramus in manibus vestris super haec
sancta Dei Evangelia quod pacem . . . bona fide servabimus,
et absque fraude. Sic Deus nos adiuvet, et haec Sancta Dei
Evangelia.'

The formula ' jurer en son ame,' ' jurare in animam suam,'
appears frequently in treaties between England and France or
the Low Countries.

Excommunication was the logical sequel to
violation of a treaty-oath (as specified, e.g., in the
truce for the renewal of the Treuga Domini at the
Council of Narbonne, 1054). Gradually the oath
fades away into the promise.

In the treaty of commerce between Henry vn. and Philip,
Duke of Burgundy (1495), the commissioners, in a declaration
'to all faithful Christians . . . Eternal Greeting in the Lord,'
60/m fide promise and oblige themselves, on the pledge and
obligation of all their goods present and to come, to procure
the observance of the treaty ; these obligations are to be
delivered to the deputies of each side in the church of the
Virgin Mary at Calais. The king's undertaking to ratify the
agreements made by his commissioners is given 'bona fide and
on the word of a King,' and the duke promises 'bona fide and
on the word of a Prince.' In the treaty of 1604 between Philip

III. of Spain and James i. of England the gradual obsolescence
of the oath is markedly visible in the clause : 'They shall make
a like promise on the word of a King and Prince, and even
swear on the Holy Gospels, if they are thereto required by the
other party.'

The most modern example of an oath is said to
be that taken in the cathedral of Soleure in the
alliance between France and Switzerland in 1777.
Thus finally disappeared that element which was,
*in a certain sense, the underlying basis of the
whole body of the ancient laws of nations.' ''

It was not uncommon for a party to a treaty to
obtain absolution from his oath.

Thus Maximilian i., a few months before the League of
Canibrai (1508), had made a treaty with Venice; one of the
articles of the League summoned him by a papal brief to the

1 H. A. Grueber, Coins of the Roman Republic in the British
Miiseum, London, 1910, ii. 56, 98, 332, etc.

2 xxi. 45. 3 iii. 25.
4 J. S. Reid, in JRS vi. [1916] 172.

B For treaties before Charlemagne see Barbeyrac's Supplement
to Dumont's Corps universel diplomatique, from Charlemagne
onwards Dumont's work itself, and for the modem period the
various collections, especially Martens'.

6 Dumont, i. 88.

1 Phillipson, Int. Law and Custom of Anc. Gr. and Rome, i.

aid of the Church and gave him reasons for breaking his oath.
The pope dispensed Francois i. from his oath taken in the
Treaty of Madrid (1526) and Henri n. from his oath at Vaucelles
(1550).

A second clause was sometimes inserted, intended
to prevent any party from seeking, or accepting
the offer of, dispensation from his oath (e.g., in the
cession of the Spanish crown to Charles III. in
1703). ^ But, since release from this second obliga-
tion could obviously be obtained in the same way
as from the first, it was as futile as an attempt to
prevent the repeal of a law by inserting a clause
imposing a death-penalty on any one who should
propose such repeal. Modern treaty-custom re-
cognizes the vanity of all such artificial supports
to good faith.

The most sweeping and perhaps most futile example of
absolution from a treaty-oath is provided by the bull of Pope
Innocent x. describing numerous articles in the Peace of
Westphalia (1648) as ' null, vain, invalid, iniquitous, unjust,
condemned, reprobated, frivolous, void of force and effect,' and
dispensing anybody who pleased from his oath taken thereto.2
The explanation of this outburst lies in the fact that this treaty
was ' the first fundamental pact of Europe which struck at the
root of the foreign temporal authority of the Pope.'S

The king in recent treaties merely engages and
pronounces upon his royal word that he will
sincerely and faithfully perform and observe the
terms of the contract.* Finally, the parties to
the Treaty of Versailles (1919) merely 'agree 'to
the covenant of the League of Nations and the
closing formula is simply : ' In Faith Whereof
the abovenamed Plentipotentiaries have signed
the present Treaty.'

(b) Religious formulae are also used to a consider-
able degree as introductory clauses from mediaeval
times onwards, but in this feature treaties merely
fall into line with all important documents. The
commonest introductory formulae are ' In the name
of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity' {e.g., in
the treaty between Charles the Simple and Henry
I. of Germany, 926, or in the Treaty of Vienna,
9 June 1815) and ' In the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ.' A more florid style is naturally observable
in the treaty between Frederick II. and Abu-
Zakaria-Yahia, king of the Saracens of Tunisia, in
1231.

' In nomine Dei misericordis, miseratoris. Incipimus cum
laude Dei maximi et, invocatione illius prelaudata, petimus
prosperitatem. Laus Deo, scienti abscondita, futura, extantia,
qui est eternus, post flnem omnis viventis.'

The importance of the religious sanction made
it long a moot point whether nations of different
religions could make valid treaties with each other
(a point, however, which Grotius decided in the
modern sense), or, again, whether it was obligatory
on all Christian nations to be leagued together
against the infidel. In modern times it is recog-
nized that treaties are governed by natural law
alone, and the religious element, either in the
content or in the phraseology of treaties, has
naturally become much less discernible — to such a
degree that the profession of Christian principles
in the Holy Alliance (26tii Sept. 1815) between
Austria, Prussia, and Russia makes a deep and
justifiable impression of insincerity.

In this remarkable alliance (the real object of which was anti-
revolutionary) the contracting parties 'solemnly declare that
the present Act has no other object than to publish in the face
of the whole world their fixed resolution, both in the adminis-
tration of their respective States and in their political relations
with every other Government, to take for their sole guide the
precepts of the Holy Religion, namely the precepts of Justice,
Christian Charity and Peace, which . . . must have an im-
mediate influence on the Councils of Princes and guide all their
steps as being the only means of consolidating human institu-
tions and remedying their imperfections."

It is significant that the pope was not invited to
join this alliance, and that Britain was prevented

1 J. J. Schmauss, Corpus Juris Gentium, Leipzig, 1730, ii. 1165.

2 Phillipson, Termination of War, p. 208.

3 R. J. Phillimore, Comm. ii. 58.

4 Cakes and Mowat, Great European Treaties, p. 4.

TREATIES

447

from doing so ' by the forms of the British
constitution. '1

(c) Apart from professions of this sort, the actual
protection of the religious freedom of peoples in-
volved in a settlement by treaty has often formed
the subject of special articles.-

An early and remarkable instance is in the treaty between
Justinian and Chosroes, in a.d. 5(31, in which a special article
provided that Christians in Persia should enjoy freedom of
worship, and on their own part should not attempt to make
proselytes among' the Ma<ri. In modern times the Treaty of
Westphalia marked an advance in religious toleration. The
Treaty of Paris in 1763, recognizing the conquest of Canada,
made special provision for libertj' to the new Roman Catholic
subjects of the king of Britain to follow their own religious
worship. The Treaty of Oliva in 1660 (between Poland and
Sweden) protected the co-religionists of either power in the
territory of the other. In 1S67, when Russia ceded Alaska to
the United States, it was provided that the civilized inhabitants
should not be interfered with in their religion. And in 1913,
by the Treaty of Constantinople, Muslims resident in Bulgarian
territory were guaranteed the enjoyment of religious liberty,
and the name of the sultan as khalif was to continue to be pro-
nounced in their public prayers. ' It is incumbent on the
acquiring sovereign to allow to the inhabitants of the annexed
territory the free exercise of their religion when it is not in-
compatible with good order and the fundamental dictates of
morality. The obligation is not, of course, a legal one, but its
sanction is rooted more deeply than that of positive enact-
ments.'3

Hence the necessity of actual stipulations, such as
those enumerated, is not usually felt.

(d) Of more importance, as indicating moral
progress, than professions relating to religious
principles, or even than provisions for religious
freedom, is the degree of solicitude shown by the
contracting parties for the general interests of the
people. \V. G. F. Phillimore* remarks that,
except in the matter of religious toleration, the
Treaty of Westphalia paid scant regard to the
interests of the people. From 1648 to the recogni-
tion of American independence in 1783 the chief
consideration in treaties is paid, as in older days,
to the rights and interests of sovereigns and reign-
ing families. In the next period, down to 1859,
there is increased recognition of the rights of states.
Still, by the General Act of the Congress of Vienna,
e.g., states and populations were trafficked in, with
absolute disregard of the peoples concerned, who
might as well have been slaves or cattle.

Since 1859 ' little regard is paid to the supposed rights and
interests of individual sovereigns or reigning families, and a
new principle has arisen, viz. the rights of nationalities.' 5

4. Conclusion. — Certain moral considerations
which arise in connexion with treaty-making and
treaty-breaking may be stated, though no solution
is necessarily offered of the questions involved.

(a) The construing of treaties is a matter of
equity. They are covenants bonce fidei, and are
not therefore to be technically construed.

'Discrimen actuum bonae tidei et stricti juris, quatenus ex
jure est Romano, ad jus gentium non pertinet.' * The principle
of the Digest, ' voluntatem potius quam verba spectari placuit,'
applies with especial force.* ' There is no place for the refine-
ments of the courts in the rough jurisprudence of nations.'!*

In antiquity a famous instance of the breach of
this principle Avas the murder of Hippias by
Paches.* The classical example in modem writers,
however, is the action of the French who, having
destroyed the fortifications of Dunkirk in accord-
ance with the Treaty of Utrecht, proceeded to
construct a still stronger place at Mardick, a few
miles away. The principle by wliich a provision
may be ' extended ' so as to include a case to which
the same reason applies as applied to the case

1 Oakes-Mowat, p. 81.

2 W. G. F. Phillimore, Three Centuries, pp. 56 f., 145 ; Phillip-
son, Termination of War, p. 309.

3 Phillipson, loc. cit. * Three Centuries, p. 14.

B lb. Doubts are already being expressed as to the per-
manent value of this principle ; of. Sir A. W. Ward, Secvrtties
0/ Peace, p. 9.

0 Grotius, de Jure Belli ac Pads, ii. 16. 11 ; see E. J.
Phillimore, Comm. ii. 79.

^ L. 16. 219. 8 HaUS p. 356.

9 Thuc. iii. 34.

originally envisaged, or may be 'restricted,' so
that an ally excludes the application of a provision
to a case obviously improper (as when, having
promised to aid an ally in all its wars, it is asked
to join in an unjust war) — this principle of exten-
sive or restrictive interpretation assists contract-
ing parties in adhering to the spirit rather than
the letter of the treaty.^

(b) Since governments are representatives of
justice, morality, and religion, it is as.sumed ' that
a treaty containing an engagement to do or allow
that which is contrary to morality or justice is
invalid. ' Pacta, quae turpem causam continent,
non sunt observanda.'^ Since a large number of
treaties are forcibly imposed on a conquered by a
conquering state, it is obvious that this principle
provides innumerable opportunities for dispute and
repudiation, under the next heading.

(c) How far is a treaty invalidated by the employ-
ment of force on the part of one of the parties?
To this it is generally agreed to answer that there
is no force in the plea that one of the parties con-
sented through fear, or in face of superior force,
such as would invalidate a private contract, since
such treaties are only a way of terminating war,
which is entirely determined by force. ' No in-
equality of advantage, no lesion, can invalidate a
Treaty.'* But it is equally clearly held tliat
treachery or duress exerted against the representa-
tive of a state amply justifies the repudiation of a
treaty. The classical instance is Napoleon's ex-
tortion of terms from Ferdinand VII. at Bayonne.

(d) Fraud is also clearly held to invalidate a
treaty, for then there is no real freedom of consent
on the part of the deceived party.* The distinc-
tion is sometimes a little delicate between positive
fraud and stcppressio veri.

In the negotiations for the Webster- Ashburton Treaty (1842)
Webster suppressed a map which was favourable to the British
cause. The map could have been found, as Greville admitted,
if the British authorities had caused proper search to be made,
and Lord Ashburton agrees that he had no legal cause for com-
plaint.6 Yet it is to such cases as this that the remark of Hall 7
may be applied : ' It is recognized that there is an international
morality distinct from law, violation of which gives no formal
ground of complaint, however odious the action of the Ul-doer
may be.'

(e) The question of how far a party can liberate
itself from obligations has been brouglit into
special prominence by Germany's repudiation of
its pledge to Belgium in 1914. To the doctrine
that 'necessity, when real and bona fide, overrides
the obligation of the promise' R. J. Phillimore*
replies :

' It is manifest that the State, like the Individual, which takes
advantage of every change of affairs to disengage itself from
the obligations of a solemn covenant, weakens the foundations
of that good faith on which the peace of the world depends.'

So too Hall : «

'Modern writers, it would seem, are more struck by the
impossibility of looking at international contracts as perpetu-
ally binding, than by the necessity of insisting upon that good
faith between States without which the world has only before
it the alternatives of armed suspense or open war, and they
too often lay down canons of such perilous looseness, that if
their doctrine is to be accepted, an unscrupulous State need
never be in want of a plausible excuse for repudiating an in-
convenient obligation.'

Pedants such as those on whom Frederick the
Great relied to justify his acts are to be found in
all ages and countries. The Conference of London
(1871) made the declaration :

'It is an essential principle of the law of nations that no
Power can liberate itself from the engagements of a treaty, or
modify the stipulations thereof, unless with the consent of the
contracting Powt"a by means of an amicable arrangement.'

This declaration, which was signed by all the

1 R. J. Phillimore, Comm. ii. 96 f.

2 76. ii. 04 and 111. S Dig. 11. xiv. 27. 4.
* R. J. Phillimore, Comm. ii. 63; of. Phillipson, Termination

of War, p. 162.

5 HalH, p. 342.

6 Crandall, Treaties, their Making and Enforcement, p. 14.
" P. 16. 8 Comm. ii. 100. » P. 366.

448

TREES AND PLANTS

leading Powers of Europe, was provoked by
Russia's attempt to evade its obligations under
the Treaty of Paris of 1856, on the ground that
lapse of time had changed the conditions. Al-
though no specific declaration to the same effect
appears to be included in the covenant of the
League of Nations or in the treaty with Germany,
the case seems to be covered by article 16, which
provides for the prevention or punishment of
breaches of covenant in general.

(/) How far does honour demand the interven-
tion of one of the guarantors, in the case of a col-
lective guarantee, when agreement is not reached
betAveen all parties ? ^ Bluntschli holds that each
guarantor is bound to act separately in such a
case. Lord Derby (in connexion with the Luxem-
burg Convention of 1867) held that honour (but
not legal obligation) compelled each guarantor, in
concert with the others, to maintain the engage-
ments ; but that, if concerted action was not
obtainable, then a guarantor would have the right,
but not necessarily the legal obligation, to act.
It is obvious that this difficulty could be avoided
by care in drafting, and that, unless Bluntschli's
view be accepted, the collective guarantee is not
likely to be very valuable until we have reached a
higher code of international honour than prevails
at the present time. The covenant of the League
of Nations meets the case by making joint inter-
vention obligatory on all its members.

Literature. — A ntiquitt. — J. Dumont, Corps universel
diplomatique du droit des gens, Paris, 1726-31, vol. i. p.
xxxiv ff. ; A. E. Egger, Etudes hist, sur les traitis publics chez
les Grecs et chez les Romains^, Paris, 1866 ; Darembergr-Saglio,
ii. 2 [1896], s.vv. 'Fetiales' (A. Weiss) and 'Fcedus' (C.
L^crivain and G. Humbert) ; R. von Scala, Die Staatsver-
trdge des Altertums, Leipzig-, 1898, i. ; C. Michel, Recueil
d' inscriptions (jrecques, Paris, 1896-1900 ; W. Dittenberger,
Sylloge Inscriptionum Grcecarunfi, Leipzig, 1898-1901 (31915-
) ; E. L. Hicks and G. F. Hill, Manual of Greek Histori-
cal Inscriptions, rev. ed., Oxford, 1901; E. Samter, art.
' Fetiales ' in Pauly-Wissowa, vi. [1909] ; C. Phillipson, The
International Law and Custom of Ancient Greece and Rome,
2 vols., London, 1911.

Medieval and modern times. — Besides the general
treatises on international law from Grotius onward : T. Rymer,
Feeder a, 20 vols., London, 1704-32 ; A General Collection of
Treatys, Declarations of War, Manifestos, and of Public Papers
relating to Peace and War, i vols., do. 1732; Dumont, Corps
universel diplomatique, 8 vols., with SuppUment by J.
Barbeyrac and J. Rousset, 5 vols., Amsterdam, 1739 ; G. F. de
Martens, Recueil des traitis . . . des puissances et itats de
I'Europe depuis 1761^, 8 vols., Gottingen, 1817-1835, with the
continuations ; G. de Garden, Hist, genirale des traMs de
paix, 15 vols., Paris, 1848-87 ; R. J. Phillimore, Commentaries
upon International Law, London, 1854-61, vol. ii., chs. vi.-ix. ;
L. de Mas-Latrie, Traitis de paix et de commerce . . . des
chritiens avec les Arabes de I'Afrique septentrionale au moyen
(ige, Paris, 1865 ; S. B. Crandall, Treaties, their Making and
Enforcement, New York, 1904 ; C. Phillipson, Termination of
War and Treaties of Peace, London, 1916 ; W. G. F. Phillimore,
Three Centuries of Treaties of Peace and their Teaching, do.
1917 ; A. Oakes and R. B. Mowat, Great European Treaties
of the Nineteenth Century, Oxford, 1918 ; Graham Bower,
Treaties of Peace (Grotius Soc. Papers, iii. [1918]) ; Sir A. W.
Ward, Securities of Peace, London, 1919.

The Hague Conferences.— J. H. Choate, The Two Hague
Conferences, London, 1913 ; F. W. HoUs, The Peace Confer-
ence at The Hngue'^, do. 1915; P. Zorn, Die beiden Haager
Friedens-Konferenzen von 1899 und i90~, Stuttgart, 1915; J.'B.
Scott, The Hague Conventions and Declarations of JS99 and
1907^, London, 1916. G. F.' HiLL.

TREES AND PLANTS. -I. Introductory.—
All plants are sacred. This principle of the
followers of Zoroaster lies at the root of all plant-
lore, all tree-cults. All plants possess the gifts
of immortality and health." The subject enters
into every form of religion, and its ramifications
are traceable in different aspects and degrees from
the tree of life to the May-pole. It rests on the
earliest conceptions of the unity of life in nature,
in the sense of communion and fellowship with the
divine centre and source of life. The oak of
Mamre, the ash Yggdrasil, the asherdh, the oak
of Dodona, the Ficus ruminalis, the Bodhi-trees,
1 Hall, p. 360. 2 RQQ ii. 506.

the pine-cones, and the seven-branched candle-
stick, even the modern Christmas-tree with its
lights and its fruit and its fillets, are instances of
the vast area in folk-lore, tradition, and social
custom which has been influenced by early rever-
ence for the sacred tree.

The sacred tree is thus deeply rooted in the
primitive religious ideas of the human race. The
spring, the rock, the tree are all visible manifesta-
tions of the divine spirit. They are found associ-
ated in the most ancient sanctuaries as different
symbols of life ; and this life, in earth or water
or tree, is one with human life. The same divine
spirit lives and works in all and manifests itself
in each and all. The secret of religion is the
recognition of this life as divine ; its duty is the
obligation of fellowship and worship which comes
of this recognition.

In the earliest stage the sacred tree is more than
a symbol. It is instinct with divine life, aglow
with divine light. It is at once the tree of life
and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
This animistic stage is traceable in folk-lore and
myth, in traditional survivals in later ritual, and
in savage cults in more recent and even modern
times. In the history of religious development it
lies behind the historic era. The burning bush,
living and aglow with the divine voice, gives a
conception of this earliest stage.

In the second stage the sacred tree is planted
in holy ground. It is representative of the deity.
It is the dwelling-place of the deity. The priest-
king is its champion, and is himself the embodi-
ment or incarnation of the god.^ It is as priest-
king at Mamre that Abraham arms his trained
servants and leads them against the kings of the
earth. It is an archaic survival in an archaic
fragment (Gn 14^^'-). The champion of the tree-
god must be loyal to the cult. A new sanctuary
must be consecrated by the planting of the sacred
tree, though not always of the same tree. The
oak-Zeus of Dodona adopted under certain con-
ditions the white poplar and the plane. Abraham,
the champion of the oak or terebinth of Mamre,
planted a grove, i.e. a tamarisk, at Beersheba.
Agamemnon, as guardian of a sacred tree, and
himself enjoying the divine title &va^ dvdpQv and
worshipped as a chthonian Zeus in Laconia,
planted a plane-tree at Delphi and another at
Caphyse in Arcadia." These plantings are ex-
amples of the second, or representative, stage of
tree- worship.

The third is the symbolic stage. The 'grove,'
or asherdh, the common adjunct of the Canaanite
shrine, is the most familiar example of this stage.
It was a wooden pillar, representative like the
living tree of the deity, ' the token of the deity's
presence or a magnet for attracting it.'^ There
are traces of it in the sanctuaries at Samaria
(2 K 136), at Bethel (231^), and even in the Temple
at Jerusalem (23^).

The differentiation of the one deity into the
' gods many and lords many ' of local and national
cults led to the iconic representation of the tree-
god. The stump takes human shape. The
Hermai, wooden or stone pillars swelling towards
the top, were crowned with the head of Hermes.
The rude figure of Priapus as protector of gardens
was of a similar character. The caduceus of
Hermes, a wand with a triple shoot, may refer
also to his origin as a tree-god.* Silvanus is
represented in a similar form, with his sacred
pine and also with the caduceus as a symbol.
And in this connexion the statement of Pausanias

1 A. B. Cook, CIR xvii. [1903] 277. 2 lb.

3 L. R. Farnell, ERE vi. 397b.

1 O. Seyffert, A Diet, of Classical Antiquities, ed. H. Nettle-
ship and J. E. Sandys, London, 1904, pp. 285 f., 515; Mrs.
Philpot, The Sacred Tree, do. 1897, p. 76.

TREES AND PLANTS

449

and Pliny is significant, that in ancient times the
images of the gods were made of wood.^ And with
the difi'erentiation of the deity into the gods of the
nations there came the differentiation of the tree
into the trees sacred to the several gods. The oak
was specially sacred to Zeus. The Ficus ruminalis
of the Palatine was originally the sacred tree of
Rome, thougli Juppiter was associated with the
oak on the Capitoline Hill.^ The cult, in early
times as wide as the world, was narrowed when
no sanctuary could be dedicated to Apollo which
was unfavourable to the growth of his sacred
laurel.*

Primitive worship was essentially an act of
fellowship and communion with the deity. The
vestment of the worsliipper was the sheep-skin
or the goat-skin specially sacred to the deity
worshipped, as the white robe of righteousness is
the symbolic vestment of the Christian worshipper.
This is generally traceable in theriomorphic cults,
as in the Lupercalia. But it is traceable also in
tree-worship. The victor in the Olympic games
was treated as the human representative of the
tree-god. He was decked with olive and crowned
with a helmet filleted and crested \^ith the twig
of the sacred tree.* The English Jack-in-the-
Green of the old May-day sports and the Kentish
Holly-boy and Ivy-girl of the Shrove-tide revels^
are reminiscences of this worship.

Sacrament and worship are closely linked to-
gether. In the archaic tradition of Abraham
(Gn 141^) Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought
forth bread and wine ; and he was ' priest of the
most high God' (El Elyon). Sacramental com-
munion with the deity is the essence of the
mysteries, and the mysteries belong to the
primitive stages of religion : ' I fasted ; I drank
the kykeon ; I took from the basket.' This was
the touching of the sacra, the sacramental core of
the mysteries of Eleusis. They were rites sacred
to Demeter the Earth-Mother.* She is the
Mountain-Mother {q.v.), the mother of the gods,
represented with her pillar-shrine, the pillar of her
sacred tree. She may be compared not only with
Isis, but with Hathor and her sacred sycamore.
Hathor nourished the wandering souls in the
cemeteries of Egypt with food and drink. The
Cretan Demeter in her mysteries nourished her
mystics in life. The mysteries of Dionysus belong
to the same cycle of ideas. Dionysus combined in
himself the rites of the beer-god Sabazios of Thrace
and of the mystery-god Zagreus of Crete.'' The
haoma of the Persians, the soma of the Hindus,
the ambrosia of the Olympian gods, were all means
of sacramental communion, a partaking of the
tree of life.^

The sacred tree, instinct with the divine life, is
vocal with the word and the will of the deity. A
prominent feature of the Zeus-cult of Dodona was
its oracle. ' And the giving of oracles was a
chthonian prerogative.'" David is to consult the
oracle of the mulberry-trees before he attacks the
Philistines (2 S 5^*). God called unto Moses from
the midst of the bush in Horeb (Ex S^-*). The
sacred tree is alight with the wisdom of God. To
partake of the acorns of Zeus was to acquire
wisdom and knowledge.^" The burning bush
points to the symbolic meaning of the seven-
branched candlestick in the Temple. It is a
budding and blossoming almond (E.v 37""^^). The
imagery of the rod out of the stem of Jesse, and
the Branch growing out of his roots, the setting of

1 Philpot, p. 32.
3 lb. p. 36.
■'' See art. Siirove-tidb.

<• J. E. Harrison, The Religion of Ancient Greece, London,
1005. p. 48.
7 lb. p. 53. 8 Philpot, pp. 122-127.

9 CIR xvii. 170. 10 Philpot, p. 36.

VOL. .\II. — 29

2 lb. p. 28.

■» CIR xvii. 274 f.

the sevenfold gift of wisdom, is another illustration
of the same truth (Is ll'-*; cf. LXX). And this
again illuminates the meaning of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil (Gn 2"). It is the
oracle of the God of righteousness, as the seven
lamps are ' the eyes of tlie Lord . . . beholding
the evil and the good' (Ps 15=*; cf. Zee 4i«, 2
Ch 16^). The tree of knowledge is the oracle of
religious and moral wisdom.

2. The animistic stage in tree-worship. — The
tracing of this stage in its original simplicity is
almost as elusive as animism itself. In pre-
historic times it was already being absorbed in
higher religious conceptions and revelations, in
the higher physical and religious and ethical
development of the human race. Jahweh ' finally
triumphed over the ¥'dltm, not by avoiding them,
or by destroying them, but by aosorbing them.'*
This is the principle in all religious development.
The burning bush was not merely the oracle of
Horeb ; it was the dwelling-place of Jahweh
(Dt 33'*). The fable of the trees and the bramble
king was spoken ' by the plain [oak or terebinth]
of the pillar that was in Shechera' (Jg 9®'^'). It
is a survival of ancient religious conceptions, an
apologue or parable familiar in early tree-worship.
The story of the thistle and the cedar is another
(2 K 149).2

'Tree-worship pure and simple, where the tree la in all
respects treated as a god, is attested for Arabia ... in the
case of the sacred date-palm at Nejran. It was adored at an
annual feast, when it was all hung with fine clothes and
women's ornaments.'-*

The sacred erica in the temple of Isis at Byblos
was said to have grown round the body of Osiris.
It was a stump wrapped in a linen cloth and
anointed with myrrh. It represented the dead
god. It is suggested that this explains the mystery
of the draping of the asherah (2 K 23^)."* There
are similar survivals in Greek ritual. Incense was
burned and the tree was decked with fillets and
honoured with burnt offerings. Mrs. Philpot
gives ^ an illustration of a fruit-tree dressed as
Dionysus — another example of draping as part of
this early ritual. Cook in his exhaustive mono-
graph on the cult of the oak-Zeus* has traced it
through all the earliest sanctuaries of the Mediter-
ranean area, especially in Dodona and Crete, and
has given his conclusion as follows :

'Zeus was at each of these cult-centres conceived as a triple
divinity (sky-god-f water-god+earth-god) dwelling in a sacred
oak and served by a i)riestly-king, who was regarded as an
incarnation of Zeus himself and whose duty it was to maintain
the sun's heat by magical means.' ^

The Minotaur, the ^Egean horns of consecration,
and the axe* are also features in this ancient ritual.

This survey of the primitive cult is a key to the
early worship of the sacred tree, not only in Celtic
folk-lore and Gaulish sculpture, but in the sur-
vivals of pagan worship. E. Clodd gives a study
of the 'primitive pagans' of S. Nigeria which
sums up the animistic conception of tree-worship.

'A recent traveller among the "primitive pagans" o(
Southern Nigeria reports this speech from a native : "Yes, we
say, this is our life— the big tree. When any of us dies his
spirit does not go to another country, but into the big tree ;
and this is why we will not have it cut. When a man is sick,
or a woman wants a child, we sacrifice to the big tree, and
unless Oso'wo wants the sick man, our request is granted.
Oso'wo lives in the sky, and is the Big God. When any of us
dies away from this place, his spirit returns to the big tree." '»

Among the Hamitic tribes the crude animism
has developed into a sort of polytheism witii one
highest god, Waq.'" He is the big god of the big
tree of Nigeria.

1 ERE ii. 291b.

2 W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, Edinburgh,
1889, p. 126.

»/6. p. 169. •«/6. p. 175n. » P. 31.

OCIR xvii. 174ff., 268ff., 403fr. ; xviii. [1904] 75 ff., 325Ef.,
360 flf.

7 lb. xvii. 403. » lb. xviii. 85.

» Animism, Ix)ndon, 1905, p. 74. w ERE i. 56''.

450

TREES AND PLANTS

The tree-cult of the aboriginal Africans is to-
day largely associated with ancestor - worship.
Trees planted round tlie graves of their ancestors
acquire a sacred character. The great tree on the
verandah of a dead man's home becomes the shrine
of his spirit. And it is held that the highly -
developed tree-cult of the Hereros is a direct off-
shoot of ancestor-worship. One tree is hailed with
the words: ' Holy art thou, our ancestor,'^ The
facts must be accepted, but the inference may be
questioned. The polytheism and the ancestor-
worship are both to be traced to the more primitive
forms of animism represented in ^gean evidence
as the cult of the Great Spirit or the oak-Zeus.
They are both due to the principle of differentiation
in the development of religious conceptions.

' Anthropomorphism is in some cases preceded by therio-
morphism, but therioniorphism is never generated out of
anthropomorphism.' 2

All life in primitive ages is one, and in its move-
ment inspires fear, not only the fear of God, but
the 'fear' of Isaac (Gn 31''-). It is Jacob who
' sware by the fear of his father Isaac ' (3P^). And
Jacob by his wrestling attained the title of Israel
(3228). Abraliam was tlie priest-king of Mamre,
Melchizedek the priest-king of Salem. At Olympia
and probably at Dodona the challenge of the
priestly king gave rise to a regular athletic contest.^
Minos as priest-king of Cnossus had a reign of
limited duration. He was king for a period of
nine years, when he withdrew to the Idsean cave
to hold converse with Zeus.* Theseus, by his
victory over Minos under the guise of Taurus,
succeeded to the sun-king's rights as champion of
the oak-Zeus.* Is it not evident tliat, behind and
prior to the hero-worship of Theseus and the venera-
tion for Israel, there is the ritual and there are the
sacra of the deity, whether Zeus or El Elyon or
Jahweh, the Great Spirit of primitive animism ?

3. The sacred plantation. — The planting of the
sacred tree or grove is a farther step in the develop-
ment of tree- worship. The primitive priest -king
does it as champion of the tree-spirit, under the
conscious guidance of God. Eden is the most
familiar example of a sacred plantation (Gn 2^^-).
The practice of primitive religion colours tlie lan-
guage and imagery of poet and prophet (cf. Nu 24^'',
Ps 104i«, Is eP). The riddle and parable of Ezekiel
has new meaning when read in the light of early
ritual :

' A great eagle . . . came unto Lebanon, and took the highest
branch of the cedar : He cropped off the top of his young twigs,
and carried it into a land of tratfick ; he set it in a city of
merchants. He took also of the seed of the land . . . ; he
placed it by great waters, and set it as a willow tree. And it
grew, and became a spreading vine of low stature ' (Ezk ITS-u ;
cf. vv.22--^).

In ^gean art the living tree is represented some-
times singly, sometimes in groups of three, or in
groves. It is at times close to an altar, or even
growing from it ; in one case the goddess sits
under it. The palm-tree, the fig, and the cypress
are most frequent ; but the pine, the plane, and
the vine also appear.® It may even spring from
the bucraiiia, or 'horns of consecration,' which
themselves represent the sacred bull, the therio-
morphic representation of the oak-Zeus.

At Athens the original cult was that of the oak :
' Nondum laurus erat ; longoque decentia crine
Tempora cingebat de qualibet arbore Phoebus.' 7

There are in the Caryatides, or nut-maidens, traces
of a nut-grove, the nuts themselves being known
as the acorns of Zeus. Later, after this first stage
of substitution, ' Zeus took over the olive.' ^ These

1 ERE i. 164b. 2 lb. i. 573».

s Cf. Ovid, Met. i. 446. 4 Od. xix. 179 ; Strabo, 476.

5 Cook, OIR xvii. 411.

6 ERE i. 142-144 ; cf. Cook, CIR xvii. 407.

7 Ov. Met. i. 450 f. ; cf . Cook, CIR xviii. 84 : Drymas, Mgeus,
Codrus.

8 Cook, GIR xviii. 86,

ddrivai, or nurses of Zeus, gave their name to the
city, and later to the godde-ss whose cult over-
shadowed that of Zeus on the Acropolis.' In the
Academy at Athens there were twelve sacred olives
in the precinct of Athene.^ Deraeter had her
sacred oaks, and the boj'^ who pronounced the
Eleusinian formula at Athenian weddings, e<pvyop
KtiKbv, rivpou &fj.€ivov, M'as wreathed with oak and
thorn. ^ There was a grove planted for Demeter
at Dotium by the Pelasgians before they migrated
from Thessaly to Cnidus. And Ovid, telling the
story of the judgment on Erysichtlion, speaks of
the tree of Demeter as an oak, adorned with fillets
and tablets by the people.*

These plantings are wide-spread, and traceable
to the earliest sites. Hercules planted two oaks
at Heraclea Pontica in Bithynia.* /Eneas planted
a huge oak-tree, lopped and decked as a trophy,
on the tomb of Mezentius the Etruscan. The
crown of golden oak-leaves from Vulci implies
that the Etruscan kings were representatives or
champions of the oak-Zeus. The tree planted by
iEneas was itself identified with the king : ' maiii-
busque meis Mezentius hie est.'® The identifica-
tion of tree, god, and king is general. Romulus
and llemus were worshipped in the Comitium
under a sapling planted from the Ficus ruminalis
on the Palatine. The Bodhi-tree of Anuradhapura,
long the capital of Ceylon, is over 2000 years old.
It was planted by Tissa — a branch of the original
Bodhi-tree, at Gaya in India. ^ The sanctuary of
'Uzza at Nahla near Mecca consisted of three
trees ^ — another link with the wide-spread cult of
a triple tree-god, as sky-god, water-god, and earth-
god in one.

The chain of evidence is unbroken from East to
West ; the triple-headed gods of Gaul, sitting
cross-legged on their throne as in India, point to
closer contact with the neolithic age than even
Greece and Syria. The sacred Hint of the temple
of Jujnter Feretrius on the Capitoline Hill at Rome,
the ' antiquum Jovis signum,' the home of Jupiter
Lapis, has been regarded as an unhafted neolithic
celt, preserved among the aborigines of Latium
from an immemorial past.*

The sacred tree, the sacred plantation, was the
seat of authority, the seat of judgment. The
Romans met for council ' in aesculeto.' The senate
of the Galatian Celts met at a place called Apw^-
yaeros, doubtless sacred to their national cult :
KeXrol aefiovcri fih Ala, &ya\fia d^ Aibi KeXriKbv vfrjXi^
5/)0j.^" Deborah the prophetess ' dwelt under the
palm tree of Deborah, . . . and the children of
Israel came up to her for judgment ' (Jg 4' ; cf.
1 S 22®, Jg 6''). In 458 B.C. the Roman envoys
were sent to complain that the ^^qui had broken
a treaty concluded in 459. They were bidden to
make their complaint to a huge oak on Mount
Algidas under the shadow of whose branches the
yEquian commander had his quarters." The
prmtorium under the sacred oak is certainly a
primitive trait. ^'^

A sacred rowan-tree in Ireland derived its origin
from the rowan of Dubhros, the Black Forest, in
Co. Sligo.

The tree had grown from a quicken-berry dropped by the
Tuatha D6 Danann, who had brought it from the Land of
Promise. It was guarded by a giant named Searbhan, who could
only be slain by three blows from his own club, and had a single
broad fiery eye in the middle of his black forehead. He was
overcome by Diarmait, the culture-hero of Irish folk-lore.i3 He

3 ERE i. 59a.
5 lb. p. 79.
, 660b.

10 Max. Tyr., Dissert, viii. 8 ; cf. CIR xviii. 79, 369.

11 Livv. ii'i. 25. 12 ciR xviii. 36

1 Cook, CIR xviii. 86.

3 CIR xviii. 84.

4 lb. p. 76 ; Ov. Met. viii. 738 ft.
6 Verg. jEn. xi. 5-16 ; CIR xviii. S62.
' ERE i. 599b. 8 lb,
9 CIR xviii. 365.

I Livv, iii. 25. 12 ciR xviii. 365.

13 Ehys, Celtic Heathendom'^, p. S.IS ff.

TREES AND PLANTS

451

dwelt in a hut amonp: the bramhes and was so great a inafjician
that he could not be killed by fire, water, or weapons of war.
Here again there is the sacred tree, the fierce-eyed
guardian, triply inviohxte, the challenge, and the
contest so frequently met with in the legends of
the sacred grove. And in Danu (the Welsh Don),
the goddess-mother of the Tuatha D6 Danann, is
there not a link with the Demeter of Greek myth,
and in the name itself an echo of the Adv (ace. Aay)
of the oak-Zens, and of Jana, Diana, Artemis on
the slope of the Aventine? She is the earth-
goddess, the Dea Dia of the Romans, the Dan of
the Dorian Greeks : ol yap Awpiets rijv yi]v ddv X^yovat
Kal 8lav.^

4. The sacred stump.— The Lion Gate at INIycenaj
is one of the earliest aniconic representations of
the worship of the sacred tree. The pillar of which
the lions are the supporters tapers downwards like
the ancient Ilerni." The subject has been very
fully treated in art. Poles and Posts ; but some
further links may be noted.

The pillar-shrine of Cnossus with its sacred
doves is recognized by Cook as a ' conventionalised
but still aniconic form of a triple tree-Zeus.' ^ The
Lydian cult of Zeus da-Kpaios was connected with
the oak. A coin of Halicarnassus represents him
' as a bearded god crowned with rays and standing
between two oak-trees, on each of which is a bird.' ^
In the same city there was a cult of Aphrodite
da-Kpaia. This cult gave its name to the city of
Aphrodisias.

The coins of this city ' show the leafless trunk of a tree with
three branches. Sometimes the three branches rise separately
from an enclosure of trellis-work. Sometimes they spring from
a single trunk, on either side of which is a naked man wearing
a Phrygian cap : the one on the left wields a double-axe ; the
one on the right kneels or runs away, turning his back upon the
tree [a feature still preserve<l in folk-lore]. Sometimes . . .
the tree is flanked by two lighted altars.' 5

The priest of the Cappadocian cult of Bellona at
Rome is represented with a branch in one hand
and the two-headed axe in the other— a further
link with the oak-cult of Crete. •*

Amid the early rites of Etruria and the sacra of
Rome there are further associations with this cult.
Hermes lis represented in a fragment of Aristo-
phanes as TpiK^(paXos ; so also is Janus on a coin of
Hadrian.'^ Janus is also represented with a spear ;
and his title Quirinxis is understood in reference to
the oak-god. The Sabine curis, the oaken spear,
tlie Quirites, the men of the oaken spear, are thus
related to Janus Quirinus or Jupiter Quirinus.^
The spear is a variation of the sacred stump. The
tree-god is often represented by a post, sceptre, or
spear.

The trixylon associated with Juno Sororia and Janus Curiatius
is a symbol of this triple Janus. It consisted of two vertical
beams and a cross-bar, the rude form of a cross. The ' yoke '
under which the conquered were forced to march was of three
staves or spears, and is also traced to the cult of Janus Quirinus.
The door-posts (jam(ce) were sacred to him, as the threshold
was to the Earth-Mother.9

The sprinkling of the blood on the door-posts in
Hebrew ritual (Ex 12'', Ezk 451") ^nd the shaking
of the threshold in the vision of I.saiah (Is G'* RV)
are examples of the same cycle of ideas— the
sacredness of the posts and the threshold as tokens
of the Deity.

The caduceus is another variation of the sacred
rod. It consisted of a triple shoot, the central
shoot forming the handle, the two side shoots being
folded back into a double knot. The elder lends
itself to this by its opposite shoots, and the tree is
tabu in the folk-lore of the "West. It is not lucky
to burn it. Judas hanged himself from an elder-
bush. The Uhms of the augur is another variation

1 Etymologicon Mannum, ed. F. Sylburg, Leipzig, ISlC, p.
fi<). 8 ; CIR xvii. 177.

2 St'.\ ffert, pp. .^0, 28.'). 3 ClR xvii. 407.
4 ///. 416. 5 lb.

« Seyffert, p. 90. 7 ClR xviii. 3G7, n. 19.

8 lb. pp. 3C9, 373. - !• lb. p. .SOO.

of the sacred rod. So also the mysterious twisted
rods used in what is probably a funeral proces.sion
in tiie decoration of Etruscan tombs at Norchia
and Tarquinii.' In the fresco at Tarquinii, while
most of the ligures have the twisted rod, ' the
-symbol of the Ktniscan Hades,' one of the leading
figures lias the lituus, and jirominent among these
is the hammer borne aloft, ' a frequent emblem of
supernatural power.' ^ The figure of the god with
the hammer is frequently met with on Celtic
monuments.^ The Y cross with its mystic Pytha-
gorean meaning has also some ancient linlc with
these Etruscan rods.'* A hazel-twig of this shape
is in use as the divining-rod for tracing water.

The Etruscan lucumones, or kings, were re])re-
sentatives of Jupiter. Their crown was of golden
oak-leaves, with acorns, gems, and fillets. Tliey
acted as vice-gerents of the oak-god. Their golden
bulla was the symbol of the sun-god — another link
with the oak-Zeus. They used a sceptre with an
eagle, and were preceded by the lictor bearing the
axe with the bundle of rods. Cook suggests that
these may be a conventional substitute for the trees
of the tree-god.^ These were all part of the royal
insignia of the ancient king. Is it not possible to
trace the origin of the English regalia to the same
source ?

In the Inventory of 1649 are enumerated the ' large staff with
a dove on the top, formerly thought to be all gold, but upon
trial . . . found to be the lower part wood within and silver-
gilt without' ; the ' small staff with a fleure de luce on the top
. . . found to be iron within and silver-gilt without'; 'one
staff of black and white ivory with a dove on the top ' ; and the
two sceptres, one with the cross, and one with the dove.«
These are all symbols of authority, such as are
found in the sacra of the ancient races of Europe.
The sceptre with the cross, the wooden rod with
the dove, the rod with the ' fleure de luce ' may be
compared with the tau-cross, the blossoming stump,
and the dove-pillars of the Etruscan and ^gean
cults. The rods laid up before the Lord in the
tent, 'one for each father's house' (Nu 17- RV),
' twelve rods,' and the budding of Aaron's rod (v.")
point to similar associations on Semitic soil. And
the cross with its spolia opima was the most
honoured sign of J'upiter Feretrius at Rome. The
fcretrum, from which he took his name, was the
lopped trunk of the ancient oak, venerated by
the shepherds of old, forming a wooden cross to
which votive armour was attached.^ The cross in
the folk-lore of Rome was a sign of the primitive
oak-cult— a token of the presence of the oak- king,
a shrine for the offering of the trophy of right to
the oak-god.8 Was Pilate altogether unconscious
of this when he said : ' What I have -svritten I have
written ' ( Jn 19^2) ? And was St. Paul too in his
' foolishness of preaching,' and in his witness to the
power of the Cross and of Christ crucified, un-
conscious of the other tradition of the power of the
cross, when he wrote :

'Unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks
foolishness ; But unto them which are called, both Jews and
Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God'

(1 Co 1231.)?

5. Trees many and gods many.— The sacred tree
signified universally in primitive ages the presence
of the deity. The one tree with its nursery-grove
was the shrine of the one God. But east and west,
in hill or in valley, in north aspect or in south, the
tree varied." And, as the tree varied in species,
the god varied in name. Then the tree and the
god of the clan grew to be the tree and the god of

1 G. Dennis, T?ie Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, London,
1848, i. 253.

2 lb. pp. 310-312. ,. - ,

3 G. Grupp, Kuitur der alten Kelten und Germanen, Munich,
IOC'S, p. 154 f.

4 Dennis, i. 253. 5 CiiJ xviii. 3C1 f.

« W. H. Stacpoole, The Coronation Regalia, London, 1911,
p. 33.
7 ClR xviii. .364 f.
0 Verg. Gcorg. ii. 109-113.

« Verg. .lin. x. 423, xi. 15 f.

452

TREES AND PLANTS

the district, and in turn the tree and god of the
nation. The parable of the bramble king (Jg 9*'^-)
is true to fact. The olive, the iig, the vine had
established their fame and their rule ; they would
not submit to another ; the bramble had ambition
to rival even the cedar of Lebanon.

Trees many led on to gods many.^ The oak-
Zeus at Athens took over the olive. Apollo re-
mained true to his sacred laurel. This development
is most marked in Greek art and Roman verse :
' Populus Alcidae gratissima, vitis laccho,
Formosae myrtus Veneri, sualaurea Phoebo.'^

The Semitic nations stand apart from this tendency
to assign a particular tree to a particular god,'
whether from reaction to monotheism or from ad-
herence to the primitive conception of the oneness
of the divine spirit. They had sacred trees in
great number, but they were all sacred to one god
localized in village, clan, or nation. In India each
Buddha had his own tree, and Gautama himself,
after having passed through 43 incarnations as a
tree-spirit, eventually found wisdom under the
sacred tree of Brahma, the pipal-tvee, or Ficus
religiosa.^

This triumph of the gods over the nations and
the consequent interlacing of the tree-cults, some-
times by expansion, sometimes by absorption,
resulted in certain cases in the distinction between
tree-gods and tree-demons. As the jinn or genii
of the Arabs were gods out of touch with men,
outlaws, dehumanized, 'abominations of Moaband
Ammon,' so the wood-demons of the German forest
or the Polynesian islanders were the foes and the
dread of their conquerors— or their neighbours.
And in the controversy between the supporters of
ancestor-worship and the supporters of animism
based on the presence in nature of the divine spirit
this wide-spread belief in wood-demons and unlucky
trees is in favour of the latter. In an age when
'every valley had its king,'^ and every hill its
shrine and its sacred tree, as in these islands in
Celtic times, and when feuds were frequent between
clan and clan, the jealousy of the clan would
separate between god and god, and between tree
and tree, and people the forest-clad hills with
every form of terror and danger. The only bond
of safety was in the nation's god and in the king
as the champion of his rights. All around was
danger and death : ' f or I the Lord thy God am a
jealous God' (Ex 20^ ; cf. 2 Co IP). This is the
language of religion, not the language of ancestor-
worship ; and it may be traced in tree-worship and
demon-lore from earliest times.

A blasted or stricken oak might be the mes-
senger of misfortune :

' De coelo tactas memini praedicere quercug.' 6
The Abors in Assam regarded the rubber-tree as
the abode of two malignant spirits ; another
haunted the plantain and stinging-nettle.'' The
satyrs and devils of the OT, the jinn of the
Arabian stories, the centaurs and cyclops, fauns
and dryads of Greek and Latin mythology, the
wood-maidens, wild-men, and elves, the wild-
women of the Tyrol, and the green-ladies of Neuf-
chatel, in their different degrees of mischief or
maliciousness, were haunting terrors of the old
world.* The Neraides of Macedonian folk-lore
are tree-spirits. It is not well to lie down in the
shade of a tree, for it is there that the tree-
demons appear. At this day the country-folk
avoid especially the plane, the poplar, and the
fig-tree, for these are favourite haunts of fairies.*
1 Verg. Gewg. ii. 116 f. 2 Verg. Eel. vii. 61 f.

3 Philpot, p. 39. * Ih. p. 14.

8 C. I. Elton, Origins of English History'^, London, 1890,
p. 238.
8 Verg. Ed. I 17. 7 ERE i. 33^.

8 Philpot, p. 52 ff.

9 O. F. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, Cambridge, 1903, p. 244.

In Ireland ghosts and apparitions haunt isolated
thorn-bushes.^ To call up the Tolcarne troll near
Newlyn, an incantation was necessary, and three
dried leaves must be held in the hand, ' one of the
ash, one of the oak, and one of the thorn.' ^
• Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good Sirs,
(AH of a Midsummer morn) !
England shall bide till Judgment Tide,
By Oak, and Ash, and Thorn ! ' 3

The creation myth of the Tanganarin natives in
Australia holds that Punjil fashioned man out of
the bark of a tree. Another tree was tabu, and
haunted by a bat ; the tabu was broken ; the tree
was violated ; the bat flew away, and death came
into the world.* Daphne is the name both of the
laurel and of the spirit within it. The mmien of a
palm-tree is not called Tamar, but Baal Tamar.
The former conception is Indo-European, the latter
Semitic.

' The Indo-European could never free himself from the identi-
fication of his gods with nature. . . . The Semite, on the
other hand, was accustomed from the earliest times to dis-
tinguish between the object and its ba'al.' 5

Among the nymphs were Philyra, the linden,
Rhoja, the pomegranate, Helike, the willow, and
Daphne, the laurel. Mrs. Philpot notes :

' In later times an attempt was made in some cases [e.g.,
Daphne in Laurum, Lotis in Lotum, Dryope in Arborem]6 to
explain the connection by metamorphosis . . . but it is ex-
tremely probable that this was an inversion of the primitive
nexus.'T

The classic passages for the oak of Dodona are
Horn. Od. xiv. 327 f., xix. 296 f. In Horn. II. xvi.
233 f. the oracle is mentioned ; Vergil refers to it
in Georg. ii. 15 f. The oak was also sacred to Ceres ;*
before harvest worship must be rendered to her,
and the worshipper must be crowned with a wreath
of oak. 3 The willow is associated with Hera
at Samos, and with Artemis at Sparta. Artemis
was the goddess of the nut-tree and the cedar in
Arcadia, of the laurel and the myrtle in Laconia.'"
The laurel is sacred to Apollo ; the priest-king
Anius is guardian of tlie tree and the shrine." The
olive is specially connected with the cult of Athene
at Athens. The pine is associated with Pan and
Silvanus, the cedar Avith the Accadian deity Ea, the
sycamore with the Egyptian goddess Nuit (Hathor).
The cypress was sacred among the Persians, and in
the West, together with the poplar, it belongs to
the chthonian deities. The vine and the ivy were
closely connected with the rites of Dionysus. ^^ The
ash and the elm appear in Scandinavian mythology
as the first man (Ask) and the first woman (Embla),
and the ash Yggdrasil is connected with the court
of the gods.^'

Celtic folk-lore has many points of contact with
the ancient oak-cult of the Mediterranean area,
with variations due to local developments under
northern conditions. The 5pvTOfj,os of Dodona, the
aiyeipoTdfioc, or poplar- fellers, at Athens, the kkt-
(TOTdfioi at Phlius," have their representative in the
tree-felling god Esus on the Paris monument."
The ancient axe-ritual of Dodona, Crete, and
Etruria appears in the sculptures of Sucellos and
other deities in Celtic lands. ^^ On the Trier monu-
ment the deity is felling an oak-tree on which are
three cranes. The Tarvos trigaranus, the bull,
before the oak-tree, with two cranes on the back
and one between the horns, is another variation of
the Paris altar. ^''

1 W. Y. Evans Wentz, The Fairy-Failh in Celtic Countries,
Oxford, 1911, p. 70.

3 lb. p. 176.

3 Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill, London, 1906, p. 32.

4 ERE i. 34, 36*, ii. 36'), 451'. 5 2b. p. 285.

6 Ovid, Met. i. 452, ix. 345, 350-393.

7 p 59f. 8 Ovid, Met. viii. 741-743.
9 Verg. Georg. i. 347-350. i" Philpot, p. 29.

n Verg. ^En. iii. 79-82. ^- Philpot, pas>!im.

13 Chambers's Encycl. new ed., Edinburgli, 18S8, s.v. ' Ash.'

14 Paus. II. xiii. 3. i^ Grupp, p. 153.
16 lb. pp. 154-156. " Ih. p. 165.

TREES AND PLANTS

4b3

The cult of Cernunnus supplies another link.
He is represented in the Cluny Museum with stag's
horns, the ring on each horn referring to the sun.'
In the silver bowl from Gundestrap in Denmark he
is cross-legged, Buddha-like, with stag's horns,
and on his right a stag and a bull.'- In a wax
tablet at Pesth he is called Jupiter Cernenus ; on
a Rheims monument he is witli a stag and an ox,
and at Saintes with several bucrania. The presence
of the sun-wheel in Paris, and the bull-masks at
Saintes, point to his original identity with the
Zeus of Crete. In one case he is represented with
a chain. ^ His name is almost certainly connected
with the horns. In folk-lore he probably survives
in Windsor Forest as Heme the Hunter, who Avalks
'round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns ;
And there he blasts the trees, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner.' ■*

It is not unlikely that the Horn-dancers of Abbots
Bromley in Staffordshire commemorate some early
pagan rite connected with the oak-cult of Zeus
Cernunnus. Bagot's Park is a celebrated oak-
forest. The villaue-games in old times took place
round the Beggar's Oak. Though now held early
in September, in Robert Plot's time (1641-96) they
took place about Christmas. The dancers wore
stag-horns (reindeer, kept in the church). It is
noteworthy that the Pesth tablet of Jupiter
Cernenus has also an echo in a modern dance — a
horned figure among the mummers of Mohacs on
the Danuije.

The oak also entered into the ritual of invoking
Zeus as a rain-god. On the Lyceean mountain of
Arcadia was a shrine sacred to Zeus, in which was
a spring to which the priest went in time of
drought. He touched the water with a sprig of
oak, when a vapour would rise and spread in
fruitful showers over the land. In Brittany the
fountain of Barantin in the Forest of Brecilien
served the same purpose. Water was thrown on a
slab near the spring, and rain would then fall in
abundance, accompanied by thunder and lightning.
The well was near the fabled shrine of Merlin,
one of the Celtic types of the sun-hero, and it was
overshadowed by a mighty tree. Rhys suggests
that the spring, the tomb, the slab, and the tree
'all belonged to the Celtic Zeus.' There is a
similar story connected with the Snowdonian tarn
Dulyn, the Black Lake, Avhere the slab was called
the Red Altar. ^ There is also in the moorlands of
Staffordshire, near Ipstones, a strong spring over-
shadowed with oak and mountain-ash long known
as the Thundering Well. The name alone remains,
but it may be grouped among the sites sacred to
the Celtic Zeus as rain-god. Within the last few
years a Celtic chambered tomb has been dis-
covered within a short distance of the well.

The ash is also among the sacred trees of Ireland.
In the parish of Borrisokane, Co. Tipperary, there
was in 1833 a huge ash called the Big ' Bell ' tree.''
The name is derived from the word ' Billa,' which
occurs in Magbile, ' the plain of the old tree,' the
present Moville.'' This name has been connected
by Windisch with bile or ' Beli,' king of Hades,
the consort of Danu. This Beli represents Cronos
in his darker character as Death, and suggests
that the Big 'Bell' trees of Irish folk-lore were
ash-trees sacred to the Celtic Cronos.^ The ash
was also sacred to the Celtic Silvanus : ' Silvane
sacra semicluse fraxino.' He presided over wood-
lands, clearings, and gardens.*

1 Grupp, p. 164. 2 Ih. p. 288. 3 Ih. p. 164.

* Shakespeare, The Merry Wives vf Windsw, iv. iv. 29.

8 Rhys, Celtic Heatheiniom", p. 183 ff.

6 W. G. Wood-Martin, Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland,
London, 1902, vol. ii. pp. 15.V160.

7 The Marlyrology of Gorman, ed. Whitley Stokes (Henry
Bradshaw Soc. Publications, ix.), London, 1895, p. 319.

8 Rhys, Celtic Heathendom, p. 678. 9 /i. p. 65.

The white- thorn has also its sacred associations.
It is unlucky to cut it down. A ' lone thorn ' la
regarded with special veneration. Christianity
took over its sanctity. The Crown of Thorns was
said to have been made of white- thorn. An old
thorn near Tinahely, Co. Wicklow, is still called
' Skeagh Padrig,' or ' Patrick's book.' In Bi'itain
' the holy thorn ' of Glastonbury has similar vener-
able associations. The hazel appears in Irish
romance as the tree of knowledge. The yew among
the Druids was a symbol of immortality.^ Celtic
folk-lore has many other traditions of tree-worship.
The first man sprang from an alder, the first
woman from a mountain-ash. The berries of the
rowan are a charm against all disease. There are
also trees which were inauguration trees. One, an
old sycamore in Coollemoneen in the parish of
Killadown, is called 'the honey-tree.' A tree in
the parish of Kilmactaign is called ' the fern-tree,'
i.e. the alder.

6. Tree-offerings and tree-rites. — The cult of
the sacred tree liad its offerings and its rites.
There are even survivals of the offering of the
highest sacrifices. The natives of the Vindhyan
uplands of India until lately offered human sacri-
fices to trees. ^ In the animistic worship of the Ainus
the Avorship is vocal. ^ At the close of the bear-
festival the head of the bear is set up on a pole,
called ' the pole for sending away,' and the skulls
of the other animals which are hung up with it are
called 'divine preservers' and are at times wor-
shipped.*' This is a link with the bucrania which
form so integral a part in the sacrificial tokens of
Aryan worship. Plutarch states that Theseus on
his return from Crete put in at Delos, and instituted
a dance in imitation of the mazes of the labyrinth.

' He danced it round the altar Keraton which was built
entirely of the left-side horns of beasts." ^
This was known as the 'crane dance,' and is cer-
tainly in some way associated with the cult of the
Celtic tree-god Sucellos or Esus with his three
cranes, and with the Tarvos trigaranus of the Paris
monument.^ A note in Langhorne's Plutarch
states that the crane commonly flies in the figure
of a circle, which together witli the swastika, or
conventional labyrinth sign, is symbolic of the sun-
cult. The dance round the May-pole and the Jack-
in-the-Green festivities within our own memory in
May Fair, London, are survivals of the same rites.

The griffins in Assyria and in Asia, in their atti-
tude of devotion,'' have their counterpart in the
vision of the Temple in Ezekiel :

' And it was made with cherubims and palm trees, so that a
palm tree was between a cherub and a cherub '(411*^).
In a Mexican MS the tree breaks into two branches
in the shape of a tau-cross, each branch with three
blossoms ; the tree is surmounted by a parrot, and
is supported by two men, standing, each with his
right hand raised in the attitude of devotion.^

Trees were hung with votive offerings. In India
the sacred banyan-tree is represented with six
elephants in the act of worship.* In Egypt it is
the sycamore with jars and fruit, and the wor-
shipper before it has the right hand raised.'" Else-
where it is a tree sacred to Artemis, hung with the
weapons of the cliase." Wreaths were worn and
garlands were carried in various Greek rites ; and
this use of wreaths points to some analogy with
tree-worship in the two pillars before the Temple
at Jerusalem. ''•^ Robertson Smith gives a coin
from Paphos with similar detached pillars before a
temple, each surmounted above the cornice by a
dove as ui the rude pillar-shrine of Crete. Whether

1 Grupp, p. 145. 2 JiJiE i. 85b. 3 lb. p. 248'-.

4 lb. p. 250''.

5 Plut. Lives, tr. J. and VV. Lan<;horne, new ed., London,
1823, i. 55.

B Grupp, p. 165. ■' Philpot, p. 6. » lb. p. 17, fig. 9.

3 lb. p. 42. 10 lb. p. 44. 11 lb. p. 45.

12 W. R. Smith, p. 469.

454

TREES AND PLANTS

they were camUcsLicks or not, they were wreatlied
in i)oniegrauates.' On the eastern gateway of the
Buddhist tope at Sanchi the sacred tree is repre-
sented with worshippers. It divides into two main
branches, like that in Mexico, and there are two
smaller trees, one on either side. The central tree
is being wreathed in garlands.^ The Bodhi-tree of
Kanakamuni breaks into three branches and is also
hung with festoons.^ This custom still survives in
the West. Rhys has collected recent evidence
from Glamorganshire of holy wells overshadowed
by thorn or other trees, on which rags were
fastened.^ And the present writer some thirty
years ago saw a bush hung with red rags in one of
the islands of Aran off Galway. It is one of the
last relics of the cult of the sacred tree, like the
practice of ' touching wood ' to avert a change of
' luck,' still in use in this country.

The tree is also a trophy of victory. As late as
the 4th cent, of the Christian era a pear-tree at
Auxerre was hung with trophies of the chase and
venerated as a god.^ The ' Stock-im-Eisen ' in the
centre of Vienna is the stump of a sacred larch,
now studded and bound in iron, the last remains
of trophies with which it was originally hung.
The Irmensul had a similar origin.^ Romulus
celebrated his victory over the Cseninenses by his
institution of the spolia opima in honour of Jupi-
ter Feretrius :

' He cut down a great oak that grew in the camp, and hewed
it into the figure of a troph.y : to this he fastened Acron's
whole suit of armour, disposed in its proper form. Then he
l)ut on his own robes, and wearing a crown of laurel on his
head, his hair gracefully flowing, he took the trophy erect upon
his right shoulder, and so marched on, singing the song of
victory before his troops. . . . This procession was the origin
and mould of future triumphs.' 1

Tlie 6th cent. Galilean poet Venantius Fortunatus,
author of the Vexilla regis, who lived when the
honour of the sacred tree was still more familiar
to the Gauls than the shame of the Cross, lifts up
the old faith in his great hymn of the Passion :
' Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis
Et super crucis tropaeo die triumphum nobilem,
Qualiter redemptor orbis immolatus vicerit.

Crux fidelis inter omnes arbor una nobilis
Nulla tamen silva profert fronde, flore, germine :
Dulce lignum dulci olavo dulce pondus sustinens.'S

7. The tree of life. — The sacred tree was the
source and the sustenance of life. Worship, sacra-
ment, and mystic charm are closely linked together.
The 5o??i«-plant, the Iranian haoma, is the sacred
food of the gods in Asia, and corresponds to the
ambrosia of the Greek world. ^ The Vedic amrta
or sovia had in it the principle of life and was with-
held from ordinary men : it was, however, to be
taken by the initiated. 1°

In Sparta, in early times, the dead were laid
upon palm branches and leaves of the olive. In
the forest land of northern Europe hollowed oaks
were used in the burial of the dead." The practice
among the Oddfellows of each member dropping a
sprig of sweet herbs on the cofHn in the grave is a
survival of the same early rites. In Abyssinia the
branches and twigs of the ghost-tree are used by
the jjagan Kunamas as si protection against sor-
cery and as charms and amulets at childbirth and
death. ^* In Babylonia the idea is more strictly
defined. The god Nin-gish-zida is ' master of the
tree of life.' '^ In time of drought the priest of the
Lycaean Zeus let down an oak-branch to the sur-

1 Cf. 2 Ch 4i2f-. 2 Philpot, p. 15, fig. 8.

3 lb. p. 41, fig. 19.

4 Rhvs, Cellic Folk-Lore, Oxford, 1901, i. 354 ff.
6 Philpot, p. 20.

6 Baedelcer, Oesterreich--, Leipzig, 1890, p. 17 ; HUE ii. 45*.

7 Plut. ed. Langhorne, i. 98.

8 H. A. Daniel, Thesaurus Uytnnologicus, Halle, 1841-55, i.
163.

9 ERE ii. 131). W Philpot, p. 125 L
11 ERE ii. 18a. 13 2b. i. 5G.

13 lb. ii. 295b.

face of the water. ^ Codrus, when he devoted his
life to his country, dressed as a woodman. Cook
notes :

' If the last of the Athenian kings on so solemn an occasion
appeared as an oak-cutter armed with an axe, we may be sure
that tliis was no mere disguise but the ancient ritual costume
of an oak-king.' 2

Tlie cult of the sacred tree embraces the highest
rites in life and in death. The rite of tree-
marriage in India in its surviving forms is mainly
conventional.* The idea of reincarnation may in
some cases explain it, but the rites seem to point
to other and more primitive ideas. The Agaria, a
Dravidian tribe of Chota Nagpur, have a special
regard for the sal-tree, which is used at their
marriages.* The bali, or totem, system prohibited
marriage between those who have the same totem.
Among the Marathas the devaks, or marriage-
guardians, though they no longer form a bar to the
union of two worshippers of one devak, still have
some share in the marriage-rite.

' The devak is usually some common tree such as the bel, fig,
banyan, or the sami. In its commonest form it is the leaves of
five trees, of which one, as the original devak of the section, is
held specially sacred. It is worshipped chiefly at the time of
marriage. '5

It has already been suggested that in primitive
ages every valley, as Elton says, had its own king.
Each king would be the champion and priest of the
sacred tree, and this tree as indAvelt by the divine
spirit would be sacramentally united in all rites of
initiation or other social sacra with the tribe or
clan. The live leaves represent a pentapolis, or
group of five states, one or other, as in ancient
Rome,* choosing the common priest-king of the
five, preference therefore being given to the leaf
which reijresented his sacred tree. Sinular customs
banning all marriage within a totem-clan have
been observed among the Bantu tribes of S. Africa.
The mushroom totem of the Awemba is an example
of a vegetable totem.''

Again, it would appear that the root-idea in the
animistic cult of the sacred tree is religion rather
than totemism or ancestor-worship ; these are
perhaps only relics of the primitive age — results of
anthropomorphic development and differentiation,
degenerate conceptions of the earlier animistic
principle of the unity of the divine spirit of life.

The mistletoe-bough in the Christmas feast and
' kissing under the mistletoe ' are relics not only of
the oak-cult of the Druids, but of its connexion
with primitive marriage-rites. This cult rests on
the authority of Fliny,*^ and the special virtues
ascribed to mistletoe are also referred to by him.
Cook has some valuable notes on the mistletoe,
which give support to Frazer's conjecture ' that
the sun's fire was regarded as an emanation of the
mistletoe.'" Cook bases his argument on the cult
of "I^tos 'Air6\\o}v at Ixiaj in Rhodes, a town named
after the mistletoe. The cult is not definitely
referred to in connexion with the oak, but 'it is
probable, because the Rhodians regarded the oak
as the sun-god's tree.' In the story of ti)e punish-
ment of Ixion there is, he suggests, another link
between the mistletoe and the sun-cult. Ixion
was the father of Feirithoiis, whose constant
associate was Dryas.

' The relationship thus established between 'If iwi/ the mistle-
toe and Apv'as the oak is scarcely fortuitous. '
A scholium on Euripides, Phcen. 1185, reads :

' Zeus in his anger bound Ixion to a winged wheel and sent it
spinning through the air. . . . Otliers say that Zeus hurled him
into Tartarus. Others again, that the wheel was made of fire.'
This flaming spin-wheel has been commonly under-
stood as the sun-god. Cook concludes :

1 CIR xviii. 88 ; Paus. viii. xxxviii. 3.

2 CIR xviii. 84. " ERE viii. 431.
4 lb. i. ISO ; cf. i. 233. ^ j/j, ii. 338b.

6 I'lut. ed. Langhorne, i. 182. V ERE ii. 352 f.

s UN xvi. 44 ; ERE iii. 295b.
9 G£2 iii. 465 ; CIR xvii. 420.

TREES AND PLANTS

455

'It has not, howover, been hitherto observed thou.tch indeed
the fact is obvious, that 'Iftwi/ is derived from ifo? and that the
mistletoe was on Greek soil thus intimately associated with the
sun-god. '1

An old Staffordshire custom of keeping the
mistletoe-bough throughout the year and then
burning it in the fire under the Christmas pudding
probably rests on some tradition of the perpetua-
tion of the sacred fire. The mistletoe represented
during the winter the 'sap of the oak,' -and this
formsS burning of it, like the feeding of the sacred
fire of Vesta from the oak-grove of the Palatine
slopes, expresses the principle of life. It has not
been customary to use mistletoe in the decoration
of churches at Christmas; but W. Stukeley^
reports a curious custom from York :

'On the Eve of Christmas Daj' they carry mistletoe to the
high Altar of the Cathedral and proclaim a public and universal
liberty, pardon, and freedom to all sorts of inferior and even
wicked people at the gates of the city, towards the four
quarters of Heaven.'*

There was in Plutarch's time a shrine of Fortuna
Viscata on the Capitol at Rome. This may be the
Fortuna Primigenia near the temple of Jupiter,
where stood the oak of Jupiter Feretrius.

The rota Fortunce survived till lately at Douai, when about
midsummer 'a large wheel called the roue de fortune was
carried in procession before a wicker-work giant known as le
grand Gayant, and other figures called les enfaiits de Oayan,t.
These wicker giants were certainly the Druid divinities, whose
colossal images of wicker-work are described by Caesar ' ; 5 < Alii
immani magnitudine simulacra habent ; quorum contexta vimi-
nibus membra vivis hominibus complent : quibus succensis,
circumvent! flamma exanimantur homines.'"

The mistletoe-bough and the various customs
connected with it are all survivals of the solar
cult, and, with the wreaths, axes, spears, cranes,
and doves, point to the true meaning of the
worship of the sacred tree. The mistletoe-bough
is made the type of the Golden Bough :
'Quale solet silvis brumali frigore viscum

Fronde virere novft, quod non sua seniinat arbos,

Et croceo fetu teretes circumdare truncos :

Talis erat species auri frondentis opaca

Uice.'T

The yew was also regarded as a symbol of
immortality.' The name eburos, mid-Irish ibhar
{Tnxus),^ enters into place-names and clan-names
— e.g., Eburacum (York), Eburodunum (Yverdon),
Eburones. The last-named is an instance of a
tribe or clan taking its name from a tree-deity.

There was a yew in Belach Mughna in the west of Leinster —
' a great sacred tree, and its top was as broad as the whole
plain. Thrice a year did it bear fruit : it remained hidden from
the time of the Deluge until the night on which Oonn of the
Hundred Battles was born, and then it was made manifest.
Thirty cubits was the girth of that tree, and its height was
three hundred cubits. However, Kinine the poet felled that
tree.' 10

Cell-eo in the MartT/rology of Gorman is the
'church of yews.' And there is an ancient
hallowed site in Staffordshire, with only the
memory left of its All Saints' dedication, the New
Year festival of the Celts, which is now marked
by the Hanchurch Yews. The churchyard yew is
an ancient sj'mbol of the tree of life.

In the story of Eden the command went forth: 'Of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat : But of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it : for in
the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die ' (Gn 2i6f.).

No ban is put on the tree of life till the command
is broken. Was the tree hidden like the yew of
Mughna? Could it be found only by those
initiated and instructed, as in the quest of the
Golden Bough? It stood in the midst of the
garden :

1 CIR xvii. 420. » ERE iii. 295b.

S Medallio History of Carausi'us, London, 1757-59, ii. lG3f.

■* J. Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, cd. U. Ellis
and J. O. Halliwell, new ed., London, 1848, i. 625.

5 CIR xvii. 421. 8 ]),• Hell. Gall. vi. 10.

7 Verg. ^}n. vi. 205-209. » Orupp, p. 145.

y H. Pedersen, Vergleich. Grammatik der kclt. Sprachcn,
Gottingcn, 1909-11, i. 3G5.

10 Whitley Stokes, The Martyroln<jy nf (Engus the Cutdec (H.
Bradshaw Soc. Publications, xxix.), London, 1905, p. 259.

' Latet arbore opaca
Aureus et foliis et lento vimine ramus,
Junoni infernae dictus sacer: hunc tegit omnis
Lucus, et obscurisclaudunt convallibus umbrae.' 1
Was it SO shut in and shadowed that it could not
be found? Is there anything parallel in the
imagery to that of the Cretan labyrinth ?

It has been suggested that in an earlier version
of the Eden story there was but one tree, the tree
of life, and it is to be noted that in Gn 3^ the tree
with its forbidden fruit is described as being ' in
the midst of the garden,' as is the tree of life in 2*.
And in most of the myths of paradise there is the
conception of the one tree.

The Norse Yggdrasil in its complexity is the central tree of
the universe : 'The chief and most holy seat of the gods is by
the ash Yggdrasil. There the gods meet in council every day.
It is the greatest and best of all trees, its branches spread over
all the world and reach above heaven. '2

The garden reached by the Chinese king in quest of the
glories of paradise had 'a wondrous tree in its midst, and a,
fountain of immortality, from which four rivers, flowing to the
four corners of the earth, took their rise.'^ The central tree
with its fruit in the old willow pattern dish is a familiar
illustration :

' The Chinese temple, there it stands
And there's the tree of many lands ' —
in other words, the universe-tree of China.

Hercules, in the garden of the Hesperides, ' conquered the
protecting dragon and secured the golden sun-fruits from the
central tree.'-* The garden of Indra contained five wonderful
trees, the chief of which was the paridjata, ' the flower of
which preserved its freshness throughout the year, contained
in itself every scent and flavour, and gave happiness to whoever
demanded it. It was, moreover, a test of virtue, losing its
splendour in the hands of the sinful, and preserving it for him
who followed duty.' ^

It was but a step in the development of myth to
differentiate between the tree of life and the tree
of knowledge ; and it was a step in the revelation
of truth. The tree of life has the promise of
immortality and bliss.

The sacred books of the Parsis state that ' the original human
pair, Maschia and Maschiana, sprang from a tree in Heden, a
delightful spot where grew homa or haoma, the marvellous tree
of life whose fruit imparted vigour and immortality. The
woman at the instance of Ahriman, the spirit of evil, in the
guise of a serpent, gave her iiusband fruit to eat and so led to
their ruin.' 6

The story of Eden ends in ruin, but it is ruin
which has the promise of regeneration (Gn 3^').
There is the way of the tree of life, and Christian
mysticism found it in the way of the holy Cross.
The drama of religion closes with the vision of the
holy city, New Jerusalem, and the throne of God
and of the Lamb :

' In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the
river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of
fruits, and yielded her fruit every month : and the leaves of the
tree were for the heahng of the nations ' (Rev 22^).

Ethics and religion have each their part in
keeping ' the way of tlie tree of life ' (Gn 3"^) ; they
are the supporters of the wheeling sword, the
whirling flaming circle of the solar disk, the most
sacred symbol of the Sun of Righteousness.

8. The tree of knowledge. — The oracle is an
integral part of tree-worship.

Joshua at Shechem ' took a great stone, and set it up there
under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. And
Joshua said unto all the people. Behold, this stone shall he a
witness unto us ; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord
which he spake unto us ' (Jos 2426f-).

It was a witness to tiie oracle at Shechem. The
' plain of Meonenim ' is the ' terebinth of the
diviners (Jg 9^'). In Africa the trees planted
round the ancestral graves were tended by women
whose oracles were listened to in times of crisis.''
Tree-divination was practised by the Ainus.^ The
oracular virtue of the oak of Dodona was assigned
to the depths of its root." The oracle was

1 Verg. jEn. vi. 136-139.

2 The Prose Eddas, tr. G. W. Dasent, Stockholm, 1842, ap.
Philpot, pp. 113-115.

■■i Ih. p. 134.

■1 llcsiod, Tlieoi/. 215 ff. ; Philpot, p. 136.

■'' Philpot, 1). 129. t, lb. p. 130.

'• ERE i. 164".
a Philpot, p. 94.

8 lb. I. 24a»>.

456

TREES AND PLANTS

chthonian. The witch of Endor raised spirits from

the earth (IS 28").

' Altior ac penitus terrae deflgitur arbos ;
Aesculus in primis : quae quantum vertice ad auras
Aethereas, tantum radice in tartara tendit.'l

At Del[ihi the sacred laurel of Apollo grew in the
cleft of the rock.^ The chthonian rock-altars on
the Areopagus at Athens are carpeted in spring-
time with asphodel. Did this suggest the phrase,
Kar d(T<poSe\bt' XeifxCipa, in Horn. Od. xi. 539, xxiv.
13 ? Both passages are assigned to the very latest
or Athenian stratum of the Odyssey.

The rustling in the mulberry-trees (2 S 5*^) has
its counterpart in the story of ^acus. He con-
sulted an oak, a sapling from Dodona :
• Tu mihi da cives : et inania moenia reple.
Intremuit, ramisque sonum sine flamine motis
Alta dedit quercus.' 3
The sacred cedar of the Chaldseans Avas not only
the tree of life but ' the revealer of the oracles
of earth and heaven.' The name of Ea, the god
of wisdom, was supposed to be written on its core.''
The hazel appears in Irish romance as the tree
of knowledge. The mystical fountain known as
Connla's Well was overshadowed by nine mystical
hazel-trees. The nuts were of the richest crimson
colour and teemed with the knowledge of all that
was choicest in literature and art. The nuts fell
into the sjjring, where they were eaten by the
salmon which frequented the spring. Therefore
the salmon was the wisest of all things. In tlie
story of Kulhwch, in the Mabinogion, the salmon
of Llyn Llyw is stated to have been the first
animal created, and its memory to surpass that
of the eagle, the owl, the stag, and tlie blackbird.
The source of its wisdom was the many-melodied
hazel of knowledge.* The culture-god of the Celtic
world has been identified with Mercury, and witli
the Gaulish deity Ogmios, the god of eloquence
and wisdom. His name in Welsh survived in the
word ofydd, one skilled or versed in anj'thing. In
Ireland he appears as Ogma, one of the ancient
Goidelic group of the Tuatha De Danann. He
was in a special sense the diviner or discloser
among the gods.'' The divining-rod is the surviving
relic of the tree-oracle, and the hazel is the
favourite tree from which it is cut. In France
it was the custom to cut it on Wednesday,
Mercury's day. This also points to the associa-
tion of the hazel with the Gaulish Mercury. He
was known also as the god ' qui vias et .semitas
commentus est,' and the custom of beating the
bounds with a hazel-switch is another link with
ancient rites.

Ii'ish literature represents crimson nuts as form-
ing the food of the gods.'' The crimson berries of
the mountain-ash explain its sanctity. It lias
been suggested that it is the original counsel-tree
of the Northern races.^ In Ireland the mountain-
ash and the birch are still held sacred, and in
Staftbrdshire in the 17th cent. Plot states that it
was held dangerous to do wanton damage to the
tree.* It is still, under the name 'wicky,' a
favourite tree in the country districts. Evelyn ^^
states that it was held in such veneration in Wales
that it was found in eveiy churchyard. It is still
found in old burial-grounds in Yorkshire. In
Derbyshire a little cross made of the witch-wiggin
is held as a protection against witchcraft. The
rites observed in cutting it belong to the earliest
ages of tree-worship. It was to be cut on St.
Helen's Day. It must be cut stealthily from a
tree never seen before, and carried home by any
way save that by which the wood-cutter had gone

1 Verg. Georg. ii. 290-292. 2 Philpot, p. 98.

3 Ovid, Met. vii. 628-630. * Philpot, p. 131.

5 Rhys, Celti-c Heathendom^, pp. 554-556.

6/6. p. 5ff. 7/6. p. 356.

8 J. Holden MacMichael, Antiquary, xlii. [1906] 369.

9 76. p. 370. i« lb. p. 371.

on his secret and sacred quest. ^ As the care-tree
it has been taken over by the Church in the
rhyme :

' Care Sunday, care away,
Pahn Sunday, and Easter Day.'

Care Sunday is Passion Sunday, the Sunday before
Palm Sunday.^

The holly is the Irish cuilenn, the Welsh celyneji,
the O.E. holegn; it is not a variant of 'holy.'
The persistence of its red berries in winter and
its Christmas associations give it a high place
among the trees of the north. It enters into
place-names in Ireland, as in Druimm Cuilinn,
now Drumcullen, barony of English, King's
County. More noticeable is its occurrence as a
personal name, Mace Cuilinn, bishop of Lusk.^
The effigy of the Holly-boy in the Kentish Shrove-
tide revels may be regarded as a substitute for the
oak with its ancient religious association. At the
olose of the revels it was burned.'* The Christmas
burning of the Yule-log is another link in the
same chain, as the burning of the mistletoe-bough
is the evidence of the continuity of the sacred fire.

The Christmas blossoming of the Glastonbury
thorn and the Christmas-tree (of late introduction
in England), with its lights and flowers and fruits,
have been associated with the ' strange blossoming
power of nature connected with St. Andrew's Day '
(30th Nov.). These were transferred in the Middle
Ages to the Christmas festival.'*

' Christmas-Eve was given to the memory of Adam and Eve,
and this led to the Paradise-plays which formed a prelude to
the Nativity-plays. The Cross of Christ was held in ancient
legend to have been made of " a tree which had sprung from a
slip of the Tree of Knowledge." In the Paradise-play this tree
was brought in laden with apples and decked with ribbons.' 6
The lights form an integral part of the earlier
ideas of this tree-ritual.

In old Icelandic legend there is the story of a mountain-ash
at Modhrufell which on Christmas Eve was covered with lights
that the strongest gale could not extinguish. These lights
were its blossoms. In French legend, Perce\al comes across
a tree illuminated with a thousand candles ; and in another
story Durmals le Galois twice saw a magnificent tree covered
with lights from top to bottom.'?

In Icelandic folk-lore lights are seen in the rowan-
tree, and in Celtic folk-lore the scarlet berries of
the rowan-tree are the source of wisdom. Is there
not here a link between the light of wisdom and
the bright fruit belonging to the tree of know-
ledge ? The flamens wore the scarlet tuft in tlieir
caps.^

' Simonides tells us that it was not a white sail which .^geus
gave, but a scarlet one, dyed with the juice of the flower of a
very flourishing holm-oak, and that this was to be the signal
that all was well.' 9

The story of yEgeus and Theseus has its parallel
in the sign of the ' scarlet tiiread ' at Jericho
(Jos 218).

The rod of Aaron was the rod of the priesthood,
and the priest's lips were to keep knowledge
(Mai 2^).

At the return from Captivity 'the Tirshatha said unto them,
that they should not eat of the most holy things, till there
stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim' (Ezr 2«s).
The breastplate of judgment contained these sacred lots
(Ex 2830). The sacred oracles are in the charge of the priest :
' for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts ' (Mai 2^).
The rod was the token of this authority ; and the
rod of Aaron was a rod of almond. The Hebrew
word for ' almond ' is shakedh, connected with the
root 'to watch.' It is the tree of watchfulness,
the tree of light. Jeremiah of the priests of
Anathoth, in the opening of his prophecies, sees
the vision of an almond-rod. It is the token of
tiie watchfulness of God :

1 Macmichael, Antiquary, xlii. 422.

2 lb. p. 426.

3 Martyrology of CEngus, pp. 382, 431 ; cf. 202 f.

* Brand, i. 68. * Philpot, p. 167.

6/6. p. 169. '?/6. p. 171f.

8 Plut. ed. Langhorne, i. 189 n.

9 76. p. 51 ; cf. EBi, col. 4316.

TRIMURTI

467

' Then said tlie Lord unto lue, Thou hast well seen : for I
will hasten luy word to perform it ' (Jer 112).
And in the open vision of death it would seem
that the blossoming of the almond-tree symbolizes
the light of the presence of God (Ec 12^), the
light of wisdom and knowledge: 'Because the
preacher was wise, he still taught the people
knowledge '(129).

The early cult of the sacred tree among the
Jews left its mark in the Temple of Jerusalem.
Robertson Smith notes that, as the two pillars
Jachin and Boaz, so also the golden candlestick
had associations with this ancient cult.^ The
pillars were wreathed with pomegranates ; the
candlestick was a budding and blossoming almond.
If the former witness to the tree of life, the latter
witnesses to the tree of knowledge.

Light was the first of the gifts of life ; and it
is in the light alone that religion can fulfil the
duties of life. A Babylonian seal figured by Mrs.
Philpot shows the sacred tree with seven branches,
three on the right and four on the left, with a
fruiting branch drooping on either side. On the
right is a figure sitting with outstretched hand,
the head crowned with the horns of a bull ; on
the left is another figure sitting, without the bull-
mask, but with a snake behind it.^ It recalls in
some points the story of Eden ; but it is also a
link in the development of the seven- branched
candlestick of the Temple.

The sacred twig, the sacred fire, the priest-king
who is guardian and champion of both, and who
is also the representative of the majesty of the
sun, each and all witness ' at sundry times and
in divers manners ' to the religious fellowship a,nd
communion which man enjoys with the divine
spirit. Silent adoration is called for in the presence
of the tree of life. The tree of the knowledge of
good and evil is vocal in the light of divine
wisdom :

' And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And
being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks ; And in the
midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man
. . . and his voice as the sound of many waters ' (Rev 112-15).
This voice is the voice of divine wisdom, vocal
at Dodona and Cnossus and Delphi, vocal in the
burning bush, and vocal to-day in ' the spirit of
Avisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel
and ghostly strength, the spirit of knowledge and
true godliness . . . and the spii'it of God's holy
fear. '3 And this fruit of the Holy Spirit is the
fruit of the sacred tree :

' And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse,
and a Branch shall grow out of his roots : And the spirit of the
Lord shall rest upon him ' (Is llif-).

It is true to-day, as in the earliest ages of
animistic religion, that ' the fear of the Lord is
the beginning of wisdom' (Ps IIP").
liiTKRATURE. — The authorities are quoted in the footnotes.

Thomas Barns.
TREE OF KNOWLEDGE, TREE OF

LIFE.— See Trees and Plants.

TRIADS.— See TrimUrti, Trinity.

TRIMURTI.— Though the Bigveda does not
contain the conception of a supreme spirit mani-
fested in three forms (trinmrti), which is the Hindu
doctrine of the Trinity, it contains elements which
have contributed to form that belief. In the first
place, Agni as the god of fire has three forms : he
IS the sun in the sky, lightning in the aerial waters,
and fire on earth. On this idea is based much of the
mysticism of the Vedic period, and it is reflected
in the ritual by the threefold character of the
sacrificial fire. "Secondly, in prayers sucli as ' May
Surya protect us from the sky, Vata from the air,

1 P. 467 f. - p. 130.

3 Book of Covunon Prayer, Order of Confirmation ; cf .
Is 112f. LXX.

Agni from the earthly regions,' * appears a tendency
to reduce all the gods to manifestations of three
chief deities, each representative of one of the
three divisions, sky, air, and earth. Yaska ^ tells
us that his predecessors in Vedic interpretation
held that all the gods could be reduced to three,
Agni, Vayu or Indra, and Surya, though he him-
self does not adopt this view. A further step
towards the amalgamation of the gods is seen in
the Maitrdyanl Samhitd,^ which holds that Agni,
Vayu, and Surya are all sons of Prajapati, the
creator god.

The further development of the doctrine occurs
only in the later Upanisacls as the outcome of the
adoption of the principle of the absolute (brahman
or dtjnan). In the Taittlrlya Aranyaka* or
Mahdnardyana Upanisad the highest self (param-
atman) is identified with Brahman (by which
Brahma is probably meant), Siva, Hari, and Indra ;
the identification with Hari is probably a later
interpolation, as it spoils the metre, but it is
doubtless an old change in the text. In the
Maitrdyanl Upanisad^ Brahma, liudra, and
Visnu appear as forms (tanavah) of the absolute,
which itself is incorporeal, and again ^ are declared
to correspond respectively with the rajas, tamos,
and sattva aspects of the absolute. The same
triad is found in other texts such as the Prandg-
nihotra, Brahma, Nrsimhottaratdpanlya and
Rdmottaratdpaniya Upanisads.

The comparative lateness and esoteric character
of the doctrine are shown by the almost total
absence of the conception from the epics, where
it appears definitely only in the statement of the
Mahdbhdrata : ''

' In the form of Brahma he creates ; his human form [i.e.
Visnu] preserves ; in his form as Rudra will he destroy ; these
are the three states of Prajapati.'

This is the classical form of the doctrine which
is repeated in the Harivamia, in Kalidasa's
Kumdrasambhava, and not rarely in the later
literature. The personality of the trinity is varied
slightly according to sectarian preferences : thus
in the 6aiva view ^ the absolute, which is Siva, is
manifested as Brahma, Visnu, and Bhava, the last
a personal form of 6iva ; the Nimbarkas and other
sects 9 identify Krsna with the absolute, distinguish-
ing him from Visriu as one of the trinity. There
is some uncertainty whether the formation of the
definite idea of a trinity was preceded by the con-
ception of Visnu and Siva as merged in a unity,
attested by the term Harihara, which appears
first in the Harivaviia ; this view, however, is
rendered probable by the fact that the epic appears
to have identified Visnu and Siva as equals before
it combined Brahma with them as their peer. A
characteristically late idea recognizes a trinity of
the ^aktis, or personifications of the power of the
three gods : Vach or Sarasvati as that of Brahma ;
Sri, Laksmi, or Radha as that of Visnu ; and Uma,
Durga, or Kali as that of Siva. For this there is
no Vedic parallel, thougli in the dpri hyums of the
Eigveda a triad of sacrificial goddesses is found in
Sarasvati, Idea, and Bharati.

Serving as it does to reconcile rival monotheisms
with one another and with the philosophic doctrine
of the absolute, the theory of the Trinmrti presents
no such close similarity to the Christian doctrine
of the Trinity as to render derivation from Christ-
ian influences either necessary or probable, though
chronologically the existence of such influence is
1 X. clviii. 1. 2 Nirukta, vii. 5. 3 iv. xii. 2.

* X. xiii. 12 ; cf. P. Deussen, Sechzig Upanishad's des Veda,
Leipzig, 1905, p. 252, n. 2.
5 iv. 5, 6. * V. 2.

7 III. cclxxii. 46— an interpolation, according to E. W.
Hopkins, Great Epic of India, New York, 1902, p. 184.

8 Lihga Purdna, i. xviii. 12.

» R 0. Bhandarkar, Vaimavism, Saivism, and Minor
Religious Systems {. = G I AP \n. 6), Strassburg, 1913, p. 79.

458

TRINITY

<iuite iio.ssiblo. It is, however, conceivable tiiat
tlieidea developed under the influence of Maliayana
Buddhism, which possesses the notable triads of
Buddha, Dhyani-buddha, and Dhyani-bodliisattva
on the one hand, and of the Dharnia-, Nirniana-,
and Sambhoga-kayas of a Buddha on the other.
The Buddhist art of Gandliara, followed by that
of Tibet, Ciiina, and Japan, is prone to depict
j^roups of three deities, Buddhas, or bodhisattvas,
and it is to this influence that we may assign the
existence of such sculptures as that from the cave
of Elephanta, Bombay, which presents the three
gods in one statue, and allbrds the inspiration for
the eka murtis trayo devaJi of the Matsya Purdna,^
a passage often wrongly interpreted to mean ' One
God and three persons.'

Literature.— J. Muir, Oriqinal Sanskrit Texts, iv.2, London,
1S73 ; A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology ( = GIAP iii. 1),
Strassburp, 1897 ; A. Barth, The Religions oj India, E:ig. tr.,
London, 1882 ; E. W. Hopkins, Religions of India, do. 1896 ;
A. B. Keith, Indian Mijthologi/ { = Afythologi/ of All Races, vi.),
Boston, 1917 ; A. Griinwedel, Buddhist Art in India, Eng. tr.,
London, 1901; L. de la Vallee Poussin, JRAS, 190G, pp.
943-977 ; N. Soderblom, in Transactions of the Third Internal.
Cong, for the History of Religions, ii. [Oxford, 1908] 391-410.

A. Bertciedale Keith.
TRINITARIANISM. — See Trinity, Re-
ligious Orders (Christian).

TRINITY. — I. The term and concept. — (a)

The term 'Trinity' (from Lat. trinitas) a[ipears to
have been first used by Tertullian,^ while the
corresponding Greek term ' Triad ' (rpicts) appears
to have been first used by Theophilus the Christian
apologist,* an older contemporary of Tertullian.
In Tertullian, as in the subsequent usage, the
term designates the Christian doctrine of God as
Father, Son, and Spirit.

{b) Although the notion of a diviije Triad or
Trinity is characteristic of the Christian religion,
it is by no means peculiar to it. In Indian religion,
e.g., we meet with the trinitarian group of Brahma,
Siva, and Visnu ; and in Egyptian religion with
the trinitarian group of Osiris, Isis, and Horus,
constituting a divine family, like the Father,
Mother, and Son in media?val Christian pictures.
Nor is it only in historical religions that we find
God viewed as a Trinity. One recalls in particular
the Neo-Platonic view of the Supreme or Ultimate
Reality, which was suggested by Plato in the
Timceus ; e.g., in the philosophy of Plotinus the
primary or original Realities (dpxtrai inrojTdffeis) *
are triadically represented as the Good or (in
numerical .symbol) the One, the Intelligence or
the One-Many, and the World-Soul or the One
and Many. The religious Trinity associated, if
somewhat loosely, with Comte's philosophy might
also be cited here : the cultus of humanity as the
Great Being, of space as the Great Medium, and
of the earth as the Great Fetish.

(c) What lends a special character to the Christ-
ian doctrine of the Trinity is its close association
with the distinctive Christian view of divine in-
carnation. In other religions and religious philo-
sophies we meet with the idea of divine incarnation,
but it may be claimed that nowhere is the union of
God and man so concrete and definite, and so uni-
versal in its import, as in the Christian religion.
As Augustine said,* if in the books of the Platon-
ists it was to be found that ' in the beginning was

ij. N. Farquhar, Religious Literature of India, Oxford,
1920, p. 149.

2 ' Custodiatur olKovofuCa^ sacratnentum, quae unitatem in
trinitatem disponit' (ado. Praxean, 2).

^ ttJ? TptctSo?, ToO Oeoir Kai toO Aoyov avTOv Koi ttJ? 0'0(/>ta5
avToO (ii. 15). But perhaps the earliest appearance of the term
is in Clem. Excerpt, ex Theod. § SO ; of. A. Ilarnack, Ilist. of
Dogma, Eng. tr., 7 vols., London, 1894-99, ii. 209 n.

4 Enn. V. 1, cited by O. 0. J. Webb, God and Personality
(Gifford Lectures), London, 1918, p. 43.

5 Cujif. vii. 9 ; cf. C. C. J. Webb, Problems in the Relations
of God and Man, London, 1911, p. 238.

the Word,' ^ it was not found there that ' the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us.'* It is
the very central truth of Christianity that God
was historically m.anifest in Christ, and that lie is
still revealed in the Avorld as the indwelling Spirit
of the Church or community of Christ's founding.
This Christian faith in the incarnation of the
divine Word (X670S, sermo, ratio) in the man Christ
.Jesus, with whom the believer is united through
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, constitutes the
distinctive basis of the Christian doctrine of the
Trinity.

2. The development of the doctrine. — The limits
of this article preclude any attempt to trace in
detail the development of the Trinitarian idea
from its beginnings in the Bible to its final formula-
tion in the orthodox creeds. In various articles of
this Encyclopaedia this ground is traversed, such
as the comprehensive art. GOD ; the artt. on
particular developments of ancient Christian
thought like the Alexandrian, Antiochene, and
Cappadocian Theologies ; the artt. on individual
Christian theologians like Athanasius aiul Augus-
tine ; the artt. on heretical phases of Cliris:tological
and Trinitarian belief like Adoptianism, Arianism,
Monophysitism, Nestorianism. It will be con-
venient, however, to take here a general con-
spectus of the development in question.

(a) The Old Testament could hardly be expected
to furnish the doctrine of the Trinity, if belief in
the Trinity is grounded (as stated above) upon
belief in the incarnation of God in Christ and upon
the experience of spiritual redemption and renewal
through Christ. It is exegesis of a miscliievous, if
pious, sort that would discover the doctrine in the
plural form, ' Elohim,' of the Deity's name, in the
recorded appearance of three angels to Abraham,
or even in the ter sanctity of the prophecies of
Lsaiah. It may be allowed, however, that tlie OT
ideas of the Word of God and the Wisdom of God
are adumbrations of the doctrine, as recognizing
the truth of a various self-revealing activity in the
one God.

(b) In the Neiv Testament we do not find the
doctrine of the Trinity in anything like its devel-
oped form, not even in the Pauline and Johannine
theology, although ample witness is borne to the
religious experience from which the doctrine
springs. None the less Christ is acknowledged as
the eternal Son of God and the supreme revelation
of the Father, and the quickening Spirit of life is
acknowledged to be derived ' from on high.'^ And
so, when the early Christians would describe their
conception of God, all the three elements — God,
Christ, and the Spirit — enter into the description,
and the one God is found to be revealed in a three-
fold way. This is seen in the baptismal formula,*
' In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost,' which at least reflects the
usage of the apostolic Church, and in which the
members of the Trinity are already all three
associated together. It is also to be seen in the
familiar wonls of St. Paul,* 'The grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
communion of the Holy Ghost.' This last has
been called, and justly so, the great Trinitarian
text of the NT, as being one of the few NT pass-
ages, and the earliest of tiiem, in which the three
elements of the Trinity are set alongside of each
other in a single sentence. If the passage coritains
no formulated expression of the Trinity, it is yet
of great significance as showing that, less than
thirty years after the death of Christ, His name
and the name of the Holy Spirit could be employed
in conjunction with the name of God Himself.
Truly, if the doctrine of the Trinity appeared

1 Jn U.

J Mt 2819.

a Jn li'*.
6 2 Co 13H.

3 Lk 2449.

TRINITY

459

.somewhat lute iu tiieolo^^y, it must have lived
very early in devotion.

(c) The story of the Trinity in ecclesiastical
history is the story of the transition from the
Trinity of experience, in which God is self-revealed
as the Father or Creator and Legislator, the Son
or Redeemer, and the Spirit or SanctiHer, to the
Trinity of dogma, in which the threefold self-dis-
closure of God is but the reflexion, as it were, of
a threefold distinction within the divine Nature
itself. With the transition from the Trinity of
experience to the Trinity of dogma the theological
statement tends to lose touch with the gracious
figure of the historical Christ. In the Nicaeno-
Constantinopolitan Creed, in which the Eastern
development of the doctrine of the Trinity culmin-
ated, the dogma still retains its connexion with
its positive ground and basis in the incarnate life
of Christ ; but in the Athanasian Creed, which
reijresents the form wliich the dogma finallj'
assumed in the West, it appears to have lost the
connexion altogether, and to move entirely in the
transcendent realm.

Five stages in the dogmatic development may
be distinguished.^ (1) The formal identification
of the pre-existent Christ (of the Pauline and
Johannine theology) with the Logos of Greek
philosophy. In the NT the identification is in the
practical rather than speculative interest, but in
Justin Martyr and the apologists it may be re-
garded as the first step in the logical process
whereby the historical figure of Jesus Christ was
caught up into the purely speculative sphere. (2)
The doctrine of the eternal generation of the
Logos or Son (hitherto regarded primarily as the
cosmological principle of revelation and not there-
fore co-eternal with God). This doctrine, due to
Origen, which may be expressed in other words as
the eternal Fatherhood of God, entered into the
Athanasian theology. Formulated in the interests
of the divinity of Christ, it conserved also — as
against Sabellian views — the distinction between
the Father and the Son. On the other hand, the
subordinationism it implied and acknowledged,
while countering dyotheistic and tritheistic tend-
encies, lent support to the Arian conception of the
Son as a creature, especially after the Origenist
theory of eternal creation (which enabled Origen
himself to regard the Son as still primarily a cos-
mological principle) had been abandoned. (3) The
doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Son with
the Father. This was affirmed against Arianism
at Nicfea, where the concept — if not as yet the
actual term — homoousios (6/j.oo^a-ios) as applied to
the eternal Son was amply vindicated. As
Athanasius taught, in jealous regard for the
divineness of the Christian incarnation and re-
demption, there was an absolute likeness between
the Father and the Son, and also a co-inherence or
mutual immanence {wepix'^pvc^^^i circuminccssio) of
their Persons.- (4) The doctrine of eternal distinc-
tions within the divine Nature, according to the
formula of ' three Hypostases in one Ousia or
Substance' (rpets {nroardaeii, /j-la oOaia). To the
Cappadocian theologians (Basil, Gregory of
Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa) we owe the final
settlement, for which this formula stands, of the
dogmatic terminology. In distinguishing between
hypostasis and ousia, the former denoting a real
principle of distinction within the divine Nature
and the latter the divine Substance or Nature
(^ucrii) itself,'* tliey sought to lift the orthodox
doctrine out of the Sabellian modalism which
I'ecognized no distinction in reality between the

1 Cf. W. Adams Brown, Christian Theoloijy in Outline, Edin-
burgh, 1907, p. 142.

2 Cf. Jn 17^1.

3 See, further, art. TuiTUKiSii, 3.

Father and the Son, so impairing the significance
of the historical Christ, .and at the same time to
vindicate it against the opposite error of heatlien
polytheism (tritheism), of which it was so often
accused. Moreover, the Cappadocians gave to the
third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the
definite place and character which He now pos-
sesses in the Eastern orthodoxy, as being also a
Hypostasis in the Godhead, consubstantial with
the Father, and proceeding from tlie Father
through the Son. (5) The doctrine of the double
procession from the Father and the Son (tlie
Jilioque clause, added to the Nicseno-Constantino-
politan Creed on canonically indefensible grounds ^)
— a doctrine which represents the difference
between Western orthodoxy and Eastern (with its
view of procession as from the Father alone, tiie
unitary source of deity *) ; which was conceived, in
the interests of the divine unity, as counteractive
of the subordinationism contained in the Eastern
formulas ; and which under Augustine's influence
found its way into the Athanasian Creed.
Curiously enough, the Athanasian Creed (so
called) thus differs theologically from the Nicreno-
Constantinopolitan Creed in its original Eastern
form on a point on which Athanasius's own sym-
pathies would have lain with the Eastern symbol.
The Greek (Athanasian) theology found the divine
unity in the Father, the one fountain-head of
deity, so leaving room for the conception of the
Son and the Spirit as subordinate to the Father.
The Roman (Augustinian) theology found the
divine unity in the divine Nature or Substance,
with the result that, as the distinctions between
the three Hypostases or Persons became weakened
under the doctrine of the co-inherence, so attrac-
tive to the non-metaphysical Westerns," there re-
mained no proper foothold — so to speak — for the
doctrine of subordination.

3. The statement of the doctrine. — (a) The
ecclesiastical doctrine whose stages of development
have been indicated may be briefly stated as
follows, and the form of statement would com-
mend itself as a whole alike to the Western or
Roman Catholic and the Protestant Church. For,
although the doctrine of the Trinity was the sub-
ject of much discussion, dogmatic and speculative,
in the Middle Ages and at the Protestant Reforma-
tion, and has been since, it has been formulated
all along on the lines of the Nicasno-Constantino-
politan and Athanasian Creeds. Both Roman
Catholics and Protestants — generally speaking —
yield formal adherence to these symbols, and the
old orthodoxy remains still the new.

(6) There are then (as the statement may run)
three Persons (Hypostases) or real distinctions in
the unity of the divine Nature or Substance,
which is Love. The Persons are co-equal, inas-
much as in each of them the divine Nature is one
and undivided, and by each the collective divine
attributes are shared. As a ' person ' in Trinitar-
ian usage is more than a mere aspect of being,
being a real ground of experience and function,
each divine Person, while less than a separate
individuality, possesses His own hypostatic char-
acter or cliaracteristic property (iSidjrrjs). The
hypostatic cliaracters of the Persons may be viewed
from an internal and an external standpoint, i.e.
with reference to the inner constitution of tlie
Godhead or to the (Todhead as related to tiie
cosmos or world of manifestation. Viewed ah
intra, the hj'postatic character of the Fatlier is
ingeneration (dyewrjala), of the Son filiation, of the
Spirit procession ; wherefore, ' the l^'atlier is of
none, neither begotten nor proceeding ; the Son is

1 Of. T. B. Strong, A Manxwl o] TlLCology"^, London, 1903, p.

ic; ir.

- nia ntrft BeoTTTTOi. * Stronjf, p. 170.

460

TRINITY

eternally begotten of the Father ; the Holy Ghost
eternally ijroceeding from the Father and the Son.' ^
Viewed ab extra (for Love functions externally as
well as internally, is centrifugal as well as centri-
petal -), the hypostatic character of the Father is
made manifest in creation, whereby a world is
provided for beings who should be capable of ex-
periencing fellowship with the divine Love; the
hypostatic character of the Son in redemption,
whereby the alienating power of sin is overcome ;
and the hypostatic character of the Spirit in
sanctihcation, whereby human nature is quickened
and renewed and shaped to the divine likeness.
Yet, while this is said, as there is no separation in
the unity of the Godhead, so the one God is mani-
fested in the threefold work of creation, re-
demption, and sanctification ; moreover, each of
the Persons as sharing the divine attributes is
active in the threefold work, if with varying stress
of function. Verily the doctrine of the Trinity
exit in viysteriiim.

(c) It should, perhaps, be emphasized that the
Trinitarian statement is never tritheistic, in the
sense of affirming three separate self-conscious and
self-determining individualities in the Godhead.
When it is affirmed that there are three Persons
in one God, the woi-d 'person' is used archaically,
and not in the modern sense of a centre or core of
personality. It was a word employed by Tertull-
ian ^ as on the whole the best word by which to
convey the idea of an inner principle of distinction
or individuation (i)7r6o-rao-ts) ; and it was a good
enough word when it bore a vaguer and more
flexible meaning than it bears nowadays in West-
ern Europe. To say that there are three separate
1 personalities in the Godhead would be polytheism.
JTo say that there are three eternal principles of
■distinction or modes of subsistence in the Godhead
Sis not polytheism — although in the speculative
|construction of the Trinity it might lead, and has
sometimes led, to a theoretical pluralism or poly-
theism.

4. The speculative construction of the doctrine.
— (a) Although the Christian Church soon came to
look upon the Trinity as an incomprehensible
mystery of revelation, which reason might not
probe, her theologians have not refrained whether
in ancient or in modern times from speculation
upon the doctrine. In mediaeval times, indeed, the
doctrine of the Trinity was 'the high school of
. logic and dialectic.'^ Then, as before and since,
recourse was often made to the principle of analogy,
in order to throw light upon the mysterious notion
of tri-personality in the Godhead. It is a principle
that has received classical treatment at the hands
of Augustine, who employed in particular the
analogies of the human self-consciousness and the
relationship of love. It is not pretended, however,
that by such analogies the doctrine of the Trinity
may be rationalized. And, clearly, such analogies
fail on one side or the other to satisfy the con-
ception of ' three Persons in one Nature.' On the
one hand, the psychological analogy of the self-
consciousness does justice to the unity of the
Nature, but not to the distinction, of the Persons.
This is as true, it has been reinarked,' of Dorner's
construction founding upon Hegel's ' being in
itself, being for itself, being in and for itself,' as
of Augustine's ' memory, understanding, and will ' ^
(in each of which he found the whole rational
nature expressed), or, as we might add, of his

1 Westminster Confession, ii. 3.

2 Cf. S. A. McDowall, Evohttion and the Doctrine of the
Trinity, Cambridge, 1918, p. 53 f.

3 Adv. Praxean, 11 f.

■* Harnack, Hist, of Dogma, vi. 183.

5 T. Haering, The Christian Faith, Eng. tr., 2 vols., London
1913, ii. 918.
•> Mcmoria, intelligentia, voluntas ; cf. de Trin. ix.-xv.

'mind, self-knowledge, and self-love.'^ On the
other hand, the social analogy of love does justice,
more or less, to the distinction of the Persons, but
not to the unity of the Nature. In this case the
three elements of the analogy are the loving-
subject, the loved object, and the mutual love
which unites them. The subject and the object
possess, to be sure, more than suthcient independ-
ence for the purpose in view, but it is ditiicult to
see how the love which unites may be accepted as
a distinct person, even in the vaguest sense of that
term. The application of the psychological analogy
may be regarded as an attempt to satisfy the
theoretical interest attaching to the traditional
dogma for which the Logos-conception stands,
namely, the explanation of the relations between
God and the world. On the assumption that the
human individual is a microcosm, bearing traces
of the divine Personality upon him, it would seek
to make more intelligible the unity in diversity,
or more precisely the unity in triplicity, affirmed
in the orthodox view of the Godhead. Again, the
construction of the Trinity which is founded upon
the social analogy may be regarded as an attempt
to satisfy the practical interest attaching to the
traditional dogma, namely, the vindication of the
truly divine character of the Person and Work of
Jesus Christ. On the assum^ition that the love-
created social unit is the real microcosm, it would
make more intelligible the triplicity in unity which
is also affirmed in the orthodox view of the God-
head. Perhaps the social analogy has been the
more influential of the two. It certainly offers a
picture of the inner constitution of the Godhead
that corresponds to the Christian Gospel : ' The
love of the Eternal Father is for ever satisfied in
the Eternal Son ; the Father and the Son are for
ever bound together in the Holy Spirit, who is the
bond of the Divine Love.' ^

{b) In modern constructions of the doctrine of
the Trinity there is a tendency to make much of
the microcosm of human personality as carrying
traces of macrocosmic Reality. God is to be in-
terpreted, it is said, according to the teleological
principle of the highest, and human personality is
the highest thing we know. The result is that,
as C. C. J. Webb* has indicated, we hear a good
deal nowadays, even in non-Unitarian Christianity,
of ' the Personality o/"God,' whereas the historical
doctrine is that of ' Personality in God. ' This
raises the question whether the future of Christi-
anity lies in its associating itself with the modern
philosophical movement of personalism or in the
renewal of its old alliance with Plafconism. Into
such a question we may not enter, but we would
cite a recent instance of a discussion of the Trinity
in which human personality figures as the key
to the mystery of the Godhead. It is S. A.
McDowall's'* contention that there is more than
analogy between human and divine personality,
there is also identity in their nature. The Trinity
within us is more than suggestive of the truth that
in God personality is also triune. If we might
borrow the language of Julian of Norwich,^ the
'made Trinity' actually points to 'the unmade
blessed Trinity.' If the Godhead be a Personality,
it must indeed be a unity, but the unity — like the
unity of human personality — is composed of three
persons, which, although not self-existent but com-
pletely interpenetrating, are differentiated from
each other by the stress of their individual func-
tioning.^ Personality, whether in God or in

1 Mens, notitia, amor ; cf. de Civ. Dei, xi. 26.

2 Strong, p. 166.

' See God and Personality, lect. iii.

4 Pp. 62 f., 95.

5 Cf. W. R. Inge, Personal Idealism and Mysticism, London,
1907, p. 28.

« McDowall, p. 108.

TRINITY

461

man, could not really exist if it did not thus
involve an internal manifold.' For the elaboration
of these positions reference must be made to the
book itself. The discussion is cited here only as
illustrating a recent tendency in the application, in
Trinitarian speculations, of the principle of analogy.

5. Economic and essential trinity.— {«) The
transition from the Trinity of experience to the
Trinity of dogma is describable in other terms as
the transition from the economic or dispensational
Trinity (rpbiros airoKaXv^eus) to the essential, imma-
nent, or ontological Trinity {Tpltiros virdp^ews). At
first the Christian faith was not Trinitarian in the
strictly ontological reference. It was not so in the
apostolic and sub-apostolic ages, as reflected in
the NT and other early Christian writings. Nor
was it so even in the age of the Christian apologists.
And even Tertullian, who founded the nomen-
clature of the orthodox doctrine, knew as little of
an ontological Trinity as did the apologists ; his is
still the economic or relative conception of the
Johannine and Pauline theology. So Harnack
holds,^ and he says further* that the whole history
of Christological and Trinitarian dogma from
Athanasius to Augustine is the history of the
displacement of the Logos-conception by that of
the Son, of the substitution of the immanent and
absolute Trinity for the economic and relative. In
any case the orthodox doctrine in its developed
form is a Trinity of essence rather than of mani-
festation, as having to do in the first instance with
the subjective rather than the objective Being of
God. And, just because these two meanings of the
Trinity — the theoretical, and the practical, asthey
might also be described — are being sharply dis-
tinguished in modern Christian thought, it might
be well if the term ' Trinity ' were employed to
designate the Trinity of revelation (or the doctrine
of tlie threefold self-manifestation of God), and the
term ' Triunity ' (cf. Germ. Dreieinig kcit) ado^pted
as the designation of the essential Trinity (or the
doctrine of the tri-personal nature of God).^

(b) It should be observed that there is no real
cleavage or antithesis between the doctrines of the
economic and the essential Trinity, and naturally
so. The Triunity represents the eflort to think out
the Trinity, and so to afford it a reasonable basis.
The first Christians had with St. Paul a saving
experience of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and of the love of God, and of the communion of
the Holy Ghost ; ' and the theologians of the
ancient Church sought to set forth the Christian
experience in logical terms of reason. In the
effort they were led, inevitably, to effect an alliance
between the gospel of their salvation and the
speculative philosophy, and more especially the
Platonism, in which they had been trained, while,
in making room for the Christian gospel within
the world — not altogether hospitable — of the Greek
philosophy, they found themselves translating their
empirical knowledge of God — the God and Father
of the Lord Jesus Christ — into a doctrine of
diversity or multiplicity, as distinguished from
merely abstract unity, within the divine Nature
itself. In other words, in thinking out the Trinity
they arrived at the Triunity. None the less the
greatest and most influential of the Christian
Fathers, Origen, Athanasius, Basil and the Greg-
ories, Augustine, all acknowledged that, for all the
light thrown upon it in the Biblical revelation, the
divine Nature remained for them a mystery tran-
scending reason.*

1 McDowall, p. 218.

2 Bist. of Dogma, ii. 209, 260. « lb. iii. 8.

•» Cf. W. N. Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology, Edin-
burgh, 1898, p. 161.

5 CI. 2 Co 13".

6 Cf. J. R. lUingworth, The Doctrine of the Trinity, I^ndon,
1907, ch. vi.

(c) It is claimed, however, especially by Catholic
thinkers, that, logical mystery as the Trinity un-
doubtedly is, it not only conserves the spiritual
values of the Gospel, but may be said to enshrine
or encasket them. The Athanasian Creed, e.g., is
declared to be in ettect a sublime and magnificent
hymn of the Christian faith, having a power all its
own to stir and uplift the souls of believers with
the greatness and mystery of the divine redemp-
tion in Jesus Christ. That being so, it may be
allowed that there is justice in the contention that
acceptance of the Triunity does not commit one to
the adoption of oksolete modes of thought, but
only to acceptance of the authoritative Christian
tradition which the terms of the Greek philosophy
served to symbolize, and with whose continued
vitality they have become invested. '

(d) But in consequence of a wide-spread failure,
especially within the Protestant Church, to appre-
ciate the symbolism in which the traditional Christ-
ian convictions are embodied, and to recognize in
the doctrine of the Three in One any more than a
sacred mysterious formula, modern Christian theo-
logy is thrown back more and more upon the
historical revelation in Jesus Christ and the in-
ward experience of Christian believers as the
practical ground and basis of Trinitarian doctrine,
being less concerned with what God is in Himself
than with what He has shown Himself to be — less
concerned with the Trinity of essence than with
the Trinity of manifestation. It is part of the
modern empirical movement in theology, chiefly
associated with the names of Schleiermacher and
Ritschl. When thus employed practically, as
interpretative of Christian experience, rather than
theoretically, as a doctrine of reality beyond and
even apart from experience, the Trinity may be
regarded as summarizing the different ways in
which the knowledge of God may be held. (1)
He may be thought of as the self-disclosed God
and, as such, known to men as the ultimate and
absolute Being, whose ways are past finding out.
(2) He may be thought of as the self-disclosing
God and, as such, known to men in nature and
history and, above all, in the character and pur-
poses of Jesus Christ. (3) He may be thought of
as the self-imparting or self-communicating God
and, as such, known to men as indwelling power-
God revealed, God revealing, God abiding — in these
three ways God makes Himself known, and they
correspond to the elements of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit in the Trinitarian formula.
If then, theoretically, the Trinity is ' tiie aliirma-
tion of a full rich life in God as distinct from all
abstract and barren conceptions of his Being,' it
is, practically, ' the affirmation that the true
nature of God must be learned from his historic
revelation in Christ, and from the experience which
Christ creates.' 2

(e) Doubtless such a statement is liable to the
charge of Sabellianism (modalistic Monarchianism),
but it may readily be defended against such a
charge. In Sabellianism the divine nature is an
abstract undifferentiated unity known only in
three successive modes or manifestations, none of
which is complete or permanent ; they are but
names,* and may not be translated into funda-
mental factors in the divine experience. Here the
elements of the Trinity are acknowledged to be
rooted eternally in unseen reality, so that God is
always the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, al-
though known through the threefold self-manifesta-
tion or not known at all.

(/) In the system of Christian theology the

1 Cf. Illingworth, p. 238. 2 Adams Brown, p. 162. _

S EpiphanUlS, Hcer. Ixii. : <oseI»'ai«t'/ji.i'if vn-oo-Tao-eiTpeisoi'OfiO-

CTt'as ; cf. J. Tixeront, Hist, des dogmes dans I'antiquiU chri-
tienne, 3 vols., Paris, 190&-12, i. 349, 483 f.

462

TRITHBISM

doctrine of the Trinity does not usually fit well
into the general doctrine of God, and often bears
the character of a doctrine apart. There is much
to be said for Schleierniacher's view — in his case
reflecting,', it may be, a Sabellian attitude — tliat
the Trinity falls to be discussed at the end of the
dogmatic system. One could not properly speak,
he urged, of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit
until one had expounded the Christian faith regard-
ing the Son and the Spirit. None the less, it is
quite possible vitally to relate the Trinity, con-
ceived scripturally as a Trinity of manifestation,
to the general Christian conception of God.^ (1)
There is no difficulty with the doctrine of the
Father, who in the new formula as in the old is
God in all His fullness of being and life ; from
Avhich fullness the Son and the Spirit subtract
nothing. (2) The doctrine of the Son is not with-
out difficulty in this connexion. The old formula
rested on the assumption that the divinity of
Christ (the Christian conviction of which was the
experiential ground of the doctrine of the Son)
was to be discovered in the metaphysical constitu-
tion of His person, and accordingly by the way of
analysis, whereas the new formula founds upon
the principle that the secrets of personality do not
yield themselves to ' searching' but to observation,
and that accordingly the divinity of Christ is to be
traced and recognized, if anywhere, in the unfold-
ings of His character and life. Moreover, the old
formula also implied that there existed a funda-
mental ditterence of nature between God and man,
so that the incarnation of the divine Word was
nothing if not a stupendous miracle. The new
formula, under the ruling modern conception of
divine immanence, would imply that the divine-
human Christ may be reached along the lines of
God's normal working in His world. God is to
be conceived as always present and active in the
world, manifesting Himself continuously in nature
and history, yet manifesting Himself supremely
and fully only in the Person and Work of Jesus
Christ. In Jesus Christ we have at once true man
arising out of humanity and true God coming forth
from the Godhead. In other words, Jesus Christ
is the perfect expression of the divine Nature in
terms of human character and life. With such a
new criterion of divinity, and such a new concep-
tion of the relationship between the divine and the
human, an assured place may be found — it is
claimed — for the doctrine of the Son in the modern
doctrine of God. (3) The doctrine of the Spirit
may also be seen to be fulfilled in the new doctrine
of God towards which modern Christian thought
appears to be advancing. For the Spirit is but
the immanent God Himself, working more freely
in the souls of men as righteousness and power
because of the new channels of influence He has
opened up for Himself through Jesus Christ. In
short, God Himself {8\os debs) is the Father
revealed ; God Himself is in Christ revealing ;
God Himself is the Holy Spirit abiding. The form
of the ancient dogmatic conception may be changed,
but the substance of it remains. Still as of old we
know God in His threefold relationship to men,
and in each relationship we have very God Him-
self. Wherefore we may still unite in ascribing
glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the
Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now,
and ever shall be, world without end.

LiTRRATDRE.— See the histories of Christian doctrine bv A.
Harnack, F. Loofs, R. Seeberg-, J. Tixeront, G. P. Fisher,
J. F. Bethune-Baker ; also works on dogmatic theology, such
as the classical expositions of John of Damascus, Thomas
Aquinas, and John Calvin ; and, among modern expositions,
those of F. Schleiermacher, A. E. Biedermann, M. Kahler,
F. H. R. Frank, H. Martensen, I. A. Dorner, R. Rothe,

1 Cf. W. N. Clarke, The Christian Doctrine of God, Edinburirh,
1909. J , & ,

F. A. B. Nitzsch, J. Kaftan, T Haring, T. B. Strong-, C.
Hodge, W. Adams Brown, W. N. Clarke. Among special
discussions see Augustine, De Trinitate ; D. Waterland, The
Importance of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity {Works, Oxford,
18oG, vol. iii.) ; F. C. Baur, Die christliche Lehre von der
Dreieiniijkeit U7id Menschwerdung Gottes in ihrer (jeschichtl.
Entw., 3 vols., Tiibin^en, 1841-43 ; G. Kriiger, Das Dognui
von der Dreieiniiijceit und Goltmenschheit, do. 1905 ; F.
Schleiermacher, Vber den Gegensatz zivischen der sabellian-
ischen und der athanasianischen Vorstellung von der Trinitdt
(Werke, Berlin, 1835-64, i. 2) ; J. R. lUingrwrorth, The Doctnne
of the Trinity, London, 1907 ; W. Adams Brown, The Trinity
and Modern Thought, New York, 1907. See also relevant
matter in recent works like H. M. Gwatkin, Studies of
.4ria?usm, Cambridge, 1882; R. C. Moberly, Atonement and
Personality, London, 1901 ; R. L. Ottley, The Doctrine of the
Incarnation. 2 vols., London, 1896; H. R. Mackintosh, The
Person of Jesus Christ, Edinburgh, 1912. In HDB, DCG, and
DAC there are elaborate articles, with bibliographical notes,
on the Sciip^ural and early Church doctrine of the Trinity.
See also the literature under art. God. "\V. FULTON.

TRITHEISM.— I. Definition.— Tritlieism (Gr.
rpeh, 'three,' and deds, ' God') is the belief in three
Gods. As such, it is a form of polytheism, de-
fined as the belief in many Gods or in more Gods
than one.

2. Christianity and tritheism. — So far as the
present writer is aware, no historical religion may
properly be called tritheistic. Where divine triads
or trinities are found, they are not distinguished
from other divinities as true or real gods from
idols. (1) On the other hand, the charge of being
tritheistic has often been preferred against the
Christian religion, as presented in the doctrine of
the Trinity. (2) The Christian Church has, how-
ever, expressly dissociated itself from Trinitarian
views tending to tritheism. (3) Moreover, liability
to the charge of tritheism is regarded as sufficiently
damaging also to speculative constructions of the
Trinity. In what follows the writer would ex-
pound these three statements one by one.

3. The charge of tritheism. — (a) The accusation
of being tritheistic, which has often been made
against Christianity, is in a sense justified. For
undoubtedly the doctrine of the Trinity has been,
and is still, conceived among simple uneducated
Christians in a naively tritheistic way. Some-
times also a naive tritheism is found even in
theological statement, as when in so-called trans-
actional theories the Atonement is represented as
the result of a bargain between the first and
second Persons of the Trinity.

(b) But the Christian religion, like other
historical religions, must be judged by the affirma-
tions of its best and most representative minds,
and not by the crudities of the uninstructed or the
aridities of theological pedantry. It is affirmed by
the representative minds of Christianity that the
accusation of tritheism is unjustified, being largely
founded upon misunderstanding of the theological
terms in which the Trinity is formulated. They
would insist that there is a world of difference
between the formula, ' There are three Gods,' or
even the formula, ' There are three distinct or
separate individuals in the class known as God,'
and the formula in which the orthodox doctrine
may be summarized, * There are three Persons in
one God.' In fact the Trinity is declared to be at
bottom an assertion of the divine unity. If in the
light of the Christian revelation we are led to
affirm three eternal distinctions in the Godhead,
we must still hold fast to the old faith of Israel's
prophets and say, 'These three are one.' Admit-
tedly, however, there are ambiguities and associa-
tions to mislead in the Trinitarian terminology.
In particular, the ambiguity of the word ' person '
is allowed to be a source of much misunderstand-
ing. To set forth the true theological meaning of
this word should be enough, it would be added,
to vindicate the doctrine of the Trinity against a
cliarge so obnoxious as tliat of tritheism. We are

TRITHEISM

463

reminded in this connexion of how the early
Christian thinkers abliorred the suggestion even
tliat in atiirining the Trinity they were reinstating
heathen polytheism.

It should be remembered i that there was no word 'person '
in the vocabulary of the Greek-speaking theologians, who
shaped the doctrine of the Trinity to the authoritative form it
assumed in the Nicffno-Constantinojjolitan Creed. ' Person '
(Lat. persona, 'an actor's mask'), as it appears in the Athan-
asiaii Creed, was intended to represent the Greek vTrdo-Tacris.
Now ' hypostasis '(' sediment ' or 'dregs,' lit. 'standing under
or below') was used about the beginning of the Christian era
to signify a real concrete existence or actuality in contra-
distinction to a mere appearance having nothing solid or
permanent underlying it, such as a comet in comparison with a
rainbow. Through Origen's influence it came to be employed
in the theological terminology as the designation of a member
of the Trinity, as in the Cappadocian formula, ' Three Hypo-
stases in one Nature or Substance ' (<j>v<ti.<;, oixrCa).^ ' Hypostasis '
then stood for a real independence — a real principle of in-
dividuation or distinction — within tlie Being of God, and ceased
to be regarded, as in the Stoic use, as theologically equivalent
to ova-ia or </)u'<ris. It ma}' be that the term ' hj'postasis ' as
applitci to the members of the divine Trinity suggested an in-
dependence or individuality of too complete a sort, as though
the Father, Son, and Spirit were as separate in the class God as
Peter, James, and John in the class named man ;S but this
suggestion was corrected, at least for speculative minds, by the
Logos-Christology deriving from St. John and St. Paul, in
which the idea of immanent distinctions in the unity of the
Godhead received recognition. On the other hand, the trithe-
istic suggestion was in a sense accentuated for the Latin-
speaking theologians by the selection, due probably to Ter-
tullian,^ of the word ' person ',as the translation of vTroo-rao-ts.
Though persona, as its original meaning might show, implied
only a temporary and superficial kind of individuality (an
implication more definitely conveyed by np6(TU)irov, lit. ' face,'
by which persona was often rendered in the later Greek
theology), it implied also the dignity and worth of a rational
nature. A ' person ' in the early centuries of the Latin Church
was an individual viewed in a legal aspect (the word often
meant a litigant or a party to a contract as well as a player)
as the subject of rights and duties, if not as yet in the philo-
sophical sense of a self-conscious and self-determining Ego — a
sense which has attached itself to the word in modern times.
Yet even the ancient legal and relative associations of ' person '
would impart ambiguity to its theological use, especially in
popular thought, and the ambiguity would tend to increase in
Kuropean usage as the word approximated more and more to
the modern philosophical sense of personality. So it is not
surprising that there has been a strong tendency to tritheism
in Western theology, especially among the people ; and that
non-Christian thinkers, notably Jewish and Muhammadan,
have so often viewed the doctrine of tri-personality in God as
virtual or veiled tritheism.

4. Tritheism as a heresy of dogma. — (a)

Although aberrations from the orthodox doctrine
were in the East towards a modalistic Monarchian-
ism (Sabellianism) rather than tritheism, it was in
the East — among the Greek-speaking theologians
— that a form of tritheism actually arose to meet
with the condemnation of orthodoxy. The move-
ment in que.'^tion illustrates the reaction of
Christological discussion and controversy upon the
doctrine of the Trinity. Christology lay in the
heart of the Trinitarian dogma, and the develop-
ment of Christology naturally led to a revision of
the dogmatic terms.

(b) As a definite phase in the history of Christ-
ian thought tritheism appeared c. A.D. 550 in
Monophysite circles, being associated chiefly with
tiie names of John Askusnages and John Philopon.
The latter, an Alexandrian philosopher and a
distinguished Aristotelian, of whose work entitled
AiaiTTjTTfis important fragments have been preserved
in the AViitings of John of Damascus,' appears to
have been the most influential of the school. As
a Monophysite John Philopon was opposed to the
Chalcedonian description of the Person of Christ
as consisting of ' one person in two natures ' (Iv
irp6<7U)iroi' or /xia vTrdaracns iv 8vo (pvaecriv), and con-
tended that Christ's was a single nature com-
pounded of the divine and the human. That is

1 See the recent discussion of Trinitarian terminology in
C. 0. J. Webb, God and Personalitj/ (Gifford Lectures), London,
1918, esp. lect. ii.

2 Cf. Greg. Naz. Or. xxxix. 11 f.

3 Greg. Nyss. ii. 188, and other writers quoted by R. Seeberg,
Lrfirlnieh tier Dogmengeschichte, ErlaTigen and JiCipzig, 189.5,
§ 21, d.

* Adv. Praxean, 11 f. s De Jla-^r. 83.

to say, in Christology (pvcns or ov(rla and invbaraais
were to be viewed as synonymous terms.

(c) When tliis Cliristological position is applied
to the doctrine of the Trinity, the question is at
once raised as to whether the orthodox formula of
three Hypostases in one Substance can be main-
tained. If one oiffia, is there not but one
inrSa-racni ; if three viroa-Tdueis, are there not three
ovalai ? The affirmative to the first question leads
to a form of Unitarianism, the affirmative to the
second to a form of tritheism.

(d) John Philopon started from the consideration
of the three i^Troo-Tdo-eij and reached, accordingly, a
tritheistic conclusion as to the divine oiiala or <pv<Tii :
i(TTU Tpets (pvcreii \4yeiv T]/j.as ^irl Trjs ayia^ rptdSoj.'
So he and his followers were named by their
opponents ' tritheists ' (TpiOetrai), although we are
told ^ that they would not actually have confessed
themselves as believers in three Gods. If theirs
was a theoi'etical, it was not also a practical, tri-
theism, like the Trinitarian notions of the trans-
actional theorists mentioned above (which amply
justified the protest of the earlier Unitarians). It
appears, however, that John Philopon adinitted
tne notion of a common Nature {oiiaia koivti), if
holding it in what might have been named later
a nominalist sense ; but Damian ^ (578-605), the
Monophysite patriarch of Constantinople, held so
pronouncedly realistic a view of the one Substance,
at the same time apparently regarding the three
Persons as true reals or separate individualities,
that, like Peter the Lombard in a later day, he
was accused of teaching a Quaternity rather than a
Trinity, and his followers were labelled ' tetradites '
(reTpadiTai). The tritheists were definitely opposed
in the name of the orthodox dogma by John of
Damascus, who in seeking to emphasize as against
them the unity of the Godhead gave — as Augustine
did — a modalistic flavour to his theological ex-
position.*

5. Tritheism as an error of speculation. — It has
been remarked ' that in the tritheistic movement
(so called) and the counter-movements it evoked
we may find the roots of the mediaeval controversy
between nominalism and realism. The remark is
illustrated by the case of Koscellin, the best-
known representative of the older nominalism.
According to Roscellin, universals were not reals,
but merely subjective conceptions (flatus vocis).^
And, if this principle holds of the Nature or Sub-
stance of God, then the Persons of the Trinitarian
formula must be regarded as distinct self-con-
sciousnesses, and the unity of the Godhead as but
a nominal and generic unity. Thus on philo-
sophical principles Roscellin reached a theoretical
tritheism, which, however, at Anselm's instance,
was condemned at Soissons in 1092.'' And over
and over again, from the beginnings of Christian
theology down to the present, speculative con-
structions of the doctrine of the Trinity have had
to encounter — sometimes in the irony of things —
the damning charge of being tritheistic. In the
ancient Church, as Callistus accused Hippolytus
of dyotheism, so Dionysius — maintaining the
Koman tradition of unspeculative adherence to the

1 Leontius, de Sectia, actio v. c. 6, quoted by J. Tixeront,
Uist. des dogmas dans I'antixiuiti chrHientie, 3 vols., Paris,
1909-12, iii. 196 ; of. also Photius, Biblioth. codd. 21, 24, 75 ;
John of Ephesus, Hist. Ecel. v. 1-12.

2 Timothy, de Heceptione Ilcereticorum {PG Ixxxvi. 1, col. 61)i

3 lb. col. 60.

* In d€ Fide orthodoxa. For summary discussions of Tri-
theism as a heresy of dogma reference may be made to the artt.
'Johannes Askusnages,' 'Johannes Philoponus,' in PRE^ ix.
and the art. ' Tritheigtischer Streit' in PRK^ xx.

5 A. Ilarnack, Uist. of Dogma, Eng. tr., 7 vols., London,
1894-99, iv. 126 n.

« Of. Anselm, de Fid. trin. 2 f., Ep. ii. 35, 41.

7 Roscellin and the nominalists were dubbed by Anselm
dialrctice luKreticHile Fid. trin. 2) ; cf. F. Loofs, Leit/aden ztim
Sttidium der Jiogmengeschicltte-\ Halle, 189:J, § CO, 4.

464

TRUST

unity of the Godhead — preferred the accusation of
tritheism against Origen's teaching.^ Yet Origen's
doctrine of the eternal generation of the Logos
or Son entered into the orthodox formulas, and
a follower of Origen, Gregory Thaumaturgus,
mightily championed the unity of the Godhead
against the polytheists (tritheists).* Again, in the
mediaeval Church even Abelard was suspected of
tritheism, and yet it was Abelard's aim and
endeavour to mediate between the extremes of a
tritheism like Roscellin's and pure modalism, and
his sympathies lay with modalism rather than
tritheism.^ Once again, if it is not invidious to
select so modern an instance, W. Adams Brown
comments as follows on VV. N. Clarke's construc-
tive presentation of the essential Trinity :

' It is hard to see how these " centres of conscious life and
activity" can be distinguished from separate personalities.'*
And yet W. N. Clarke ^ so emphasizes the Trinity
of manifestation, as distinguished from the Trinity
of essence, as to be far away indeed from tritheism.
It all illustrates the fact that, while the doctrine
of the Trinity, as set forth in the Nicfeno-Con-
stantinopolitan and Athanasian Creeds, will have
no traffic with tritheism, it is difficult in the
theological exposition of the dogma to steer a safe
course between tritheism and a Sabellian modalism
(in which the Father, Son, and Spirit are merely
three modes or aspects of the one God) — which
serves to give point to Augustine's famous remark
that the alternative to the affirmation of the three
Persons is silence : ' dictum est tres personae, non
ut illud diceretur, sed ne taceretur.'^

LiTERATDRB.— See art. Trinity. W. FULTON.

TRUST. — In the wide sense of confidence in a
supernatural Power on which man feels himself
dependent, trust enters as an element into practi-
cally all religions from the lowest up to the high-
est. Savages rely on their fetish to bring them
success in ithe chase, and other peoples on their
national god to give them victory in war. But
such trusti possesses no ethical quality and need
not further detain us. Only when the superior
and supernatural Power is conceived in more or
less ethical fashion can a trust emerge that has
ethical and religious value. Religious trust, in the
only sense worth considering, is confidence in and
reliance upon the eternal Power on which we hang,
as one that is working towards a worthy end and
guiding the course of events in wisdom and good-
ness. It is the trust that comes to expression in
Ps 365T- :

' Th3' lovingkindness, O Lord, 'is in the heavens ; thy faithful-
ness reacheth unto the skies. Thy righteousness is like the
mountains of God. . . . And the children of men take refuge
under the shadow of thy wings.'

Were the facts of life uniformly of a kind to render
the moral purpose and control of God obvious and
unmistakable, the exercise of trust would make no
particular demand on our energies. Since, how-
ever, they are far from being so, the world not
seldom seeming to ride roughshod over man and
his values, trust always carries with it the idea of
a triumph over difficulties. In the Epistle to the
Hebrews it is presented in the light of an act of
heroism : ' He endured, as seeing him who is in-
visible' (1127).

Trust of this kind is not of course to be looked
for in the religion of primitive races or in religions
that are merely national. Nor does it emerge
with any distinctness in the pantheistic religions of
India. The Indian conception of the world-order
as governed by the principles of karma and samsara

1 Cf. Harnack, iii. 90, 93. 2 /i. iii. loi f.

3 Jb. vi. 182.

* Christian Theology in Outline, Edinburgh, 1907, p. 152.

5 In his Outline of Christian Theology, Edinburgh, 1898, and
more especially in hie Christian Doctrine of God, do. 1909.

6 De Trin. v. 9.

(transmigration) is not at bottom ethical, and the
corresponding piety consists not in submission to
that order as something good, but in the desire to
escape from it, and in the exercises through which
the goal of absorption in Brahman is attained.
Bhagavatism, it is true, acknowledges a single
God who is personal and gracious ; and in its con-
ception of hhakti, or devotional faith, as the way
of deliverance from the wheel of birth and rebirth,
resignation appears, if not as a constituent, at
least as a fruit. ^ But bhakti is far less ethical
trust than a mystical 'abiding' in the ' Adorable,'
and the piety of Bhagavatism as mirrored in the
Bhdgavad-Glta, intense though it is, is for the
most part of the usual Indian type.

In the religion of the Greek dramatists, of Plato,
and of the later Stoics, trust holds an assured
though not a prominent place. Sophocles ex-
presses the conviction that, however things may
seem to us in our short-sightedness, if we could
only see the purposes of the gods in their totality,
we should know them to be good, and that ' noth-
ing to which the gods lead man is base.' Of the
just man Plato declares :

' Even when he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seem-
ing misfortune, all things will in the end work together for good
to him in life and in death : for the gods have a care for any
one whose desire is to become just and to be like God, as far as
man can attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue.' 2
Even more striking are the words of Epictetus :
' Do with me what thou wilt : my will is thy will :
I appeal not against thy judgments.' ^ In the
Epinomis, a dialogue wrongly ascribed to Plato, it
is said : ' Pray to the gods with trust. ' * And of
Socrates Xenophon says that he must have believed
in the gods, since he trusted them : iricrTeiJwv 8i Oeois
TTtDs ovK elvai deads ivbixi^ev.^

But, though in the higher Greek religion trust
had a firm basis provided for it and secured a
certain amount of recognition, its full significance
was far from being realized. Nowhere do we find
it put forward as a central element in piety or a
spring of strength and goodness. It was in the
Hebrew prophets and their spiritual successors
that it first really came into its own. Everywhere
in the Bible we are met by utterances of fervent
and steadfast trust in God. And its religious im-
portance is clearly recognized. Isaiah sees in it
the only source of safety : ' If ye will not trust, ye
sliall not be established ' (7^). Jeremiah speaks to
the same efl'ect : ' Cursed is the man who trusts in
man and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart
turns aside from Jahweh. . . . Blessed is the man
who trusts in Jahweh and whose confidence Jahweh
is' (17^*''). To trust in Jahweh and do good is
presented in Ps 37 as the sum of religion. In the
NT the idea of trust, deepened by a new feeling
for God's care for the individual, occupies a position
of still greater prominence. Outside the Synoptic
Gospels, however, it is to a large extent merged in
the idea of faith {q.v.). It is faith in the sense of
belief that is established as the condition of salva-
tion. This change of emphasis — as we shall see, it
amounts to nothing more — is intelligible when we
remember that the gospel was preached as, in the
first place at least, a message to be received.
None the less it created for the Church a serious
problem and one that had to wait long for a
satisfactory solution. The problem has to do witli
the mutual relations of faith and trust. By St.
Paul,* and also in the Epistle to the Hebrews, faith

1 See art. Bhakti-MXroa.

2 Rep. X. 613 (tr. B. Jowett, Dialogues of PlatoS, Oxford,
1892, iii. 329).

3 Quoted from A. SchenkI, Epieteti Dissertationes, Leipzig,
1894, p. 158, by L. R. Farnell, The Evolution of Religion,
London, 1905, p. 205.

•* wio-reuo-as rots Seoiy €vxov, quoted by W. H. P. Hatch, The
Pauline Idea of Faith (Harvard Theological Studies, iii.),
Camoridge, Mass., 1917, p. C9.

8 Memorabilia, i. i. 5. * E.g., Ro 4.

TSIMSHIAN

465

is conceived in a way that makes the two practi-
cally identical. But what if its object is thouglit
of as a doctrine which must first be assented to
before trust can enter? In that case faith, while
including trust, will contain in addition a purely
intellectual element, either intellectual submission,
if the doctrine is authoritatively given, or in-
tellectual insight, if it is the product of a rational
process. Adopting the first alternative, the older
Protestant theologians in their analysis of faith
established notitia and assensus as the necessary
preliminaries to fiducia. The vice of this solution
is that it destroys the independence of faith — in
other words, of religion — by binding it to an act
external to it and without moral quality. The
faith described by Paul as trust in God is presented
as at bottom subjection to the Church or the Bible
as the guarantor of religious truth. And its in-
d^endence is equally subverted if, adopting the
second alternative, we regard it as receiving its
object from philosophical reflexion. The true
solution of the problem lies in the recognition that
in faith itself there is a cognitive element, and
that its object is given not in the form of a doctrine,
but in the form of an ideal value. Face to face
with the great values that are supremely embodied
in the life and cross of Jesus and that are summed
up in the conception of a kingdom of the good, we
affirm them on the ground of their worth as the
manifestation of the eternal Power that works at
the heart of things, the eternal Reality on which
the universe no less than our human life is founded.
Faith is nothing else than just this feeling for the
ideal and, above all, the moral values and this
affirmation of their cosmic significance. So inter-
preted, it is one and the same thing with trust in
God, for what is trust in God but trust in the
good as the central might on which we and the
whole universe hang ? If there is a difference, it
is that in the idea of faith the emphasis falls on
the cognitive aspect, and in the idea of trust on
the volitional.

LiTBRATnRE. — See the works referred to in the footnotes and
those given in art. Faith (Christian). W. MORGAN.

TRUSTS.— See Economics.

TRUTH.— See Error and Truth.

TSHI-SPEAKING TRIBES.— See Negroes
AND W. Africa.

TSIMSHIAN.— The Tsimshian belong to the
northern group of coast Indians, but differ markedly
from the Haida and Tlingit {qq.v.) in language.
Their social organization is also somewhat diver-
gent, since instead of two phratries they have four
— Eagle, Wolf, Kanhada, and Gyispawaduwetia —
each embracing many small local groups or clans.
There are three chief Tsimsiiian divisions : the
Tsimshian proper, living on the lower Skeena
River and the coa-st to the south, the Niska of
Nass River, and the Kitksan of tiie upper Skeena.
The last does not border on the coast and is inter-
mediate between the coast tribes proper and the
true interior tribes of Athapascan lineage. Most
of the information tliat we possess regarding Tsim-
shian religion is from the Niska, but there seems
to have been little difference between their beliefs
and those of the other divisions.

I. Cosmological beliefs. — The earth was believed
to be flat and circular. It was supported by a
man named Amala ('smoke hole'), who lay on his
back and held upon his chest a spoon made of the
horn of the mountain-goat. This was filled with
grease, and in it stood a pole, on which the earth
rested. When he became tired, he lifted the pole,
and the earth shook. The pole, with the earth on
VOL. XII. — 30

it, was turning round in the bowl of the spoon, the
grease in which served to make it revolve easily.
Sun, moon, and stars belonged to the sky and did
not turn with the earth. This reference to the
turning of the earth seems to point to White influ-
ence, but the association of grease with the being
under the earth is paralleled by .something related
of the Haida Atlas, Sacred -one -standing -and -
moving, and is probably genuinely aboriginal.

2. Supernatural beings. — The supernatural
beings, so far as we are acquainted with tiiem,
were much the same as those among the Haida
(q.v.). They had a supreme heaven-god called
Laha ('on the air'), a perfect counterpart of the
Haida Power-of-the-shining-heavens. From the
information regarding him gathered by Boas, how-
ever, it seems that he approached much nearer to
the monotheistic idea of a supreme being.

' Heaven is the great deity who has a number of mediators
called Neqno'q. . . . Heaven rules the destinies of mankind ;
Heaven taught man to distinguish between good and bad, and
gave the religious laws and institutions. Heaven is gratified
by the mere existence of man. He is worshipped by offerings
and prayer, the smoke rising from fires being especially agree-
able to him. Murderers, adulterers, and those who behave
foolishly, talking to no purpose, and making noise at night, are
especially hateful to him. He loves those who take pity upon
the poor, who do not trj' to become rich by selling at high
prices what others want. His messengers, particularly sun and
moon, must be treated with respect. Men make themselves
agreeable to the deity by cleanliness. Therefore, they must
bathe and wash their wliole bodies before praying. For the
same reason they take a vomitive when thej' wish to please the
deity well. They fast and abstain from touching their wives if
they desire their prajers to be successful. They offer every-
thing that is considered valuable— eagle-down, red paint, red
cedar bark, good elk-skin lines, etc. The offering is burnt.' 1

The ethics of this, especially in the matter of
acquiring wealth, seems so different from the
aboriginal code found elsewhere that it is probable
that the native informant's statements were tinged
with missionary teaching, and that Heaven, or
Laha, was elevated to a position above that which
he occupied in earlier days. There can be no
doubt, however, as to the existence of a sky-god
' first among equals.'

The Tsimshian prayed less often to their heaven-
god than to the minor deities, or ' mediators,'
whom they generally asked for food and fair
weather. Sometimes they prayed to the super-
natural beings collectively. The most important
'mediators' are stated to have been the sun and
moon, spirits appearing in the shape of lightning
strokes, and animals. The Raven, also called
Skiimsem, was believed in and had the same
functions and general character as among the
Tlingit and Haida. They also believed in the sea
grizzly bear, or Haguiak, which may have been
originally a Haida conception, since his home Avas
called Helahaidek (' near the Haida country'). In
his house he had four kettles called Lukewarm,
Warm, Hot, and Boiling. The killer-whales seem
to have been his servants, since they were known
as ' Haguiak's men.' There was also a one-legged
man similar to the Master- hopper of the Haida.*

Besides praying to the deities, a person could
force them to grant his desires by rigid fasting.
He had to abstain from food and from seeing his
wife for seven days, lying in bed motionless all
that time. Then he might rise, wash himself,
comb the rigiit side of his head, and paint the right
side of his face, after which he might look at his
wife. A less rigid form of fasting extended over
four days only. To make tiie ceremony very
successful, the man's wife must join him, hut, if
the wife should be untrue to her husband, the
effect of the fasting would be destroyed. What-
ever twins wished was believed to be fulfilled, and
they were appealed to especially to control the

1 Boas, in Rep. of Brit. Association /or Advancement 0/
Science, 18S9, p. 845 f.
3 See art, Haida, § 19.

466

TUKARAM

weather and bring eulachon and salmon. Numbers
of tabus governed liunting and (ishing, particularly
the fishing of eulachon, wliich run into the Nass
Kiver in great numbers and are, or were, a principal
source of wealth to the people. The first of these
fish to be caught were roasted on a peculiarly-
shaped frame made of elder-berry wood arid with
special ceremonies, the man who handled it pray-
ing meanwhile for an abundance of lish.

3. The dead.— The principal world of the dead
was reached by following a trail and crossing a
river. According to one story, a man who fainted
and passed to the spirit-world was saved by a per-
forated stone hung round his neck as an amulet,
which thwarted the endeavours of four shamans to
remove his heart. Whether those who had died by
violence or drowning went to regions distinct from
the others is not recorded. At least at the mort-
uary feasts food was put into the tire for the dead.

4. Shamanism.— Nothing is known of Tsimshian
shamans which would in any way distinguish them
from those of the Tiingit and Haida, except that
their bodies, like those of the common people, were
cremated.

5. Witchcraft.— The wizard cast his spell by
putting some article taken from the victim into a
box containing portions of a human body. Strings
were fastened inside this box, and, if the wizard
wished his victim to die slowly, he fastened the
object some distance above the body, but, if he
desired him to perish at once, he cut the string,
thereby precipitating the object upon the body.
Afterwards he had to go round the house in which
the person whom he had killed by witchcraft was
lying, and later he had to walk round his grave
and rub himself, pretending to cry all the time.
Unless he observed these rules, he would himself
perish. If it was believed that a person had been
killed by witchcraft, the Tsimshian would take
out his heart and lay a red-hot stone against it,
wishing at the same time that the wizard might
die. If the heart burst, it was expected that their
wish would be fulfilled ; if not, it was a sign that
their suspicions were unfounded.

Lttbrati're.— Nearly all the available Tsimshian material is
contained in F. Boas", report v. 'On the North-Western Tribes
of Canada,' in Report of the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, 1889, p. 801 ff., report vi. ib. 1890, p. 562 ff.,
report x. ib. 1S9.5, p. 523 ff., in Bull. S7 BE [1902], and in
31 RBEW [1909-1910]. JOHN R. SWANTON.

TUKARAM. — In Tukaram there culminates
an important section of the bhakti school ^ and his
verses have all the authority of a ' Veda ' for most
of the twenty million Marathi-speaking people of
one of India's noblest races, among whom are to be
found some of the greatest Indian reformers of the
day. Both for his poetic genius and for his unique
place in the people's heart he is happily described
as ' the Robert Burns of India ' who marks ' the era
of the efllorescence of Maharashtra's people.' ^

I. Sources. —(a) Biographical. —Two serious difficulties
confront the modern biographer of Tukaram. (1) All the
Marathi Lives of Tukaram are drawn almost exclusi\'ely from
a single authority, the poet-saint Mahipati (1715-90), whose
accounts in the Bhakti Vydpa (chs. xlviii.-li.) and the Bhakti
Lilamrita (chs. xxv.-xl.) were written in 1762 and 1774 respec-
tively, more than a century after Tukaram's end in 1650, ' long
enough for legends to grow.' (2) We have ' no authentic and
properly sifted account of his life,' but only 'a mass of legends
and traditions that have gathered round Tukaram ' 3 and show a
distinct ' tendency towards deification. '4 Yet we have ' at least
some facts of historical accuracy to start with,' 8 and Mahipati's
' detailed legends . . . seem to be in every way as deserving of
being critically worked out as those of the early Christian
martyrs to which they often bear a strong resemblance.' "

1 See artt. Bhakti-Marqa, MysTicisu (Hindu).

2 D. Mackichan, The Indian Interpreter, vii. [1912] 165, 173.
» W. B. Patwardhan, The Indian Interpreter, vii. 19.

■1 Poems of Tukaram, Indu Prakdsh, ed. Bombay, 1869, p. 2.

5 PatWiirdhan, The Indian Interpreter, viii. [1913] 11.

6 ]j. J. Sedgwick, JRASBo, no. Ixv. vol, xxiii. [1910] p. 127 f.

A few sources earlier than Mahipati have been indicated
recently by V. L. Bhawe. Besides (1) Tukaram's autobiographi-
cal poeins (see below) and (2) the abliafigs of Ramoshwar Bbat,}.,
the leading disciple of Tukaram,! there are (3) a brief life of
Tukaram by his grandson, (lupfil Buwa, (4) the autobiography
of Bahinabii, another disciple of Tukaram who dictated her
own life-story, giving the names of some of Tukaram's con-
temporaries who figure prominently both in Mahipati and m
Tukaram's own poems, 2 and (5) a source a century earlier than
Mahipati, a work written by one named Krishnadas Bairagi on
Keiav Chaitanya SampradSya, which gives the important ' guru-
succession ' of Tukaram and helps us to settle important dates
in his life, this work being quoted by name and its facts given
by one Niranjan.3 Some would add a sixth source earlier than
Mahipati, in Narahari Malu, author of Bhaktikatlidinxita, but
he must be pronounced utterly untrustworthy, though he is
followed by a few Maratha authors.^

The investigation concerning biographical material has gone
far enough to conclude with safety that, despite much unsifted
tradition, ' miracle and wonder-working,' Mahipati's account
has a solid substratum of historical accuracy. Moreover, he
uses his sources with discrimination, rejecting what he discovers
to be unreliable. 5 . .

(6) Autobiographical.— The true text of Tukaram's writmgs
has not yet been critically ascertained, and between the several
collections there is a wide difference as to the number of poems
included, ranging from 4621 in the edition generally accepted •>
to 8841 in one 7 described by R. G. Bhandarkar as ' uncritically
made.' 8 Even the former is based on MSS admitted to have
been 'corrected,' 'further corrected,' and 'arranged.' The
problem remained in abeyance for fifty years until Bhawe in
1919-20 edited and published the first two instalments, number-
ing about 1300 poems, of what he claims is 'Tukaram's Original
Gatha,' written by one of Tuk.iram's fourteen disciples, one
Santaji the Oilman whose MS » bears a date in one place three
years earlier than Tukaram's death. All that can be said at
present is that scholars are patiently investigating the problem
of a critical text of Tukaram's writings. His verses were prob-
ably all extempore and were taken down by at least one or two
of his immediate disciples. It is almost certain that every
collection contains poems which are not really his, and we are
also quite unable to fix their chronological order— a serious
disadvantage. They are practically our only source of infor-
mation regarding his teaching.

2. Life.— Penetrating 'a wilderness of surmise
and guess,' we are safe in deciding that Tukaram
was born the same year as John Milton, in 1608,
though later research may push the date farther
back. From at least seven generations Tukaram
inherited a devotion to the god Vithoba of
Pandharpur.i" It is first as a Sudra grain -seller
in his own native Dehu, eighteen miles north-west
of Poona, that Tukaram comes before us. His
father Bolhoba, having married off his three sons
with lavish outlay, sought to hand over his
busine-ss to the eldest, whose predilection, how-
ever, for an unworldly, life led to this responsibility
falling on Tukaram at the early age of thirteen.
The first four or five years appear to have been
prosperous, but they were followed by a succession
of disasters in business and home, so that young
Tukaram's capital disappeared. Many stories are
told illustrating his honesty, simple-mindedness,
and spiritual devotion, Vithoba being represented
as his unfailing helper on all occasions. All these
stories probably have a solid basis of fact.

A great famine in 1629, during which his elder
wife " died crying for bread, was the last in a
succession of sorrows which led him to give up
all business and worldly attachment. Sitting on
the river bank with his younger brother Kanhoba,
he threw into the stream his half of the business
papers and handed over the remainder to Kanhoba,
while he dedicated himself wholly to Vithoba,

The spirit of poetry came to him in a dream,
commanding him to complete the unfinished task

I See Bhaktillldmrit, ch. 40. 209.

2V. L. Bhawe, Maharashtra Sdraswat, Poona, 1919, pp.
193, 242 f. . ., _

3 Ib. p. 190, note 1. * lb. p. 391. 6 lb. p. 374.

6 Inda Prakdsh, Bombay, 1869, now out of print.

7 By Tukaram Tatva, Bombay, 1889.

8 Vai^rMvism, ^aivism and Minor Religious Systems, in the
Encyelopcedia of Indo- Aryan Research, Strassburg, 1915, p. 94.

8 Bhawe, T^ikdrdm's Original Gdthd, vols, i.-ii., Thana,
Bombay, 191!l-20.
10 See art. PanpharpOr.

II His wife Rakhmabai being '.constitutionally asthmatic,' he
had married another, Jijabai or .\vali, daughter of a well-to-do
Poona merchant,

TUKARAM

467

of his great predecessor Namdev, bhakta and poet.
In another dream he received his all-important
guru-mantra — Ram - Krishna - Hari, the secret
mystic formula wliicli finally initiated him as a
Hindu teacher. This was at the hands of one
Babiiji Chaitanj'^a of the line of Kaghav Cliaitanya
and Kesav Chaitanya — a possible indication that
Tukaram had some connexion with the Chaitanya
sect of the Vaisnavites. A series of events setting
forth his dealings with Brahmans constitutes the
most important part of his life-narrative.

One such story provides an interesting Hindu parallel to the
Quaker doctrine of the sacramental significance of every meal.
A Chinchwad Brahman, Chintamani Dev, had invited Tukaram
to dine with him, and, the Sudra's plate having been laid the
usual distance from the Brahman's, Tukaram made the strange
request that two more he laid, one for his own god and another
for Gaupati, worshipped by his host, his explanation in an
autobiographical poem being : ' If you enjoy a meal in faith,
God sits down to dine with you." Another event, one of the
most critical in his life, demonstrates Tukaram's reverence for
Brahmans, even at the heiglit of his j-enown. Rameshwar
Bhatt, a Brahman scholar jealous of the Sudra's fame, had not
only moved the public authorities against him but had person-
ally enjoined silence upon him. ' But what of the poems already
written?', asked their docile author. 'Throw them into the
river," was the cruel reply, and into the river the whole bundle
went, covered with a stone. It was Tukaram's darkest hour,
but, to the astonishment of all, several days later the sheets
were seen floating on the river and were taken out unharmed.
Rameshwar's deep repentance followed, the poet replying in
gentle verse : ' If your mind is pure your enemies will be your
friends.' And it was true enough in this case, for Rameshwar
became his lifelong disciple.

Of the many incidents illustrating Tukaram's religious views
one is of a Vedantist Brahman who persisted in reading to this
Vaisnavite bhakta a pantheistic treatise to which Tukaram
agreed to listen only on condition that he might be covered
with a blanket;. When the blanket was lifted after an hour's
reading, Tukaram was found seated with his fingers in his ears,
his defence being that he could not listen to the Advaita
doctrine that God and His worshippers were the same.

The miraculous is found interwoven throughout
Tukaram's life-story. His birth is viewed as an
incarnation. He performs many miracles to help
the poor. Vithoba miraculously intervenes at every
point to vindicate and deliver his faithful devotee.
In this legendary material is to be included, un-
questionably, the account of Tukaram's 'ascension '
on which Mahipati has expended all his powers,
giving rise to the popular Hindu belief ^ that
Tukaram was carried away to Vaikuntha (the
Hindu heaven) in the car of Visnu. The probability
is, as suggested by P. K.. Bhandarkar, that ' he met
his death by drowning,' in the holy river of his own
village, in 1650, whether by what is called jalasa-
mddhi, or pi-earranged drowning, as in the case of
some other Indian sddhus, or whether ' the constant
expectation of God's coming to fetch him away
produced an illusion, and in obeying a fancied
call from the opposite bank he ran into the river
and Avas drowned, it is very difficult to say.' ^ The
various traditions concerning Tukaram's influence
after death must also be regarded as legendary.

3. Autobiography. — Though there is as yet no
critical edition of Tukaram's aSArtn^'s ^ in existence,
his autobiographical poems are generally accepted,
and his self-revelations give the impression of
being sincere and genuine. Of his kindness and
unselfish service for others, on which Mahipati
dwells so often, he himself tells us nothing, his
autobiographical verses being wholly concerned
with the personal and spiritual side of things. ' It
is his own religious life that occupies his soul.''*
The ahhaiigs classified as ' .autobiography ' in the
Knglish translations of the poems by J. N. Fraser
and K. B. Marathe'' number over 500, and there

1 See L. R. Pangarkar, ^rl Tukdrdm Caritra, Poona, 1920,
pj). 495-012.
'f Two Masters: Jesus and Tvkdnlm, Bombay, 1903, p. 11.

* An abhafif] is an Indian metre, somewhat irregular, words
rhyming at certain intervals.

* .1. N. Farquhar, RelUjious Literature of India, Ix)ndon,
1920, p. 300.

5 The Poeim of Tukaram, 3 vols., Madras, 1909-15 ; the
references by simple figures below are to this useful work.

are many hundreds more given up to confession,
invocation, and aspiration. He tells us but little
of his life in the world, though he often dwells on
his guilt and mi.sery. The poems of self-accusation,
about 300, reveal a sense of sin whose depth is
rare in Hindu literature, though his relation to
God is personal and pantheistic by turns.

' Fallen of fallen, thrice fallen am I ' (343). ' I am a great
fallen sinner. ... My heart is witness to me that I am not
redeemed' (126). This conviction of sin is often closely
associated with extreme mental depression : ' False is "mine,"
false is "thine." False is Tuka, false is his faith. He speaks
falsehood to the false' (2315). Sorrow, resulting from the
death of parents, favourite wife, and eldest son, and from
business failures, clearly led him to his self-dedication : ' It is
well, 0 God, that I became a bankrupt, and was crushed by the
famine ; this is how I repented and turned to thee' (113). And
his dedication was complete : ' Rank, race, colour, creed and
caste — all are gone ' (2790).

Patwardhan has made a ' tentative ' effort to depict
Tukaram's long inward struggle.^ That this
earnest pilgrim reached some worthy goal wouhl
appear from the poems, about 80 in number, under
the heading ' Triumphant Happiness ' in Fraser
and Marathe.

' I have found a sea of love, an inexhaustible flood. I have
opened a treasure of spiritual knowledge ; it diffuses the lustre
of a million suns arisen in thy worshippers' souls ' (573).

This, however, is by no means his habitual mood,
which is rather one of despising his self-complacency.
He has a passionate desire to help and serve those
around, and,. though he is far too often censorious,
sometimes to the point of coarseness, yet he has
something to say of constructive worth to his age
and people. And it is chiefly as a preacher that
he views himself. Though he lays no emphasis
on Vedic lore, he has nevertheless a message
invested with authority.

' These are not my words : I am a hired servant of Vithoba '
(1420). Earnest and sincere preachers are badly needed, for
there are impostors who eat and drink and who do even worse :
' Their dtsires are set on shawls and pots and money.' ' Matted
hair and ashes are a scandal when the mind has no patience and
forbearance ' (1199). ' Such people sink themselves and destroy
the ship of salvation,' but a true preacher ' rescues others by
the sweet perfume of his words.'

4. Experience of bhakti. — To fathom Tukaram's
deepest secret Ave need to explore his experience
of bhakti, the ' clinging affection of the heart' for
a personal God, though the god in Tukaram's case
was a village-idol, surrounded by Puranic gross
mythology and superstitious animism. The idol
he worshipped was even one ' standing for both '
Krsna and ^iva,^ but whether Tukaram recognized
this plurality of gods at Pandharpur Ave cannot say.
In this unpromising soil Tukaram's bhakti groAvs,
with pantheism and idolatry as tAvin -stems on the
same tree. And, though his bhakti is too often
a mere emotion, fugitive and fleeting, Avith more
of longing than of satisfaction, it is yet free from
those sensual extravagances that have degraded
some forms of Indian bhakti. In Tukaram we
probably see Indian bhakti at its best.

If it be asked in Avhat Tukaram's bhakti
experience consisted, the ansAver might be given
in the Avords of the Narada-bhakti-sfitra : ' sur-
rendering all actions to God and feeling the
greatest misery in forgetting God.'

' Tuka has his home in the Inconceivable ' (1578). ' Whereso-
ever I go, thou art my companion : thou takest me by the hand
and guidest me. As I walk along, I lean on thee' (2149).''
'No particular time is necessary,' says Tukaram, 'for tlie
contemplation of God, it should be done always.' ■* And .again :
'God is ours, ceilainly ours, and is the soul of all souls. God
is near, certainly near, outside and inside. ' ^

His deep sense of sin ofl'ered a serious obstacle to
the (jucst of his soul.

1 See Fergusson College Magazine, vol. i. no. 3 [1910], pp. 4-16.

2 See J. N. Farquhar, Religious Literature of India, p. 301.

3 See also a poetic rendering in N. Macnicol, Psalms of Mardiha
Saint.i, Calcutta, 1919, p. 71.

4 Naravan G. Uhandavarkar, •Speeches ami Writings, Bombay,
1911, p. r,27.

5 Bhandarkar's Ir., Vaisxiafism, p. 95.

468

TUKARAM

' The Endless is bej'ond, and between him and me there are
the lofty mountains of desire and anger. I am not able to
ascend them, nor do I find any pass.'i ' I know my faults, but
I cannot control mv mind ... I am a slave of the senses '
(13G9).

Did ' any pass ' over the ' mountains ' ever appear
on his horizon ? He would appear to have had
glimpses of one.

' I know not how to cleanse me of sin, so I have seized thy
feet. . . . If thou dost take a thing in hand, what is impossible?'
(2035). ' Thou hast saved many a humble, many a guilty, many
a sinful man. Tuka dwells at thj' feet ; preserve him, O God '
(248). ' What prayer can I put up? . . . Up till now, I felt sure
that some of my service had been accepted. Now nothing but
the struggle is left me : I see no sign of assurance in him who
stands hand on hip' = Vithoba (3010). 'Though I made myself
ceremonially pure, some impurity would still cling to me ' (2968).
Inward pnrity thus becomes the prime necessity.

'What I delight in is purity of heart' (2632). 'What you
need is a clean heart and a spirit at peace' (2309). 'Blessed
are the pious, for their heart is pure. . . . Their hearts are
filled with devoted love ' (S94).

The urgent question therefore comes to be :
How shall this purity be realized? Ceremonies
are unavailing, as are also pilgrimages. ^ Tukanlm
has full confidence that God can fulfil His child's
desire, and to the crucial question how the divine
blessing is obtained the answer comes repeatedly :
'It is bhava' (812).

' My single-minded bhdva has put an end to pilgrimage to
and fro' (2773). 'God comes quickly and stands where he
finds bhdva ' (3671). ' 'Tis bhdva that moves us and is fitly
called the means of salvation ' (2.597). ' Without bhakti and
hhdva everything else is useless trouble.' 3 ' Lay reasoning or
learning aside in a bundle, for here bhdva is the one great
criterion.' •!

What is bhdvat His modern interpreters are
not always clear. Bhandarkar says that it is
'faith, love, or the pure heart,' ^ and also that it
has different meanings in different contexts.®
Sometimes bhava is that heart-religion which is
guarantee of the vision of God without conscious
effort, a parallel being found in the Svetd§vatara
Upanisad reference to ' those who by the heart
know the Supreme Spirit who dwells within.'^

Bhakti, therefore, as experienced by Tukaram,
seems to have concerned itself chiefly with realiz-
ing a change of heart. ' The great precept of
religion is to hear God in the heart ' (812). And,
with a change of heart, he longs for some assurance
of the change :

' Whether I am indeed God's child, truly accepted by him,
how am I to know ? How shall I know of a surety that my
heart is purer, my mhid less tainted with anger ? For if love be
not in my heart how has my heart been changed? ' ' Fortunate,
indeed, are those persons in whose heart dwells forgiveness.' 8

Three lines of solution appeared to Tukaram :
concentrated personal meditation on God and His
saints, persistent self-examination that shall root
out self-esteem, and such utter self-abandonment
to God that no voice shall be desired but His.^
Deep humility, simple faith in the divine protec-
tion, and complete abandonment of self to God
comprise another triple secret of bh(ikti.'^° Tuk-
aram had travelled a long rough road in quest of
peace. Yoga he had found unavailing, as well as
mantras, austerities, and the five fires. On the
summit of bhakti he found three graces whose
fragrance reaches us in his pages : pity, pardon,
peace.

' He who gives to God simple-hearted devotion . . . within
his soul there dwell pity, i:)ardon, peace.' n 'There is no
Saviour of the needy save God alone : in Him are pity, pardon,
peace.' 12 ' Where pity, pardon, peace abide there God dwells.
'Thither He runs and makes His home . . ., and where these
graces have free play He tarries.' 1^

1 Bhandarkar's tr., Vai^navism, p. 96.

2 lb. p. 9.'i. 3 lb. p. 95.

4 Bhandarkar's tr., Mara{hi Writings, Bombay, 1919, p. 223.

B Fafjpauisw, p. 109.

8 Mardihi Writings, p. 187.

V lb. p. 187 f.

8 Bhandarkar's tr., Fais^iawm, p. 97.

9 Bhandarkar, Vai§Vi.avisrn, pp. 40, 54, Mardthi Writings, pp.
315-321.

10 lb. p. 431 1. 11 lb. p. 430.
12 lb. p. 581. IS Jb. p. 535 f.

5. Teaching. — Tukaram is never systematic in
his psychology, his theology, or his theodicy. He
oscillates between a Dvaitist and an Advaitist
view of God and the world, leaning now to a
pantheistic scheme of things, now to a distinctly
Providential, and he does not harmonize them.
He says little or nothing of cosmogony,, and, accord-
ing to him, God realizes Himself in the devotion of
His worshippers. Likewise, faith is essential to
their realization of Him : ' It is our faith that
makes thee a god' (1785), he says boldly to his
Vithoba. On the other hand, God makes Himself
accessible to man's feeble apprehension by means
of visibility, the idol thus becoming a proof of
divine condescension : ' He has embodied himself
in forms to suit our pleasure' (1753). Man is a
child of God. Indeed, the figure of childhood is
pressed sometimes so far as to sacrifice reverenceand
dignity, the same applying to Tukaram's view of
God as Mother, though in the latter he finds a
solution of many perplexities. All this deals with
man's ' natural ' state, but separation has entered,
sin being viewed variously. It is sometimes a
mere breaking of caste rules, sometimes a breach
of morality, and again, and very often, it is
mtpana, a word often on his lips and perhaps best
rendered by ' self-centredne.ss,' though this is in-
adequate. We have seen hoAV deep was his sense
of sin and what means of salvation were disclosed
to him. Brahmanical or mystic intuition and
verbal theology were deprecated as much as
austerities. Men should waste no time in argu-
ment, but throw themselves at God's feet. Specific
hindrances to salvation are found in the above
mipana, in indulgence of desire, fear of ridicule,
learning, and disputation. What the religious life
meant to him we have already seen. Mere re-
nunciation leads to nothing, and indeed everything
is worthless save a personal experience of religion.
Tukaram's ' good man ' must possess humility,
peaceableness, kindness, truthfulness, contentment,
and simplicity.

He is mostly despondent of his fellow-men :
' I am sick of mankind ' (994), and for relief he
turns to ' the saints,' about whom he has hundreds
of verses, setting forth their calling, character, and
service to mankind. At the other end of the scale
of creation animals call forth his real sympathy.
Whether he held to ahiinsd is not quite clear.
Reincarnation he accepts (972), but he is not sure
whether to prefer mortal rebirth, for the power of
God's name could break his karma. Conscious
communion on earth was far preferable to being
merged in the unconsciousness of Brahman.

Patwardhan has shown that Tukaram's ' doctrine of bhakti '
comprised a conception of the Divine Motherhood which gave
Tukaram a God of love and tenderness, a sense of human in-
sufficiency which led to conflict between faith and ' the flesh,'
devotion thus being frustrated by human frailties, and a
defective view of life ' that was at best one-sided. His end
was individual, the peace and solace and beatific rest of his own
restless soul. . . . 'Tukaram was a pessimist in regard to this
world. . . . The bhakti of the future ought to be broader based,
fuller veined, and larger souled.'l A defect sometimes
pointed out is that the claim of human need ' is a rare mood
and very seldom expressed in his poems ' 2 and that ' there are
but few traces of the passion of winning others.' ^ It is a
'defect,' however, very largely repaired by his self-forgetting
service as set forth in the pages of Mahipati.

6. Relation to Hinduism. — Tukaram acquiesced
in the greater part of the conventional Hinduism
of his day while himself living on a loftier plane.
Often therefore he speaks with two voices.
Temple ceremonies he does not condemn, but his
heart aspires to something higher. About
Vithoba, however, there is no kind of ambiguity,
for, as an incarnation of Krsna or Visnu, Vithoba
was the bigger half of Tukaram's spiritual life,

1 Indian Interpreter, vii. 19-30.

2 N. Macnicol, Psalms of Mard^hd Saints, p. 31 f.

3 Farquhar, Religious Literature of India, p. 300.

TULASI-DASA

469

thou^^h again faith was always the channel. In-
wardly he experienced the living God, though
outwardly it was an idol he worsliipped.

' There is scarcely a theological or philogophical system to
be found in his writin<fs, but so far as philosophical thinking
may be traced, he tends to be a monist.'l ' Tukaram was
thus a devotee only of Vi^hoba of Pandharpur and a nionotheist
in this sense. Though he worshipped the idol at the place,
still he had always before his mind's eye the g^eat Lord of the
universe.' 2

In some verses indeed he holds that the stone
idol was a mere stone, neither embodying nor
symbolizing t'.ie divine. The inconsistency of such
a position he appears to have realized, but he does
not solve it. Hence the millions in the Deccan
who follow him in idolatrous practices and the
thousands who share his theistic aspirations have
both much to support them. Hence too a theistic
society like tlie Frarthana Samaj ^ so recently as
20th June 1920 failed to pass a resolution that
' any member who performs a domestic or any
other ceremony with idolatrous rites or worships
any idols while performing such rites will ipso
facto cease to be a member of the Bombay
Frarthana Samaj.' *

A similar ambiguity exists in his references to
caste and holy places. Caste was accepted by
Tukfirani as an institution of the Hindu world, and
he did not carry to its logical conclusion his con-
viction that God does not consider a man's caste,
all His worshippers being equally dear to Him
(2077). In personal inward religion Tukaram was
democratic enough, but he was too much of the
' mild Hindu ' to fight the battle of religious rights
and privileges.

Tukaram was in no sense a ' reformer,' as the
word is commonly understood : he was a sage with
lofty principles in a degenerate time, a sage who for
lack of courage, conviction, or inspiration allowed
his protests to lapse after he had uttered them.

7. Influence. — Tukaram has quite a unique place
in the inner life of his own people. Besides the
Varkaris, a pilgrim sect devoted to him, every
member of which visits Fandharpur not only at
the two annual festivals but on other ekddails, or
' monthly-elevenths,' named vdrls, and whose
preachings of equality and disregard of caste have
been ' a valuable counterpoise to Brahman domin-
eering,'^ there are some fifteen million Deccan
peasants of all castes and creeds v/ho sing his
verses in the fields by day and in companies around
some flickering lamp at night. His poems form a
substantial part of the hymn-book of the Frar-
thana Samaj [q.v.) of Western India, now in its
ninth edition and containing 500 of his abhahgs.
His terms 'Vithoba, Fandurafig ' etc., being un-
acceptable to ekcswaris (monotheists), the simple
term ' God ' has been substituted.® That Tukaram
has exercised a great nationalizing and democra-
tizing influence among the people of the only
Indian nation that has ever ruled over any con-
siderable portion of India can hardly be doubted.
His moralizing force cannot be said to have been
so great, in view of idolatrous conditions in the
Deccan to-day. But the Vithoba of Tukjiram still
inspires a phenomenal type of devotion in his
devotees. From as far distant as Madras, Avomen
have been known to make at Vithoba's shrine the
hair-ottering called vcnlchln (w«i=:' braid,' dan —
' gift ') by having their heads shaved as do Brahman
women at Gaya, and all Fandharpur pilgrims have
such an aft'ection for their god that no darshan is
complete without the [)ilgrim's head touching

1 Farquhar, p. 300.
- Hhandarkar, Vaimavism, p. 95.
•* See art. 1'rarthana Sama.f.

•1 Subudh Patrika, 27th June 19;:0, with Dhyanodaya com-
ments, 1st July 1920.

5 BG XX. [1884] 471-473.

6 Bhandarkar, Mardihi Writings, pp. 506-513.

Vithoba's feet. No fewer than 140,000 people
take this darshan at a single festival, at the rate
of 12,000 daily. Some of them accomplish the
journey by prostrating their form at every step in
honour of Vithoba, some thus rolling along for
more than 40 miles ; ^ one case is known of a
man rolling like a log from Nagpur, hundreds of
miles away, at the rate of two miles a day, the
journey taking two years.^ Tukaram's moving
verse has done not a little to inspire this tragic
devotion in men and women alike.

All attempts to classify Tukaram have failed.
He was neither an orthodox Hindu nor a Hindu
Protestant. He lived according to the rules of a
gigantic religious system with much of which he
disagreed while enjoying an inward experience
transcending the system, for spiritual intercourse
with God and His ' saints ' was the sum and sub-
stance of Tukaram's religion. He belongs there-,
fore to none of the stereotyped forms, and, to be
understood and appreciated at his proper worth,
he must be approached without any kind of
dogmatic prejudice, whether Hindu or Christian.
Those who have no detinite creed and who follow
no organized system find in him a kindred spirit.
He cannot be classed as a mystic, for he had no
extraordinary visions, and he followed Hindu rules
of living. We may regard him as a devoted theist
living his own inward life amid idolatrous sur-
roundings.

' You can find much in Tukaram's poetry that runs parallel
with the teachings of Christ save its principles and spirit.
These latter, eclectics easily read into his words, and when
they cannot do so they put them there. Tukaram was one of
the greatest saints of India, and as such he has influenced and
is still influencing the devotional trend of his own people. In
the case of us Christians he is one of the most powerful of
sidelights. Onl)' a few weeks ago he threw me into the very
arms of my Lord.' 3

At the close of an examination into ' The Alleged
Indebtedness of Indian Theism to Christianity ' the
conclusion is reached :

' Certainly either Tukaram was actually in contact with
Christian teaching, which is by no means improbalile, or he
was a remarkable instance of a mens naturaliter Christiana.' -^

Of these two alternatives we incline to the
second, as there has been no evidence adduced as
yet pointing to Tukaram ever having been ' in
contact with Christian teaching,' and, while he
has much kinship with the NT writers, none of
the fundamental doctrines of the Christian Church,
with the possible exception of faith, can be traced
in his pages. ^ The kinship is indeed so close that
a knowledge of his poems, at least in their English
translation, should be regarded as an indispensable
preparation for missionary work among his people.
That nearly three centuries ago Tukruam should
have proclaimed so clearly the inetticacy of all
merely external rites and sliould have insisted so
constantly on inward experience as the one
essential of true religion olfers to the Christian
evangelist a inost useful point of contact with the
people of India.

Literature. — This has been indicated in the footnotes. For
a fuller treatment of the sul>jtct see J. N. Eraser and J. F.
Edwards, Life and Teackiny of Tvkdrdm, Madras, in the

press. J. F. Edwards.

TULASl-DASA.— I. Life.— Little is certainly
known about the life of Tula.si-Dasa (commonly
pronounced ' Tulsi Das'), the greatest poet of
niediiuval Northern India, beyond two or three
dates and a few accidental particulars mentioned
in his writings.

A life of the poet is said to have been written by his friend
and companion, Vcyi-madhava Dasa. It is referred to by Siva

1 HG XX. IIS84]470.

•i J. Murr.ay Mitchell, I A xi. [18821 155.
s N. V. Tilak, in .an unpublished i>apor.
4 N. M.acnicol, Indian T/nism, London, 191.''>, p. '279.
6 See J. Murray Mitchell, JRASBo iii. [1849J for the opposite
vie)v.

470

TULASI-DASA

Siiliha, who wrotu in tlw laLLcr half of the llHIi cent., but no
copy of it is now known to exist. We have two personal
documents relating to the poet — a deed of arbitration, and an
entire book of the Rumacharita-mdnasa, both in his own
handw. iting.

There are numerous traditions concerning; him,
some of wliich may be accepted with considerable
confidence. He is said to Iiave been born at
Kajajjur, in tlie jn-esent United Provinces of Banda,
about A.D. 1532, and to have been a Sarwaria
Brahmana of the Parasara gotra.^ His father's
name was Atmarama, and his mother's Hulasi,
his own name being Rama Bola. In one of his
verses^ he tells us that he was abandoned by his
parents immediately after his birtli, and with
great probability it is assumed from this that he
was one of tliose unfortunate children known as
abhuktamfda, born under tiie beginning of the
currency of the asterism Mula. tjuch a child is
said to be destined to destroy its father, and the
only remedy is to abandon it on its birtli, or, at
best, so to arrange that its parents shall not look
upon its face during the first eiglit years of its
existence. He was picked up by a wandering
Sadhu, who, in token of the sacred leaf used in
the ceremony of purification of the infant, re-
named him Tulasi-Dasa ('Servant of the tulasl-
plant'), and by this name he was hencefortli
known. With this Sadhu, who was probably also
his gtcni, or spiritual preceptor, Narahari-Dasa, he
wandered all over Northern India. From his gu7-u
he learnt the story of Rama,^ bnt owing to his
ignorance (? of Sanskrit)* he could not at first
grasp its importance. At length, after frequent
hearings, he learnt it so far as his intelligence
would allow, and then determined to write it in
the vernacular for his own benefit and for that of
others similarly situated. When he grew up, he
lived as a householder, and married a girl named
Ratnavali, the daughter of one Dinabandhu Pa-
thaka, by whom he had a son named Taraka, who
died at an early age. He was devoted to his wife
and could not" bear to be separated from her.
She was a lirm Vaisnava, and on one occasion,
when she had gone on a visit to her people, she
reproached him for following her and for not show-
ing equal afiection to Rama. TStruck with remorse,
Tulasi at once left her and took to an ascetic life.
He is said to have seen her only once again in
after years, and then not to have recognized her.
With his liead-quarters at first in Ayodhya and
subsequently in Benares, he made long journeys
overNortliern India preaching the gospel of Rama.
At first he met Avitli considerable opposition, but
liis holy lifeand his attractive personality conquered
all obstacles, and, even in Benares, the head-
quarters of Siva- worship, he won universal respect.
His fame as a poet spread far and wide and gained
him many friends and followers, the most famous
of Avliom were ILaja Maua-siihha (Man Singh) of
Amber (t 1614) and the celebrated 'Abdu 'r-Rahim
IJanhana (1556-1627). A wealthy landowner of
IJenares named Todar Mall (who is to be dis-
tinguished from Akbar's finance minister of the
same name) Avas one of his closest friends, and a
touching poem which Tulasi-Dasa wrote on his
death iias survived amont;; his most cherished verses.
After Todar Mall's death his heirs quarrelled as
to the disposal of the property, and referred tlie
matter to Tulasi-Dasa as arl)itrator. The deed of
arbitration in his liandwriting is still in existence
and is dated Sambat 1069 (=A.D. 1612).

1 No fewer than fonr places claim the honour of bein;;- his
birthplace. The claim of R.ajapur is that best eslablished.
His caste has been a subjert of dispute. Accordinfj to sonio
authorities, he was a Kiinyakubja Brahmana.

2 Vinapa-pattrikd, 227, 2.

3 Ram. i. 30.

* He was never a ^ood Sanskrit scholar, and some of his few
verses in that lanjjuage contain grammatical blunders.

Bubonic plague appeared in India in 1616, and
lasted for eight years. The poet seems to have
been attacked by it, for one of his minor works,
tlie Hanuman Bcihuka, describes his sufferings
from some such disease. After temporary relief
he had a relapse and died in Benares in A.D.
1623.1

2, Works.— More than twenty formal works,
besides numerous short poems, have been attri-
buted to Tulasi-Dasa, but some of these are
certainly apocryphal, and others are of doubtful
authenticity. The most generally accepted list
mentions twelve, viz. six minor and six major.
The minor works are the following : (1) Rtima-lala-
Nahachku, (2) Vairagya-samdljnm, (3) Barawai
Ramayana, (4) Janakl-mahgala, (5) Parvatl-mah-
gala, (6) Itamajna. The "six major works are
(7) KrsnagltavaU, (8) Viiiaya-pattrika, (9) Gittlvali,
(10) Kavittdvall, (11) Dohavall, and (12) llama-
charita-inanasa.

Tulasi-Dasa was a Smarta Vaisnava; i.e., while
a worshipper of Ramachandra, he "also adhered to
the tradition (smrti) of ordinary Hinduism and
followed the general religious customs of his caste.
This involved, among other things, the worship of
the god Siva and the practice of eating his meals
apart. In both resjiects he differed from the more
thorough Vairagi Vaisnavas, who had abandoned
tradition, and who worshipped only Visnu in one
or other of his incarnations and ate in' "company.
During his_ stay in Ayodhya he associated with
these Vairagi Vaisnavas and there composed the
first three cantos of the Rdmacharita-manasa.
Subsequently, being unable to agree with them on
jioints of discipline, he migrated to Benares and
there completed the poem.

His devotion to Rilmachandra as an incarnation
of the Supreme is illustrated by the above list of
works. With two exceptions (nos. 5 and 7) they
all deal directly or indirectly with that deity.
No. 7 is a collection of hymns m praise of Krsna,
another incarnation of Visnu. No. 5 is a sliort
poem describing Siva's marriage with Parvati, a
subject also treated at some length as an episode
in the Ramacharita-mdnasa. As already stated,
Tulasi-Dasa paid special reverence to Siva as a
great and kindly god, although by no means on a
level with Ramachandra. It was' Siva who, out of
love for the world, communicated Rama's history
to Parvati and thereby made it known to mortals.

A brief notice of each of the works named above
will suffice.

(1) Rdma-lald-Nahachlm.— The genuineness of
this is disputed. It is a sliort poem describing the
' nail-paring ' ceremony at the investiture of Rama-
chandra with the sacred caste-thread. This cere-
mony is a village rite still kept up on such occasions
and at weddings in Oudh and Bihar, and the whole
poem is in rural style and in rural metre.

(2) Vairdgya-samdl2nnl (' Kindling of Quietism ')
describes the true nature of holiness. It advocates
vairagya (absence of passion), and the description
of the perfect peace resulting from absolute self-
surrender to the Deity is not without poetic
beauty."

(3) The Baraivai Rdindyana is a summary of the
history of Ramachandra in the Barawai metre. It
is very short and, as we have it, probably incom-
l)lete. It is rejected by .some authorities.

(■4) Jdnakl-mniigaht and (5) Pdrontl-vianr/ala. —
These are two short Avorks cclobrating tiie marriages
of Sita to Ramachandra and of Parvati fo Siva
respectively. The authenticity of both is doubtful.
In no. 4 tin; order of events dilliMs from that given
by the poet in his more important works. The

1 See G. A. Orierson, Proceediiigs ASBe, 1S9S, p. 147 if.

2 The whole has been translated by G. A. Grierson in I A xxii
[1893] 198 ff.

TULASI-DASA

471

Parvatl-mahgcda is dated Sanibat 1643 ( = A.D.
1586).

(6) Rdmdjm. — This is a collection of verses to
be used as omens previous to undertaking a journey
or other important task. Tlie contents are in the
main a history of llamachandra in seven chapters,
each of seven septads of verses, or 343 in all. The
omen is found by selecting a verse by lot — a kind
of sortes Virgilianoe. It is dated Sambat 1655
(==A.D. 1598).'

(7) The KTsnngltavall, the first of the major
works, has been already referred to. As its subject
demanded, Tulasi-Dasa wrote it, not in his custom-
ary Awadlii, but in the Braj Bhakha dialect. It
is one of tlie least read of the poet's works, but
well repays perusal, as it contains many beautiful

f)assages. He has entirely avoided debasing re-
igion by that association with eroticism which
spoils so much of the literature devoted to Krsna.

(8) The Vinaya-pattrikd ('Petition') is one of
the most important works of the poet, in which his
most intimate feelings towards the Deity and that
Deity's relations to the human soul are displayed
with a freedom from reticence and poetic fervour
that have rarely been equalled.

An interesting legend accounts for its origin. Tulasi,
harassed and terrified by iiersecution, writes this petition to
Ramachandra — the loving, almighty, God — appealing for His
protection. The whole forms a series of prayers, addressed,
one by one, to the various minor gods as door-keepers and
courtiers of the Supreme, and then, in an outburst of passionate
entreaty and self-liumiliation, to the Deity Himself. The final
verse tells how, as in the case of an earthly monarch, the
petition was granted under Rama's own signature.

The Vinaya-pattrikd is one of the most admired
works of the poet, but the difficulties of its language
have discouraged many readers. The intense
fervour of the writer often carries him into an
extremity of passion, bursting forth in an elliptical
style very different from the limpid beauty of his
narrative poems. Again, the very form of the
poem militates against its easy comprehension. It
IS a petition to a sovereign, expressed in a courtly
vocabulary full of high-flown words and phrases.
These belong to the nature of the case and are
here most appropriate, but they do not tend to
make the poem comprehensible to any one who is
not a Sanskrit scholar. In spite of these surface
defects, this admirable work deserves the closest
study from any one who Avould become acquainted
with the religious history of India. We have here
a man whose influence for good over generations of
Indians cannot be exaggerated, laying bare the
inmost recesses of his heart, and openly proclaim-
ing that at which other writers with the same
experiences have only dared to hint. It is a book
of confessions, but the confessions of a pure and
faithful soul.

(9) In the Gitdvall Tulasi-Dasa appears in a new
character, that of a mdgndha, or panegyrist. It
is a book of songs intended to increase in his
readers tlieir love for a tender, loving God. Again,
as elsewhere, the love which he teaches is that of a
child to his father. For the songs he has used the
Braj Bhakha dialect as the traditional vehicle of
expression, and the dominant tone is not, as in the
Vinaya-pattrikd, passion, but sweetness and charm.
In this way he gives the whole history of Rama-
chandra in a delightful style, quite different from
that of his formal epic. There is no verse in the
book which is not a comi)lcte little picture, ami
most attractive of all are tiiose in the liist liook,
in which he tells of the baby life of iiis hero and
his brothers. It is a true gospel of the infant
Kama.

(10) Diflerent again is llii' Karitltlrali. Here
the poet, in the cliara(^ter of a vnndin, or bard,
tells of the glory of Rfima, so as to encourage the
faithful with a picture of tlie Deity's power. The

language is Awadhl mixed with Braj Bhakha.
No work of Tulasi-Dasa shows his extraordinary
mastery of vocabulary so well as this. His subject
is heroic, and, without having needless recourse
to Sanskrit, he writes in a heroic style. In the
battle scenes the words themselves by their very
sound echo the clash of arms and the cries of the
combatants, and, in the description of the burning
of Lanka, the crackling of the ilames. The narra-
tive closes with the sixth book. The seventh,
which is nearly half of tlie whole, consists of a
number of short poems in the kavitta metre written
at different times and here collected by their
author. They have no direct connexion with
the preceding books, and, being full of per-sonal
allusions, form a valuable source of information as
to the poet's times and experiences. It is here
that we learn about his birth and parentage and
about the persecutions to which he was subjected,
and from one verse we gather that the date of the
compilation was somewhere between A.D. 1612 and
1614. A sui)plement, in the same metre, is the
Hanumdn Bdhuka, already referred to, in which
he tells how he was attacked by plague.

(11) Duhdvall. — The title means a collection of
verses in the dohd metre, and it is by no means
certain what is meant by it. Tliere is a work of
this name (see below), but some authorities maintain
that the list alludes to a poem called the Edin
Satsal ('Seven hundred verses [also in this metre]
in Praise of Rama'). Many good scholars consider
that this was Avritten, not by the poet, but by
another author of the same name. It is a rather
tasteless production, but, if genuine, is not without
importance, as the fifth chapter gives in great
detail what purports to be the poet's doctrine
regarding works as opposed to faith. ^ The diffi-
culty in the way of accepting the work now called
the Dohdvali as that referred to in the list is that
it is largely composed of verses already occurrinj'
in the Edniacharita-mdnasa, the Buindjild, and
the Bam Satsal itself. Out of a total of 572
verses no fewer than 258 have been so identified,
and there are quite possibly more. If genuine,
there must have been a nucleus of original verses
to which subsequent admirers have added others,
.so as to compile a kind of anthology of the poet's
best cluhds. This is the present writer's opinion,
and, if it is correct, the final recension must have
been sufficiently long after the composition of the
Ram Satsal for the latter to have become recog-
nized as the work of our poet.

(12) The Rdmacharita-mdnnsa ('Lalce of the
Gestes of Rama') is commonly called the Tidasi-
kj'ta Rdmdyana. This epic, the poet's greatest
achievement, and also, in point of time, probably
his first, was begun in A.D. 1574, when its author
was about 43 years of age, and upon it his fame
chiefly rests. It has been described as the Bible
of ninety millions of people, and is certainly more
familiar to every Hindu of Northern Inilia than
our Bible is to the average English peasant. There
is not a Hindu of Hindostan proper, whether
prince or cottar, who does not know its most
famous verses and whose common talk is not
coloured by it. Its similes have entered even into
the language of Indian Muslims, some of whose
most ordinary idioms, thougli they know it not,
made their first a))pcar;uu'c in this work.*

The life of Rfmiachandra, considered as an in-
carnation of the Supreme, is here dealt with in a
forni.il epic. The subject is the same as that of
the celebrated Sanskrit lidmnyana. of Valnnki,
but tlie epic of Tulasi-Dasa is in no way a tr.ansla-

1 Tr. O. A. (Jrierson in I A xxii. [1893] 229 ff.

-See U. A. Urierson, 'Tulasi D.asa, Poet and Religious Re-
former,' J HAS, 1903, p, 447. Much of what follows is con-
densed from this paper.

472

TULASI-DASA

tion of that work. We have an iiidei)er]dent story,
built on the same foundation, but dill'ering from it
in the treatment of episodea and in important
details. 1 The author himself states that he has
taken his account from many different sources,
and it has been shown that the principal of these,
besides Valmiki's work, were the Adhydtnwi
Ramayana (a section of the Brahmdnda Pm-dna),
the Bhuiundl Bdindyana, the Vasistka Samhitd,
and the Frasanna-rdghava attributed to Jayadeva.''

As illustrating the estimation in whicli this poem is held
in India, the following very popular legend may be quoted.
Ramaohandra denoted his approval of Valmiki's epic by append-
ing his signature to a copy of it. Thereupon the monkey-god
Hanuman, vrith his nails, wrote another Ramdyaxia upon a
rock, and took it to Rama. The latter approved of it also, but
said that, as he had already signed Valmiki's copy, he could not
sign another ; he had better show it to that poet. He did so,
and, as Valmiki saw that it would eclipse his own work, by a
stratagem he induced Hanuman to fling it into the sea.
Hanuman, in complying, prophesied that in a future age he
would himself inspire a Brahmapa named Tulasi, who would
recite his (Hanuman's) poem in the tongue of the common
j>eople and destroy the fame of Valmiki's epic.

There can be no doubt that its reputation is well
deserved. The Rdmacluirita-mdnasa is one of the
great epics. It has its prolixities and its episodes
that jar upon European tastes, but, even so, no
one can read it without being impressed by its
high poetic merit. The various characters are
vividly and consistently described, and live and
move with all the dignity of a heroic age. The
style is most admirably varied. There is the in-
finite pathos of the passage describing Rama's
farewell to his mother ; the rugged, harsh language
telling of the horrors of the battlefield ; when
occasion requires it, a sententious, aphoristic
method of dealing with narrative, teeming with
similes drawn, not from the traditions of the
schools, but from nature herself; and, suffusing
all, a life-giving atmosphere of the purest poetry.
To us its weakest side is that which, to a Hindu,
is its strongest — the character of its hero. To the
poet, Ramachandra is necessarily, as God manifest
on earth, a perfect character. Even when the old
story shows him performing unknightly deeds,
Tulasi must call them virtues and plead that the
end justifies the means. Or, again, the foulest
treachery, such as that of Vibhisana towards his
brothers, is extolled because the traitor is accepted
and rewarded by the hero.^ But this is one of the
obligations of the story and of the author's view
of the divinity of Rama. The human characters
are to our ideas far more sympathetic. There are
the impetuous and loving Laksmana ; Sita, the
ideal of an Indian wife and motiier ; Bharata,
constant and tender, the model of the true hhakta ;
and Ravana — the Satan of the epic — destined to
failure, and fighting with all his demon force
against his fate.

One of the most striking features of the poem
is the wi'iter's capacity for seeing things. More
than any other literature, Indian poetry has its
stock similes — the lotus, the water-lily, the bee,
the moon, and so on. Even the best Sanskrit
poems often give the impression of being largely
the work of the closet, not of the open air.
Tulasi- Dasa employed the same old similes — he
would not have been Indian if he had avoided
them — but thousands of others are his own. Little
expressions — the turn of a sentence or an apt

1 E.g., the account of the great battle outside Lanka is quite
different.

2 See L. P. Tessitori, II 'lidmacaritmndnasa e il lidmilyana,
reprinted from Giornale della Societd Asiatica Italiana, xxiv.
[1911] (reviewed by G. A. Grierson, in JRAS, 1912, p. 794 ff.),
and Sita Ram, in JRAS, 1914, p. 419 ff.

3 The authors of the Hindi ^'avaratna (pp. 88, 289) point out
that, with one exception, none of the numerous Ilimli pnets
who told the tale of Rama ever thought of condemning Vibhi-
sapa's conduct. The exception is KeSava-dasa, a court poet
who lived amid knightly surroundings. He also has the courage
to condemn Rama's treatment of Sita.

epithet — show how he had seen and studied the
world for himself.

It would be a great mistake to look upon him merely as an
ascetic. He was a man that had lived. He had been a house-
holder— a word of much meaning to an Indian — and had known
the pleasures of a wedded life, the joy of clasping an infant son
to his bosom, and the sorrow of losing that son ere he had
attained his prime. He appealed not to scholars, but to his
countrymen as a whole, the people whom he knew. He had
mixed with them, begged from them, prayed with them, shared
their pleasures and their yearnings, and, on the other hand,
had contracted intimate friendships with the greatest men of
the emperor's court. All this we find reflected in the pages of
his writings.i

His works have suflered the fate which has
befallen those of other famous Indian authors.
Imitators have written poems which they have
passed off as his, and numerous ksepakas, or
apocryphal additions, have been inserted in his
epic. He has suffered too from the attentions of
commentators without end, most of whom have
wasted energy in discovering hidden meanings in
the simplest passages, while they discreetly avoid
the real difficulties. Finally, his epic has actually
been translated into Sanskrit, and there are critics
who have maintained that the tran.slation is the
original, and that the Rdmacharita - mdnasa is
nothing but a barefaced theft of another's poetry.*

3. Religious ideas. — The religious ideas of the
poet are of great importance in the history of
India. Seventh in descent of teacher and pupil
from the great Ramananda [q.v.), he was a
thorough Vaisnava and follower of the Bhakti-
Mdrga (g.i;.). He taught that there is but one
Supreme Being, and that man is by nature sinful
and unworthy of salvation. Nevertheless the
Supreme, in His infinite mercy, became incarnate
in the person of Ramachandra to relieve the world
from sin. Rama has returned to heaven, where,
besides being the ineffable Supreme, he is still
Rama, and Avhere, in consequence, we have now
a God who is not only infinitely merciful, but who
knows by actual experience how great are man's
infirmities and temptations, and who, though
Himself incapable of sin, is ever ready to extend
His help to the sinful being who calls upon Him.
On all this follows, as a corollary, the doctrine of
the universal brotherhood of man, and the duty
which man owes to his neighbour. His definition
of sin is that which is contrary to the Avill of
Rama, and it is only by acknowledging this, and
by abandoning himself to utter loving faith in
Rama's power to save him from its thraldom, that
a man can escape from the weary round of per-
petual transmigration. The doctrine of the father-
hood of God and of the necessity of bhakti, or
devotional faith, had long been known. In
Northern India Ramananda had been its great
exponent, and Tulasi-Dasa put forward no novelty.
His claim for consideration is that his teaching
was successful. His own pure life and the magic
of his poetry have done for the Bhakti-Marga
what the eloquence of hundreds of other teachers
failed to do. The fact that he was a Smarta
Vaisnava must not be forgotten. He belonged to
no sect, and founded no sect, but was just an
ordinary Hindu, accepting all the Hindu inytho-
logical machinery. While worshipping Rama as
the Supreme, he paid adoration to Siva and the
other gods. His attitude to thein was much the
same as that of the official teaching of one branch
of the Christian Church : to Rama alone he offered
'Karpeia, to the others dovXela, to Siva iiirepdovXda.

A few words must be devoted to the poet's use
of the word maya. Occasionally he refers to it in
terms that can only be interpreted as meaning the
influence which liides Brahma from the soul— the
7)u~tya of the i^iva-worshippiug Vedantins, to whose
doctrines he was strongly opposed. But all his

1 Of. JRAS, 1903, p. 452.

2 See G. A. Grierson, in JRAS, 1913, p. 133 ff.

TUNGUS

473

uses of the word in this sense are merely cases of
similes and the like, and in no way form part of
his real teaching. We may attribute this use
of the word to his own association with the
worship of ^iva. Elsewhere he employs the word
in two different senses : iu one it means merely
' magic,' and is the evil force used by demons in
their combat with Rama's army ; in the other it
represents a combination of the Gnostic demiurge
and the Christian ' Tempter ' ; * it is a personality,
a female, subordinate to the Supreme, and, to a
certain extent. His agent. In the latter capacity
she sets the whole world dancing, yet she herself
is set a-dancing, like an actress on the stage, by a
movement of the Lord's eyebrows. She sullies
every one, even the gods, with her temptations ;
and the Deity sometimes sends her forth speci-
ally to tempt some pious person who begins to
show overweening pride.'' As the world, the
flesh, and the Devil in one, she leads mankind to
sin, but, if a man has true bhakti, he is surely
armoured against her, and she cannot approach
him.^

Above all, Tulasi-Dasa taught that the Supreme
is a personality. While not denying the existence
of the Nirgtinnih Brahma of the Upanisads — a
being totally devoid of all qualities, of whom the
only thing that can be said is ' he is not this or
that ' — he maintained that the idea of such a being
was beyond the comprehension of the human mind,
and that the only God whom it was possible to
adore was the personal (saguna) manifestation of
the impersonal (nirguna).*

The practical result of the general adoption of
Tulasi's religious attitude has been of the greatest
importance to Northern India. In the poet's own
time the masses of Hindostan had two alternative
religions open to them. One was the crude poly-
theism of the worship of village godlings, the other
was the Krsna-cult. The first still exists, but
controlled and thrust into the background by
Tulasi's faith. What the Krsna - cult becomes
among the uncultivated masses the religious fate
of Bengal has shown. It inevitably tends to
become a sex-worship, and its text-books teem
with the most passionate, most licentious descrip-
tions of the love adventures of Krsna among the
herdmaidens. All else is lost, and there gradually
develop the unnameable horrors of a Sakta-cult.
Upper India has been saved from this by Tulasi-
Dasa.

LiTERATiniK.— G. A. Grierson, ' Notes on Tul'si Das,' I A
xxii. [1S',»U] SJ, 122, li)7, 225, 253 (this is the only complete
account in English of the poet's life and works ; a few errors in
it have been corrected in the preceding pages), ' Tulasi Dasa,
Poet and Religious Reformer,' JRAS, 1903, p.,447ff. ; Ganesa-
vihari Misra, Syama-vihari Misra, and Sukadeva-vihari
Misra, Hindl-Navaratna, Allahabad, 1910 (an account in
Hindi of the nine great writers in that language); cf. the same
authors' Miirabandhu-vindda, Khandwa, 1913, p. 304 fif. (a
general history of Hindi literature in the same language).

Numerous edd. of all the poet's works have been published in
India, but few of them possess critical value. Two excellent
edd. of the Rdinacharita-mCmasa have been published, viz.
that issued in 1SS9 by the Khadga-vilasa Press in Rankipur and
that issued in 1903 by the Kasi Nagari-pr.-vcharini Sabha of
Benares. Both are critically edited and have elaborate intro-
ductions dealing with the poet's life and writings. For those
not familiar with the language the writer can recommend a
good ed., with a line-for-line Hindi commentary and much
general information concerning the poet, by llame^vara Bhatt-a,
Nirnaya-sasara Press, Bombay, 19ii4. The same editor has
issued from the Indian Press, Allahabad, 1913, a similar ed. of
the Vinaya-pattrikd, which can be reconmiended to students.
It is believed that it is intended to issue all the poet's works in
this series.

A good, if somewhat literal, Eng. tr. of the litiinacharita-
mdnasa has been made by F. S. Growse (1st ed., Allahabad,
1880-81). It has been several times reprinted in India.

G. A. GUIERSON.

1 For a full .account see Rdm. vii. do. 70 ff., Benares edition.
^ E.g., the divine saint Narada (Ram. i. do. 128 £f., Ben. ed.).

3 Rdm. vii. ch. 116, Ben. ed.

4 See Ram. vii. do. 13 and following chhand.

TUNGUS. — I. Area, distribution, number, and
history. — The name Tuiigus is usually derived from
the word Tung -hung ('Eastern barbarians'), by
which these people were known to the ancient
Chinese. They call themselves Avankil (sing.
Avanki) or Donki. The Tungusic tribes are the
most widely distributed of all the native tribes of
Siberia;; they live in small gioups all over Siberia
as far west as the river Taz, as far east as the
island of Sakhalin, as far north as the Arctic
shore, and as far south as the middle of Manchuria.
In spite of this distribution, the language and
social anthropology of these tribes are the least
known of all the Siberian peoples, the Samoyed,
Turkic and Mongolic tribes, and Koryak and
Chukchi, even the Gilyak and the Ainu, having
had more space given to them in anthropological
literature than the Tungus. As a reason for this
may be cited the fact that the Tungus usually live
in the interior of the continent, in places difficult
of access and, with the exception of the Lamut,
far away from the coast. The total number of
Tungus belonging to the various tribes was 76,504
in 1897, while in 1911 there were only 75,204.

The Tungusic tribes are usually divided into
Northern Tungusic and Southern Tungusic. Of
these the Northern Tungusic group comprises :
(1) Samogir, (2) Nigidal, (3) Olchi, (4) Oroki, (5)
Manegu, (6) Tungus proper (including Lamut and
Orochon). The Southern Tungusic group com-
prises : (1) Manchu, (2) Daur, (3) Solon, (4) Gold,
(5) Orochi.

The Northern Tungus are at the stage of reindeer
culture like the Magdalenian man in Europe,
though at the same time they know the use of
iron, which they brought from their more southern
home. They belong to the Neo-Siberian group.
The Southern Tungus are horse nomads, cattle-
breeders, and fishermen, and in some places also
agriculturists, and in the towns artisans. The
Siberian Tungus emigrated from Manchuria partly
in the seventh and partly in the thirteenth century
after the Mongolic conquest, but their armies had
probably invaded Siberia frequently even in the
pre-Christian era. The first Tungus subdued by
the Russian authorities in Mangazei in 1603 were
the Tungus of the lower Tunguska. In 1615 a
large Tungus force was defeated by the Russians
on the Yenisei, and about 1623 all the Tungus of
Central Siberia were forced to pay taxes. The
Tungus of the Amur country, together witli their
territory, were made .subject to Russia about fifty
years ago.

Although the Northern Tungus live now under
a very primitive culture, their pedigree goes as far
back as that of the Turkic people, and they there-
fore present a case of degeneration under the influ-
ence of environment. Nowhere is this more
clearly shown than in their folk-tales, which in
comparison with the really primitive tales of the
Samoyed are rather sophi.sticated. The old Chinese
chroniclers used to comment on their two powerful
neighbours as barbarians of inferior culture, i.e.
their north-western neighbours in the pre-Christian
era, the Turks of the present day, and their nortli-
eastern, the Tungus. But, as both of them appear
under a variety of tribal and dynastic names, it is
difficult sometimes to know which of these peoples
are of Tungus and Avhich of Turkic race. They
are more easily classified by their customs and
characteristics, while the Mongols, whose name,
used in a broad sense, is applied to Ijotii these
races, seem to have no characteristic cultural
feat tires and are j)rol)ably a mixture of the two
races inlluenced by tlieir steppe environment more
than the Turks and Tungus, and brought to
prominence through Jenghiz Khan's (himself a
Mongol) conquest.

474

TUNGUS

There are aeveral peojiles mentioned by the Chinese who can
with some probability be considered to l)e of Tiingus race. Such
are (1) the Sushen, who lived novtli of the Liao-Tung peninsula
and paid tribute in arrows and arrowheads to the emperors of
the Shang dynasty (1766-1154 B.C.) ; (2) the Sienpi, who occupied
an important strategic position in the Korea and north of
China before the Great Wall was constructed (221-209 B.C.) ;
these were the peoples who helped to cause the movement of
the Hiung-imng westward, who in their turn pushed the Yue-chi
(Turlis) to Djungaria ; in the 2nd cent. a.d. one branch of the
Sienpi, the Jwen-Jwen (Zhu-Zhu) rose to power, but they are
not lieard of after the 6th cent., when the Tu-Kiu (Turlvs)
emancipated themselves from the Jwen-Jwen yoke ; (3) the
Tlu, who in the 3rd cent. a.d. lived in the forest between the
Upper Temen and Yalu rivers ; (4) the Moho (Uki), who in the
7th cent. A.D. inhabited the valley of S\mgari and who were
the founders of the state of Puhai ; (5) the Khitans, who in
925 overthrew this dynasty and founded the Liao (Iron)
dynasty; (6) the Niu-chi (Yu-chi), who in their turn over-
threw the Liao dynasty in a.d. 1125 and lived in the Shan-
Alin uplands ; their dynasty was called Kiu (Golden) ; Jenghiz
Khan subdued them in 1234, but in the 14th cent, the Niii-chi
reasserted themselves and founded the Manchu dynasty, which
in 1644 occupied the throne of China after the Ming dynasty
and reigned till 1912.

There are certain characteristics and customs common to
most of those peoples as well as the modern Tungus. One is the
extensive use of the bow and arrows with iron or stone blades.
The arrows are of definite type and adaptable for the use of
poison. The arrows and skins are also used for the payment of
taxes. Other characteristics are the use of richly-adorned
aprons, hy both sexes, the braiding of the hair into two plaits,
also by both sexes, the breeding of pigs, and the exposing of
the dead by placing them on high platforms. These habits are
not associated with the Turks and were probably imjiosed on
the Chinese by the Tungus. Thus Marco Polo calls the Chinese
empire by the tribal Tungus name Khitai (Cathai), and the
Russians call it that even now.

a. Linguistics. — Since the time of Gastrin the Tungusic
tongues have been classed with the Ural-Altaic group, and, as
they have not been sutKciently well known, even modern
linguists like Tucker call them ' uncultivated,' while the fact
is that, although the language of the Tungus (with the excep-
tion of the Manchu and Dauri) has not reached the stage of
being written language, in grammatical forms, especially in
verbal forms, we see a greater variety of simplifications than in
many Aryan languages. The Manchu writing is in a modified
form of Uiguric, the old Turkic character based again on the
Soghdian.

The lingTiistic division, based on the results of the most
recent researches, is into four groups : (1) the well-defined
Manchu group, including Sibo, (2) the Gold group, including
Olcha, Orochi, and Orok, (3) Tungus proper, including Lamut,
Managir, Solon, and Daur, (4) Sanagir and Negda (on the lower
Amur). The extent of this group is problematical, as it is
possible that it can be united with group (3).i

The Northern Tungus dialects are preserved in a purer form
than the Southern, which have come under Mongolic and
Chinese influence, yet these differences are not very important,
and we can use linguistics as the surest means of tracing the
existence of Tungusic tribes in any given region. In many
places the Tungus use another language as well as their own.

As in language, so also in social anthropology and shaman-
istic religion, we can see a certain connexion between all the
Tungusic tribes. But the preservation of their own language
is not necessarily an indication of the preservation of their
physical type.

3. Physical type. — As has been said, there has
been contact between the Chinese, the Mongols,
and the Tungus-Manchu since the 11th cent. B.C.
and probably earlier, but it was based chiefly on
conquest and on intermarriage among members of
the royal families. Migrations en masse did not
begin, as far as is known, till the 7th cent, and
during the time of Jenghiz Khan. It is probable
that the Koreans are a Chinese-Tungus mixture
and that the Tungus have played a greater r61e
than is known in the formation of the modem
Japanese nation.

Deniker places the Tungus among the Northern
Mongolians, whom he defines as people with oval
or round faces and prominent cheek-bones, who
inhabit Manchuria, Korea, Northern China, and
Mongolia. He places the Kahnuk alongside of
the Manchu and tlie Nortlunn Tungus liunters.
Maak, Schrenck, and Mainofi' point out the difler-
ence in pliysical type between the Northern ami
the Southern Tungus. Tliis is also supported by
the present writer. Broadly sjieaking, the differ-
ence consists in this, that tlie Southern type
approaches the so-called Mongol type (almost high
1 This table is the result of a verbal communication from W.
Kotwicz, the Tungusic scholar of Petrograd University.

stature, round and low-headed), while the Northern
type approaches the type of the Eastern Palajo-
Siberians (low stature, intermediate or long-
headed, and average or high-headed). While the
mixture of the Southern Tungus with other neigh-
bouring tribes has been going on for so long that
it is very difficult to make any record of it, and
the Manchu type practically disappeared among
the population of north-east China, the Northern
Tungus, especially those isolated in the Arctic
region, are comparatively unmixed, or in any case
it is easy to trace their mixture. This is especi-
ally true in the case of the Tungus between the
Lena and tlie Yenisei, who live in thoroughly
Tungus or Tungus-Yakut land, while the Tungus
between the Lena and the Okhotsk Sea live
scattered among the Palfeo-Siberians (Koryak,
Chukchi, and Yukaghir). The latter were the
secondary object of study of the Jesup Expedition
of the U.S.A. some ten years ago, wliile the
Tungus between the Yenisei and the Lena were
studied by the Oxford-Philadelphian Expedition
in 1914-15. The only racial admixture that has
to be considered in the case of the Arctic Tungus
between the Yenisei and the Lena is with the
Yakut.

With the help of the genealogical method in
dealing witli the -social anthropology of the North-
western Tung\is (in North Central Siberia) it is
possible to distinguish the following grades of
Tungus metisation.

(A) The Tungus, whose genealogical table, as tar back as
could be recorded, does not sliow any foreign admixture ; (B)
the Tungus-Yakui, who call themselves Tungus, and are such
linguistically and socially, but who have begun in the last two
generations to intermarry with the Yakut; (C) the Dolgan,
who were Tungus, but who for a long time have intermarried
vdth the Yakut and have created socially, physically, and
linguistically a new type ; they consider themselves to be a
separate nation, their language approaches more nearly to the
Yakut, and in physique they look more like the Tungus ; (D)
the Tungusized Yakut, who live in the western part of the
Yakutsk territory, and the eastern part of the Turukhansk
country, all on the Tungus land ; the other Yakut call them
Tungus (Tongus) ; they are in a minority among the Tungus.

The Tungus-Yakut api)roach in their stature,
and head and facial forms, to the Yakut (q.v.),
who, on the whole, are of a more Mongolic type
than the Northern Tungus, while the Dolgan,
though they stand further from the pure Tungus
than the Tungus-Yakut do, are yet in all these
three aspects more like the Tungus than like the
Yakut, or, we might say, they return to the
physical type of the Tungus.

4. Technique. — Most of the Siberian Tungus
are at the stage of reindeer-culture, though tliey
diti'er from such pur sang reindeer-breeders as the
Lapps or the Eskimo in that their technique is not
so highly specialized and their carvings and draw-
ings on reindeer-bone or mammotii-ivory are not
so perfect ; very few of them have any knowledge
of making half-underground huts, most of them
still having fur tents similar in structure to those
in their original southern home. In spite of
centuries spent in a land where there are no
horses, or only the small Siberian ponies wliich
are used for driving but not for riding, they still
preserve their old habits of horse-riding, exchang-
ing the horse for the reindeer. In mythology and
religion also their southern origin is apparent
from time to time. Thus on the grave of a
deceased shaman must be placed driftwood figures
of a goat, a horse, or a drome(hiry — aniiuals wliich
have not been known to them for many generations.

The Tungus who do not live in the tundra as
reindeer-breeders, but inhabit the steppes and the
forest, are mostly hunters, and oc(!asioiially liorse-
and cattle-breeders. Only in the Amur and
Baikal region do we lind stationary groui)s.

Among the Nortliern Tungus iron is much more
used than among the Samoyed. Until quite

TUNGUS

475

recently tatuing was couiiaoii among the Tiingus
of the Yenisei, charcoal alone being used as colour-
ing matter, and no bright colours.

One of the most characteristic features of the
original Tungus costume is the beautifully decor-
ated apron, which has in some places degenerated
into a small covering for the sexual organs.
Bircli-bark is not so much in use as among the
Ostyak, but the typical Tungus canoes are made
of birch-bark sewn into shape. The Tungus orna-
ments are typical of a migratoi-y people. They
have no permanent style — we do not see on them
either the conventionalized zoological-anatomical
ligures of the Samoyed or the rich ornamental
designs of plant form so often met with among
the neighbouring tribe of Yakut. Yet in their
mode of life the Tungus exhibit more neatness,
more cleanliness, and more reserve than any other
tribe of Northern Asia, and probably this was the
reason for the classic name that Castren gave
them, however few he saw. He called them 'the
gentry of the Siberian aborigines.'

5. Sociology. — The original Tungus social
division was into clans, named after the clan-
ancestor or the river on whose banks they dwelt.
At the present time the remnants of the clans are
grouped together into local groups, with local
river and other names. This arrangement was
forced upon them by the Russian Government, but
their internal organization and government, as far
as it goes, rests with their council of elders and
a prince, elected for three years and re-elected
as many times as they wish. Langa, a Hukachar
prince, and a great shaman of the Llimpiisk Tungus
of the Yenisei tundra, has been prince for twenty-
five years.

Married people are always known as the ' father
of So-and-so,' 'tlie mother of So-and-so.' even if
the Russian Christian name is used — e.g., Ivan's
father.

{a) Marriage. — Marriage restrictions are very
numerous. Not only are blood-relations and clan-
relations debarred from marrying, but two
brothers of one family may not marry two sisters
of another family. The exchange of children in
marriage is not allowed, except among the Panka-
gir Tungus. The terminology connected with
relationship by marriage is regulated by the age-
classes. Thus kynniv would be the name used by
the iiusband for the father, elder brother, and
other male relatives of iiis wife, and aniJcynniv for
her elder female relatives, while for his wife's
younger male relatives he would use the term
kutetiv, and for her younger female relatives
kukini. There is a special relationship, called
kalliv, between two men who have married
sisters. The reindeer which plaj'-s a part in the
marriage ceremony, i.e. on which the bride rides
to the bridegroom's home, is called Havakin (from
the god Havaki) among the Yenisei Tungus and
Savakin among the Tungus of the Okhotsk region.
This reindeer is never used for any Avork, and is
never searched for if he gets lost. When he grows
ill or old, he is killed, but not eaten. He might
be called the reindeer of the bride's individual
spirit. The most important feature of the match-
making is the settlement of the kalym (wife-
price).

(b) Jiirth. — At childbirtli the woman is con-
.sidered unclean, .and is oliligcil (o go iuva,y from
tlie tent for conlinement. Alter three or funr d.iys
she returns from her seclusion ;inil is purilietl by
jumpinu three limes throngii the lire. Ilickisch"'
says that the placenta is eaten. Among the
Tungus of the Yenisei-Lena region tlu; iihu'enta is
usually hung on a tree or a pole in a skin bag.
On the whole, a Tungus woman gives birth to her
1 Die Tungusen, j). 8-t.

child very easily. H, however, there are any
cotnplic.ntions, the Tungus and also the Yakut
woman is placed in a kneeling posture, with
her hands tied to the tent poles, and subjected to a
forcible massage with a log of wood by the woman
who attends lier. To help his wife, the Tungus
husband cuts down a ti'ee and drives a wooden
wedge into it. If this has no ellect, a shaman is
summoned.

(c) Burial. — All the belongings of the dead man
are placed near his body. The classical way of
burying a man was to sew a reindeer skin round
the body and put it in a coffin standing on four
high poles or on a high platform, ^ while a woman
was buried on the ground and covered over with
trees. Among the sea and river tribes tlie dead
were often buried in small canoes. Now the
Russian mode of burial in the ground prev.ails,
except where the ground is frozen. The chnvi
(tent) where the death occurred is promptly
removed to another place. On leaving the place
where a dead person had been buried, his relatives
used, in olden times, to let fly two or three arrows
towards him.

(rf) Initiation of a shaman. — A young shaman
(hainan), who has shown signs of devotion, wisdom,
and nervous sensibility, is prepared for his office
by an old shaman, who teaches him the secrets of
the shaman's assistant spirits. After a year or
more of frequent intercourse with the young
shaman, the old shaman gives him the shaman's
coat and drum. The shaman's chief spirits are :
etigr, in the form of a long serpent, who has power
over epidemics, sickness, and all manner of diseases ;
iiniany, in human form, with eagle's wings, on
which he carries the shaman from place to place,
who also protects animals from diseases ; arkxmga,
a prophet-spirit ; and lesser spirits such as klianiny,
miryada, torunga.

The shaman's coat (hamahek) must be made of wild reindeer
hide. His cap Qiaarken) is an iron circlet with representations
of wild reindeer antlers. His boots are called haman unta
kupuri, and his belt angayaptun. Hanginjj from the lower
edge of his coat he has a fringe of reindeer- or fox-skin, called
chiurukta. A fringe at the bacl<, longer than the others and
with a bell at the end, is called irginde. Projecting from his
shoulders are the ' iron elk antlers of the shaman ' (arkalan).
On the gild^ (iron circles attached near the antlers at the
hack) hang pieces of iron {budilar), which are the shaman's
arrows against hargi (malicious spirits). In the middle of the
back of the shaman's coat are hung representations of the sun
and moon. These are considered the most important features
of his costume, and the sun is often sewn on a piece of skin
taken from the head of a bear. Gagk, the swan, is on the
back, and ukang, the diver, on the front of the coat. Gicli, a
fish (taimen) frequently met with, is also represented there,
and so too are kandi, ' the shaman's dakaW (small birds). On
his apron (haman haaline) there are also representations of the
sun and moon, and the shaman's staff (haman tyeoim) has a
human face (of an ancestor) and bear's feet. Sometimes a
human face is found on the sun which is hung on tlie skin
from the bear's head. All these accessaries suggest anceslor-
man-bear-worship, as also do the traditions. All the objects
used by the shaman have their special names ; the shaman's
cap, e.g., is designated by a different word from that used for
an ordinary cap, and, if a common term is used, the word
haman is prefixed. The shaman's drum is oval in shape, and
the drumstick, giho, is long and narrow, with jingles.

6. Gods and spirits. — Animism is highly de-
veloped in the Tungus religion. The spirits living
everywhere in nature have to be propitiated.
They are more or less inde[ic::ilent of the highest
god, Havaki. The )i)ischievous spirits in folk-
talcs are called chiulugdy and gamondo. JJotli
these creatures use a special 'bad language,' which
occMirs in the tales and is undorstooil by (he
sliamans. The malevolent .spirits are called
hiirgi. The chief /largi li\es in the virgin forest
(diif/ii) of (h(> norlii. lie has enormous eyes ]>l,iced
oulside his face and a Hat nns(;, .-ind tlie black liiiir
on liis head and face is like the ^fn//*^/ .'ifter a sloiiii.
lie can a.ssunie the form of an enormous bear, a
wolf, or a bison. The Tungus of the Nerchinsk

* The name given to this old form of colPin is biini mxnigin.

476

TURKS

and Yakutsk districts call tlie hurgi spirits buni ;
to the huni of the water they give the name garan,
and to the bitni of the earth that of dorokdi. The
stronger the influence of Christianity, the worse
becomes the character of th^btini. Then there are
other spirits, the spirit-owners of flies, of various
animals, and even of thieves, shuro.

The chief god, Havaki, is anthropomorphic, but
is connected with the sun. Sometimes the sun
with the face of a man in it is supposed to repre-
sent him. Among the Tungus of the present
generation the conception of the highest god is
very vague, though the conception of spirits living
everywhere in nature has still a strong hold on
them all. Christian and non-Christian.

7. Sacrifices. — Private sacrifices of food are
offered without any special preparations, but the
sacrifices to the spirits connected with fertility are
more important and must therefore be performed
in the presence of a sliaman, who knows the
method of procedure. Thus the spirit-owner of
wild reindeer is propitiated by an offering of the
head of a mountain-sheep. The chief abode of
this spirit, according to the Yenisei Tungus, is on
the rock Hulgadzyakit, between the Upper Kureika
and Lake Chirinda. The spirit-owner of lake-
fish inhabits a place near Mount Umtupkan, to
the east of Lake Chirinda, and at the beginning
of the fishing season ceremonies are held to pro-
pitiate him. To ensure success in trapping, the
Tungus will use in the construction of the traps at
least one piece of wood which has been used by a
shaman during his shamanistic performances.
But the turu, or stick, which is the ' tree on which
the shaman climbs to the sky,' is never used for
this purpose, being too sacred. It is too hooma — a
word used to express an idea similar to that of
Melanesian mana.

8. Animal worship. — The veneration of the bear
is especially highly developed. When a bear is
killed and brought home, a ceremony called kuk
is held. The heart and liver of the bear are cut
into pieces, cooked, and divided among those
present (exclusively males). Each person, before
eating his piece, bows before the bear and assures
him that it was the Russians who killed him, and
not the Avankil (Tungus). Another remnant of a
ceremonial bear-da,nce is ikandzyedzyem [' we are
.singing '). The bones of the bear must be placed
just as they are in a bag, and hung on a tree. If
one bone is lost, the spirit of the bear will hold the
hunter responsible for it.

The eagle is also treated with great veneration,
and it is expressly forbidden to kill him. For both
these animals the Tungus use that adjective which
they also use in speaking of heroes, i.e. hooma.

To all otlier animals which are not especially
venerated the Tungus always behave, as they say,
' carefully,' lest the animal should become extinct.
When a slit is made in the ear of the reindeer for
purposes of identification, the hair that is cut off
must not be thrown aAvay, but must be hung on a
tree or put in some safe place. The head and feet
of the wild reindeer must not be thrown away ; a
special platform is sometimes erected for their
reception, wliile the teeth of the wild reindeer are
kept as ti/fjak (amulets). There is a fox custom
which drives the procurers of fox-skins to despair.
After the fox has been trapped, his muzzle is cut
off and carefully preserved. The skin may then
be used, but the meat must be placed safely on a
platform.

Literature. — Jakintli Bichurin, Infornmfi.on concerning
Peoples living in Central Afiia in Ancwnt Days, Fetrografi,
lS5a ; M. A. Castren, Xordiscke Reisen und Forschumjen, do.
1849-62, vol. ix. ' Grundziige einer tun^usischen Sprachlehre,'
Ethiwlorjische Vorlesvngen, do. 1857, vol. iv. ; M. A. Czap-
licka, Aboriginal Siberia, Oxford, 1914, My Siberian Year,
London, 1916 ; M. A. Czaplicka and H. U'. Hall, Report of

the Expedition to t/ie I'enisci (iii the press); J. Deniker, The
Races of Man^'^, London, 1910 ; G. E. and M. E. Grum-
Grzymailo, A Description of Travels in W. China (Russ.),
Petrograd, 1896-99 ; C. Hickisch, Die Tungusen, do. 1879 ;
F. Hirth, The Ancient History of China, Leipzig, 1908; H. H.
Howorth, Hist, of the Mongols, London, 1876-88 ; D. L.
Jochelson-Brodsky, The Anthropological Types of the Women
of the Extreme North-East of Siberia, Moscow, 1908 ; A. H.
Keane, Ma7), Past and Present (rewritten bj' A. Kingston
Quiggin and A. C. Haddon), Cambridge, 1920 ; R. Maak, A
Journey to the Amur in 1S55 (Russ.), Petrograd, 1859 ; L I.
Mainoff, A Contribution to the Study of the Tungus of the
Yakut Territort/ (Russ.), Irkutsk, 1898; S. PatkanofF, 'Essay
on the Geography and Statistics of the Tungusic Tribes of
Siberia,' Bull. Imp. Russ. Geog. Soc. [Petrograd, 19U6] ; L.
Schrenk, Die V'dlker das Amurlarides, Petrograd, 1891 ;
J. Talko-Hryncewicz, Matcryaly do Ethnologji i Antropolojii
Ludi)w Azji Srodkowej (Pol), Cracow, 1910; C. E. Ujfalvy,
Les Aryens au nord et au sud de I'Hindou-Kouch, Paris, 1896.

M. A. Czaplicka.

TUNIS.

Africa.

•See Africa, Berbers and N.

TUPI-GUARANI.— See Brazil.

TURKS.— I. Ethnology.— I. Origin of the
name. — The terms ' Turk,' ' Turkish,' and ' Turkic '
are used in two different senses : to designate
either those peoples belonging to the Turkic
linguistic family or those peoples from Asia who
appear from time to time in military history under
leaders of Turkic speech. With the advance of
ethnological knowledge, the former use is being
abandoned for the wider term ' Turanian,' and the
latter practice is falling into disuse. The name
' Turan ' is much wider than the term ' Turk ' and
in any case is not synonymous with it. It must
be noted that, wliile we hear of the Turks under
that name in S. Russia even in the 1st cent. A.D.,
they only established themselves in Turkestan
('Land of the Turks'), the country named after
them, in the 4th cent. A.D. Before that the
country was known as Iran or Iranistan ('Land of
the Iranians'), and stretched farther west into
the present Iran. Thus one must be careful not
to confuse the archseology of Turkestan relating
to the Iranian period with that which can be
ascribed to the Turks.

The earliest information about tlie Turks, to be
found in the Chinese annals from 2356 B.C. onwards,
alludes to them under the name of Hiung-nung,
or slaves of the Hiung, while the name Tu-Kiu, or
Turks, becomes prominent in the 6th cent. A.D.
only when a prince of the Assena dynasty. Tinmen,
rose to power. But we hear of the name Turk in
connexion with the Turkish invaders of Europe in
the pre-Christian era. Pomponius Mela in the 1st
cent. A.D. calls them Turcae and says that they
live near the Budini, and Pliny tiie Elder in the
same century uses the name Tj'rcae of a jjeo^jle
in the neighbourhood of the Don. Though the
various Turkic invaders of Eastern and Western
Europe were chiefly known by the names of their
leaders (Kipchak, Nogai, Seljuk, Osmanli), the
name Turk as a generic term for the whole race
is that most frequently used up to the present day.
The Turks themselves with the exception of some
Anatolian Turks call themselves by a dynastic or
clan name.

2. Origin of the race.— The Chinese annals refer
to the Hiung-nung as their north-western barbarian
neighbours, and make a distinction between them
and their north-eastern neighbours, the Tung-hung,
afterwards the Tungus. Tlie third Central Asiatic
race, the Mongols, do not seem to have so long a
pedigree, and it is possible that they form a Iiranch
of the Tungus or the Turks, or are a combination
of both left behind and isolated on the steppes.
This may be so, if we as.sume that the Turks and
Tungus are two independent races which entered
into the composition of the sub-races of Japan,
China, and Tibet. The analysis of the funda-

TURKS

477

mental types of both these races shows striking
differences, but in comparison with the North and
South Asiatic type they may both be called Mongo-
loid. Even assuming that the Tungus and Turks,
as well as the Mongols, are the closest descendants
of the original homo Asiaticus, yet, when they
first appear in history, the two races differ widely
in language, physical type, and culture. If the
remains of bronze culture in the Upper Yenisei
valley with burial masks, some of which are
prominently Aryan in character, can be definitely
ascribed to the early Turks, who knows whether
their Mongoloid type was not after all an acquired
character due to their mixture with the Mongoloids ?

So much for the anthropological evidence as to
the origin of the Turks. Not less important from
tlie point of view of the folklorist is the origin of the
race as explained by tradition. Perhaps the most
wide-spread is the legend (found also among the
Mongols) of a she-wolf, or white she-wolf, who
found and reared an abandoned boy, subsequently
the founder of the Turkish race. This she-wolf,
Ak-biuri, saved the little boy from the bad god
Erlik and brought him to Altun-dagh ('Golden
Mountains') to an Altun-kii ('Golden Cave').
Two days later the boy began to call her mother,
and six days later he began to call her father.
De Guignes suggests that this is merely a version
of the Roman tradition brought back by the Huns
after they returned from their invasion of Europe.^
But as a matter of fact the story might have
travelled in the opposite direction, or the origin
might have been independent, for the Chinese
describe the shields of the Turks as having repre-
sentations of a wolf before the approximate date
of the Roman story. Then almost as widely
spread is the legend of their first ancestor being
the eldest son of Japheth, son of Noah. It is hard
to ascertain whether the legend relating to still
another ancestor, the son of the virgin-widow,
Alanqua, has also a Biblical background.

3. Cradle of the race. — There are several
hypotheses as to the geographical position of the
original home of the Turks. H. H. Howorth seeks
it in the southern parts of the Altai (Altun-dagh).
Richthofen considers the region of the Amur, Lena,
and Selenga their problematic original home.
Parker suggests not the Altai Golden Mountains
but some other mountains of the same name in the
present Chinese province of Kin-Shan.

Recent archajological discoveries in the Altai-
Sayan region as well as study of the aborigines of
the forest regions of these mountains support
Howorth's theory. 2 While it is still difficult to
know with certainty to whom to attribute the
bronze remains of the Minusinsk, called by the
Russians by the vague name of ' Chud ' remains
{Chujoi, 'stranger'), there is no reason not to
suppose that the country was inhabited always by
the Turks, who were influenced in their bronze
culture by some Iranian people from Central Asia,
though also by the Chinese. The investigation
of the bronze culture in the region of Kuban
(N. Caucasus) will probably throw light on this
question, if the Kuban culture is found to be more
similar to the Minusinsk than to the other bronze

1 J. de Guignes, Bist. ginirale dei Uuns, 4 vols, in 5, London,
1756-58, vol. i. pt. ii. bk. i.

2 A. V. Adrianoff, Travels to the Altai and beyond the Sayan
Mountains in ISSl, Omsk, 1888, Sketches of the Minusinsk
Country, Tomsk, 1904; J. R. Aspelin, ' Sur I'^ge de bronze
altai-ouralien,' Compte-rendu Congr&s international d'ArcMol-
ogie a Stockholm, 1S74, i. 562 ; N. N. Kosmin, 'Chern,' Sibir-
skiya Zapiski, no. 3 [1916], pp. 95-112, 'Tuba,' ib. no. 4 [1918],
Dp. 23-49; O. Montelius, 'Orienten ocli Europa,' Antiq.
'Tidskrift, xiii., Stockholm, 1864 ; A. M. Tallgrfen, Collection
Zaotisxailov au Miisie historiqu£ de Finlandc, i. Helsingfors,
1916; Collection Tovostine des antiijnit,'s prf'historinues de
Minusinsk conservees chez le Dr. Karl llcdman il Vam.Chapitre^
d'ArchMogie 8ibirienne,Soc. Finlandaise d'Arch6ologie,UelsU\g-
tors, 1917.

stations in E. Ru.ssia— e.*/. , the Ural (Perm). How-
ever, the fact that the customs and implements of
the pre-bronze era (neolithic and late palfeolithic)
persist through the bronze period (probably 8th-3rd
cent. B.C.) and the iron age and to some extent
even till to-day points to the conclusion that the
bulk of the population there remained the same,
i.e. Turkish. The implements referred to are
those used in the preparation of food and for
agriculture.

The popular explanation that the bronze culture of Minusinsk
is the work of a peaceful agricultural people of a higher t.vpe
than the Turks, afterwards destroyed by the invasion of iron
culture nomad people, who were, as no one now doubts, Turks,
is not based on historical facts. We do not hear of the destruc-
tion of an empire at the stage of bronze culture in the Chinese
annals— a fact worth noting— though mention of less significant
movements at the beginning of the iron age from Central Asia
towards the north-west is fairly frequent. If we assume that
the pre-bronze and bronze age inhabitants of the Altai were of
Turkic stock and in danger of invasion from the south-east or
west, there is no reason why they themselves should not develop
warlike industries which the so-called iron age remains rejire-
sent. The bronze industry survives for some time during the
next period, but the arrowheads, spears, daggers, and stirrups
are produced in greater quantities than non-military bronze
objects. The example of the Great War has shown us how easy
it is to divert industrial power from one channel to another.

Most of the graves of the iron age in the Altai-
Sayan district are communal, called by the Turks
chaa-tns (the Russians call them kurgans), and are
probably war graves. The insci-iptions to be found
on some of the burial stones all date from the iron
age.^ Those on the Southern Yenisei are earlier
(about the 6th and 7th cent. A.D.) than those south
of Lake Baikal along the Orkhon. The language
of these inscriptions is one of the old Turkish
dialects, the Uigur, belonging to a people politi-
cally very prominent to whom are attributed the
remnants of Karakorum as their capital. Thus
the earliest cultural remains of the Turkish race
are nearer to Western than Eastern Asia, and the
Turks at this early stage of their history, even if
we take only the iron age, were living on a higher
level of civilization compared with their near
neighbours than they do now. It would seem
that their subsequent mixture with invaders coming
from the East has lowered their standard of culture,
though in their subsequent history they several
times developed local civilizations, notably under
the Timurids in Turkestan and under the Ottomans
in Byzantium.

But of course the attribution of cultural remains
of the bronze and iron ages to the Turks does not
carry them very far back, considering the antiquity
of Chinese history. The first mention of the
Turks here appears in 2356 B.C., while the bronze
remnants of Minusinsk may be dated about
700-300 B.C. This was the time when unknown
bronze flourished in the Volga-Kama-Ural district
and in Scandinavia around the Baltic, when Greek
settlers round the Black Sea and in Scythia were
producing wonderful local art, when in Persia
Darius and Xerxes were encouraging the develop-
ment of local civilization which was in turn over-
turned by Alexander, who set up Hellenistic
polities in its place. But Minusinsk was in neither
of these circles, and its resemblance to Scythian
culture is counterbalanced by its similarity to the
Chinese. Then the second culture, that of the
iron age, coincides with the rule of the Arabs over
the Sasanid Persians and with the empire of the
Khazars on the Lower Volga.

Tlie attribution of both bronze and iron periods
on the Yenisei to the Turkish race does not
necessarily decide the question of the place whence
1 p. SI. Melioranski, ' Decipherment of the old Turkic In-
scription on a Stone found in the Aittam-Oi in the Village of
Kenkolsk in the Aulieata District,' J/e7n. E. Sect. I.R.Arch.S.,
1899, xi. 1-4, pp. 271-273 ; O. Donner, ' Sur I'origine de
I'alphabet turc du Nord de I'Asie,' Jonm. Sac. fin.-ovgr. xiv.
[18'.»(i) 1 ; V. Thomsen, ' Inscriptions de I'Orkhon d6clii£frdes,'
i. 1894, Mint. Sac. fin.-ougr., 1894, v. 54, 1896, i. 224.

478

TURKS

they spranp;. All we know now of the inhabitants
of the lish (Russ. Chern) or Black Forest of the
Altai points to this, however, that their present
character and customs are results of their environ-
ment and are similar to the customs and character
of the earliest inhabitants of those regions. The
original Turks were not steppe nomads living by
warfare and constantly changing their camping
places, but cattle-breeders and agricultiirists de-
voted to their fields and forests and knowing the
system of slave labour, while so advanced politi-
cally as to form confederations. Perhaps the most
important proof of the origin of the Turks in the
Altai region is the resemblance of the art found in
the old picture writings in the region to the art of
the most primitive and typical Turks of the present
day, whether in the form of cattle brands or rock
drawings. Further, the burial ciistonis of these
people seem to have been unchanged by time and
are now practised as in the place of their origin.
There must have been in all ages Turkic tribes
living on the outskirts of the empires whose mode
of life was more nomadic and who consequently
mixed to a greater extent with other nomads.
Those tribes were, however, not the true Turks as
described in the Orkhon inscriptions, but Kazaks,
who correspond to the Russian Cossacks, or frontier
half-military guards.

The hypothesis of the Altaian oriffin of the Turks is in opposi-
tion to the theory launched some 50 years ago by Gastrin and
since uncritically accepted by some Finnish and Russian
ethnologists (Otto Donner, Klementz), that the Samoyed
originated in the Altai and Sayan Mountains and migrated from
there to the north. If, further, the Samoyed are identified
with the Finns, as they are by some people, the Finns, who in
modern times developed the high culture of the Scandinavians,
become the ancestors of the bronze age people of Minusinsk.

The linguistic authority of Gastrin seemed sufficient to make
people accept his theory without investigation, but his whole
hypothesis was based on the supposition of the historian Fischer
ill the ISth cent, that the inhospitable region of the Arctic
could not be the home of the Samoyed on account of its frigid
character and poverty. The only support was of a linguistic
character, that at the time of Gastrin some Tatar clans in
S. Siberia (the Kamashints) could speak Samoyed. Moreover,
this theory holds that many other Tatars, of Uriankhai and
Minusinsk, like the Koibal, Soyon, Beltir, and Karagass, are
Turkicized Samoyed, one branch of which was pushed by the
advance of the Turks towards the north. Such is Gastrin's
theory.

That the Samoyed might have originated further south than
they are now is possible, but they must have always been fairh'
far north. AH their present culture, which can be called
' reindeer ' culture, shows that they are under the influence of
a period of Arctic environment too long to trace their origin.
The few linguistic observations of the Samoyed tongue in
S. Siberia only prove that some of the clans of the Samoyed
migrated from the north further south. Neither in physical
type nor in customs do either of these doubtful Samoyed
resemble the real Samoyed. While an uninterrupted chain of
ethnological and, above all, archaeological evidence, as well as
Ghinese and Arab historical mentions, ties the Turks to the
Black Forest of the Altai mountains, from which they spread at
an early date over the Sayan and Orkhon, no archaeological
remains can be ascribed to the Samoyed, and no ethnological
evidence supports the theory of Gastren.

The relationship between the Samoyed and
Finnic races is still an open question, but in any
case historical and archoeological evidence of early
Finnish culture does not go further east than
the Ural (Perm). By dismissing, therefore, the
Samoyed-Altaian theory, one dismisses also the
claim of the Finns to an Altai-Sayan cradle.
Possibly further archaeological discoveries may
reveal still earlier Turkic inscriptions than those
of the Yenisei, but they can only be found more
to the south, since the inscriptions to the east
of the Yenisei, i.e. the Orkhon, are one or more
liundred years later. The relation between the
Minusinsk bronze antiquities and the archaeological
remains of the steppes of the Black Sea attributed
to the Scythians has been recently studied care-
fully, and a close resemblance was found.^ Minu-
sinsk was taken in this respect as a centre from
which this culture spread towards the Black Sea.
1 E.«n. Minns, Scj/thiann and Greokn, Gambiidge, 1913, p. 2C1.

This is important as throwing light on the puzzle
of the origin of the Scythians, though no one can
doubt now the kinship, if not identity, of the
Eastern Scythians and the Turks. If the cradle
of the Turks is to be sought in tlie forest of the
Altai with its environment which encourages a
sedentary and agricultural mode of life — and the
steppes and valleys between the Altai and Baikal
are full of evidences of the sedentary culture of
this people — it is still true that in comparison with
the old Chinese, the Turks, especially their eastern
branches, must be considered barbarians. Besides,
there never has been a uniform culture spread over
the various Turkic nations, nor did they ever live
in a mass undivided by foreign races. Tliis is why
it is difficult to be certain whether some of the
clans mentioned first by the Chinese and then by
the Arab writers can be considered Turks. It is
much easier to make this distinction among the
contemporary Turks, even though they appear
also under various names of Tatar, Tuba, or
Osmanli.

A few words must be said about the name
'Tatar.' R. G. Latham^ points out that the less
we use the term Tatar or Tartar, the sounder will
be our ethnology. He also calls attention to the
mistake of coupling the Mancliu and their dynasty
with the Tatars. One of the earliest mentions of
the word ' Tatars ' is found in the old Turkish in-
scriptions of the Orkhon ascribed to Bilge-Khan. -
About this time (8th cent.) the ' Otuz-Tatar '
('Thirty Tatar') lived to the east and south-east
of Baikal and were dependent on the Turkish con-
federacy. Chinese history does not mention them
till the 9th century. According to N. A. Aristofi",^
the Otuz-Tatars were originally Turks, while the
Mongolian scholar Bichurin is inclined to call
them Mongols. In the same inscription on the
Orkhon is a mention of the ' Tokuz-Tatars ' (' Nine
Tatars').

The term * Tatar ' is closely connected with the
term 'Tatan.'^ The people living in the present
Khalka from the 9th cent, were called Tatan.
They were divided into many aimdn, or unions of
clans. The strongest of these M'ere the Mongol,
Taigut, Kere, and Tatar.^ These were divided
into clans, but all of them used the tribal name of
Tatan. The Mongols successfully fought the
Niuchi (Tungus) in the middle of the 12th cent.,
and towards the end of this centurj'' the Mongol
ruler, Temujin, was elected head of all the Tatans
and a great part of Ciiina under the name of
Jenghiz Khan. The house of the Mongol-Tatan
reigned from 1206 to 1638. The Mongol aimdn of
the Tatan confederacy subdued the Tatar aimdn
before they started on their European conquest,
but it is doubtful whether all the Tatan accepted
the name of this one aimdn. On the contrary, the
name Mongol came into greater prominence than
that of Tatan or Tatar through Jenghiz Khan.
It is probable, however, that some of the Jenghiz
Khan hordes were known to their neighbours as
Tatan. When Carpini came as an envoy from the
pope to the Khan Kuyuk, he may have made a
mistake between Tatan and Tatar, so in the ISth
cent, all the geographers named the land between
the Caspian and the Chinese Seas Great Tartary.
It is perhaps because the Chinese historians often
called Tatan 'Tata' (a mistake now corrected by
them) that many Asiatic scholars, such as H. J.

1 Descriptive Ethnology, 2 vols., London, 1859, i. 2C5.

2 P. M. Melioranski, ' On the Orklion and Yenisei Monuments
with Inscriptions,' Journ. Min. Educ., St. Petersburg, 1S9S,
p. SS2.

3 ' Notes on the Ethnic Composition of the Turkic Tribes and
Nations '(Russ.), Lii>. An. Titnes, 189G, iii.-iv. p. 295.

•1 .J. Bichurin, Notes on Momtolia (I{n«s.), St. Petersburg,
1828.
'' lb. i. 129, 221-227.

TURKS

479

von Klaproth,' confuse tlie two names Tatan and
Tatar.

The first people to call all Mongols Tatars were
probably the Russians, and they gave this name
also to the tribes who had settled along the
Volga, and wlio seem not even to have been Tatan
but various Turks brought Avithin the Mongol-
Tatar army, who .after the death of Jenghiz Khan
were pleased to regain their independence. At the
present day Tatars, whether on the Volga, in the
Crimea, the Caucasus, or Siberia, represent a fairly
pure strain of Turks. Among the problematic
Turks may be placed the Scythians, Parthians
(though their descendants, the Turkomans, are
among the most representative Turks now), Yiie-
chi (whose descendants, the Rajputs, are certainly
a non-Turkic people), and Ye-tha, or Ephthalites,
called also White Huns (these seem to have
been different in type and habits from the Huns
who migrated westward). All these peoples are
variously ascribed to the Tungus or Turks ; some
others, as the original Bulgars and Avars, are
sometimes counted as Turks, sometimes as Finns ;
and the Nogai, Kipchak, and Usbeg are regarded
as either Mongols or Turks. The Dungans are
placed between tiie Chinese and Turks, and the
Horsak (Sokra and Horpsa) are the Buddhist Turks
of Tibet. Finally, the Usuni (Wusun) are
attributed by some to the Turks and by some to
' Aryans ' of Central Asia. Some other peoples
are without doubt Turks, as the Hiung-nu,
Khakas, Kirgis, Uigur, Tukiu (Assena), Seljuk,
Khazar, etc.

II. Division of the modern Turks.— The
distribution of the Turks is so wide and their
geographical environment so varied that it is diffi-
cult to speak of the Turkish type from an ethno-
logical standpoint. Politically, too, what is called
Turkish is often only Muhammadan and quite
dili'erent in nationality. We find that in the pre-
war Turkish empire of Asia Minor, N. Africa, and
S.E. Europe there were far fewer Turks in an
ethnological sense than there were in the pre-war
Russian empire.

i. The Siberian Turks.— i. Yakut.— See art.
Yakut.

2. Siberian 'Tatars.' — According to religion, the
Siberian Tatars can be divided into two groups :
Muhammadans and shamanists. The Muhamma-
dans are : (1) the Tobolsk Tatars, in the Tobolsk
government, (2) the Barabine (Baraba) Tatars, in
the Kainsk district, (3) the Chulim Tatars, in
Mariinsk district, (4) the Tomsk-Kuznietsk Tatars,
in the Kuznietsk and Barnaulsk districts. The
shamanists are : (5) the ' Chern,' or Black Forest
Tatars, in the Biisk district, (6) Teleut and
Telengit, in Biisk and Kuznietsk districts, (7)
Kumandints, in Kuznietsk and Biisk districts, (8)
Shorts and Lebedints, in Kuznietsk district, (9)
Kyzyl and Kamashints, in Achinsk district, (10)
Koibal, Sagai, and Kachints, in Minusinsk district,
(II) Karagass, in the forest of Nijne-Udinsk district.
The total number of Siberian Tatars in 1911 was
about 250,000.

The Tatars of the Tomsk government speak
their native Turkic language, and only 30 per
cent of them know Russian as well. In the
Yeniseisk government only 12 per cent know
Russian. The Teleut of tiie Kuznietsk district
are perhaps the most Russified, wiiile the Telengit
along the Bia and the Katun are all bantized, and
partly Russified, partly Mongolized. 1 he follow-
ing natives seem to be mixed with the Yenisei-
Ostiak and Samoyed, or, as some think, are
Tatarized Samoyed : the Kumandints, Shorts,
Lebedints, Kyzyl, Kamashints, Koibal, Kachints,

1 Mimoires relatifn d iVIx(> siir les Tatares, 3 vols., London,
1826-28.

and Karagass. The most genuine Turks are those
'Tatars' who inhabit the region of the Altai
forests — the ' ('licrn ' Tatars.

ii. Central Asiatic Turks.— The Central
Asiatic Turks, all of whom are Muhammadans,
can be divided according to their mode of life into
{a) steppe nomads, and (h) village- or town-dwellers.
The .steppe nom»ads are : (1) the Kirgis or Kazak,
(2) the Kara- Kirgis, (3) the Kara-Kalpak, (4) part
of the Turkomans, (5) part of the Usbegs. The
village- and town-dwellers are : (6) Sarts, (7)
Taranchi, (8) most of the Usbegs (with the
Kipchak), (9) most of the Turkomans.

1. Kirgis -Kazak and Kara -Kirgis. — The
Kirgis- Kazak live in the northern and eastern
part of the Aral-Caspian basin, and in the Oren-
burg steppes, so they are lowland ers. The Kara-
Kirgis live on the slopes of Pamir, Altai, and
Tian-Shan. They are mountaineers. There are,
however, other Kirgis, to whom this name may be
applied historically and ethnologically, who lived
from the 6th cent. A.D. in the Yenisei valley and
migrated to Semirechie, forced forward by the
advances of the Russians in the 18th century.
They are often identified with the 'Khakas'
(Castr^n, Klementz, Kasmin, Radloff), and the
inscriptions found in the valley of S. Yenisei are
attributed to them. The Kirgis-Kazak call them-
selves Kazak, kaz meaning ' goose,' zag meaning
'crow,' i.e. the steppe birds, the free birds of the
steppe. The Russians call them Kirgis-Kazak to
distinguish them from their own Cossacks (Kazak).
The Kirgis-Kazak derive themselves from the
Usbeg, and they derive the Kara- Kirgis from dogs.
But the Kara-Kirgis call themselves brothers of
the Kirgis-Kazak, and in fact are probably one
of their branches. Out of 4*7 millions of these
Kazak only about 400,000 are Kara-Kirgis.

The Kirgis-Kazak were divided into three
groups, called orda — the southern, or great orda,
' Ulu-dschus,' the little orda, ' Kishi-dschus,' to
the west, towards European Russia, and the
middle orda, ' Orta-dschus,' in the typical steppe
country. But, when they began to mix with one
another and to increase in numbers, they divided
into clans, and each clan had its own taviga, or
clan symbol, with which the horses and
dromedaries were marked. The heads of the
clans were called Sultans, while the nobility was
called Tiuri or Ak-suek, 'White Bones.' Thej'
trace their ancestry from J«nghiz Khan, notwith-
standing that the latter was a Mongol. All the
other people were called Kara-Suek, ' Black Bones.'
Lately, however, man-iage prohibitions between
these castes have been withdrawn, and the social
division is based on material considerations.

The felt hut of the Kirgis is called yurta, and a
group of yurta is called aul. Herds of sheep,
horses, and dromedaries are their chief form of
property. In sharp contrast to their lightly-built
houses are their graves, especially among the
Turkestan and Semirechie Kirgis. They look
like small towers and are made of bricks and clay.
The subjugation of the Kirgis by the Ru.ssians
began in 1734 and took more than 90 years — even
during the Great War some gi-oups of Kirgis con-
sidered themselves independent.

2. Kara-Kalpak.— The Kara-Kalpak, or ' Black
Caps,' are akin to the Kirgis-Kazak, and live in
Turkestan, especially in the Syr-Daria district,
where tliey form half of the population. They
number about 134,000 (1911). They seem to be
taller than the other Kirgis, and lead half-seden-
tary lives, part of them being agi'iculturists.
Some 20,000 of them live in Khiva.

3. Sarts.- The Sarts (1,847,000 in 1911) were
originally a mixture of the original Iranian inhabit-
ants, the Tajik, with their Turanian conquerors,

480

TURKS

the Usbeg. They V)iisy themselves with commerce,
but occasionally take to agriculture and cotton-
plant growing, in which they are not as successful
as the Tajiks, though they know the use of the
arika, irrigation canals. All the Sarts speak
Turkish, and are Muhammadans (Sunnite) ; they
have many followers of the Sufi order. In physical
type they approach nearer to the Iranians.

4. Taranchi.— The Taranchi are very like the
Sarts. They also live in winter in villages,
Icishlak, and their summer houses are called sakla.
They migrated to Russian Turkestan from Kulja
at the same time as the Dungan after Kulja passed
to China. They number about 83,000 (1911) and
live in the Semirechie country, in the Hi basin,
and partly in the Transcaspian country. They
are agriculturists, especially busying themselves
with vegetable gardens, but prefer commerce.
They are Muhammadans, but their women do not
cover their faces as the Sart women do.

Besides the Taranchi there are various Turkish
tribes on the Eastern slopes of the Tian-Shan, in
Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan, who are the
supposed descendants of the Uigur. Their lan-
guage is sometimes called Turki, and is possibly
one of the oldest types of Turkish. They form
the most easterly branch of the Central Asiatic
Turks, and probably remained behind when the
first westward movements began. They ruled in
Kashgaria from the 10th to the 12th century.
Though in time they became Muhammadans, early
Nestorian teaching has left its traces ; they still
use the Syriac alphabet and possess a book of
the 11th cent, in this writing, called Kudatku
Billik. They are a 'free self-governing people.'
Some of them have been to Mecca (800 miles to
the Siberian Railway, then through Odessa to
Jedda). They consider Stamboul their religious
and political capital. The Turks and generally
the Muhammadans in Asia are more prosperous
than the Buddhists, though the Buddhists are
protected by the Chinese Government.

The Kirei of N.W. Mongolia are supposed to
have come from the source of the Amur. In the
11th and 12th centuries the Kirei were an im-
portant power, and were probably of Nestorian
creed. Whether the mythical Prester John (a
Christian priest who reigned in some Christian
Asiatic kingdom) was their king it is difficult to
say. They are not heard of for a long period
after the time of Jenghiz Khan. They now differ
from the Buddhist Mongols in being Muhammadans.
They live on the banks of the Upper or Black
Irtish and the greater part of the Western Altai
pastures and the Jungaria plains as far as Lake
Zaisan. They train hawks, falcons, and golden
eagles for hunting such game as gazelles, foxes, and
even wolves. Like the Kazak, they claim Jenghiz
Khan (a Mongol) as their ancestor.

5. Usbegr.— The Usbeg (about 600,000 in 1911 ;
including Kipchak, about 660,000) form the majority
of the inhabitants of the Samarkand district and
parts of Ferghana and Syr-Daria districts. In
Bokhara and Khiva they are the ruling people,
like the Osmanli in Turkey. Their name is prob-
ably derived from Usbeg Khan of the Golden
Horde (1312-40) ; in the 16th cent, they founded
in Turkestan the Khanates of Khiva and Bokhara.
They are a mixture of three elements : Turks,
Iranians, and Mongols. The Turkish element is
probably predominant, though in the case of the
Usbeg of Khiva it is the Iranian type that pre-
dominates. Since the Usbeg exchanged their
nomad life for a sedentary one, their customary
law, adat, has lost ground, and is being replaced
by written law, shari-at. Father-right is very
strong, but the position of women is on the whole
better than among the Sarts and Tajiks. Though

the Usbeg now imitate the Sarts in making huts
covered with clay, and live in small villages en-
circled by walls like fortresses, here and there the
old felt yurta is still found.

6. Turkomans of Transcaspia. — The Turkomans
live to the number of about 600,000 in the Trans-
caspian territory and also partly in Persia, Khiva,
and Bokhara. Until the Russian occupation of
Merv they were nomad horse-breeders. Although
some of them were subject to Persia, their boast
has been that 'not one Persian could cross their
frontier without a string round his neck.' In 1881
the Russians destroyed their power by capturing
their principal fortress, Geok-Tepe, and their slave
trade has been suppressed. They now live in clay
or raw brick houses, and, in some places, in Russian
wooden houses. They are Muhammadans, but
follow the unwritten customary law. The clan
division is still strong, and all migrations are made
in clan groups. Endogamy is enforced. As the
male population is abundant, the kalym for the
wife is very high, and in some places the un-
married men form 27 per cent of the population.
On the whole they seem to be a democratic people.

The chief clans of the Turkomans are : (a) the Chaudors
(Chaudur), in the north-west part of Ust-Urt and the Kara-
boLfhar Gulf ; near (6) the Yomuts or Yamuds, extending from
Khiva across the Ust-Urt and along the shore of the Caspian to
Persia ; (c) the Goklans or Goklens, settled in the Persian
province of Astarabad ; they are said to be the most civilized
and friendly of all the Turkomans ; (d) the Tekkes (Taka), who
were the most important tribe when the Russians conquered
Transcaspia ; they are first heard of in the peninsula of Man-
gishlak, but were driven out by the Kalmuks in 1718 and sub-
sequently occupied the Akhal and Merv oases ; the Russians
inflicted a crushing defeat on them at Geok-Tepe in 1881 ; (e)
the Sakars inhabit the left bank of the Oxus near Charjui ; (/)
the Sarik (Saruk) are found in the neighbourhood of Panjdeh
and Yulatan ; (gr) the Salor (Salore), an old and important tribe,
suffered much in the course of fights with the Tekkes, and in
1857 migrated to Zarabad in Persian territory near the Hari-
rud ; (/() the Ersazis (Ersars) are now found chiefly near Khoja
Salih ; they were once a very important tribe on the upper
Oxus.

The Central Asiatic territories, which belong to
Russia, have a total population of from five to six
millions, of which at least from four to five millions
are Turks. Eastern or Chinese Turkestan has a
population of about two millions, excluding Kulja
and Jungaria. Jungaria has about 600,000 and
Kulja 150,000, the overwhelming majority in all
these three provinces being Turks. Besides the
Turks of the north we find some Mongols, and in
the east and south Tibetans.

iii. The Volga ' Tatars.'— The Volga Tatars
are those Turks who have been settled on the
LoAver Volga since the Hunnic invasions, and,
since their hold has been strengthened by frequent
invasions, they are partly mixed with the Mon-
gols, the Finns, and, since the 13th cent., the
Russians. After the break up of Jenghiz Khaij's
empire they belonged to the great orda of Kipchak
(Kipchak being mainly a political and not a racial
term). After the fall of the Kipchak the Khan-
ates of Kazan and Astrakhan continued to exist.
The Khanate of Kazan was conquered by Russia
in 1552, the Khanate of Astrakhan in 1557.

1. Kazan Tatars. — The Kazan Tatars number
more than a million, and their centre is in the
government of Kazan, though they extend on both
banks of the Volga as far as the government of
Saratov.

2. Astrakhan Tatars. — The Astrakhan Tatars,
to the number of some 50,000, live at the mouth of
the Volga. Some of the Volga Tatars, such as the
Cheremiss, Chuvash, and other middle Volga tribes,
and the Bashkir, are supposed to be of Finno-
Ugi-ian origin, but they are now Turks in speech
and Muhammadans in creed and social life.
Muhamraadanism was introduced among the Volga
Turks in the 10th century.

3. The Bashkir. — The government of Orenburg

TURKS

481

I

is a great district for the Mordvins and tlie Bashkir.
The latter are also found in Ufa, Perm, Samara,
and Vyatka governments. Latham^ says that
the Bashkir are as entirely Turks in language and
features as are the Kirgis. They are shepherds,
herdsmen, but above all bee-masters. After the
battle of 1552, when the power of the Tatars of
the Volga was broken, the Bashkir submitted
themselves to Russia, against whom they have not
ceased to rebel. Their number is about 392,000.

^. Teptyar. — A typical mixture of races, some-
thing like that of the Chulim Tatars of Siberia,
where it is difficult to define which racial element
predominates, are the Teptyar. When the Khanate
of Kazan fell, a mixed population of Turks,
Cheremiss, Votiak, Chuvash, and Mordvins fled to
the east of Ural ; out of these has arisen a popula-
tion which the other Turkish tribes call Teptyar ;
they are partly shamanist, partly Muhamraadan.

iv. The Pontus or Crimean and Nogai
Tatars. — The Khanate of the Crimea, originally
Nogai (a political division of Tatars similar to the
Kipchak who came there in the 13th cent.), was
by the middle of the 16th cent, more or less
Osmanli politically. In 1778 they became in-
dependent, but in 1784 became subject to Russia.
They are known as excellent agriculturists and
growers of grapes and tobacco.

The hill tribes of the Crimea who migrated there
before the Nogai in the 11th or 12th cent, from
Asia Minor, and are probably a branch of the
Seljuk, are shepherds. The culture of the Crimean
Tatars is more like that of Kazan and Astrakhan
Tatars than like that of the Osmanli. Their total
number is about 300,000. The same Nogai Tatars
are to be found in Lithuania and Rumania to the
number of 5000. They are now mostly Christian,
and mixed with the local population.

Another branch of the Nogai occupied the
country between the Tobol and the Yaik rivers at
the beginning of the 17th century. They were
transplanted by Peter the Great to the banks of
the Kuma and Kuban, but a small group remained
behind at the mouth of the Volga and are called
Kundur Tatars.

The Nogai are very Mongol in physiognomy.
Some people attribute to them the tumuli of the
Orenburg government.

v. Western Turks.— i. Turks of the Caucasus.
— The Turks of the Caucasus— properly speaking,
the Azarbaijan Tatars — are the inhabitants of the
province of which Tabriz is the capital. They
number about two millions. They seem to be
Turks speaking a Yagatai dialect, who invaded
Persia during the Seljuk period (Uth cent.). They
are also called Iliyet, i.e. tribes or clans. Each
clan has its own ilkhani, appointed by the Shah.

Some of these clans are : (a) the Kajara, near Astrahad ; the
present dynast}' of Persian Shahs comes from this tribe ; (6) the
Ayshars of Azarbaijan province (a group of these immigrated
to Anatolia and live now in Anti-Tawins) ; (c) the Shekakis ; (d)
the Karakoyunlu ; (c) the Karagazli ; (/) the Bahalu ; (g) the
Inamlu ; (h) the Kashkai, who probably arrived at Herat before
the Persians.

Azarbaijan Tatars are mixed with the Persians ;
other Turks of the Caucasus, living in the moun-
tains along the upper parts of the rivers Cheghem,
Baksan, and Kuban, are mixed with the natives
of the Caucasus and are i)hysically of local type.

2. Turks of Anatolia. — (a) Osmanli and Seljuk.
— The term Osmanli or Ottoman, used in a strict
sense, means 'descendant of Osman,' a chief who
gathered round him a nation at the end of the
13th and beginning of the 14th century. Recent
researches have proved - that the Osmanli Turks
(who until the revival of nationalism in Eastern
Europe never called themselves Turks, but always

1 Ethnolofjy, i. 378.

- H. A. Gibbons, The Foundation of the Ottoman Emjnre,
London, 1916.

VOL. XII. — ^I

Osmanli) are a tribe of Turks who lived in Persia
for a considerable time before they moved to Asia
Minor. It was probably as refugees before the
advance of the army of Jenghiz Khan that they
appeared in the 13th cent, and with the permission
of the Seljuks of Konia settled on the Asiatic
remnants of the Byzantine empire. As the
Osmanli have no written history before the capture
of Constantinople, all that we know about their
early history is founded on tradition. Their clan
is supposed to be descended from Khorasan, but
we know more about Ertogul, who was the father
of Osman. Osman owned only the small territory
of Sugur, and it is not certain (Gibbons) that he
and his people were Muhammadans, like the
Seljuks, until he married into a Muhammadan
family. It was the political unrest in E. Europe
that helped the descendants of Osman to conquer
all the Balkan Peninsula and Byzantium. The
invasion of Asia Minor by Timur at the beginning
of the 15th cent, stopped but for a very short time
the successes of the Osmanli in Europe. If we
consider that the Osmanli were originally only a
small clan, and that the Seljuk and other Turks
looked down upon them and did not join with
them, we must conclude that the bulk of the
Osmanli nation was recruited from some race other
than the Turkish. Recently the name Osmanli
became the term applied to all the subjects of the
pre-war Tiukish empire.

Many of the Turks of the old Byzantium who
belonged to the Osmanli empire were not Osmanli
in the strict sense. Thus the supposed remnants
of the Seljuks of the 11th cent, are called Koniots.
It is interesting to note that Byzantine authors
mention a Turkish colony which settled in
Macedonia on the river Vardar in the 9th cen-
tury.

(b) Turkomans. — The Turkomans of Anatolia
are spread all over Anatolia, but are specially
numerous in the central part and in E. Taurus.
They are more Mongolian in type than the Osmanli
or Seljuk. They are nomads, but not to the same
extent as the Yuruks. Their summer residences
(yaila) are close to their winter houses (kishla).
Some of them are Shi' ahs, others Sunnites. They
seem to have been tirst heard of in Anatolia in the
12th cent, and are mentioned by the historians
Nicetas and Anna Comnena as 'Turcomans.'*
They were opposing both Seljuk and Ottoman
rule and probably migrated from C. Asia under
their own political regime.

(c) Yuruks. — The Yuruks live chiefly in the
mountains, but also in the plains from Smyrna to
the E. Taurus. They are typical nomads.

Old ethnologists sometimes mistook the religi-
ous communities of the Muhammadan sects for
distinct Turkish nations — e.g., the Kizil-Bash
(q.v.), or Red Heads, living in the Angora region
of Asia Minor, Persia, Afghanistan, and the
Caucasus.

III. Religion.— We shall deal only with the
religion of the Turks before they accepted
Muhammadanism ; it has persisted up till now
among some Turks of Central Asia and Siberia.
There is evidence (the Buddhist writings in Uigur
character) that some of the Central Asiatic Turks
were followers of Buddha about the 8th century.
Still more has been heard about Christian Nes-
torian influences. In fact, there is a permanent
sign of these in the form of Uigur written char-
acters modelled probal)ly on the Soghdian. The
Arabs ca})tured Samarkand in 706, l)ut Muham-
madanism in Central Asi.a w.as introduceil later,
and to some extent it is still spreading. The
original religion of the Turks is a sliamanism of

1 W. JL Ramsay, The Intermixture of Racc^ in Asia Minor,
London, 1917.

48S

TURKS

the vSouthern type, i.e. witli a well-marked dual-
ism. Their shamanistic ceremonies and mythology
are more highly developed than those among any
other shamanistic people. It is this religion that
can be called genuinely Turkish.

I. Gods and spirits.— The highest good god is
Yulgen, while the symbol of evil is Erlik, who
lives in the darkness. Another higher being is
Kudai, who is a soi't of medium between men and
the highest beings. The spirit owner of the hearth
is called Bel, and was so called by the Turks who
were responsible for the old Yenisei inscriptions ;
several names of the gods appear in them. Then
there are seventeen high rulers ruling over
various parts of the Turkish lands. The Altai
ruler is called Altai-Khan, and lives in the source
of the river Katun. Yulgen himself is so good-
natured that, when he wants to punish men for
failing to give him sacrifice, he asks Erlik to do
it. Yulgen is very often identified wdth the idea
of the sky, Tengri, or with light, Yaryk. The
sky is generally the home of all good spirits.
Ara-neme or Tengri Yulgen lives in the seventh
sky. He has a mother, three sons, and twelve
daughters. His eldest son is the god of thunder
and rain, and his third son, Timur-Khan, is the
god of war. One of his peculiarities is that an
arrow passed through his throat and since then
he stutters. Kun, the sun, is of female sex, Avhile
the moon, Ai-ada, is a husband of the sun. All
the mountains, forests, lakes, and rivers have
their spirit owners, eelu, whose functions are not
quite clear. Thej' seem rather benevolent if
propitiated. The same cannot be said about the
spirit assistants of Erlik, called /cara-nsme, who,
even if propitiated, may he found harmful. They
are known also under the names of kuremes, asa,
rozyr. Images of gods and spirits are made of
various materials and are called tyns or kurmes.

The chief office of the shaman is to use his
sacred drum (tiungiur) and keep off by its sound
the malevolent spirits. The shamans themselves
are in some tribes of two types, some to ward off
the bad powers (black shamans) and some to pro-
pitiate the good powers (white shamans, who are
very often not professional but merely heads of
the families).

The goddess of birth is held in great regard ;
her name among the Altai Turks is Umai, among
the Siberian Tatars and the Yakut, Ayisit.

2. The soul. — The Turks of the Altaian Black
^lountains (Chern) consider the soul of a man to
be composed of several parts or of several inde-
pendent souls. Each of these performs a special
function — e.g., the tyn, from tynip, 'I breathe.'
One can hear the tyn's sound when it leaves the
body. Tyn and another soul, the suzy, are man's
vitality. The suzy (from su, 'water,' and uzak,
'long, i.e. 'long-lived') can leave the body for a
while, but, if it is absent too long, the tyn perishes.
The kilt is another kind of vitality [kutup, ' I
vanish'). Its absence causes disease. The tula
is a soul implying wisdom which differentiates
man from animals, who do not possess it. The
swr is a man's shadow (5?<7-?»c<, 'picture'). After
a man's death the sur continues to dwell in the
house for about forty days, but it keeps its in-
dependent existence even when it goes to another
place ; this soul, and one called the sum (su nep,
' I advise '), seem to survive man and are ulti-
mately reincarnated.'

3. Ceremonies. — Sacrifice to the sky is t>ne of
the most persistent ceremonies found among the
old and modern Tiirks. It is called tiffir (tayi
among the Minusinsk Turks) and is performed
every third summer. No Avomen are allowed to

1 V. L. Wierbicki, The Natives of the Altai, Tomsk, 1893, pp.
78-78.

assi-st at the ceremony, which is held on the top
of a mountain in a sacred birch spinney. The old
fire (tdug ot) is made, and after many incantations
a new fire is lighted from the old one. It is pro-
tected by the shamans lest it should go out, which
would mean a catastrophe for the tribe. A he-
goat or a ram is sacrificed, but no blood must be
shed and no cry heard from the sacrificial animal.

During the sacrifice to Yulgen among the
Altaians similiar precautions are taken, and the
whole fore-quarters of a horse are boiled on the
' old fire,' while the hind-quarters are boiled on
the new fire. During both ceremonies each head
of a family attaches a thread of flax to the sacred
birches — that is the path for their wishes to go to
the high being — and eagle feathers attached to the
threads carry them farther up. The meat boiled
on the old fire is then taken round in the direction
of the sun and burnt on the same fire. If the
smoke goes up in a straight line, the sacrifice is
accepted. Then only a feast is held, and the
choicest meat is ofl'ered to the kam shaman, or
medicine-man. Among the Kirgiz he is called
baksa if belonging to the same clan, or duana if
belonging to another clan. The meat prepared
on the new fire is consumed, while remnants of the
feast together with the implements used are burnt
again on the old fire.

The birch plays a vei-y important r61e in all
Turkic ceremonies, and, whether the Turks live in
steppes or tundras, birches are either brought from
the forest regions or are symbolized by driftwood
poles. This as well as veneration of forest animals
and birds (and not steppe or tundra animals) seems
to point again to the forest origin of the race.

The summer sacrifice to Yulgen (called also Bai-
Yulgen) lasts for two or more days, and it is usually
on the second day that the shamanistic j^erfor-
niances are held. The kfini is preparing for a
journey to the various spirits and gods living in
the skies above. He ceremonially feels various
spirits represented on his drum. While the
company eats the offered meat, the Icani sings :

' Accept this, O Kaira Khan !
Master of the drum with six horns
Draw near with the sound of the bell !
When I cry " Chokk ! " make obeisance,
When I cr3' " Me ! " accept this ! '

Then he offers a garment to Yulgen with a song :
' Gifts that no horse can carry —

Alas ! Alas ! Alas !
Gifts that no man can lift —

Alas ! Alas ! Alas !
Garments with triple collar
Turn them thrice before thine eyes,
Let them be a cover for the steed,

Alas ! Alas ! Alas !
Prince Yulgen, full of gladness,
Alas ! Alas ! Alas ! '
Then only the shaman summons all the spirit
assistants re])resented on the drum to enter it.
He sings and then is silent for a while, and a
noise of various birds and animals, whona he is
imitating, is heard. Then he begins to beat his
drum and to dance round tlie people, touching
them occasionally with his drum or drumstick.
The fire is extinct, the shaman's voice becomes
weaker, and the sound of the crackling of the
birch in the middle of the room indicates that the
shaman has fled to the skies. Sometimes the kam
gives an account of M-hat he sees while he travels,
sometimes only after coming back. In the sixth
sky he encounters the moon, in the seventh the
sun, and from the highest sky he can reach— only
a few knms reacli the ninth sky— he prays to
Yulgen :

' Lord, to whom tliroe stairwa\s lead,
Bai-Yulgen, possessor of three Hocks,
The blue vault which has appeared.
The blue sky that shows itself,
The blue cloud that whirls along.

TUSHES AND OTHER PAGAN TRIBES OP THE CAUCASUS

483

The blue sky so hard to reach,

Land a year's journey distant from water,

Father Yulgen thrice exalted.

Shunned by the edge of the moon's axe,

Thou who usest the hoof of the horse ;

O Yulgen, thou hast created all men

Who are stirring round about us.

Thou, Yulgen, hast bestowed all cattle upon us,

Let us not fall into sorrow !

Grant that we may withstand the evil one I

Let us not behold Kermes,

Deliver us not into his hands.' 1
LlTBRATURE. — See the authorities quoted in footnotes and
also : Asiatic Russia, ed. Emigration Committee (Russ.), St.
I'etersburg, 1914 ; V. V. Barthold, ' New Investigations of the
Orkhon Inscriptions' (Russ.), Journ. Min. Edtic, do. 1902,
pp. 231-325 ; L. Cahun, Introd. d I'histoire de I'Asie, Paris,
1896 ; M. A. Gastrin, Ethnolorjische Vorlcmmgen, pt. iv. of
Nordiscke Reisen und Forschuntien, St. Petersburg, 1857 ; E.
Chavannes, 'Documents sur lesTou-Kiue(Turcs)oocidentaux,'
Coll. Doc. Orkhon Exp. vi., do. 1903; M. A. Czaplicka, The
Turks of Central Asia, Oxford, 1918; V. GiuflFrida-Ruggeri,
Prime Knee di un 'Antropologia Sistematica Dell' Asia,
Florence, 1919 ; H. H. Howorth, Hist, of the Mongols, London,
1876-88, also Review of 51. A. Czaplicka's Turks of CentraX
Asia, in Nature, London, 13th Nov. 1919; D. A. Klementz,
Antiquities of the Minusi>uk Museum (Russ.), Tomsk, ISSG ;
B. Laufer, Re\'iew of M. A. Czaplicka's Turks of Central Asia,
in A iner. Anthrop.,i!!ev/ York, April-June, 1919; R. Martin,
L'Age du bronze au miisie de Minoiissinsk, Stockholm, 1893 ;
W. W. -RadlofF, Ethnolngical Survey of the Turkic Tribes of
Southern Siberia and Jumjaria (Russ.), Tomsk, 1S87, also Aus
Sihirien, Leipzig, 1884 ; Rashid al-Din Tadib, Hist, des
ifongols de la Djami el-Teoaikh, in E. J. IF. Gibb Memorial,
London, 1S09 ; E. D. Ross and F. H. Skrine, The Heart of
Asia, do. 1899 ; C. E. Ujfaivy de Mezo-Kovesd, Les Aryens an
nord et au sud de I'Hindou-Kouch, Paris, 1896; H. Vambery,
Das Tiirkenvolk in seinen ethnologischen und ethnographischen
Beziehungen, Leipzig, 1885. M. A. CZAPLICKA.

TURKESTAN.— See Turks, Mongols.
TUSCARORA INDIANS.— See Iroquois.

TUSHES AND OTHER PAGAN TRIBES
OF THE CAUCASUS.— The Caucasus presents,
as is well known, one of the most remarkable
ethnological and linguistic regions in the world.^
The reason is not far to seek : this narrow neck of
land between the Black Sea and the Caspian has
formed for centuries a bridge between S.E. Europe
and Asia Minor. Armenians and Iranians (Tats)
press up from the south ; Slavs and Tatars descend
from the north ; at least one Iranian people, the
Ossetes,* has forced its way into the very centre of
the region. In the midst of these intruders are
the Caucasians proper, guarded by the mountain-
system of the Caucasus.

The religious history of the Caucasian peoples is
analogous to tlieir political and ethnological records ;
only linguistically and (for the most part) racially
have they maintained their independence. Of
their ancient paganism but one fragment of any
value has been preserved. Regarding the ' Albani, '
who occupied the eastern portion of the country
between the Terek and the Kura,* Strabo writes
thus :

'The gods they worship are the Sun, Juppiter, and the
Moon, but the Moon above the rest. She has a temple near
Iberia. The priest is a person who, next to the king, receives
the highest honours. He has the government of the sacred
land, which is extensive ami populous, and authority over the

1 M. A. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, London, 1914, pp.
298-303.

- The best ethnological maps of this region are by N. von
Seidlitz, in Petennnnns Mitteihnxgen, xxvi. [1880] Taf. 15; R.
von Erckert, Der Kntikasiis und seine Vblker, Leipzig, 1887 ;
Doroinaya karta kavkazkago kraya, Tifli.s, liX)3 ; Ethnogra-
fiieskapa karta kavkuzkago kraya, Tillis, 1909 (cf. the review
by A. Dirr, in Petennaiins MittfiUnujrn, Ivii. [1911] pt. 2, p.
94 f.); and, for the Karthvelian region only, by H. Stliuchardt,
in Peterman iis MiHeilumjen, xliii. [1 Wt7j T.if. 6! For the Tushes,
Pshavs, and Kluvsurs see also the speci.al map by (i. Uadde, in
Izuistiya kavkuzkago otJi'la imp. ru.ss. geograf. ob.sie.Uva, xi.
[1880). For an ethnographic map in the ist cent, n.c, see J. de
Morgan, Mission scienlifi<]ue au Caucase, ii. pi. xiv., and for
the (listribution of the various tribes according to the classical
authors, see the map by D. Latyshev, in his Scythicaet Cavcasica,
ii.

3 See art. Ossktic Religion.

^ Ue Morgan, ii. 191-196.

sacred attendants, many of whom are divinoly inspired and
prophesj'. Whoever of these persons, being violently possessed,
wanders alone in the woods, is seized by tlie priest, who, having
bound him with sacred fetters, maintains him sumptuously
during that year. Afterward he is brought forth at the sacrifice
performed in honour of the goddess, is anointed with fragrant
ointment, and is sacrificed together with other victims. The
sacrifice is performefl in the following manner. A person,
having in his hand a sacred lance with 'which it is the custom
to sacrifice human victims, advances from the crowd and pierces
the heart through the side, which he does from experience in
this office. When the man has fallen, certain prognostications
are indicated by the manner of the fall, and these are publicly
declared. The body is carried away to a certain spot, and then
they all trample upon it, performing this action as a mode of
purification of themselves.

The AlbanLins pay the greatest respect to old age, which is
not confined to their parents, but is extended to old persons in
general. It is regarded as impious to show any concern for the
dead or to mention their names. Their money is buried with
them ; hence they live in poverty, having no patrimony.' i

He also states,'- on the somewhat dubious authority of Megas-
theiies, that the Caucasians practised coition in public and ate
the corpses of their dead relatives.

The religious history of the Caucasus is as varied
as its other records. Central Caucasia was not
converted to Christianity until the 4th cent., and
the gospel first penetrated E. Transcaucasia after
the defeat of Khusrau (Chosroes) I. by .Justinian
in the middle of the 6th century. Mazdaism, on
the other hand, was introduced into E. Caucasia
in the Arsacid period (186-265), and in E. Trans-
caucasia it had superseded Cliristianity by the
time of the rise of Islam in 646. In consequence
many Caucasian peoples possessed a religion which
was an undigested mass of primitive paganism,
Mazdaism, Christianity, and Muhammadanism.
Among certain tribes, notably the closely kindred
and geographically contiguous Tushes, Pshavs,
and Khevsurs, this state of affairs still obtains, as
was also the case among the Dadianic Svanetians
until their nominal conversion (or, rather, recon-
version) to Christianity in 1865.

So far as present conditions are concerned, the
religions professed by the Caucasian peoples are as
follows :

(1) Georgians (Karthvelians) : Lazes, Ajars, Yengiloi, Kabar-
dinians, and Cherkess, Muhammadan (the two latter relatively
recent converts from Christianity) ; Tushes, Pshavs, Khevsurs,
Svanetians, and Abkhases, pagan (or semi-pagan) ; Mingrelians,
Imeretians, Gurians, and Grusinians, Georgian Christians.^

(2) Eastern Caucasians (Chechens, Avars, Kazikumyks, Kyrins,
etc.), Muhammadans.

(3) Turko-Tatars (Kumyks, Kirgis, Kakmyks, etc.), Muham-
madans or Lamaists.

(4) Iranians : Tats, Muhammadans ; Ossetes, semi-Christians
or semi-Muhammadans, with numerous pagan survivals.

(6) Armenians, Christians.

The present article is restricted to the pagan or
semi-pagan peoples of the Caucasus, especially the
Khevsurs, with whose religion that of tlie Pshavs
and Tushos is practically identical.^ These peoples
possess an interest greater tlian their numbers
seem to warrant. Like so many Oriental religious
systems, such as Manichreism {q.v.) and the
religions of the Mand;oans, Nusairis, Kizil Bash,
Yezidis (qq.v.), etc., they present a syncretism
analogous to late classical developments or to the
Gra3Co-Egyptian system.'

I. Tushes, Pshavs, and Khevsurs. — The Tushes,
Pshavs, and Khevsurs are tiiree small, contiguous
tribes of Karthvelian stock, numbering, in 1912,
6600, 11,000, and 7700 resuectively ; « and their
religious systems are so similar that they need not
be discussed sei)arately.

(a) Sanctunries. — The kliati, or place of prayer
and sacrilice,' is synonymous with tlio coiuiiiiuiity

1 XI. iv. 7f. ( = p. 50'JC). '-XV. i. 5C(^p. 710C).

'■'■ Of. W. F. Adeney, The Greek aiul Eastern CJmrches, London,
190S, pi>. 3U-318.

■I |i'(ir the itssetes see art. Ossktic Reuoios.

•'■' See artt. Arris, CvBKiiE, Gr.eco-Euvptu.n Urlioion, etc.

"A. Dirr, in Petermann.<i Milteilungen, Iviii. [1912J pt. 1.
p. 13S.

"i The word khati properly means ' idol,' ' image ' ; it is also used
to denote an 'angel,' or personification of heaven or nature,
possibly as being an ' image ' of the Supreme God (cf. Merzbacher,
A uj) den Uuchregivncn des KattJcasuD, ii. 75, 90 f.).

484

TUSHES AND OTHER PAGAN TRIBES OP THE CAUCASUS

itself ; and so completely has khati lost its primary
meaning of ' image' that prayer is made to it quite
as earnestly as to its divinity, the batoni-khati
('image-lord '). The khati usually stands on a hill,
in a grove of trees (planes, oaks, etc.) ■which are
considered holy, which no axe may touch, and
beneath which no wild animal may be killed. The
sanctuary always consists of more than one build-
ing, surrounded by a rude stone wall. A small
chapel, artlessly constructed of irregular slabs,
contains the 'image,' the drosha (banner of the
clan, borne in battle, and regarded with aM-e),^ and
the costly silver vessels from which the sacred beer,
brewed in the khati, is drunk,'etc. Near the khati,
but within a hedge of its own, is a small, dark
building to house the brewing apparatus, drinking-
cups, and the like ; and close by, under the shade
of a great tree decked with rags, etc., is an altar,
about 1^ m. high, which is adorned with humble
offerings, while over it is a bowl with an aspergil-
lum, and behind it frequently stands a stone idol.
By the altar is a stone-paved pit into which the
blood of the sacrificial victim flows through a quad-
rangular opening ; and feet and bones of sheep,
kine, etc., bear witness to the zeal of the wor-
shippers. Near this usually stands another altar-
shaped column resting on a square base ; and on
it are piled horns of wild animals, brought as
offerings to the sanctuary. A special hut is
erected for brewing the beer, which only the
proper servants of the khati may prepare ; and
rfrtrfirtsi-dwellings and assemblj'-places are pro-
vided for the ministers of the shrine. The sacred
vessels (mostly of silver and often bearing Christian
sj'mbols) are jealously guarded against profanation
or theft ; and at high festivals the worshippers
drink from them the sacred beer.^

As the terrestrial home of the celestial khati,
the khati, in its aspect of place of prayer and sacri-
fice, serves as means of communication between
heaven and earth, so that in each crisis of life it is
visited for prayer to the divinity dwelling there.
While almost every village has its own khati,
three, all dedicated to St. George (see below [d]),
possess special sanctity — those in the villages of
Gudani and Khakhmati, and the khati of Karatis-
Jvari in Likoki. The two former are the oldest in
Khevsuria, and all three enjoy large estates.

The khati of Gudani is called 'leader of God's hosts' and
contains the chief drosha of the Khevsurs. It possesses great
power against theft (hence it is invoked when a raid is to be
undertaken) and against disease, insanity, and sterility. The
khati Sameba-Zrolis-Zferi, in the village of Ukan-Khalo, is the
special patron of hunters and thieves, and has peculiar power
over the clouds. The khati of Karatis-Jvari is particularly
potent against all evil spirits, which appear in the form of
hedgehogs, swine, etc. ; and his sacrifice, in case of misfortune,
is a goat, which, it should be noted, is oflfered only to evil spirits.
In the village of Atabe is a khati dedicated to St. Kvirik, lord of
the mainland, whom all angels obey, and who has his throne
next to God.

(b) Priests. — Some uncertainty prevails concern-'
ing the various orders of the priesthood. The
lowest rank is that of the shidta, of whom each
khati has three, chosen annually from the com-
munity by the khuzi and the dekanossi. The
shulta's duties are to guard the property of the
sanctuary, to supervise and assist the agricultural
work on the land belonging to the khati, and to
see the harvest safely garnered. Like the other
ministers of the khati, they must lead a blameless
life, and for several weeks before each feast inter-
course with women is forbidden. They may not
enter the da.rbasi, this privilege being reserved for
the higher functionaries.

The next in ascending rank are the dasttirl,

1 Cf. art. Banxers.

2 The emphasis laid on the sacred beer may be a reminiscence
of the Indo-lranian soma-haoma rite (see artt. Haoma, Soma),
despite the wide-spread custom of drinking intoxicants in
connexion with sacred ceremonies (see ERE v. 79).

chosen by the khuzi from the community, either
for a definite period or for an individual feast.
Their name is of Persian origin (Pahlavi-Pers.
dustur), but in the Iranian priesthood the dasturs
occupy the highest rank.^ The duties of the
Khevsur dasturi are to receive the ba,rley from the
shulta, prepare the firewood, obtain the wild hops
(cultivated hops may not be used), and brew the
sacred beer. During this process they must be
barefooted, bareheaded, and ungirdled, may not
leave the sanctuary, and are forbidden to speak.''
At the festivals they must prepare and serve the
food of the khuzi and dekaiiossi, and perform a like
service for the attendant worshippers. Wlien the
khiizi slays the sacrificial offering (svaraki), the
dasturi, and dekanossi hold its feet, and they
sprinkle the sacrificiant and his family with its
blood. During four weeks previous to a feast the
dasturi must refrain from conjugal relations and
may not go near a boseli (menstruation - hut).
While the shulta are all equal in rank, there are
various degrees among the dasturi according to
the periods for which they are chosen ; and, to-
gether Avith the shulta, they administer the finances
of the khati.

The real priest of the khati is the khuzi, who is
chosen, not by the community, but by the sooth-
sayer (kadagi) or seeress [mkitkJiavi). A future
khuzi is usually a man of standing, favourably
known for shrewdness and eloquence ; and the sign
by which he is elected is normally illness of him-
self or of one of his relatives (failure to recover
from such illness, however, means that he has
been rejected by the khati). Once chosen, the
khuzi cannot be removed against his will ; he is
deemed holy, and no one dares insult him by word
or deed. ()n the other hand, a man selected by
kadagi or mkitkhavi cannot refuse to accept the
dignity of khuzi, under penalty of divine anger.
The khuzi's duties are the performance of religious
rites (some of which, in much distorted form, are
of Christian origin, as shown by their invocation of
the Trinity) and the oflering of prayers, which —
for material blessings alone — are addressed to the
batoni-khati (as the mediator of the divine will)
rather than to the supreme deity. The khuzi also
slaughters the svaraki by cutting its throat, and
he and the dekanossi receive its skin and half of its
flesh. He performs marriages, conducts festivals
for the dead, blesses the jjeople at the great feasts,
and foretells the outcome of illness by placing the
cap and girdle of the afflicted person under his
pillow and dreaming over them.^ He is likewise
the guardian of the sacred drosha, before which
the people kneel when it is shown them on high
festivals ; and at such times he solemnly curses
any who may possibly prove traitors, holding high
a bowl of beer and pouring it on the ground with
the words, 'So may the house, the family, the
fortune of the faithless be emptied ! ' Like the
dasturi, he must observe the utmost jjurity before
festivals, even an erotic dream sufficing to defile
him.

The khuzi is assisted by several dekanossi, like-
wise chosen by the kadagi or mkitkhavi, and bound
by the same rules as govern him. With the
dasturi they hold the sacrificial victim while he
cuts its throat ; with him (or for him, if he is pre-
vented from taking part in the festival) they
repeat the prayers and bless the people ; and they
light the candles in the khati.*

1 See art. Priest, Priesthood (Iranian).

2 The prohibition of speech (of. also below, p. 4S7) looks very
like a survival of Zoroastrianism (see SDE v. [ISSO] 109, 290-292,
x\iii. [1882] 135, xxiv. [1885] 28,Sf.) ; but, on the other hand, to
go barefoot and ungirdled are heinous sins in Mazdaism (SBE
v. 106 f., 287).

3 Cf. art. Incubation, of which this dreaming is really a form.
''The khuzi, dekanossi. dasturi, and shulta roughly corre-
spond resi>ectively to the fourfold hierarchy of bishop, priest,

TUSHES AND OTHER PAGAN TRIBES OP THE CAUCASUS

485

A somewhat problematical figure in the hier-
archy 1 is the khevis-hcri ( ' valley-elder '). It seems,
on the whole, that he was originally the political
or administrative head of the valley, and as such
was the bearer of the drosha and the leader of the
army. In this manner he naturally became pro-
tector of the khati, and so developed by degrees
into a religious leader, particularly as his older
political importance steadily diminished. Traces
of this, however, yet remain. He is still the one
who uplifts the drosha at certain feasts ; and,
unlike the khuzi, dekanossi, dastuH, and shulta, he
inherits his dignity ; and it is only in the case of
extinction of a family in which the office of khevis-
beri is hereditary that he is chosen by the khuzi.
He is the faithful transmitter of ancient ritual ;
but his precise relation to the khuzi is uncertain.

(c) Sorcerers. — Among the Khevsurs sorcerers
and priests co-operate. The kadagi is chosen at
New Year by khuzi and dekanossi. Usually he is
neurotic, and he delivers his messages in the char-
acteristic manner of shamans.'^ He is the mouth-
piece of the khati and is consulted in all important
events of life, especially in cases of illness, Avhen
he designates the particular ottering necessary to
propitiate the deity whose anger has caused the
affliction. In certain khatis, as in Khakhabo, the
kadagi even has the right to carry the drosha.
The female counterpart of the kadagi is the
mkitkhavi, who is often a hysteriac. Despite
the restrictions imposed on all other Khevsur
women, the mkitkhavi holds rank equal to that of
the kadagi. The mkitkhavis divine by means
of water, grains of corn, etc. ; and, if they
declare that the cause of an illness is a deity's
desire to obtain the person afflicted, the latter is
clad in white, and a vow is taken that his hair
shall be uncut for three years, etc.

There is another class of sorceresses, the mesulta
— women and girls who sustain a peculiarly close
relation to the supernatural world. To approach
the spirits of the departed, the mesulta lies upon
the ground, grows pale, and falls into deep slumber,
often broken by a gentle murmuring, which is
regarded as converse with the dead. Since, how-
ever, too much speech regarding the other world
is dangerous, the mesulta, on awakening, uses
language which is intentionally obscure. If a child
falls ill before reaching the age of two years, the
mesulta is consulted. She tells from what departed
spirit the illness comes ; and the child's name is
changed to that of the deceased in question (in
similar illness of an older child the aid of the
kadagi, not the mesulta, is sought).

{d) Deities. — Reminiscences of Christianity are
so numerous that it is not always easy to say
exactly what is essentially the religion of the
Khevsurs and kindred tribes. The supreme deity
is Morigi, creator and onmipotont, who dwells in
the seventh heaven and is the god of the living,
whereas Christ is the divinity of the dead.^ The
Trinity, occasionally invoked in prayers, is
regarded as three angels ; the Blessed Virgin
receives honour as one of the chief angels ; and
SS. Peter and Paul are the angels of wealth and
abundance. Morigi leaves the actual administra-
tion of the world to his delegates, the khatis, each
of whom has his special function and is aided by two

deacon, and subdeacon of the Orthodox, Roman, and Anfrlican
Churches, and this may indeed be their origin ; it is less likely
that they are reminiscences of the zarathushtrotema, andarzpat,
ratu, and mobed of Zoroastrianism (for whom see art. Pribst,
Pribsthood [Iranian]).

1 Cf. the divergent opinions cited by Merzbacher, ii. 85.

2 See art. Shamanism.

*The seven heavens represent Jewish Talmudic tradition
(see JE i. 591, vi. 29S); for Morigi as god of the living cf.
Mt 2232 ; and the concept of Christ as god of the dead is prob-
ablj' borrowed from the doctrine of Ilis descent into Hades
(1 P 8i»).

messengers {esauls), one good and the other evil,
thiough whom the k/iati rewards or punishes man-
kind. The esauls united form the heavenly host
(lashkari ; Arab. laSkar, ' army '), to whicli the
' sisters ' of the khati also belong. A special .shrine
is erected to these ' sisters ' in the khati of Khakh-
mati, and there three maidens from Kajeti {the
land of the demons) dwell — Ashe, Simen, and
Samdsimari — who are represented as children and
who, when sent by the khati, cause the children of
the guilty to fall ill.'

The principal deity, for all practical purposes, is
the patron saint of the Caucasian region, St.
George of Cappadocia, from whom the land of
Georgia is popularly supposed to have received its
name.-^ The majority of churches in Georgia are
dedicated to him, as are the three chief khatis of
the Khevsurs — Gudani, Khakhmati, and Karatis-
Jvari. He not only causes the herds to multiply,
but he heals animals and men and protects his
worshippers in time of peril. He is, furthermore,
a storm-god and solar deity, and his throne is on a
lofty mountain,^ whence he sends upon the fields
of the wicked the hail which his servants, the divs
(Av. daeva, 'demon'), bring from the sea at his
bidding. To avert his wrath, no work is done in
the fields on Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays
from June till harvest, special watchers being
appointed to see that this tabu is not violated.
Chapels are erected in his honour on hill-tops,
to which pilgrimage is made annually ; and at
Kliakhmati sacrifices are made to his dog, a wind-
demon, for having once protected the Khevsur
herds against a band of devils.

(e) Festivals. — The chief Khevsur festivals fall
about Easter, Ascension Day, and New Year's
Day. The most important is celebrated in the
khati of Gudani, beginning on Good Friday and
lasting four days ; but in memory of our Saviour's
thirst (Jn 19^^) bread and salt alone are eaten, and
only a little beer may be drunk. Twelve weeks
later the great national festival, said to commemor-
ate the liberation of the land from foreign inva-
sion, is celebrated at the khatis of Khakhmati and
Karatis-Jvari, and also throughout Pshavia and
Tushetia. At these festivals the number of sacri-
ficial victims is very large, from 500 to 600 sheep
and 20 to 40 cattle being ottered at Khakhmati
alone, and the quota of each family being at least
five sheep. The priests receive the skin and half
of the flesh, which is salted to keep, the remainder
being cooked by the dasturi and eaten by the
assembly, together with bread and abundant beer.
This beer is solemnly blessed by khuzi and dekan-
ossi, after which the dasturi presents it first in the
sacred silver vessels to these priests and then to
the laity ;* but it is consumed so generously that
the festival frequently degenerates into a drunken
revel. Women are not admitted to tiie feasts and
may not pass beyond a certain line in the kluiti,^
where they receive their share of beer and viands.
Near a khati on a hill in the village of Arkhoti is
a special nishi (place where a saint has performed
a miracle) for children, and to this are brought
loaves baked expressly for them.

1 This explains the function of the mesMlta in healing infants.

2 Stemnier, in V/etzer and Welte, Kirchenleonkan-, Freiburg,
1SS2-1901, V. 330; cf. also AS, April, iii. 101 ff. In reality,
however, 'Georgia 'is probably derived from Pers. Giirj(ist;in),
the name of the land in question (Adeney, p. 344, note).

3 Cf. the mystic awe associated with the mountains Kasbek
in Ossetia (Merzbacher, i. 848-853) and Elburz, the latter being
called Orfl I tub (' Abode of the Blest ') by the Abkhascs, Ashka
Makhua ('Mountain of the Gods') or Nash Hamakho ('Holy
Height') by the Cherkess, and Jinn Padisah (' Lord of Spirits')
by the Turkish-speaking tribes {ib. i. 599-GOl) ; its name is
derived from the Persian Alburz (Av. Hara Berezaiti), itself a
famous abode of divf; (cf. ERE viii. 507*).

4 Apparently a reminiscence of celebration of the Eucharist.

5 Probably reminiscent of the narthex of early Christian
churches.

486

TUSHES AND OTHER PAGAN TRIBES OP THE CAUCASUS

(/) Status of women. — Until a daughter-in-law
has entered the household, a Khevsur woman's
life is one of toil. She not only aids her husband
in working' in the lields and tending the cattle, but
must also mow and thresh, bring wood and water,
cook food, make clothing, etc. When her son
brings home his bride, however, the mother-in-
la-Nv becomes the administrative head of the house,
and notliing may be done without her approval.

(g) Marriage and divorce. — Betrothal frequently
takes place while the future bride and groom are
still children ; and in such a case the boy's father
is obliged, until the girl readies maturity, to send
annual presents to the bride's father, while at
New Year a brother or sister of the groom takes
to the lu'ide a 'luck-loaf (bedis-kvcri), which she is
bound to eat. The marriages are always arranged
by a female marriage-broker, who takes some
small present from the parents of the groom to
the father of the bride. After betrothal the girl
may seek no other alliance, and theft of her by
another man entails severe consequences on him
and her, besides being a deep disgrace to the in-
tended groom and his family. Marriage between
persons even remotely akin is strictly forbidden,
with the result that, since all tlie inhabitants of a
village belong to a single family, men and women
of the same community very seldom wed.

On the marriage day the father of the groom sends to the
bride's father, by two men of standing, two sheep, one of whirli
is killed at the khati, the other in the bride's house. The girl's
mother bakes two large festival loaves (kada), and all the
maidens of the village escort the bride, with her parents and
kinsfolk, to the end of the village, where one of the kadas is
eaten. The bride's escort now return home, while the bride,
with some of her more distant relatives, follows the two men
sent by the groom's father, all but the girl being mounted on
horseback. During this journey the second kada is eaten, and
when she reaches the village which is to be her future liome
the l)ride is met by all its inhabitants, the distance which thej'
come to greet her being proportionate to the respect shown
her. Arrived at the groom's house, the bride is entertained in
a separate room by the women of the family, while her escort
are feasted. Meanwhile the groom hides till summoned by the
feasters ; and he then receives the place of honour, but may
share in neither banquet, song, nor dance, being permitted to
drink only a single glass of brandy. The women likewise are
debarred from the men's feast and dance, this being probably
a Muhammadan survival, since no such restriction exists among
the Christian Karthvelians. This revelry usually lasts three
days, during which the groom may not come near his bride ;
and bride, groom, and escort then return to her home, where a
similar feast is given. The groom now goes back to his own
village, where he remains an entire year, forbidden to visit
even the village of the bride, the only exception being when the
groom has no parents, in which case his bride remains with
him from the first to manage his household. When the year
has expired, the groom sends his nearest kinsmen to fetch the
bride, who is again escorted by some of her own relatives. The
dekano.isi and khevis-beri are now summoned, and the former
sews together the garments of the bridal pair in token of their
union, while the girl's mother prepares the nuptial bed, to
which she leads the wedded pair. After the first three nights,
the groom no longer shares this bed, but seeks his bride only
by stealth ; and it is not until the birth of their first child that
the pair live together openly. The conjugal act involves ritual
defilement for three days.

Despite the absence of outward manifestations
of aflection, and notwithstanding the life of toil
imposed upon the married woman, she occupies a
position of great respect. Except for very rare
instances, she guards her fidelity to her husband
with extreme care ; and if convicted of adultery,
.she takes her life. Her symbol of wifehood is her
kerchief {mandili) ; and if she throws this between
two men who are lighting, they must at once
desist from their quarrel.

The older form of wedding among the.se tribes
was marriage by capture, which is still frequent,
usually with the connivance of the girl. This is
regarded as an insult to the kinsmen of the man
to whom she was betrothed, and the robber's
relatives must pay them a fine of 16-30 cows and
make ricli presents to the girl's fatlier. In addi-
tion to this, the brothers and cousins of the girl
insult the robber by 'jumping on the roof ' (banse

shekhtonia) of his house until he slaughters a sheep
and gives them a. young ox and a copper kettle.
If, however, the girl is carried off against her will,
a deadly feud arises between the kinsmen of the
robber and those of the intended bride and groom,
often resulting in destruction of property and life,
while the girl seeks an opportunity to escape to
her chosen imsband.

Polygamy is permitted, but is rare unless the
wife is sickly, ages prematurely, or bears only
girls ; but if a second wife is taken, the husband
must give five cows to the family of the first.

The bride brings a do^vry with her, but the
groom has no claim upon it, whereas the wife has
the right to make herself a new dress annually at
her husband's expense. The property of husb.and
and wife is kept separate, and neither may be the
other's heir. Sons alone may inherit ; if the
marriage is childless, or only girls are born, the
village is the heir.

Divorce is rare, for, even if a wife is thus dis-
missed for laziness, barrenness, or sickliness, her
husband must pay her 16 cows for the marriage
and one cow for her work during each year of
wedded life except the first and the last. A
divorced wife may marry again, and is still entitled
to a new dress each year at her first husband's
expense. On the other hand, any children of the
first marriage belong to their father ; and though
a temporary exception is made in the case of an
unweaned infant, this child also goes to its father
as soon as it is grown. A man is deeply disgraced
if his wife leaves him ; and in such a case she
must promise never to marry another man, a
violation of this pledge formerly involving the
death both of the woman and of her second
husband.

Under no circumstances may a man ill-treat his
wife — a rule which is enforced by the entire com-
munity. Since the family (ojakhi) is strictly sub-
ordinated to the community (tamoba), so that
ostracism involves entire forfeiture of communal
protection, rights to communal pasturage, etc., the
ruling of the tamoba is one of much efiect in all
departments of life in the individual household.

(h) Death and disposal of the dead. — Death
being believed to defile the house, the moribund
are carried into the open air, and there breathe
their last, surrounded by the members of their
household. Since the corjise is deemed a source of
uncleanness, its preparation for its final resting-
place is the duty of young, unmarried persons (lad.s
for males, and girls for females) called nareoebi
('defiled '),' who shear the head of the corpse (if it
be male), clothe it in a shroud of white and red,''
and dig for it a long, narrow, shallow, stone-lined
grave, in which it is laid uncoffined.' Contact
with narevebi entails defilement ; and they may
not enter their own homes until (after five or six
days) they have taken repeated cleansing baths.
For a year the kinsmen of the deceased let their
beards grow, wear old clothes turned inside out
(thus hiding the usual adornments of dress), and
carry no weapons. The departed (unless a child,
who is unwept) is formally bewailed, the men
lamenting silently, the women aloud ; and one of
the latter recites or sings laudations of the de-
ceased, the others joining in the refrain. A
funeral feast is prepared and blessed by the khuzi,
who also recites an ancient jirayer containing
reminiscences of the Old and New Testaments.

The corpse is borne to the grave by the narevebi, while the
kinsmen and other male residents of the community stand
weeping softlv at the boundary of the village. Of the family
only the widow accompanies the body to its final resting-place,
and she leads the dead man's completely caparisoned horse,

1 Of. the Iranian nasd-sdlars (see ERE iv. 503 f.).

2 For minor variations see Merzl)acher, ii. 97, note 3.

'■^ In certain regions wooden cofiins are coming into use.

TUSHES AND OTHER PAGAN TRIBES OP THE CAUCASUS

487

which bears his clothes and weapons, as well as food and drink
for his journey to the other world. Arrived at the sjrave, she
strikes the horse thrice, saying, ' Serve thy master in the future
life as faithfully as thou hast served him here below." i The
widow is escorted by wailinfj women, eulopi/iinsj the departed,
and when the corpse is laid in the (ground, one of them falls
into ecstasy, describinif the arrival of the soul in the abode of
the blest. At most only a few loaves are buried with the
corpse, or, in the case of a child, some ajiples or the like. The
horse is given to the nearest or dearest kinsman (usually the
maternal uncle), and is carefully tended throughout its life.
It may carry neither man nor burden, and to sell it is to dis-
grace its late owner, who still needs it to ride before his de-
parted kinsmen in the other world. If, however, certain
specified conditions permit its sale, the purchaser pays only
half its actual value, and the seller must provide a substitute ;
for it is, in reality, the property of the dead.

While burial is now practi.sed by the Caucasian
tribes under consideration, the older form of dis-
po.sal of the dead was to lay them in small house-
like structtires above j^noiind. Tiie characteristic
form of this corpse-house is thus described by
M. Kovalevsky : -

They are, ' as a rule, situated on the summit of hills. In
shape they are like a prolonged quadrangle ; they are con-
structed of stones put together without cement, and have two
entrances, one on the southern and one on the northern side.'
Within, 'on both sides of a passageway which is left free, stone
ledges at a certain level from the earth are to be seen with the
mununified bodies of the deceased either sitting or lying on
them. Different objects, belonging to everyday life, but no
armour, are found in these burial places, where the wind freely
enters and birds are likely to come.' 3

Immediately after the return from the grave,
an ox is killed ; and the relatives and narevebi
thrice take a piece of its roasted liver into their
mouths and spit it out, this being called 'the re-
opening of the mouth ' {sapiris khsno), since, until
this rite is performed, they are denied both meat
and milk. Meanwhile the other mourners are
entertained with bread and cheese ; and on the
following day the flesh of the roasted ox is eaten
by the relatives and the narevebi.

The 'keeping of silence' {piris ahshera)* is likewise a note-
worthy mourning rite. On the day of burial the nearest
relatives of the deceased choose two men and one woman from
his kinsfolk and shut them in a room where a fire is burning.
After partaking of a large milk-loaf, they may not utter a word
until the ' khuzi of souls ' comes at evening and blesses the
loaf, which they turn about themselves thrice. They then go
silently home, and each lays a piece of wood at the window of
the dead man's house, after which speech is permitted, and they
may share the general meal.

A second festival in honour of the deceased is
held a few days after his burial ; and at this time
there is a hor.se-race^ in which the victor receives
the weapons, etc., of the departed, although they
are not actually given him until a year has
elapsed. Throughout this year the soul of the
dead is supposed to visit Iiis earthly home and to
protect it, so that on the second Saturday of Great
Lent a special meal (sulta-krcba, ' assembly of

1 Formerly the horse was doubtless sacrificed at the grave.

2 Archaioloijical Retiexc, i. [ISSS] 321.

3 This form of superterrene disposal of the dead, to which
the Avesta distinctly refers {Vend. v. 10; ct., further, D.
Menant, Les Parsis, Paris, 1898, pp. 183 f., 213 f.), is fairly
wide-spread, being found not only among Tushes, Pshavs, and
Khevsurs, but also in Ossetia (Merzbacher, i. COO, 815-818),
Seislan (G. P. Tate, SeUtan, Calcutta, 1910-12, p. 276),
Baluchistan (IGI vi. 283), and the Hindu-Kush (G. S. Robertson,
The Kafirs of the Uwlu-Kuah, London, 1806, p. 641 ff.). A
highly developed form is probably to be seen in the so-called
'Tomb of Cyrus' (for a description of which see A. V. W.
Jackson, Persia Past and Present, New York, 1906, pp.
280-293). A somewhat similar idea is found in the rock-tombs
of the Achiomenian kings, the entrances to which imitate the
portals of a palace ; and these have analogues in Asia Minor
(R. Leonhard, Papklagonia, Berlin, IQl."), pp. 242-287) and in
Judsoa (JE iii. 430 f., vii. 145 f.). In the light of his further
studies, the present writer believes that his note on ancient
Persian burial rites (ERE iv. 50.0) requires considerable revision ;
and the connexion between this superterrene disposal and
primitive Persian and Caucasian dolmen-burial (J. de Morgan,
Mission scientijique en Perse, Paris, 1894-1905, iv. 15-58, and
Mission seientifique au Caucasc, i. 41-82), cliff-burial or rock-
burial (for examples at PandriVn, in Baluchistan, see lA xxxii.
[1903] 342 f.), and the Zoroastrian dakhmas(EliK iv. 504) also
requires consideration.

■* Of. above, p. 484*1, note 2.

' The Ossetes have a similar custom (,Mer/.baoher, i. 819).

souls ') is prepared for him. Various gifts are
laid near loaves of bread placed on the ground,
and these become the property of cany one who
hits them with arrow or bullet ; tlie men then
visit the khati to drink beer brewed at the expense
of the community, while the women, gathered in
the house of mourning, lament the dead and drink
to the repose of his soul.

The great memorial feast [tzel taveri) is held at
the expiry of the year. The mourners now cut
their hair and beards, don new clothing, and feast
so bountifully that excessive potations frequently
lead to confusion and quaiTcls. This feast may
also be given by a bachelor or childless widower
in his lifetime for the weal of his soul in the future
world ; but he may not partake of it himself,
although, as he hides from the feasters, he may
listen to their laudations of him, thus playing the
role of the dead and securing the benefits of the
other world which his lack of posterity would
otherwise deny him.

(i) Heaven and hell. — Heaven is a huge fortress,
many storeys in height, reaching to tiie sky. It
is illumined by the sun, and on its edge is a great
spring, from which the blest drink joyfully.^ Tiie
righteous are graded according to merit as regards
the storeys in which they dwell, and each Sunday
they receive from God their celestial food, the
very sight of which assuages their hunger. Hell,
on the contrary, is a dark,- square abotle to which
devils take the damned. Between this world and
the next is a perilous bridge, at whose farther end
the judges of the dead are seated.^ Sinners fall
into a shoreless river of tar, where they swim in
eternal agony, tormented by terrible thirst, while
special sins have special punishments, liars and
slanderers, e.g., having boiling water poured over
them.

(j) Miscellaneous. — The blood ■ feud (g. v. ) flourishes
among the Khevsurs, but presents no noteworthy
features, although it may be ob.served that the
maternal uncle is especially prominent, either as
the avenger of the murdered or as the first to be
attacked by the avengers of the slain. Only
compensation may be claimed for the murder of
women and children ; and for non-fatal injuries
to men a regular tariff' of much minuteness is in
force, even murder itself being commutable by a
^vergeld.*

In a case of mere suspicion the accused may clear himself by
a solemn oath, taken in thekhati at night. Here an interesting
survival of Iranianism is seen in the fact that, while taking oath,
the accused holds a live cat, which is deemed the most
unclean of all animals,^ and prays that the corpse of the real
murderer, and the corpses of all who might have proved his
innocence, but failed to do so, may be followed by a cat in
the future world. Or, after food has been placed on the grave
of the murdered, one of the latter's kinsmen draws a drop of
blood from an ear of the accused and of his kinsmen, cursing
the suspected person, if he be guilty, to be the servant of
his victim in the life to come. After this both parties share
the food, and reconciliation is complete. 6 If, after condemna-
tion, the guilty man refuses to pay the fine imposed upon him,
the creditor may demand such payment from some third person
whom he chooses without the knowledge of that person. This
man, called imevali, may transfer the debt to a fourth, doubling
the amount ; and the fourth to a fifth, again doubling the sum,
and so on, until the debt, enormouslj' enlarged, finally devolves
again on the original debtor, who must pay the whole. No one
may refuse to be a mzevali under penalty of having erected,
near his house, a stone image smeared with human excrement,
and with a cat or dog^ hung on a stick thrust into it, the whole
being accompanied by a curse. Such disgrace results in ostra-

1 Evidently a reminiscence of Rev 22^.

3 This idea is probably Iranian in origin (cf. Arta Viraf, ed.
and tr. M. Haug and E. W. West, Bombav, 1872, chs. xviii.,
liv., and SBE v. 114, xviii. 57, 75).

3 This may be either Iranian or Muhammadan (see ERE ii.
852).

■* For details see Merzbacher, ii. 50-56.

5 See SBE xviii. 419.

6 For details see Merzbacher, ii. 56-58.

7 Probably Muhnnunadan in origin, since IslSm, unlike
Zoroastrianism, abhors the dog (ERK i. 512; T. P. Hughes,
Dl'i, London, 1896, p. 91").

488

TUTELARY GODS AND SPIRITS

cism of the mzevali, who can avert it only by paying the amount
demanded, killing a sheep, and sharing it with his opponent
and with invited witnesses, after which ' the souls are set free.'

2. Svanetians. — The Svanetians, numbering
about 16,500 in 1912, are the modern representa-
tives of the Soanes or Suani of Strabo and Pliny.'
Their religion is by no means so interesting as
that of the Khevsurs, etc., and primitive elements
are far less prominent.'^ From Iranianism they
retained a sort of prayer to the sun and moon ;
from Christianity a form of anointing a child by
its mother in lieu of baptism, and a veneration
for Christ, the Virgin, and St. George ; from
Judaism a reverence for Elijah ; and they still
abstain from work on the three Sabbaths — Friday
of the Muhammadans, Saturday of the Jews,
and Sunday of the Christians. They practise
the strictest endogamy, only residents of the
same village being permitted to wed — j^ossibly
(though by no means certainly) an Iranian
survival. 3 Superfluous female children were
formerly smotiiered as soon as born. Burial
might take place only in clear weather, rain (in
view of the great precipitation) being regarded as
ill-omened ; and food was laid on the grave for
the soul's journey to the other world.

3. Importance of Caucasian religion. — The
rather scanty fragments of paganism found in the
Caucasus are of more interest than appears on the
surface. The Karthvelian stock seems to have
had its original home much farther to the south
in Asia Minor and to have been driven steadily
northward by the invaders who established their
empires in Mesopotamia.^ Thus they found an
abode in eastern Cappadocia, Pontus, Armenia,
and the Caucasus ; but under pressure of Armenians
from the Avest, and of Iranians from the south, ^
they had reached, by the time of Strabo,® a
territory extending from the lower course of the
Kelkid Irmak to that of the Kura, and thence to
Lenkoran on the Caspian, the northern boundary
being the Caucasus range. The Karthvelian group
thus represents the descendants of the ancient
Colchidians, Soanes, Iberi, and Albani,^ the latter
corresponding to the Khevsurs, Pshavs, Tushes,
and kindred tribes.

If this theory is correct, from the modern
paganism of these thi-ee Karthvelian tribes we
may infer the general character of the religion
of a once considerable part of eastern Asia Minor.
But perhaps we may go a step farther. We then
have a knowledge that in Asia Minor there were
at least three zones of religion : one represented
by an orgiastic nature-cult, shown by the worship
of Cybele and Attis {qq.v.) in the west and north ;
the second exemplified by the developed polythe-
ism of the Hittites {q.v.) in the centre and south ;
and the third characterized by a primitive type of
religion, mixed with shamanism, in the east. The
enthusiasm of the orgy appealed to the decaying
faiths of Greece and Rome ; the polytheism, with
a high degree of civilization, yielded only slowly

1 strabo, xi. ii. 19 (=p. 499 C) ; Pliny, HN vl 4 ; see especially
de Morgan, ii. 182 f., 188 f.

2 For a summary see Merzbacher, i. 372-375, and for a
description of a Svanetian funeral see ib. pp. 447-450. A like
statement holds good for the, Abkhases, who numbered about
60,000 in 1912 (see especially Zanasvili, in Iznestiya kavkazkago
otdfla imp. russ. geoi/ra/. oMiestva, xvi. [1894] 1-64).

3 Cf. ERE viii. 456^458.

4 For an outline of this history see de Morgan, i. 27 f., 197,
ii. 121-129, 274-280.

5 See de Morgan, ii. pi. xi. (' Les Colonies aryennes dans le
Oaucase et rAvm^nie'), for the course of these migrations. His
suggestion (ii. 276; cf. i. 22, ii. 105 f.) that the Karthvelian
group corresponds to the ancient Vannic is scarcely supported
by what little we know of Vannic religion (see art. Armenia
[Vannic]). It is equally doubtful whether the Hittites (q.v.) can
be regarded as akin to the moilerti non- Aryan Caucasians,
despite his arguments (i. 23, 26, 197, ii. 64).

6 De Morgan, ii. pi. xiv. (' Carte ethnographique du Caucase
au ler siecle de notre 6re ').

7 See above, p. 483.

to its foes ; but the primitive savagery, Avith a
low grade of civilization, was driven by invaders
of higher type to the recesses of the Caucasus,
where it still lingers, commingled with reminis-
cences and influences of the nobler religions of
Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Muhammadan-
ism.

Literature. — The principal literature on the paganism of
the Caucasian tribes (chiefly in Russian) has been summarized
by G. Merzbacher, Axis den Hochregionen des Eaukasus,
2 vols., Leipzig, 1901 (esp. ch. xiii. for the Svanetians, and ch.
xxvii. for the Khevsurs, Pshavs, and Tushes). Nothing of
importance on this subject has appeared since ; of earlier
literature not specified by Merzbacher, mention may be made
of M. Kovalevsky, ' Om dyrkan af forfiidren hos de kaukasiska
folken,' in Ymer, 1888, pp. 111-122. For the scanty classical
accounts of the Caucasus and its inhabitants see B. Latyshev,
Scythica et Caucasica e veteribus scriptoribus Grttcis et Latinis,
2 vols., Petrograd, 1893-1906. For ethnology and ancient
history see esp. E. Chantre, Recherches anthropologiques
dans le Caucase, 4 vols., Paris, 1885-87; J. de Morgan,
Mission scientifique au Caucase, 2 vols., do. 1890; S.
Zaborowski, ' Le Caucase et les Caucasiens,' in Revue an-
thropologique, xxiv. [1914] 121-133. LoUIS H. GRAY.

TUTELARY GODS AND SPIRITS.— The

conception of a tutelary guardian genius or guiding
spirit believed to protect and watch over certain
persons and objects appears to arise as soon as
the powers of observation and generalization are
sufficiently developed to bring about a systematized
scheme by which natural phenomena come to be
divided into classes and assigned to particular
departmental deities and spirits. In some cases
high gods are associated with special functions —
e.g., in Mexico, where Tlaloc is regarded as the
god of rain and water, and therefore has the special
office of fertilizing the earth.' But more frequently
it is the numerous spirits by which primitive man
supposes himself to be surrounded that become the
patrons or guardians of individual men. Any
extraordinary event that demands the help of an
intervening agent provides the impetus to penetrate
more deeply into the nature of the supernatural
powers and to establish a more intimate alliance
with them. Thus, to the primitive mind, the
constant motion of water is controlled not by
natural law but by some supernatural agency
i-esident within the stream. At first it appears
simply as a mystic impersonal force, but, as the
mind becomes capable of more definite ideas, the
conception of a spiritual being having personality
is evolved.

The Trojans, e.g., originally regarded a sacred river as con-
taining mana (q.v.), and, in consequence, they sacrificed a bull
to the stream by throwing the animal into the water whole and
entire. ' In later times, when they had reached the animistic
stage, an altar was erected by the side of the river on which a
bull was offered, the belief being that the spirit in the water
came out and consumed the essence of the sacrifice.' 2

As soon as the notion of a local spirit allied to a
natural object is developed, the desire to seek the
aid of the supernatural being speedily follows.
The Iroquois at their festivals thank the good
spirits and every object that ministers to their
wants for the assistance rendered by them." In
process of time a tutelary guardian genius is
assigned to every individual, whose special function
it is to guide, protect, and warn the man under
his care. This guardian spirit may be acquired in
various ways and take diflerent forms. It may
reveal itself at birth, or may await the 'crisis'
reached at puberty. It may be the spirit of some
ancestor or great chief or mighty magician ; or it
may belong to a deity whose dwelling is not with
men. From these spirits the personal name and
even the nature of an individual are frequently
received, and to them man naturally looks for
guidance and protection.

1 H. H. Bancroft, NR iii. 324.

2 E. O. James, Primitive Ritual aiid Belief, London, 1917,
p. 226.

3 E. B. Tyler, PC^, ii. 205.

TUTELARY GODS AND SPIRITS

489

I. Forms of guardian spirits. — {a) Placenta. —
Among the Koobooa, a primitive tribe of Sumatra, the navel-
string and afterbirth ' are the good spirits, a sort of guardian
angels of the man who came into the world with them and who
lives on earth ; they are said to ^'uani him from all evil. Hence
it is that the Kooboo always tliinks of his navel-string and after-
birth before he goes to sleep or to work, or undertakes a
journey.' 1 If he were not to think of them, he would deprive
himself of their care. The Battas, another tribe of Sumatra,
believe that each man, in addition to his external soul, has
'two invisible guardian spirits (his kaka and agi) whose help
he invokes in great danger ; one is the seed by which he was
begotten, the other is the afterbirth, and these he calls respec-
tively his elder and his younger brother.' 2

Among the northern tribes of Central Australia the navel-
string is frequently cut off with a stone knife and, with the
afterbirth, hidden in a hole in the ground or some other con-
cealed spot, the belief being that, were it not preserved, the
child would die, since it is thought to contain its spirit, 3 Here
we find the germ of the belief which, in its more developed
form, attributes to the placenta, etc., the function of a
tutelary genius.

In Iceland it is an ancient belief that ' the child's guardian spirit
or a part of its soul has its seat in the chorion or fcetal mem-
brane, which usually forma part of the afterbirth, but is known
as the caul when the child happens to be born with it. Hence
the chorion was itself known as the fylgia or guardian spirit.
It might not be thrown away under the open sky, lest demons
should get hold of it and work the child harm thereby.' If it
were buried under the threshold where the mother stepped over
it when she rose from bed, the child in after life had a guardian
spirit in the shape of a bear, eagle, wolf, ox, or boar.*

(b) Animals. — Not infrequently a man's guard-
ian spirit is thought to manifest itself under the
form of an animal.

Among the Ibans or Sea Dayaks of Borneo the ngarong, or
spirit-helper, after having in a dream appeared in human form,
makes himself known in the likeness of an animal. ' On the day
after such a dream the Iban wanders through the jungle looking
for signs by which he may recognize his " Nyarong," and if an
animal behaves in a manner at all unusual, if a startled deer
stops a moment to gaze at him before bounding away, if a
gibbon gambols about persistently in the trees near him, if he
comes upon a bright quartz-cr3 stal or a strangely contorted
root or creeper, that animal or object is for him fuU of a myste-
rious significance and is the abode of his " Nyarong." 'S It does
not, however, follow that every Iban has a ngarong. Many a
young man goes out to sleep on the grave of some distinguished
person or in some wild and lonely spot and lives for some days
on a very restricted diet, hoping that a ngarong will come to
him in his dreams, but only one in 50 or 100 men is fortunate
enough to have his wish gratified. When the ngarong takes on
an animal form, all individuals of that species become objects
of special regard to the Iban, and he will not, of course, kill or
eat any such animal. Even if the ngarong changes its form,
he will continue to respect the species in which it first appeared.
The cult may spread through the whole family, the children
and grandchildren being under an obligation to respect the
animal-form to which the ngarong belongs.

Among the Omaha Indians an animal as a guardian spirit is
assigned to every man at puberty, and so close is the bond
uniting them that the man is supposed to acquire the qualities
of the creature that is his guardian. If, in the vision which
determines his tutelary genius, he sees an eagle, he will have a
keen and piercing foresight ; if, on the other hand, it is a bear
that appears to him, he will be slow and clumsy and therefore
likely to be killed in battle. 6 This belief, that a man acquires
the nature of the animal that is his guardian, has led the
Thompson Indians of British Columbia to perform a mimic
battle before setting out on the warpath, in which each man
portrays on his body and imitates the sounds of his guardian
animal.7 Similarly in VV. Africa, when a man is initiated into a
secret society, the animal that he sees in his dream during his
' magic sleep ' becomes his guardian spirit or patron. 8

In Central America nagualism 9 is one of the ancient forms of
worship which still flourish. It ' consists in choosing an animal
as the tutelary divinity of a child, whose existence will be so
closely connected with it, that the life of one depends on that
of the other.' The animal is selected in one of three ways— -(1)
by priestly divination ; (2) by the father and friends drawing
animal figures on the floor of a hut at the mother's confinement,
the figure that remains at the moment of delivery being the
guardian ; (3) by noticing the bird or beast first seen by the
watchers after the confinement, lo Sometimes a child's nagual

1 GB3, pt. vii.. Balder the Beautiful, London, 1913, ii. 162, n. 2.

2/6. p. 223 f., n. 2. 3 Spencer-Gillenb, p. 607 f.

* GB3, pt. i.. The Magic AH, London, 1911, i. 199 f.

5 C. Hose and W. MoDougall, 'The Relations between Man
and Animals in Sarawak,' JAI xxxi. [19(11] 'ioo. For the spelling
see Hose-McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, ii. 109, n. 2.

8 GB'i, pt. v.. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, London,
1912, ii. 207.

7 J. Teit, The Thompson Indians of Brit. Columbia (Memoir
Amer. Museum Nat. Hist., The Jesup N. Pacific Jixped., vol.
i. pt. iv.), New York, 1900, p. 356.

8 GB3, pt. vii., Balder the BeavtifiU, ii. 256 f.
« See art. Anim.^ls, § z8. i" ..Yfi iii. 458.

is discovered by means of a calendar, in which all the names,
pUices, and provinces of beasts, birds, fish, stars, etc., are
recorded. Some of these horoscopes have a wheel painted on
them ; others portray a lake surrounded by the naguals in the
form of various aninials.i This method— employing astrological
calculations based on a written document — is obviously a later
development of nagualism.

Among the Algonquins of N. America the tutelary genius is
known as a manitu, or supernatural being, associated with
streams, cataracts, rocks, mountains, and forests. In nearly
every case it manifests itself under the form of a beast, bird, or
reptile of uncanny appearance, although occasionally it assumes
human proportions. At the age of puberty youths "are made to
retire to a solitary place to undergo a period of fasting. The
first thing that appears in a dream to the novice is regarded as
his guardian spirit, to whom he looks in after life for guidance
and protection. The man destined to be a warrior will have a
vision of an eagle or a bear, a serpent will appear to the future
medicine-man, a wolf to the hunter. To complete the bond, a
portion of the guardian is worn about the person, which is
regarded rather as an embodiment than as a representative of a
supernatural power. It therefore seems that the guardian
spirit is only one of a large class of spirits to which the common
name of manitu is given. 2 The same belief is found among the
Iroquois and Hurons, the genii being called okies or otknns
instead of manitu.

2. Functions of guardian spirits. — (a) The

relation of guardian spirits to totems. — Among
some of the Algonquin tribes a man's guardian is
identical with his clan totem, but, since the former
belongs solely to an individual, while the latter is
the inherited possession of every member of the
clan, the tutelary genius cannot be explained in
terms of totemism.* The similarity between the
clan totem and the guardian spirit has led several
anthropologists to derive the one from the other.*
On this hypothesis the clan totem is simply the
guardian spirit of an ancestor, who acquired it for
himself in a dream at puberty, and through his
influence and credit succeeded in transmitting it
by inheritance to his descendants, who form a clan,
and regard as their totem the animal in which the
tutelary genius manifested itself.

Thus, in the case of the Iban, Hose and McDougall think that
' it seems difficult to deny the name " individual totem " to the
species' comprehended under the name of Ngarong. Similarly
when ' all the members of a man's family and all his descendants,
and, if he he a chief, all the members of the community over
which he rules, come to share in the benefits conferred by his
Ngarong, and in the feeling of respect for it and in the perform-
ance of rites in honour of the species of animal in one individual
of which it is supposed to reside. In such cases the species
approaches very closelj' the clan-totem in some of its varieties.' *
Unfortunately, however, for this theorj', on the authors' own
evidence there are no signs of clan totemism in Borneo.^

For support of this view of the origin of totem-
ism iq.v.) its advocates are driven to various
American theories such as those of F. Boas, who
thinks that the totems of the Indians of British
Columbia have been developed from the personal
manitu ; and of Alice C. P^letcher, who is led to
a similar conclusion by a study of the totems of
the Omaha tribe. In this connexion, however, it
should be remembered that, while it is perfectly
true that guardian spirits are occasionally inherited
among certain N. American tribes, and not acquired
for each individual separately,'' and therefore in
process of time may become the totems of the clans,
yet, since inherited guardian spirits are usually
regarded as less powerful than those acquired by
individuals,* tliey are hardly likely to be taken
over as the protectors of the clan. Moreover,
there is no evidence forthcoming that a totemic

ID. G. Brinton, 'Nagualism,' Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., vol.
xxxiii. no. 144 [Philadelphia, 1S94], pp. 25, 32.

2 J. G. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, Ijondon, 1910, iii.
373 f.

3 Tylor, ' Note on the Haida Totem-Post,' Man, ii. [1902] 2 fif.

4 E. S. Hartland, FL xi. [1900] 68 ; A. C. Haddon, Report of
72nd Meeting of Brit. Assoc, 1902, p. 742; W. H. R. Rivers,
'Totemism in Polynesia and Melanesia,' JRAI xxxix. [1909]
176 ff. ; C. Hose and W. McDougall, The Pwian Tribes of Borneo,
London, 1912, ii. 109 ; F. Boas, 'The Kwakiutl Indians,' Report
U.S. Nat. Mus., 1895, p. 336; H. Hubert and M. Mauss,
' Esquisse d'une th6orie g6n6rale de la magie,' ASoc vii. [191)4]
32 ff.

5 ii. 109. 6 ii. 99.

7 Teit, Thompson IndiaTis, p. 320 ff.

8 Teit, The Shuswap, Leydcn and New York, 1909, p. 605.

490

TUTELARY GODS AND SPIRITS

clan has actually grown up in this way either in
America or elsewhere. Where the original condi-
tions are supposed to be typically manifested — e.ri.,
in the Banks Islands ^ — no trace remains of tlie
existence of clan toteniism, except perhaps in a
few very doubtful survivals in secret societies.
Again, we must not lose sight of the fact that
in America and the Pacific, as compared with
Australia, we are dealing with a relatively
advanced, not to say degenerate, form of totem-
i.sm,2 and that this ' American theory,' as we may
call it, of the origin of the institution rests entirely
upon a few cases derived from the N. American
Indians. In Australia, where the custom is seen
in a much more primitive form, there is no evi-
dence of guardian spirits becoming clan totems,
while in Africa examples are also wanting. We
therefore conclude that the theory which seeks the
origin of totemism in the personal guardian spirits
of individuals is devoid of proof, at any rate in the
present state of our knowledge.

(6) Grtardian spirits of houses and villages. —

In most of the W. African tribes there is a class of ancestral
spirits called ' the well disposed ones,' whose function is to pro-
tect and benefit their particular village or family, acting in
conjunction with the villa;,'e or family fetish. It is supposed
that the spirit of a man liiii;ei's about a house some time after
his death, and, although it is able to injure the children and
others by embracing them, it performs the office of a guardian
to the family by keeping off evil spirits.-*

The Kenyahs recognize a minor deity called Bali Atap, who
' protects the house against sickness and attack, and is called
upon in cases of madness to expel the evil spirit possessing the
patient. A rude wooden image of him stands beside the gang-
way leading to the house from the river's brink ; it holds a
spear in the right hand, a shield in the left ; it carries about its
neck a fringed collar made of knotted strips of rattan ; the
head of each room ties on one such strip, making on it a knot
for each member of his roomhold.' Another god, Bali Utong,
brings prosperity to the house.*

'InTonqnin every village chooses its guardian spirit, often
in the form of an animal, as a dog, tiger, cat, or serpent,'
although occasionally a human being is selected. 6 The Khonds
have tutelary deities of house, village, groves, etc., which
survive in the later Hinduism. The Rigveda recognizes
Vastoshpati, the 'lord of the house,' to whom the law 6 orders
oblations to be made. This Vedic divinity is associated by W.
Windisch with Vesta and Hestia, and compared to the Celtic
vassus, vassallus, originall}' ' house-man,' and thus associated
with the ' king of the house-men.' 7 In Hinduism, how-
ever, a female deity, Jara, is assigned to the guardianship of
the house. Although she is represented as a demoniac power,
she is friendly towards her votaries, provided that she is wot-
shipped with incense, food, flowers, and so forth.

The Ainus have a fetish called Inao, invested with life,
whose function is to look after the health and general well-
being of the famil.v. His special dwelling-place is in the north-
east corner of the hut, at the back of the family heirlooms.
Occasionally, in times of trouble, he is brought out from his
corner, stuck in the hearth, and there praj'ed to by the head
of the family. He is supposed to have been sent down from
heaven to be the husband of the goddess of fire, and to help
her to attend to the wants of men, and therefore he is called
' the ancestral governor of the house." 8

3. Offerings to guardian spirits. — Since guardian
spirits exercise such a powerful influence over the
lives and destinies of men, it is not surprising that
they are frequently the recipients of offerings to
appease their wrath or secure their favour and
beneficence.

The Thai of Indo-China, e.g., offer flrsttruits of rice at harvest
to the guardian spirit of the family before the household par-
take of the new crop. Besides the firstfruits at harvest, ' the
guardian spirit receives some of the parched grain in spring' at
the time when the first thunder of the season is heard. ' When
all is ready, the rice is served up together with fish, which
have been caught for the purpose, on a table set in a corner
which is sacred to the guardian spirit. A priest drones out a
long invitation to the spirit to come and feast with his children ;
then the family sits down to the table and consumes the offer-

1 JiJ4/xxxix. 176 ff.

2 A. Lang, Method in the Sttidy of Totemism, Glasgow, 1911.

3 Mary H. Kingsley, West African Studies", London, 1901,
p. 112.

■* Hose-McDougall, Paaan Tribes, ii. 13 f.

5 GB3, pt. i., The Magic Art, i. 401 f.

8 Laws of Manu, iii. 89 (SBJi xxv. [1SS6] 91).

7 ' Vassus und Vassallus' in Berichte Uber die Verhandlungen
der konigl. sachs. Gesell. (philol.-kistor. Classe) ii. [1892] 174.

8 J. riatchelor, The Ainu and fhrir Folk-lore, fiOndon, 1901,
p. 97.

ings. At the close of the banquet the daughter-in-law of the
deceased ancestor [i.e. the guardian] hangs up a basket contain-
ing rice and fish for his use in the corner, after which she
closes the shrine for another j'ear.' 1 The same people believe
that large animals of the forest — wild oxen, buffaloes,
rhinoceroses, elephants, etc. — have their guardian spirits, and,
in consequence, the prudent hunter is careful to exorcize the
invisible guardians so that they may not harm him when he
eats the flesh of the animals killed in the chase. Spirits are
also supposed to guard the clearings to which the deer come
bj' night to drink, and the hunter must sacrifice a fowl to them
from time to time in order to secure his prey.- A similar
custom prevails among the Indian tribes about Green Bay,
Lake Michigan. Every creature is regarded as having a par-
ticular guardian spirit, and therefore, when a young girl seized
a mouse to.eut it, ner father first fondled it tenderly to appease
the genie who has charge of mice, in order that his daughter
might not suffer from her meal. 3

Among the Ewe-speaking natives of Togoland (W. Africa),
before the new yams are eaten, ' every house-father takes a raw
piece of yam and goes with it to his loom {agbati) and prays :
" May the Artificers take this yam and eat ! When they prac-
tiseitheir art, may it prosper !" Again he takes a raw yam and
goes with it under the house-door and prays : " O my guardian
spirit (aklaina) and all ye gods who pay heed to this house,
come and eat yams ! When I also eat of them, may I remain
health}' and nowhere feel pain. May my housemates all remain
healthy !" After he has invoked their protection on his family,
he takes a cooked yam, crumbles it on a stone, and mixes it
with red oil. With this mixture he goes again to his loom and
prays as before.' Again he crumbles a cooked yam and prays
first at the entrance of the homestead, then under the house-
door : ' He of my guardian gods and he of the watchers of the
house who likes not yams mixed with oil, let him come and
take the white yam from my hand and eat ! '■*

Among the Kayans of Borneo and several of the African
tribes it is customary at sowing a rice-field to reserve a certain
portion at the entrance for the guardian spirits, who at harvest
are invited to come and take their share. It is supposed that
they will content themselves with eating the grain in their
private preserves and not poach on the crops destined for the
use of man. 5

' In the Tenimber and Timor-laut Islands, East Indies, the
first-fruits of the paddy, along with hve fowls and pigs, are
offered to the rnatmate,' or spirits of ancestors, ' which are
worshipped as guardian spirits or household gods.'** The
Yorubas of the Slave Coast sacrifice fowls to their guardian
spirit (olori), which is supposed to dwell in the head, by mixing
some of the blood of the animal with palm-oil and rubbing it on
the forehead.'' The tindalo in Florida, one of the Solomon
Islands, are also approached by sacrifice on certain occasions —
e.g., before a planting, a voj'age, or a flght.^ The N. American
Indians offer dogs and horses to the 'medicine bag,' to which
they look for safety and protection through life.9

Among some of the Algonquin tribes, when a
man's guardian spirit is identical with his clan
totem, should he be compelled to kill the sacro-
sanct animal, due apology would be paid to it
before destroying it, certain portions of the flesh
being preserved as an ottering to the man'ido
(guardian). 1° Herein again lies an important dis-
tinction between a tutelary genius and a totem,
even when the two are inseparable. The former
is regarded as so intimately associated with an
individual that prayers and sacrifices may with
impunity be ofl'ered to it, but the latter is more
closely concerned with the food group or clan and
therefore is seldom the recipient of offerings from
individuals. Apart from the evidence of Carl
Strehlow, that the hymn which is sung at the
intichiuma of the kangaroo describes the offering
of a morsel of kangaroo fat to make the fat of the
kangaroos increase, ^^ the act of oblation can hardly
be said to form a part of the totemic rites in
Australia — the home of the most elementary form
of totemism." We therefore conclude that tutelary
gods and spirits have arisen out of animistic and
theistic conceptions rather than from ideas con-
nected with totemism, although it is undoubtedly

1 Gi?3, pt. v., Spirits of the Com and of the Wild, ii. 121 f.

2 A. Bouriet, ' Les Thav,' Anthropos, ii. [1907] 619.

3 Relations des Jisuites, 1672, p. 38, quoted by Frazer,
Totemism and Exogamy, iii. 133 f.

•» GB3, pt. v., Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii. 60 f.
5 lb. i. 233 f . « lb. ii. 123.

"> A. B. Ellis, The Yoruha-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast,
London, 1894, p. 125 f.

8 R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, Oxford, 1891, p. 132.

9 Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, iii. 391, 400.

10 W. J. Hoffman, 'The Menomini Indians,' lU RBEW [1896],
pt. i. p. 64 ff.

11 ZE iii. [1871] 12, verse 7.

12 Cf. art. Sacrii'icb (Introductory ai¥l Primitive).

TWINS

491

true that in America the doctrine of the clan
totem has developed side by side with that of the
guardian spirit conceived as an animal. Else-
where, Ijowever, the patron s])irit is much more
closely allied to animism and (hoism. Wherever
animistic conceptions prevail, there the notion of
a tutelary genius will be found in some form or
other. As spirits give place to gods, the spiritual
guide and protector of individual men has his
place in the pantheon, till in the Christian Church
the doctrine of a guardian angel watching over,
succouring, and defending the faithful on earth is
raised to a higher and more spiritual level. ' Are
they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do
service for the sake of them that shall inherit
salvation?' (He 1''*). This is the function of the
guardian angels in the NT ; they are to lead men
safely to the kingdom of heaven by helping them
to attain salvation.

It is not the Biblical conception that angels are
the personilication of nature powers, or merely the
means of securing the favour and help of super-
natural beings. They are consistently represented
as a body of created spiritual beings intermediate
between God and man (Ps 8^), whose function it is
to act as messengers to mankind or attendants
upon God's throne (Dn 7'-"-, Ps 91" lOS^", Is 6,
Gn 16, Jg 13, Lk 1"- ^o). Jerome thinks that
every individual, whether baptized or not, has
from his Idrth an angel commissioned to guard
liim,^ while Chrysostom* and Basil hold that only
tlie baptized enjoy the privileges of having a
tutelary angel. Thomas Aquinas teaches that
only the lowest orders of angels are sent to men,
and therefore tliej' alone are guardians.' No
doubt the Biblical account of the ministry of
angels was inherited from the Avorld-wide doctrine
of tutelary gods and spirits, and to an extent influ-
enced by it, but at the same time it is evident that
the line of development has been on a higher and
more spiritual level.

Literature. — The authorities are quoted in the footnotes.

E. O. James.
TUTIORISM.— See Rigorism, Probabilism.

TWINS.— The birth of twins in the human
species is an event so unusual that it has almost
everywhere drawn popular attention and evoked
expressions of emotion, varying from extreme
terror through the whole gamut of fear, re-
pugnance, suspicion, anxiety, perplexity, hope, and
joy. The first impulse seems to be to regard twins
as unnatural and monstrous, and therefore as por-
tending evil. The unfortunate babes and their
mother have been looked upon as guilty of a
serious crime — a crime calculated to call down the
vengeance of the higher powers. Accordingly
they must be at once put to death, and the ofl'ence
repudiated and cleared from the land. Or their
birth has been taken to be a message from the
divinity conveying a warning of impending evil,
only to be thrust aside by their immediate
slaughter or by a variety of superstitious obser-
vances, intended by abstinence and humiliation to
avert the threatened calamity.

I. Tabu of twins : its mitigation, ceremonies,
and superstitions. — Among the peojjles by whom
this view of the birth of twins lias been taken are
those of Australia, the East Indian Archii)elago,
nearly the whole of Africa, the greater part of the
aboriginal population of America, the population
of the north-east of Asia, the non-Arj'an tribes of
India, and the backward classes and populations
of Europe. In ancient times similar beliefs are
reported of the Assyrians and Babylonians, the

1 Cnrnin. in Matt. 18io (bk. ii. § 13i)).

2 In Ep. ad Coloss. hom. iii.

s Summa Theol. i. qu. cxiii. art. 4.

^Vryan population of India, and the Egyptians.
Where the superstition has the fullest power both
mother and children are at once \>\\t to death.

A typical iUustration of this proceciliiif; is found anionjj the
Negro population of the Niger Delta. I'.ven when the mother
is allowed to live, she becomes an outiast and must pass the
rest of her days in the forest. If she ventures near a town or
village, any paths that she may use will l)e defiled and unfit for
the inhabitants. ' She must not drink from the same spring or
water-supply as her own people ; she must not touch anything
belonging to them. The consc<iuence is that the mothers of
twins simply die from hunger and e.xposure, or they take their
own lives.' A slave-woman is the professional killer of twins.
She takes each child by the feet and the neck and breaks its
bark across her knees. ' The bodies are tlien placed in an
earthen pot and taken into a dense part of the bush and there
left to be devoured by wild animals and insects. In some parts
of this district the children are not killed, but simply thrown
into the bush to be devoured.' It is no wonder that ' May you
become the mother of twins ! ' is reckoned a frightful curse, and
quarrelling women do not need to utter it in words : it is
sufficient to hold up the fist, raising the index and middle
finger in a V form, and the gesture is understood.!

The Negro peoples of W. Africa are very severe
against the offence of giving birth to twins.

Among the Ibo such an event defiles the whole quarter, the
inhabitants of which ' are obliged to throw away all the half-
burnt firewood, the food cooked and the water brought in the
previous night — everything, in a word, in the shape of nourish-
ment, solid or liquid.' 2

Mitigation of the law has, however, taken place.
The mother is not always put to death or driven
into tlie forest to die of hunger and exposure. At
Arebo in Benin, if her husband be a man of
wealth, he may redeem her with another victim.^
More generally there are provided ' twin-towns ' —
cities of refuge, to which these unfortunate women
may escape, or to which they can go when expelled
from their own homes. There they must reside
for a time to undergo purification. The period is
stated by Mrs. D. Amaury Talbot,'* spt^aking of
the Ibibios, near the mouth of the Cro.ss River, to
be twelve moons. This, we may be sure, Ls the
least penance that can be imposed on tliem.

Leonard writes that 'the women, looked on as unclean for
the rest of their lives, are obliged to reside in villages, which
are known as Twin-towns, or the habitations of defiled women,
appointed for that particular purpose. From this time forth
the husband, whether he be head of the house or not, is
obliged to maintain a wife who has been so defiled ; although
at the same time he is strictly forbidden to cohabit or to have
any dealings with her, being, as* he is in every religious and
personal sense, human and spiritual, divorced from her. But
in spite of the fact that to him, as well as to all the members of
his or her community, the woman is unclean and therefore
tabu, the penalty of death being inflicted on both in the event
of their breaking the law in this direction, she is allowed to
form connections, but on no account to marry with strangers,
or men belonging to outside communities, and the offspring
resulting from such intercourse becomes, as a matter of course,
the property of her husband, or the head of tlie house. . . .
But in the event of the defiled woman herself bearing twins
again, these must be destroyed unknown to any one. For, if
known, the probabilities are that the death of the mother
would be demanded by the household and the community aa
well. Or if not killed, "she would be driven into the bush and
left to die, although, if discovered by a stranger, he is at
liberty to claim her as his own property, — that is at least if he
feels inclined to run the risk of a venture so truly provocative
of offence.' *

In Ibani, westward of the Ibibio country, the mother was,
and perhaps is still, quarantined in an out-of-the-way hut for
sixteen days, after which she went through a ceremony of
purification by the priests. The father, or head of the liouse,
was required to offer certain sacrifices. The threatened evils
were thus averted, and the purified mother was then received
back into the family circle." Among the Ibibios, however, if
the mother die in cjiildbirth of twins, she may not be carried
to burial by the ordinary door of the hut or along the ordinary
paths of the village ; she is borne through a hole broken for the
purpose in the wall of the hut and along a path specially out
through the bush.''

^JAI xxix. [1899] ."i? ; O. Partridge, Cross River Natives,
London, 1905, p. 38 ; Journ. Afr. Sue. vii. [1908] 66.

- A. G. Leonard, The Lmoer Niger and its Tribes, London,
1906, p. 461.

3ZVRW XXX. [1913] 95, citing W. Bosm.an, Nauwheurige
Beschri/ring van de Guinese Goxid-Taml-en Slav/'-Kust,
Amsterdam, 1709, ii. 335 ; cf. M. H. Kingsley, West African
Studies, Ijondon, 1899, p. 455.

4 Woman's Mysteries of a Primitive Pe/rple, Ix)ndon, 1915,
p. 24.

0 l>. 460. 6 lb. p. 459.

' Mrs. Amaury Talbot, p. 215.

492

TWINS

The lot of the children in Nigeria and adjacent
countries has also been miti^'ated, to the extent
that one only of them is now in most places put to
death.

The Bassari of Togoland, e.t;., preserve the boy if the twins
are of diflerent sexes, or the stronger of the two if of the same
sex, and bury the other alive in a big pot. A fowl is offered
and cut in two. Half of it is buried with the condemned twin
as a reminder to the latter of its close relationship with the
surviving twin, so that the spirit of the buried child may not
avenge itself on the survivor. Subsequently-born twins are
both buried alive. Women who have borne twins, though
apparentli" not driven away, are not allowed to take part in the
agricultural labour (a woman's special work) of sowing and
harvest, until the dead twin has reappeared as a subsequent
child.i

A similar modification of the children's fate is found among
the Bantu tribes. On the Lower Congo one of the twins is often
neglected and starved to death. The reason given for this is
that the mother does not like the extra trouble involved in
caring for the two ; but it is doubtful whether this is a sufficient
e.\planation. When a twin dies, or is thus starved, it is buried
at cross-roads, like a suicide or a man struck by lightning. A
piece of wood is carved into an image of a child and put with
the live twin, that the latter may not be lonely ; and if the
second child die, the image is buried with it.2 The custom of
giving the survivor a wooden figure in place of the twin that
dies IB also found among the Negro Yorubas and other W.
African tribes, both Negroes and Bantu. It is said to keep the
survivor from pining for the deceased, and to give the spirit
of the deceased a habitation. 3 This arises from the special
sympathy alleged to exist between twins, of which we shall find
illustrations elsewhere.

Twins are regarded by the Kafirs of the south-west as
scarcely human, and their mother is taunted with the disgrace.
Yet, until Chaka stopped the custom, a twin was specially
sought out, as being fearless and wild, to lead an attacking
army in war. Among the Zulus twins are not counted in the
number of children. One of the twins is always killed, remain-
ing of course nameless. Nor is the sur\'ivor given a name until
he is about sixteen years old, but before he is circumcised. If
the survivor die, he is not allowed to be mourned, for fear of
angering the amatongo (the ancestral spirits). If both twins
are hidden, and so preserved, it is deemed they are united by
sympathy as one flesh ; and, if one die afterwards, he must not
be mourned, lest the other should suffer.^ To the Basukuma,
or Bagwi, south of Lake Victoria Nyanza, the birth of twins is
a grreat calamity, foretelling as it does a prolonged drought and
great suffering" among men and cattle. Consequently, when
other means fail to produce rain, twins, if they can be found,
are put to death. 5

In British E. Africa the AkikujTi and the Akamba also re-
gard the isirth of twins as very unlucky ; and the babes are, or
perhaps one of them is, killed and thrown into the bush.
Among the Akikuyu, however, the ban is limited to a first par-
turition ; in such a case the twins are believed to prevent their
mother from bearing again. But, among both the Akikuyu and
their ethnically allied neighbours the Akamba, the birth of
twins to a cow is deemed still more disastrous. Accordingly
the calves are, or at least one of them is, always slaughtered,
and among the Akamba the cow also, while the Akikuyu
content themselves with putting a necklace of cowries, doubt-
less by way of amulet, round her neck. What is no doubt a
modern alleviation permits one of the twin children to be given
to a family of a different clan, becoming thus the child of that
family, all relationship with its natural parents being severed.
Another alternative among the Akamba, as likewise among the
Nilotic Negro Dinkas, prescribes the substitution of goats for
the sacrifice of the babes. *>

The neighbouring Nandi, a Nilotic Negro tribe, look upon the
birth of twins as an inauspicious event, and the mother is
unclean for the rest of her life. Doubtless in earlier days she
was put to death or expelled from the community. Even now
her life must be a burden to her. ' She is given her own cow,
and may not touch the milk or blood of any other animal. She
may enter nobody's house until she has sprinkled a calabashful
of water on the ground ; and she may never cross the threshold
of a cattle kraal again." Special names, as is often the case, are
given to the children. 7 "The El Konyi, a branch of the Nandi,
in the Elgon district, have rendered her lot a little less in-
tolerable. But even there she is shut up for a while in the hut,
and elaborate purificatory ceremonies must be performed with

1 Globns, l.xxxi. [1902] 190.

2 J. H. Weeks, FL xix. [1908] 421, 423.

3 A. B. Ellis, The Yoniba-speaking Peoples, London, 1894, p.
80; M. H. Kingsley, Travels in W. Africa, do. 1897, p. 473;
R. H. Nassau, Fetichism in W. Africa, do. 1904, pp. 206, 270.

■» Dudley Kidd, Samge Childhood, London, 1906, p. 45 ff.

5 J. F. Cunningham, Uganda and its Peoples, London, 1905,
p. 305.

6 C. W. Hobley, JEAI xl. [1910] 435 ; W. S. and K. Rout-
ledge, With a Prehistoric People, London, 1910, p. 149 ; C.
Dundas, JRAI xliii. [1913] 519, xlv. [1915] 301 ; C. W. Hobley,
The Ethnology of the A-Kamba, Cambridge, 1910, p. 61 ; A. H.
Post, Studieii zur Entwicklungsgesehiehte des Fatnilienrechts,
Oldenburg, 1890, p. 334.

■7 A. C. Hollis, The Nandi, their Language and Folklore,
Oxford, 1909, p. 68.

a medicine-man's assistance before she is released. Even if a
cow produce twin calves, ceremonies are performed, and they
are redeemed with the slaughter of a sheep. i

In both N. and S. America the custom of putting
twins, or at least one of them, to death seems to
have laeen universal.

The aborigines of the northern part of the upper basin of the
River Amazons allege a curious reason for their dislike of twins.
To give birth to twins is to descend to the level of the beasts —
a thing to be avoided at all costs. The unfortunate mother
therefore will leave the second child (or, if of different sexes,
the girl) in the lonely spot in the bush whither she has, in
accordance with custom, retired alone to be delivered.2 The
Salivas on the Orinoco call the mother nicknames, saying she
is a rodent. Their objections, however, seem to go deeper
than this ; for the Saliva husband believes that the second twin
is the offspring of adultery. A chief has in fact been known to
give one of his wives a whipping in public for having dared to
bring forth twins, and to threaten the others with similar con-
sequences if they did the same. 3 From a pastoral letter by the
archbishop of Lima in the year 1649, quoted by von Tschudi,
it appears that the Peruvians of that date offered twins and
children born feet first to some huaca, or supernatural being,
and preserved their bodies or buried them in their houses.'*
Other records show that the birth of twins was regarded as
unnatural and unlucky and demanding sacrifices and cere-
monies lasting many days.5 The North-Eastern Maidu of
California who inhabited the foothills and western slopes of the
sierra regarded the birth of twins as an exceptionally' bad
omen. The mother, it is said, was often killed and the newly-
born children were either buried alive with her body or burned.**
Among the Seri of the Californian Gulf ' triplets are deemed
evil monsters and their production a capital crime.' 7

In Australia the usual reason assigned for kill-
ing one or both twins is the economic reason that
the mother has not enough milk for them, and
moreover cannot rear them and also get her food.
This is of a piece with the prevalent custom of
infanticide, even of a single child, when the mother
already has one dependent upon her. But among
some tribes at least it does not appear to be the
only reason.

Among the Euahlayi the husband suspects his wife of in-
fidelity. Among the Arunta, where twins are reported as of
extremely rare occurrence, they are attributed to two spirit-
individuals entering the mother's body at one and the same
time. By the northern tribes they are destroyed as something
uncanny.8

On the island of Nias twins are universally
disliked and dreaded.

In the province of West Nias it is believed that they will
grow up evil doers ; if a boy and girl, they are specially evil,
the one will become a murderer and the other a poisoner.
Formerly the younger used to be hung on a tree in a sack,
there miserably to perish. The Dutch government and mission-
aries, it seems, have put an end to this cruelty. But the
natives are still shy even of the parents. The father gets a
priest to make a magical image of a board roughly cut in
human shape, which is put up in the house as an amulet to
prevent a second such misfortune. Until it is ready, the
parents dare not speak to any other persons, lest they make
them sick and give them jaundice ; nor will their neighbours
of the same kampong enter the house where the birth has
taken place until the image is put up. At Lolowua in East
Nias both children are thrust alive into a sack, taken far from
the kampong and hung up in the bush, together with the after-
birth. The house in which they have been born is avoided by
other women, lest they incur the same misfortune. At Lahewa
in North Nias the birth of twins is feared because it is held
that, if they are allowed to live, some other members of the
family must die. It is thus a matter of self-defence to put them
to dea'.h. Their birth is moreover a sign of evil, such as
failure of harvest, fire, epidemics, cattle-disease, and the like,
threatening the whole kampong.^

1 K. R. Dundas, JRAI xliii. 67.

2 T. W. Whiffen, FL xxiv. [1913] 45, The North-West Amazons,
London, 1915, pp. 120, 150.

3 W. E. Roth, 30 RBEW [1915], pp. 320, 325, quoting J.
Gumilla, Hist. Nat. . . . del Rio Orinoco, Barcelona, 1791, i.
189

•* J. J. von Tschudi, Peruvian Antiquities, Eng. tr.. New
York, 1853, p. 176.

5 Globus, xc. [1906] 305, citing Documentos ineditos del Archiuo
de Indias ; cf. J. G. Frazer, GB'^, pt. i.. The Magic Art, London,
1911, i. 266.

6 R. B. Dixon, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. xvu. [1905] 230.

7 W J McGee, 17 RBEW [189S], pt. i. p. 281.

8 J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, Melbourne, 1881, p. 39 ;
J. G. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, London, 1910, i. 549 ;
K. L. Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, do. 1905, p. 51 f. ; Spencer-
Gillena, passim, Spencer-Gillenb, p. 609; C. Strehlow, Die
Aranda- und Loritja-Stdmme in Z antral Aicstr alien, Frankfort-
on-Main, 1907-11, i. 14.

^ J. P. Kleiweg de Zwaan, Die Tleilkunde der Niasser, The
Hague, 1913, p. 177.

TWINS

493

Among the Kayan of Borneo, the motive alleged
for exposing one of the t^ins in the jungle is to
preserve the life of the other ; for it is believed
that a sympathetic bond exists between twins
' -which renders each of them liable to all the ills
and misfortunes that befall the other.' ^

In Madagascar also twins were put to death.

Among the Antambahoaka the excuse for this treatment was
that tliey ^^■ould in any case die, or if not tliey would go mad
or would sooner or later attempt the life of their parents. In
the province of Imerina it was apparently the custom formerly
to kill the twins. More recently, though this custom was
abandoned, the parents were required to hand one of them
over to a relative ; and, if a woman belonging to the royal
family gave birth to twins, both they and the mother were sent
away and lost their rank. 2

Exposure or murder by violence is in fact a
common fate of one or both twins — a fate they
share with otlier children deemed unlucky, such
as misshapen babes or, as in Madagascar, those
born on certain days which are subject to tabu.^
Gradually, however, this untoward fate has,
among many peoples, been lightened. The twins
are still regarded as uncanny or even dangerous,
but ceremonies are performed to ward off the evil.

The Ewe of Togoland, W. African Negroes, hold them to be
fetish-children : in that capacity they must not be put to death,
but they will not live long ; they \\-i\\ die and go back to the
fetish. Meanwhile, as a mark of distinction they wear special
beads ; and their parents set up in the corner of the house a
fetish of a pair of bufltalo-horns and in some districts a carved
wooden doD or puppet. If any of their kin fall sick, presents
are brought to the twins or to the fetish, and the twins propiti-
ate the fetish. In the former German administrative district
of Anecho the birth of twins is the occasion for a feast of eggs
and beans boiled wiih the leaves of certain shrubs to all women
who have already borne twins— a feast repeated every year
afterwards. In the same district the twin-fetish is also invoked
at a funeral feast on setting up two posts with a dog's skull
bound upon them as a ' medicine.' At Great Be in the district
of Lome-land, on the daj- when twins are born, an old woman
who has herself borne twins comes and leads the father and
mother out of the door, the one to the right, the other to the
left in reverse directions round the house and then back into
the house, in order that the twins may not die. Four months
later the twins are taken, preceded by two young people play-
ing on the flute, to the so-called twin-market, where some
women who have already borne twins are found offering goods
for sale (though this is not a regular market) ; and an old
woman formally buys a few things for the twins. The object
of this ceremony is to be able to say that the twins have been
to market, for, until this is accomplished, the mother cannot
leave the house. On their return they receive their names,
and the father prepares the name-giving feast for the relatives,
and also for those women of the village who have borne twins.
Sometimes an unborn child is promised as wife to a man con-
ditionally on its proving a girl. If one of the twins be a girl
thus betrothed before her birth, the wooer performs a curious
ceremony. On the day of the birth, after the circutnambulation
of the hut by the parents, he performs the same march seven
times with some grass in his mouth, a hat of palm-bast, and
leaves on his arm. Many spectators witness this ceremony by
which he ratifies the compact and expresses his intention of
marrying the girl. But he must take care not to laugh, other-
wise he will go out of his mind. It is deemed more favourable
that both children should be of the same sex. It is said that,
if one of the twins die, the survivor carries about for the rest
of his life a small wooden figure as a memento of his dead twin.^
In another district, among the Konkomba, it is reported that
a wedding gives occasion for no feast, except when a twin
marries ; then a great feast takes place, because twins are
fetish-children. 5 The various peoples of Togoland, indeed,
attach much importance to the birth of twins. Among the
Ho, a tribe of Ewe, when twins, a boy and girl, are born,
neither of the parents may eat or speak until an elaborate series
of purificatory ceremonies, accompanied by feasting and the
drinking of palm-wine, has been performed over them by others
who are also parents of twins and who are paid for the rites.
If these customs were omitted, the twins would become
cripples. To the twins and their parents the flesh of hussar-
apes and rats is forbidden. If any one shoot a hussar-ape,
the parents of twins are expected to beat him with a stick.''
The exact relation between the hussar-ape and twins is difficult
to determine. It has been claimed that the hussar-ape and
the long-tailed monkey {Meerkatze, a species of ccrcopithecu^)
are 'individual totems' of twins, and that twins may never

1 C. Hose and W. McDougall, The Paqan Tribes of Borneo,
London, 1912, ii. 15(5.

2 A. van Gennep, Tahou et toti'mi.'<inr a Mm1a(fasr.ar, Paris,
1904, p. 176 ; Rendel Harris, Cult ofthi- llea»enlyTwi)is, p. 23.

•i See artt. ABANnnNMB.sT \HD ExroauRK.

■* ZVHW xxvi. [1911] 24, 46, 96, 100, 127.

R lb. xxvii. [191-21 92.

B J. Spielh, DU- Kwe-.'^tainme, Berlin, 1900, p. 202 ff.

kill or eat the latter, whereas they may kill, but may not eat,
the former. Twins while asleep are said to go in the shape of
these animals into the fields to eat maize ; and if one such
creature be killed, the corresponding twin will die. When the
parents cultivate land, they sow a patch with maize for the
special behoof of the twins thus changed, that they may be able
to eat the grain ; and the patch in question is never harvested.
When one of the twins dies, a long-tailed monkey is sought in
the forest and called by the name of the decea,sed child into a
calabash, which is closed as if it were within and brought home
to be honoured.i These are not exactly totemic superstitions ;
but they disclose a belief in the identity of, or at least an
intimate personal connexion between, twins and these apes,
such as we shall find in British Columbia between twins and
salmon.

The Akoviewe, another Ewe tribe, have somewhat similar
superstitions. The father of twins is forbidden to eat the flesh
of hussar-apes; nor may he eat the remains of fruits eaten by
these creatures. When the midwife sees that twins are about
to be born, she relinquishes her place as soon as one is bom
lest she be afflicted with consumption, or at least a cough which
will last the rest of her hfe. Certain vegetables and fruits are
laid in the water wherewith the mother aiid children are bathed.
A special feast with drinking of palm-wine is provided for the
people of the surrounding villages. No presents must be made
to one of the twins only, but both must be treated alike.2
Among another tribe, the Kpenoe, neither parent must leave
the house until the twin-customs have been performed. These
consist, as among the Akoviewe, in the drinking of palm-wine,
which is provided for all who give the twins cowries, and in
a feast for all who come together from the outlying villages.
The parents of twins alread.\- born come together to perform
the customs and to dance, and the twins are carried on the
neck that every one may see that the customs are carried out
for them. These customs are very expensive. Twins must be
clad alike so long as they are children. i* They must eat yams a
month earlier than other people, otherwise they will die.'*

Notwithstanding the practices and beliefs just
mentioned, the Ev/e are said to look upon twins
with favour.

For the Ho the birth of twins is a very great joy ; it is re-
garded as better than riches. Among the Fo, another tribe of
Ewe, such births are frequent. The children are regarded as
children of Ohoho, a supernatural being with whom indeed
they seem to be identified. Not only twins, but three children
at a birth are favoured. A prayer for twins and triplets is even
offered on certain occasions. The last-born is looked upon as
the highest in rank. Special names are appropriated to children
thus born. Special customs even in eating are prescribed to
the mother. A woman who has borne twins wears round the
neck a chain or string of beads as evidence of the honourable
fact. Whatever the relation of Ohoho to the twins, he receives
a cult, and in case of their danger or serious illness sacrifices
are offered. A bank of clay is made just outside the entrance
of the hut, where the cult is performed. If one of the twins is
a girl, and she dies before the other, a wooden figure is made
and stuck beside the claj'-bank, to prevent the death of the
boy — a custom disregarded if the boy happens to die first. *

It must be obvious, from these elaborate regu-
lations, that, if the Ewe and their immediate
neighbours favour the birth of twins and triplets,
their joy is not without trembling. Such births
are not in the order of nature ; they are uncanny,
equivocal ; and, though they may be a blessing, if
the proper precautions be not strictlj' observed
they may be quite the reverse. Twins are credited
with special connexions with the spirit-world :
they are fetish-children ; they are more or less
identified with a supernatural being, or with certain
of the lower animals whose shape they have power
to take. Another observer in fact says that every
unusual or remarkable event places the Ewe in an
extraordinary situation with regard to his divini-
ties, so that he must seek by special performances
to re-enter into harmony with the upper world ;
consequently tlie birth of twins, as one such event,
is not a joyous fact, but an evil omen.

The parents, he says, are kept in the hut for twenty-five days
or longer, that they may not look on the heavens before the
twin-customs have been carried out, else either in parents or in
the children an unnatural change would take place : they would
become like iron bars— possibly by the act of the lightning-god,
whose badge or emblem is an iron bar. The account he gives
of the customs is not identical in all particulars with those
already meTitioned ; but their effect apjicars to be the same,
and he notes that the details vary from district to district."

1 Anlhrojws, vi. [1911] 457, vii. [1912] 91.

•■! Spictb, p. 616. :f 76. v>. 094. •« /ft. p. 70S.

f' Anthropos, y\\. 89-92; Spicth, p. 308; Globus, xcvii. [1910]
247.

<* C. Spiers, ARW xv. [1912] 163. The same view of joy with
trembling and anxiety seems to result from what we are told

494

TWINS

Turning from the Negroes to the Bantu, we find
that the ambiguous position of twins is well ex-
emplified by the Thonga.

Among them the customs vary, as among the Ewe, in different
districts. Formerly one at least of twins was put to death. In
some places this custom continues ; elsewhere their advent is
a cause of rejoicing, and women even wish for twins and beg
from the happy mothers a portion of the fat wherewith they
smeared their bodies, in the hope by the same means to obtain
a similar result. Yet in some groups (tribes or ' clans ') which
do not put twins to death their birth is considered a special
defilement. The mother is at once removed from the hut,
which is burnt together with its contents. She is placed in a
shelter behind the village. All the women assemble and start
out in all directions to draw wat^r in old calabashes from all
the wells and pools of the neighbourhood. As they go, they
sing an invocation to the rain, and on returning they throw the
water over the mother and babes, who are further purified by
the medicine-man with a drug which he has prepared. The
details of their purification vary to some extent ; but, until it
is accomplished, no one in the village is allowed to eat, and the
following day work in the fields is forbidden, for it would
prevent the fall of rain. The mother in iher shelter outside the
village is allowed no communication with the other inhabitants,
except possibly one girl who helps her in nursing the twins. To
remove the defilement, she must pass it on, like that of a
widow, by means of incomplete sexual intercourse, to four men
successively. The first three of these victims at least will die
in consequence. After each sexual act the medicine-man
prepares a vaf»ur-bath for her. When all four acts are accom-
plished, she returns to her parents' house, and there entertains
a lover whose relations with her result in another child. She
thus completes her purification, and her husband fetches her
home. But in some places she is not admitted through the
doorway : she crawls through a hole made in the back of the
wall ; and the husband is subjected to certain rites. The twins
themselves are treated in many respects differently from
ordinary children. Usual ceremonies are omitted ; they are
weaned earlier ; and there is a general antipathy to them.
Special precautions to protect them and their mother are also
taken on the occasion of a ceremonial mourning visit, i

On the other side of S. Africa, in what was
German territory, the Herero consider the birth of
twins as ' the gi'eatest and most fortunate event
which can happen to a mortal Omuherero.'

Both father and children are specially privileged. Yet the
parents are immediately placed under a tabu ; they may not
speak or be spoken to, nor have any contact or intercourse
with any one except those who wait on them, who are known,
as well as the children and itheir parents, by the epithet of
'Uvins' (epaha); they are ejected from the vUlage ; all clothes
and ornaments are taken off them ; and they receive in exchange
a few old worthless skins. Messengers call together the whole
'tribe,' and every one must appear with all his cattle, else he
will be bewitched and die. The father goes to meet his guests
and is received, as if he were an enemy, with all sorts of
missiles, while the women raise a terrible lamentation. This,
however, is only ceremonial. He with the other epaha meets
them at the village, where each of the visitors brings him an
offering, and, if male, is ' consecrated ' in return by him, if
female, lay the mother. A hut is then built for the parents, and
an ox is slaughtered, which all the people must taste, beginning
with the parents, and a small piece of the meat is held to the
toes of both twins. Tlie remaining meat is taken to the parents'
newlj'-built hut, of which they then take possession. During
the following days the father goes in procession round the
village, visiting two or three houses each day. At every house
the ceremonies are repeated : the offerings are made to him,
the 'consecration' by liim, the slaughter of an ox, the cooking
and ritual tasting of its fiesh are repeated, and the remainder is
carried to his house. When he has finished the circuit of his
own village, he commences that of the neighbouring villages. If
the meat becomes too plentiful, he asks for living cattle instead
of slaughtered, and adds them to his own herd. No one will
dare to refuse him. Every father of twins has the right to
represent the chief of the village, when the latter is absent, in
his priestly functions. A twin boy also possesses all the priestly
privileges : for him there is no meat, no milk forbidden, and
nobody would dare to curse him. When the chief of the
village dies, he inherits the priestly dignity associated with the
chieftainship. 2

It would seem, therefore, that the tabu encircles
the twins and their parents not as accursed but as
sacred ; the curse rests on the community, and the

of other Negro peoples (L. Desplagnes, Le Plateau, central
nig^rien, Paris, 1907, p. 23S ; Jovrn. Afr. Soe. ix. [1910] 179,
X. [1911] 31, xvi. [1!)17] 43; ZVRW xxx. 95; Leonard, Lower
Niger, p. 462 ; L'Anfhropolopic, xiv. [lOO:;] 90).

1 H. A. Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, Neuohiiti.l,
1912-13, ii. 394-400 ; cf. also his fyex Ba-ronga, do. 1S9S, i>.
412 ff., and Rev. d'Ethnograpliie. et de Snciolugie,i. [1910] 149,
167.

2 E. Dannert, [South African] Folk-Lore Journal, ii. [Cape
Town, 1880] 104 ff., also his Zuyn Rechte der Herero, Berlin,
1906, p. 20; F. Meyer, Wirtschaft und Recht der Herero, do.
1905, p. 61.

offerings made to the father and the ' consecration '
he bestows are intended to avert it and restore and
redintegrate the ordinary life.

The Baganda regarded twins as due to the direct intervention
of Mukasa, the god of Lake Victoria Nyanza, who was said to
show his esteem for certain women in tliis manner ; and great
care and numbers of tabus were necessary to retain bis favour.
The position was evidently one of great delicacy ; for any
mistake on the part of the parents, or any sickness that befell
the twins, was looked upon as the result of the god's anger,
which might extend to the whole clan. The word 'twins'
might not be mentioned until the rites were at an end. The
persons of the parents were sacred. They wore a distinctive
dress, and no one might touch them. The mother could not go
out of doors by day without covering her head. No one was
allowed to enter the house except the husband and wife, and a
few relatives. The men and the women were required to enter
through a separate opening cut for each sex in the back of the
house. The doorway was blocked up. The nails and hair of
both parents were not cut until the ceremonies had all been
completed, save that at one point in the rites the father's hair
was shaved in a particular fashion. The ceremonies were
lengthy. They included the beating of special drums, a round
of visits to the father's and mother's parents and to the members
of both clans, at which there were feasts and dancing, a curious
rite referred to below, and a final ceremonial dance by women.
The father during the ceremonies wears on his ankles a number
of small bells, to give notice of his coming and prevent molesta-
tion. He is privileged to enter any one's garden and take what
produce he pleases to feast his guests. In fact, being under the
god's protection, he may do almost anything he likes. When
the ceremonies are completed, his tabii is not yet over. For
this he must wait'until he has taken part in the next war. He
must then take the bundle of hair and nails of which he has
been shorn in his purification and cram it into the mouth, or tie
it round the neck, of the first enemy he kills. It is only after
this that he ceases to wear a distinctive dress and returns to
ordinary life. The twins themselves remain sacred all their
lives. A special ceremony was performed when a twin went to
war for the first time and killed a man. If twins died in
infancy, their deaths were announced with a euphemism and
they were embalmed, placed in a new cooking pot, and buried
in waste land. Women avoided their graves lest the ghost
should enter them and be born again of them. There was
no mourning for them, but, if the ceremonies were incom-
plete, they were continued as though the3' were still alive. 1
The neighbours of the Baganda, the Bahima or Ban.vankole,
possess a Twin totem-clan. Yet among them, even in the Twin
clan, twins are the subject of tabu. They must not, however,
be spoken of disparagingly, lest an ancestral ghost overhear
and be angry. 2

It is needless to detail the ceremonies to which
the birth of twins gives occasion among other
Bantu peoples. Though differing among the
various tribes, they are all founded upon the feel-
ing that the birth is an uncanny event, often
expressly ascribed to divine intervention. For-
tunate it may be for the parents ; to the community
in general it is a source of peril and ill omen,
which must be bought off by gifts and ceremonies ;
and, until those ceremonies are completed, the
twins and their parents are as a rule secluded
from intercourse with the world. Sometimes, but
rarely, as among the Bushongo of the Upper Congo,
the birth of twins is frankly welcomed as a very
happy occurrence.^ Even where general rejoicing
takes place, it is a joy with trembling. The tabu
is enforced ; and special rites must be performed to
restore the normal relations of the people.

Among the Masai, a Hamitic tribe of E. Africa,
the birth of twins, which is not very rare, causes
the greatest pleasure, especially if both be boys.

To mark their parents' pride, a thong of leather adorned with
cowries is hung round the neck of each ; and, whUe the elder ia
retained by the mother, the younger is often nursed by one of
her fellow-wives. No tabu and no ceremonies are reported.4

It may be noted here that, wherever the birth
of twins, as among the Masai, is stated to be com-
paratively frequent, they are received with more
<jr less favour.

The Lattuka, a Nilotic Negro tribe of the Sudan, among
whom twins are rare, while apparently not regarding them per-

1 J. Rostoe, riit: Baganda, London, 1911, pp. 04 ff., SI, 124,
:;i5S, JAI xxxii. [1002] 32-35, 49, l>i, 60, Man, x. [1910] 42 f. ; cf.
Frazer, GR^, pt. ii.. Taboo and the Perils of tlie Sou/, London,
1911, p. 3S4, Tutnni^n and lixniiami/, ii. 482.

'- J. Roscoe, The Northern Bantxi, Cambridge, igi."!, p. 117,
JRAI xxxvii. [1007] 100, 107.

3 E. Torday and T. A. Joyce, Notes ethnographiqties Btir Us
Bushongo, Brussels, 1911, pp. 112, 57, 56.

^ M. ilerker, Die Masai, Berlin, 1904, p. 51.

TWINS

495

sonall.v with disfavour, hold that they threaten misfortune to
their father. If he went hunting- buffaloes, he would be killed
or wounded ; and, if he wounded an antelope, it would escape
him. He therefore takes precautions by not leaving the village
until the spell is broken by another woman bearing twins, or
his wife another child. i

In India and adjacent countrie.s twins are gener-
ally held to be inauspicious, though there are
differences in this respect. All the peoples, how-
ever, seem to be agreed that the birth of twins of
different sexes is serious. It is held that their
connexion in the womb has been too close : it has
been sinful, amounting to prenatal incest."

Among the inhabitants of the Si.imese Malay States, while
twins (a rare occurrence there) are considered lucky, it is other-
wise with triplets : they are accursed.3 In any case, it is con-
sidered bj- the Kurmi and Kawar of the Central Provinces that
the sympathy between twins is dangerously close, and various
rites are adopted to break their connexion, else, if misfortune
or death happens to the one, the other also will suffer or die.*
The Tang Khul Nagas of Assam are divided in opinion. Some
villages welcome twins ; others object to having among them a
woman who gi\'es birth to more than one child at a time, look-
ing (like some of the S. American tribes) upon her as a lower
animal. At Ukhrul, if both are boys, their father is regarded
as a descendant of some cannibal line like the tigers, and he
ought to be carefully watched. It is interesting to note that
the villages where thej' are welcomed connect them with fruit-
fulness of the crops.s

On the island of Celebes it is held by the Macassars and
Buginese that one of twins is often a crocodile. The same
curious belief is found in Java, where it is said that on such
occasions a double offering is brought to the crocodile for his
'humanity' ; and at Windesi, New Guinea, a story is told of a
wonian who gave birth to twins, one of them an iguana.6 The
Balinese, at least among the highest castes, call twins of
different sexes ' betrothed'— a practice which Wilken traces to
an_ origin from a time when no forbidden degrees were yet in
existence, and when such twdns at marriageable age used to be
made to marry one another.'? The idea, persisting into a later
stage, might account for the imputations of prenatal incest just
referred to. In some of the Moluccas twins are not regarded
with favour. In these they are often attributed to superfeta-
tion ; and in the Babar Archipelago one of them is sent to
another village — in earlier days death was probably its doom.8
In other islands, on the contrary, they are desired, and are
looked upon as the gift of the sky-god or male principle, ^
though they are even then in some islands handed over to
kinsmen to he brought up.i" In the Aaru Archipelago, where
thej' are much desired, thej' are looked upon as an omen of a
good tripang and pearl harvest.^ The Melanesian peoples of
Eastern New Guinea regard twins with disfavour ; among the
Southern Massim the mother was formerly permitted to put
one to death, while among the Northern Massim she is ridiculed
as a pig.12 Their kinsmen of the Banks Islands, on the other
hand, favour them; but, if boy and girl, they are regarded as
man and wife. Rivers thinks that in former days such twins
were probably killed — an opinion supported by the practice and
belief of the natives of the Duke of York Islands and New
Britain. 13 On the whole, in fhe neighbouring Solomon Islands
twins are liked ; in Florida Island only there is said to bo a
suspicion of double paternity ; while in Lepers' Island they
are conjectured to be the gift of a certain supernatural being
named Tagaro.i^ It may be further mentioned, to illustrate the
opposite opinions that may be held by even the same race, that

1 Emin Pasha in Central Africa, London, 1S8S, p. 237.
Speaking generally, the Nilotic Negroes rejoice with trembling.

2 Ancient India : authorities collected by Rendel Harris, Boa-
nerges, p. ISSff. ; cf. AliW V. [1902] 271, 273. Kashmir : Census
of India, 1911, xx. 145. Pan jab : ib. xiv. 302. Baluchistan : ih.
iv. 87. Central Provinces and Berar : ib. x. 158 ; R. V. Russell,
The Tribes and Castes of the Cent. Prov. of India, London,
1916, iv. 73. Todas: W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas, London,
1906, p. 480. Cochin : L. K. Anantha Krishna, Tlie Cochin
Tribes and Castes, Madras, 1909-12, i. 272. Naga Tribes of
Manipur: T. C. Hodson, I'he Mdga Tribes of Mani/>vr, London,
1911. p. 133 f. Khasis: P. 11. T. Gurdon, The Khasis, do. 1907,
p. 127.

s N. Annandale and H. C. Robinson, Fasciculi Malayenses,
London, 1903-04, ii. 64.

4 R. V. Russell, iii. 396, iv. 73.

5 Census of India, I'Jll, iii. [4s;ta7«] pt. i. p. 77 ; cf. FL xxi.
[1910] 311.

6 G. A. Wilken, De verspreide (Jcschriften, The Hague, 1912,
iii. 86 n., iv. 147 ; cf. GB'i, pt. v., Spirits of the Corn and of the
Wild, London, 1912, ii. 212.

7 Wilken, i. 4.o9.

s J. G. F. Riedel, De stuik- en kroeshnriije ra.-isen tvssrhen
Selebes en Papua, The Hague, 1886, pp. 74, 176, 355.
9 Ib. pp. 136, 238, 264, .S't:?, 450.
10 Ib. pp. 136, 355. 1' Il>. P. 264.

1"^ C. G. Seligmaiin, The Melanexians of Brit. New (luinra,
Cambridge, 1910, pp. 4t;S, 705.

13 W. H. R. Rivers, The Hist, of Melanesiun Society, Cam-
bridge, 1914, i. 145; JAI xviii. [1889] 292; Rendel Harris,
Boanerges, p. 174. Cf. the Balinese.

14 R. H. Codrington, The ilclaiu-sians, Oxford, 1891, p. 230.

in New Ireland, since to bespell a woman might cause her to
bear twins, it is to be inferred that they wore not there de.sired.i
On the Jlioronesian island of Yap, an outlier of the Pelew
Archipelago, one of twins was given to a relative, else they
would both die— an obvious attempt, as in the Moluccas and
the Central Provinces of India, to break the connexion between
them. 2 The Igorots of the Philippine Islands assign a different
reason for the same custom : it is to avert the evil omen of their
birth. 3 The Ainus allege that one of them would die.4

To the Gilyaks of the island of Sakhalin twins are a source of
disquiet, if not of fear. Such births are said to be relatively
common, and usually either both boys or both girls. One of
the pair is belie\'ed to be offspring of the Mountain-man, a
supernatural being haunting mountain and forest, with whom
the people are careful to keep on good terms. This child ought
to be returned to his formidable parent as soon as possible;
but, since there is no means of identify ing him with certainty,
both twins must be treated alike. In consequence of this origin,
twins after death are not cremated as other corpses are, for fear
that the Mountain-man will punish all who take part in the
funeral by loss of their eyesight. Even the parents have by the
birth become related t-o the Mountain-man and must be buried
also. Twins are believed to be endowed with superhuman
powers, and are, so long as they live, regarded with terror.
But those who die early are chiefly feared, for, having returned
to the supernatural world before they had time to become
accustomed to men and to feel themselves as their likes, they
have special power to harm them. Their family therefore place
a small model of a Gilyak ijurte either inside or outside the
dwelling and put into it a carved wooden figure representing
the deceased. To this figure they bring offerings every daj' of
portions of their own food ; and the practice is continued for
three generations. At last the great-grandchildren take the
figure from the dwelling to a neighbouring mountain with great
ceremony and there leave it, and with it a final offering of food.
Then for the first time the community feels safe in neglecting
any further observances. On account of this fear of twins,
women and girls are strictly forbidden to listen to tales of
twins, nor may women e\en accept gifts of small household
furniture from acquaintances who have given birth to twins,
lest the misfortune of twins should in either case be communi-
cated, though this liability does not attach so seriously to gifts
of objects of metal. The names of twins once bestowed are
retained ; no other children are allowed to have the same ; nor
does a twin ever take the name of a deceased elder of the
familj', according to the usual custom. 5

The ancient Assyrians held the birth of twins to be a calamity,
except in the royal family. •> Modern Syrians, on the contrary,
if the evidence of refucrees at Boston may be trusted, regard it
as bringing good luck.7 According to modern Egyptians about
Karnak, one of twins may be a wild cat, whose soul goes out
at night on the prowl, when the owner is asleep.** To the
Bulgarians twins are a misfortune, to avert which the mothers
of bride and bridegroom at the wedding simultaneously drink
brandy.9 Even in the north-east of Scotland twins are so far
regarded as unlucky that one of them, even though married,
will be childless.l(*

On the American continent also twins were
regarded as mysterious.

The Shuswap, who occupy part of the Eraser River and
Columbia River basins in British Columbia, expres^sly hold
them to be 'great mystery.' Though the mother's husband
is deemed to be their real father, the black bear generallj', but
sometimes the grisly bear, or the deer, is believed to have
influenced their birth. Whichever animal it was, it appeared
to the mother in dreams and became the manitxi, or spirit-
protector, of the children throughout their lives. They are
deemed lucky on this account ; but it does not prevent their
tabu. At their birth their parents shift camp to the woods,
even in midwinter ; and they are not allowed near other people
for four years. During this time the father or, if he dies, the
mother washes and scours them every day with fir-branches —
a common method of cleansing from pollution. n The southerly
neighbours of the Shuswap, the Ntlakapamux of the lower
Fraser River and Thompson River basins, say that the mother
is usually apprised beforehand by the repeated ap]iearance of
the grisly bear in her dreams. The children are accordingly
treated differently from other children, and are callod ' grisly-
l)oar-children ' or 'hairy feet.' The grisly hear is thoir nianitii.
Their parents are under tabus like those of the Shuswap.
Special ceremonies are performed at their birth, and they are
during the first four years washed like Shuswap twins. It was
held that a birth (os]iecially of twins) immediately changes the
weather.i2 Farther inland the DiSne treat the bear when caught

1 P. G. Peekel, Religion und Zatiberei avf dem mittl. Neu-
Mecklenburg, Miinster, 1910, p. 127.

^ Globxis, xci. [1907] 142.

'■'• F. H. sLawyer, Inhabitants of the Philippines, London, 1900,
p. 2.'i8.

■' A. II. Post, Sludien znr Entivicklungsge.sch ile.'; Faniilien-
rcchls, p. 33.">.

s P.. I'ilsudski, A)ithropos, v. [1910] 760.

'■lillli Ixv. |r.»121 407, r 'Viewing C. Fossey, Prt'.fagex
atisi/riens ; ABU' v. 272.

->'JAFL xvi. [1903] 136. » ARW xvi. [1913] 620.

9 ZVRW xxxi. [1913] 247. i" FL xxv. [1914] 349.

H Jesup N. Pacific Exped. Publicatimis, New York and
Levden, 1900ff., ii. 586, 589 ; cf. Rep. Brit. Ass., 1890, p. 644.

12 Jesup iV. Pac. ExjKd. i. [1900] 310, 374.

TWINS

with the greatest consideration and respect, and proiiitiate it.
Among their observances neither a dog nor a menstruating
woman nor the father of twins, as long as both twins are
alive, is allowed to touch it. The reason is that these are all
legally impure, and it is feared that the fellows of the victim
will be so irritated by unclean contact that they will henceforth
stubbornly avoid the traps or snares of those guilty of such a
slight. The father of twins is required to offer gifts to the
community 'to wash out his shame.' i The Nez Percys in the
north-west of the United States, on the other hand, welcome
twins as lucky both to the family and to themselves.2

The Nutka of Vancouver Island and the Kwakiutl, who in-
habit the northern end of the island and the opposite shore of
the mainland, connect twins with salmon. The former, though
not exactly identifying them with salmon, believe them to be
in some waj' related to them. Hence the parents, whose
banishment from the village extends only to two years, among
their various tabus and rites, must avoid fresh food, particularly
salmon. Wooden images and masks representing birds and
fish are exhibited round the hut and near the adjacent river by
way of invitation to birds and fish to visit the twins and be
friendly to them ; the father moreover sings certain songs with
the same intention. It is believed that the salmon accordingly
throng to see them, and the birth of twins is an omen of a good
salmon vear. If the omen be not fulfilled, it is a presage of
their early death. 3 The Kwakiutl regard twins as having in
their previous existence been actually salmon. They therefore
warn them against going near the water, lest they be retrans-
formed into salmon. A stricter tabu than those of the tribes
mentioned above rests on the parents ; for they must separate
for sixteen months and each pretend to be married to a log,
OTth which they lie down every night. During this period they
are required to perform certain ceremonies and conform to
certain observances. Among others the father may not catch
salmon, the mother may not dig clams, else both salmon and
clams will disappear ; and the parents may not borrow canoes
or paddles, or their owners would have twins. The birth of
twins causes permanent backache to the parents ; to avert this
each parent procures for intercourse wth the other a person
of the opposite sex, who will, it is believed, be attacked by the
backache instead. On the other hand, young women who
desire to bear children squat and lean over the pit above which
twins have been born. At the death of a twin no one is allowed
to wail for him ; and among the observances the surviving
twin is washed in the water used to wash the corpse, •i Traces
of a similar belief to that of the Kwakiutl are found among the
Skqomic, a Salishan tribe farther south, with reference to
another kind of fish called tsai anuk ; and, as everywhere else
in British Columbia, the parents are subject to a strict tabu
and purification. 5 In Mexico the Tlaxcalans call twins snakes ;
and they are believed able to cure bites of serpents and other
animals, as well as pain or inflammation of the tendons, especi-
ally of the feet and ankles. Triplets will be kings.6 It is
believed by the Yuchi, formerly of Georgia and Alabama, that
twins and deformed or abnormal children are sent by 'the
supernatural beings to be guides to the people,' and they are
accordingly taken great care of.7 There is some evidence that
among the Cheyenne twins were a subject of tabu. 8

2. Origin, parentage. — Many peoples entertain
the belief that a human father can beget only one
child at a time. This has led to the susjiicion, as
among the Saliva of the Orinoco and the Euahlayi
of New South Wales already noted, that the second
child is due to the mother's infidelity. The same
belief is attributed to the Chibchas and to the
Hottentots." It is held also by the peoples of
the Warri District of Nigeria.^** It was formerly
entertained in Europe. The father had the right
of deciding on the birth of a child whether it should
be brought up or destroyed ; and, if he had any
suspicion as to his wife's loyalty, the cliild was
often put to death. On this ground definitely it
was held excusable to expose or put to death
twins and triplets. A number of mediaeval legends
among the Germans and other Teutonic peoples
are elaborations of this theme." The belief in
superfetation is almost a necessary corollary to

1 Anthropos, v. [1910] 129, 975.

2 H. J. Spinden, Mem. Amer. Anthr. Assoc, vol. ii. pt. iii.
[1908] p. 246.

3 Rep. Brit. Assoc, 1890, p. 591 f.

4 lb. 18S9, p. 847 ; ib. 1890, pp. 610, 614 ; ib. 1896, pp. 574,
577; Jesiip N. Pac Exped. iii. [1905] 322, 375 ; ct. 31 RBEW
[1916], p. 887 (a Bellabella tale).

6 Rep. Brit. Assoc, 1900, pp. 481, 523 f.

6 F. Starr, Notes upon the Ethnog. of S. Mexico, Davenport,
Iowa, 1900, p. 22.

7 F. G. Speck, Ethnnl. nf the Yuchi Indians, Philadelphia,
1909, p. 110.

8 JAFL xxi. [1908] 315. » A RW v. 272.

10 J AI -axviu. [1899] 107.

11 Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthiimer, Gottingen, 1854,
p. 456; J. and W. K. Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, Berlin, 1818, ii.
30, 233, 291.

the belief that the twins are due to two fathers.
Hence also the second-born child is commonly
held to be the elder or higher in rank, as among
the Negroes.

But there is another, and perhaps older, view,
more widely held, that they are the result of
divine impregnation.

In W. Africa we have seen that they are called ' fetish-
children.' To the Fo of Togoland they are the children of
Ohoho. The Efiks of Calabar, the Ikvves of the Upper Cross
River, and the Ibihio pronounce one of them to be the offspring
of an evil spirit.i So the Warundi of E. Africa attribute them
to an ' incubus,' and regard their birth as a favour, which the
jealous spirit is likely to recall, or to take the mother or her
husband in payment for it. To obviate this, the important
event is celebrated by a variety of ceremonies, including songs,
dances, and gifts to the parents (nominally oblations for the
spirit), which have a way of disappearing as by enchantment.
Two entirely black sheep are bought for "the twins ; they must
preserve and care for them as long as they live. The sheep in
turn are said to be the children's guardians, the receptacle and
symbol of their spirits, their fetish. 2 In Indonesia likewise the
birth of twins is ascribed to a demon. One of them, according
to iDelief in the island of Nias, is due to superfetation caused by
such a being, as is also the birth of an albino. Other causes are
recognized in the eastern province of the island, as roughness
or anger ion the mother's part towards her parents or sister,
continued cohabitation during pregnancy, or the eating of a
double fruit. To the last we shall recur. Like the Warundi,
the North Niasese fear that some other members of the family
will die if the twins are allowed to live ; and they are therefore
put to death. They are also held to be an omen of various
kinds of calamity .3 The Bakaua of New Guinea think that
' evil spirits have had a hand in the game,' wherefore one of the
twins is killed. 4 According to the Bontoc Igorot of Luzon, one
of the twins is the offspring of an anito (ghost of the dead).
The quieter one, therefore, or the larger, is put in a pot and
buried alive. 5 The Buck of Demerara also regard twins as the
offspring of an evil spirit named Pernowhari.6 In Essequibo a
British commissioner reports that a native medicine-man not
many years ago ascribed an outbreak of sickness to one of twins
who had just been born. He said it was the child of a kenaiina,
a wizard or person of supernatural powers, because ' a woman
could not naturally produce two children at a birth '; and the
unfortunate child at his instigation was burnt alive.7 The
Melanesians of Lepers' Island hold that twins may be the gift
of a spirit called Tagaro ; in Florida Island there is a suspicion
of the mother's infidelity to her husband, but it is generally
accepted that she has trespassed on the sacred place of a ghost
'whose power lies that way.' 8 In the Moluccas twins are
attributed to the sky -god, Upulero, probably as father. 9 Thia
belief may be compared with that of the Thonga tribes of S.E.
Africa, who call twins 'children of heaven' and in this capacity
ascribe to them special powers ; and the mother is called Tilo,
' heaven.' 10 The ancient Peruvians held that one of twins was
the son of the lightning, to which they prayed as the lord and
creator of rain, and the earthly parents were made to undergo
divers tabus and ceremonies. There is some evidence that they
offered the twins, probably to the lightning ; at any rate, if
they died young, the bodies were enclosed in pots and kept in
the'dwelling-house as sacred things.u

As among the Gilyaks one of twins is taken to be the offspring
of the Mountain-man, so their neighbours the Ainus of Sakhalin
believe one of them to be that of a supernatural being, on the
ground that one man can beget only one child at a time. This
is a perpetual shame to the mother; and there is reason for
believing that one is destroyed at birth, as indeed the oldest
account expressly affirms. At all events the Ainus state that
only one survives, and that one of human paternity. It is also
said that, like the Japanese, they hold that, when twins are
born, the younger is bold, strong, and lucky, while nothing
distinguishes the elder from ordinary men. They, however,
seek by means of sacrifice, prayer, and talismans to prevent
such births. They avoid women who have given birth to
twins; but, contrary to the Gilyaks, they hold that nothing is
so likely to convey the infection as objects of metal. 12 Farther

1 Partridge, pp. 38, 257 f . ; Mrs. Amaury Talbot, p. 23 ;
Anthropos, vii. 89.

2 J. M. M. Van der Burgt, Un grand Peuple de VA/rique
iqnntnrialc, Bois-le-Duc, 1904, p. 71 f.

3 E. Modigliani, Un Viaggio a Nias, Milan, 1890, p. 555 ; De
Zwaan, p. 178.

•* R. Neuhauss, Deutsch Neu-Guinea, Berlin, 1911, ni. 400.

5 A. E. Jenks, The Bontoc Igorot, Manila, 1905, p. 60.

6 PL XV. [1904] 343, citing Demerara Daily Chrmiicle, of 27th
Jan. 1904.

■? Rendel Harris, Cult of the Ileavenly Twins, p. 5, (luoting
the report.

8 Codrington, p. 230.

9 Riedel, pp. 136, 238, 264, 392, 450.

10 Junod, Life of a S. African Tribe, ii. 294, Les Ba-ronga,
p. 412.

11 (tBS pt i., Magic Art, i. 266 f., citing the Jesuit J. de
Arriaga;'von Tschudi, p. 176 f. ; Globtis, xc. [1906] 30.5. Cf.
Essays a^id Studies presented to William Ridgcway, Cambridge,
1913, p. 369 f.

12 Anthropos, v. 770; Rendel Harris, Boanerges, p. 161.

TWINS

497

north, on the mainland of Asia, the Kanichatkan tribes ascribe
twins to ' the wolf in the forest.' The birth of twins is con-
sequentlj' not only a misfortune but also a sin (intensified if
both are girls) ; every one promptly runs out of the house,
leavinfT the mother and children alone. To prevent such an
event, the Italmens (one of the tribes) set up a figure of a wolf,
made of grass, pretending that it is the husband of the young
women, and renewing it year by year.i

The somewhat indefinite ascription by the
various tribes of the north-western coasts of N.
America to grisly bears and other land animals,
or to salmon or other tish, indicates rather a belief
that twins are a reincarnation of such creatures
than that they are directly generated by them
upon the mother, though these beliefs are by no
means far apart.

The lallooet considered that the twins were the real offspring
of the grisly bear ; but some held that he ' acted through ' the
husband. Twins were by many said to be 'grisly bears in
human form,' and, when a twin died, his soul went back to the
grisly bears and became one of them. When a twin died, his
body was deposited in a fir-tree far from graves and human
habitations, and the grisly bear was supposed to take it away.2

The belief in reincarnation is very wide-spread ;
it has been discussed by the present writer in his

Primitive Paternity.^

The Semang, a Negrito tribe of Perak, hold that certain birds
are the souls of human beings ; they are born as children in
consequence of being eaten by women ; and, when a woman
eats a soul-bird with its egg, the result is twins.*
Pregnancy caused by various kinds of food is a
wide-spread superstition discussed in Primitive
Paternity, ch. ii. Twins are attributed by many
peoples to the eating of double fruits and similar
things.

The belief on the island of Nias has already been referred to.
It is shared in the E. Indies b.y the Malay populations of
Sumatra, the Tagalas of the Philippines, and the Malagasy ;
in S. America by the Arawaks and the aborigines of Paraguay ;
in W. Africa by the Ibibio, in Europe by the Germans, the
Magyars, and the French of Poitou.5 There is even a trace of
it in England around Malvern, where it is said that nuts are
a presage of the number of children to be born in the year, and
' double nuts presage a considerable number of twins.' 6 Among
the Zulus, it is said, other objects in pairs are not eaten, nor
are two articles at once received from the hand of another,
lest the birth of twins result. ■? The Euahlayi, an Australian
tribe, think that babies hang on trees ready to enter into any
passing woman ; and twins are attributed, as among the
Arunta, mentioned above, to two baby-spirits hanging on one
branch and dropping on the same woman. But it seems that
the woman's husband is reluctant to acknowledge more than
one of them. 8 This points to the superstition of double
paternity discussed above. On Mabuiag, in Torres Straits,
twins are ascribed to the act of a magician, or to the mother
when pregnant touching or breaking a parasitic plant.9 Among
the Maidu of California it was thought that, if the father wore
two caps at the time of conception, twins would be produced.i"
In some of the Molucca Islands the same result was caused by
the mother lying on her back at the time of conception.il

3. Powers. — Twins are believed to possess extra-
ordinary powers.

An account is given in a Chinese narrative dating from the
14th cent, of a magician who procured the foetus from a woman
pregnant of twins to use it for the purpose of divining ; and it
is remarked that special ' spiritual power' was attributed to the
foetus of twins.13 Among the Iroquois twins are believed able
to foretell future events and perform other remarkable things ;
but they are said to lose the power if a menstruating woman
prepares their food.'3 So the Golahs of Liberia hold that twins

1 GB^, pt. vi., The Scapegoat, London, 1913, p. 178, pt. v..
Spirits of the Corn and of the Wilil, ii. 173 n. ; Rendel Harris,
Boanerges, p. 163, both citing Q. W. Steller, Beschreihxmg von
dem Lande Kamtschatka, Frankfort and Leipzig, 1774.

2 J. Teit, Jesup N. Pac. Exped. ii. 263 ; cf. iii. 375.
S London, 1909, vol. i. ch. 3.

4 W. W. Skeat and 0. O. Bla^den, Pagan Races of the Malay
Peninsula, London, 1906, ii. 4, 215f.

5 Rendel Harris, Boaiurges, pp. 129, 168, 401; JAI xxii.
[1893] 209; W. E. Roth, s'oRBEW [1915], pp. 320, 325; Mrs.
Amaury Talbot, p. 23 : Hartland, Primitive Paternity, i. 37,
citing various authors.

6 Mrs. E. M. Leather, The Folk-lore of Herefordshire, London,
1912, p. 2.56.

7 D. Kidd, Savage Childhood, p. 48.

8 Parker, p. 50.

9 Rep. of Cambridge Anthrop. Exped. to Torres Straits, v.
[19041198.

10 mil?. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. xvii. [1905] 230.

11 Riedel, p. 74.

12 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, Leyden,
1892-1910, vi. 1340.

13 F. W. Waugh, Iroquois Foods, Ottawa, 1916, p. 59.

VOL. XII. — 32

have the privilege of learning things by means of dreams.
They are thus able to see and identify bush-goats in which,
according to native belief, human beings are reincarnated.
They lose the privilege, however, if they eat of animals which
they have so identified, for they wouldbe eating men.i This
power appears to extend into adult life. Twins among the
Igarra of S. Nigeria are able to prognosticate with regard to
the offspring of a pregnant woman, but only while children.
They are ascribed to good spirits and looked upon with favour
as among some other peoples. The younger of the two is
regarded as the elder ; but both must be treated exactly alike :
any favouritism will lead to the death of one of them. They
cannot be poisoned, for no poison will have any evil effect on
them. 2 The Thonga about Delagoa Bay, who regard twins
with hostility, utilize a twin girl, when the caterpillars of a
beetle called 7ui7iu awarm in December or Jamuary, to lead the
procession of women who have been employed in collecting the
insects from the bean-stalks to throw them into a neighbouring
lake with a spell to get rid of the plague.3 On the occasion of
the cattle-plague at Dobischwald, in Austrian Silesia, a bonfire
is made to drive the cattle through ; and twin brothers are
necessary to fell the tree of which the fire is made.-* The Polish
peasant, as a spell against ' the pest ' (probably the cattle-
plague), causes a furrow to be drawn around his field by a pair
of twin oxen led by twin brothers.5 Twins are credited in
Lower Nubia and Egypt with the power of shape-shifting, to
the extent at least of becoming cats at night and stealing milk
and food and eating chickens. This can be prevented only if
the father, immediately after their birth, puts them in a cold
oven for a short time.'' The Hausa suppose twins to have a
special power of picking up scorpions without injury. 7 The
belief of the Tlaxcalans of Mexico in the curative powers of
twins has been mentioned above. The Kwakiutl also attribute
to them powers of curing disease. The British Columbian and
other tribes of the north-west attribute to twins a variety of
extraordinar}- powers. Thej' influence, or at least prognostic-
ate, success in hunting, and the plentiful supply of salmon and
other fish, though among some tribes they may not themselves
catch salmon. On the other hand, the}' are exposed to danger
of various kinds and must be carefully protected by ceremonies
and otherwise.* Among the Negroes of the Sherbro in the
colony of Sierra Leone there is a practice of resorting to twins
for dealing with various complaints, most usually bj- women.
'Twin-houses,' or sabo, each consisting of a small rude frame-
work covered with a thatch of grass, form a sort of shrine.
Upon a wooden grid beneath the thatch is spread a white
cloth, on which are put lumps of concretion from an ant-hill ;
and a white streamer floats from a rough pole in front of the
structure. This little shrine is set up ad hoc, and is served
by two persons who are of twin birth, but not necessarily of the
same mother. Under their direction and to their profit, the
two twin-houses are erected and a ceremonial dance is arranged.
A fowl is then sacrificed and the patient is washed all over by
these two priests of the sabo in medicine provided by them.9
The powers of twins are sometimes extended to
their parents.

To cure a sprain, the mother of twins is in Ceylon made to
trample the limb every evening for a couple of days.io Among
the Brahuis of Baluchistan, to cure the tertian fever, a twin
is called on to knot a blue thread five or seven times, and this
in hung round the patient's neck and is believed to drive the
fever away.n In Maryland it is asserted that the mother of
twins has power to drive whooping-cough from a child by
giving it a piece of bread and butter.H Among the Ba^anda
a ceremony apparently intended to communicate fertility to
the plantains is performed by the father and mother, and an
effigy of each child is made, partly consisting of a plantain-
flower.i3 Among the Basoga, on the north-east of Lake
Victoria Nyanza, the birth of twins is a joyous event, though
both the twins and their parents are subjected to tabu and
ceremonies to render them innocuous. In the north-western
district the persons of both father and mother are sacred ; the
former goes on a round of visits, and is believed to carry
blessing wherever he goes. In the central district the children
are held to be of divine origin. Their mother must sow her
seed before any woman of her clan. The twins must be brought
to the field of any clanswoman who is about to sow ; and the
sowing is performed in their presence. !■* The Bate.so, a Nilotic
tribe bordering on Lake Kyoga, welcome the birth of twins,
though they and their mother are secluded, as among the

I Anthropos, vi. 1038. - Leonard, p. 462.
3 Junod, Life of a S. African Tribe, ii. 401.

* GB3, pt. vii.. Balder the Beautiful, London, 1913, i. 278.
6 W. J. Thomas and F. Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant,
Chicago, 1915, i. 215.

6 Man, X. 26.

7 A. J. N. Tremeame, Haxisa Superstitions and Customs,
London, 1913, p. 94.

8 Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1889, p. 847, 1S90, pp. 574, 591, 014, 644,

1900, p. 481 ; Jesup N. Pac. Exped. ii. [1908] 586, 620, iii. [1905]
322.

» T. J. AUdridge, The Sherbro and its Hinterland, London,

1901, p. 149.

10 J A xxxui. [1904] 57.

II D. Bray, The Life-history of a Brahui, London, 1913,
p. 106.

^iJAPLxii. [1899] 273.

13 Roscoe, Bagnnda, p. 67 f., JAIxxxW. 33.

1* Roscoe, Northc7'n Bantu, pp. 217, 219, 235.

498

TWINS

Basoga, while the father pays visits to members of his own and
his wife's clans, communicating the blessing of increase
wherever he is received.i

In fact, it is chiefly in the control of the weather
and the promotion of fertilitj'— two results closely
connected with one another — that the powers
possessed by twins are generally held to lie.

Power over the elements, especially over rain and snow, is
almost universally attributed to them by the natives of British
Columbia. The Shuswap hold that, if a twin bathe in a lake or
stream, it will rain. 2 The Tsimshian think that whatever twins
wish for is fulfilled— among other things the weather. There-
fore they pray to wind and rain, ' Calm down, breath of the
twins I ' 3 Among the Kwakiutl by swinging a ceremonial rattle
they can cure disease and procure favourable winds and
weather.4 Nutka twins produce rain by painting their faces
black and then washing them, or by merely shaking their
heads.s In the Central Provinces of India one of twins will
prevent injuries to crops from excessive rainfall or hailstorm
by painting his right buttock black and the left any other
colour and standing in the direction of the wind ; at harvest-
time husbandmen (apparently not necessarily twins) adopt this
course for the abatement of a gale. 6 In S. Africa twins are
said to be able to foretell the weather by their feelings ; this
seems to be a relic of a belief in control of the weather, control
having faded into prediction. 7 A little farther north, the
Bathonga, in case of drought, employ a ceremony to cause rain.
The women, stripped or covered at most with a grass petticoat,
go in procession led by a mother of twins to the grave of twins,
or of an abortion, buried in a dry place, and pour water on it,
or dig up the remains and bury them again in the mud near the
water.8 Among the Wanyamwesi of what was German E.
Africa a twin about to cross a river, stream, or lake, or in a
storm on a lake over which he is sailing, fills his mouth with
water and spurts it out, saying, 'I am a twin." The object of
this ceremony is to prevent harm befalling him or his com-
panions.9 At Upoto on the Upper Congo, where rain is usually
abundant, a twin is called in to make excessive rain cease. He
puts some rain-saturated earth on the fire, and calls upon the
rain to cease and the earth to dry up. Here twins also are
credited with occult power which enables them by blessing or
cursing to cause the success or failure of a hunting or fishing
expedition. 10 In Gabun, French Congo, the images of twins,
preserved after ceremonies performed over them, are apparently
held to ensure the continued fertility of their mothers.ii From
a consideration of the traditional disappearance of Romulus,
the first of the legendary kings of Rome, who, it will be re-
membered, was one of twins, J. G. Frazer has made the ingeni-
ous conjecture that the ancient Romans ' shared the widespread
superstition that twins have power over the weather in general
and over rain and wind in particular.' 12 Xhe superhuman
powers of Gilyak twins and the posthumous cult of such as die
have already been referred to.

4. Cult of divine twins. — So far, abundant
reason has been given for the conclusion that
twins, being out of the ordinary course of nature,
are held by many peoples to be children of extra-
ordinary powers, or of portentous and even
dangerous birth, and consequently that they, or
at least one of them, must be at once exposed or
put to death, and, where this practice is abandoned
or has not arisen, they and their mother (frequently
their father also) must be surrounded with
tabus ; and they are invoked for various purposes,
chiefly for rain and fertility. Rendel Harris, who
has investigated the subject, has in a series of
works established the existence, from a remote
antiquity, in Mediterranean countries of a cult of
divine twins, some indications of Avhich are also
found elsewhere. The twins of Greek legend.
Castor and Polydeuces (called by the Romans
Pollux), have of course long been known, and
other twins of less renown have been recognized.
But the wide range of the cult, and the number of
cases in which twins have been worshipped, had
not previously been understood. Castor and
Polydeuces Avith their sister Helen were tradition-
ally the children of Leda, born, in some versions,

1 Roscoe, Northern Bantu, p. 265.

iJesup N. Pac. Exped. ii. 587 ; of. Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1890, p.
644, 1900, p. 481.

3 Brit Assoc. Rep., 1889, p. 847 ; SI RBEW, p. 545.

4 Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1890, p. 614.

e lb. p. 592. 6 I A xxviii. [1899) 111.

7 D. Kidd, Savage Childhood, p. 47.

8 H. A. Junod, Rev. d'Ethnog. et de Soc. i. 141, TAfe of a
S. Afr. Tribe, ii. 296, 334, Les Ba-ronga, pp. 412, 416.

» G£3, pt. i., The Magic Art, i. 268 f.
10 Rendel Harris, Boanerges, p. 85.
*1 R. H. Nassau, Fetichi-sm in W. Africa, pp. 309, 314.
12 GBi, pt. i., The Magic Art, ii. 183.

out of an egg. Tyndareus, king of Sjiarta, the
husband of Leda, though regarded by Homer as
their father, was credited in some accounts with
the paternity of Castor only, the other two being
the children of Zeus. It has been mentioned above
that this belief in a divided paternity of a multiple
birth is not unusual among the lower races ; it is
therefore one of the marks of the archaic origin of
the cult of Castor and Pollux. The former, being
the son of a mortal father, was himself mortal.
Pollux, however, obtained from Zeus the boon of
sharing his immortality with his brother and
living with him alternately a day under the earth
and a day with the gods. Their legend attributed
to them a number of adventures ; and they were
worshipped as Oeol crwr^pes, protectors of travellers
by water, and thence of travellers in general, the
guardians of hospitality and of oaths, and were
represented as riding on magnificent white steeds.
As twins they were connected with the sky, with
thunder and storms ; hence' probably not only
their patronage of travellers by sea, but also their
character as Dioscuri, sons of Zeus, and their
reputation as divine spearmen. By virtue of
their descent from Tyndareus, they were special
patrons of the kings of Sparta.^ Other twins were
also known in Greece — Herakles and Iphikles,
Amphion and Zethus, and others male and female.
Rendel Harris has also made out a good case for
the existence of twin-sanctuaries in the peninsula
and adjacent islands, leading to the inference that
the twin superstition in Greece was not ditterent
from that found in other quarters of the globe.

The worship of the Dioscuri early passed to
Italy, where it is attested on the coins of Magna
Grajcia and the mirrors of the Etruscans. It be-
came firmly established at Rome after the well-
known didymophany at the battle of Lake
Regillus.2 But from the very beginnings of the
city the twin superstition seems to have been
accepted. The tale of Romulus and Remus is
conclusive on the point. They built Rome, as
Amphion and Zethus built Thebes, one brother
slew the other — neither of these incidents is by
any means strange in legends of twins — and the
surviving twin disappeared in a thunderstorm,
doubtless another way of expressing his relation to
the sky and the storm-cloud.

The Asvins, perhaps originally divine horses
before they became charioteers, are well-known
figures in the Bigveda. They are rain-makers,
probably connected with the lightning— certainly
with the sky ; they grant fertility to men as well
as to the earth, and they aid the sailor and the
traveller. In Asia Minor and Palestine the cult
of the Twins appears from a very ancient date.
Esau and Jacob and other twins found in the
Hebrew Scriptures are personages whose pristine
form and attributes it is no longer possible to
recover from the attrition of time and the erasive
energies successfully wielded by generations of
pious editors. Traces, however, of the tAvin-cult
linger in the names of various places, like Ibn
Alraq, near Jaffa, which has been identified with
a place called in the book of Joshua Bne Baraq,
' sons of lightning ' ; and the account in the second
book of Maccabees of the defeat by Judas
Maccabaeus of Timotheus almost certainly contains
a Dioscuric tradition. Barca in N. Africa, a
colony of Cyrene, seems to be connected with
lightning ; and the silphium plant, which was
sacred to the Twins, is the emblem of Cyrene upon
its coins. The Pharos at Alexandria was dedicated
to the saviour-gods. There is reason for suspecting
legends, and perhaps the cult, of divine twins
among both the Phoenicians and the Arabs.

1 GB3, pt. i.. The Magic Art, i. 48f.

2 L. Preller, Romische Mythologies, Berlin, 1881-83, ii. 300.

TWINS

499

Farther uorth it is quite clear that Edessa
was from ancient times a seat of the Twin-cult.
Tlie Twins were there known as Monim and Aziz.
When Christianity superseded the old paganism,
Jesus Christ and the apostle Thomas took their
place. The Syriac Acts of Thomas shows that
Thomas, or Judas Thomas, as he is called, was
regarded as the twin of Christ. With his Lord's
assistance he performs in the legend a number of
deeds which are beyond doubt Dioscuric. Among
the apostles James and John seem also to have
been regarded as twins : whence probably their
sobriquet Boanerges, ' sons of thunder.' In various
countries of Europe there are vestiges of Dioscuric
cult in historical writers like Tacitus and in popu-
lar tales. A pagan altar has been found at Notre
Dame, Paris, with a dedication by the boatmen of
the Seine to certain Celtic divinities, and among
them the Heavenly Twins. The ancient gods all
over Europe and the Christian East have been
succeeded by saints who perform similar functions
and are often called by similar names. Many of
these are in pairs or triads, and some of them are
explicitly reputed to be twins or triplets, not
merely in Christian profession and martyrdom,
but by birth. They have frequently assonant
names, or names which are variants of one another,
according to a wide-spread custom of calling twins
by names specifically given to twins, or names
which are echoes of each other. A few of these
may be mentioned from Rendel Harris's list.

Such are Speusippus, Eleosippus and Meleosippus, martyrs, of
Langres, whose cult spread westwards from Cappadocia ; I'lorus
and Laurus, builders (in Russia, patron saints of horses) and
martyrs ; Protasius and Gervasius, martyrs, whose relics
Ambrose opportunely found at Milan for the confusion of the
Arians ; Cosnias and Damian, physicians and martyrs, whose
cult seems to have been known from the Euphrates to Kent.
Others might easily be enumerated.

The electrical phenomenon sometimes appearing
on the masts and yards of vessels during a storm
in the Mediterranean was anciently held to be a
manifestation of Castor and Pollux ; and it was
a good omen when the light was double.^ This
same phenomenon is now credited to St. Elmo, a
patron saint of sailors, whose name occurs in a
variety of forms, and of whom nothing whatever
is known. Kendel Harris has shown reason for
believing that in some of its forms the name is
connected with Remus, who with Romulus was
commemorated at San Remo on the coast of Italy.
Romulus and Remus preceded Castor and Pollux
in the veneration of the Romans. They were
exposed, according to the legend, in a rude boat
on the Tiber ; and from floating on the river they
probably made their way, like other figures of the
Twins, "to sea as the patrons and protectors of
seamen and voyagers.

Several pairs of mythical twins are found on the
western continent. Of these the best known are
the twins of Iroquoian tradition, loskeha and
Tawiscara.

According to their legend, a woman named Ataensic fell
down through a rift in the sky upon the primeval waters, for
there was no land as j'et. By the advice of the turtle the
animals dived, brought up soil, put it on the turtle's back, and
so formed the earth to receive the falling heroine, who was
pregnant and promptly gave birth to a daughter. The daughter
became in her turn pregnant of two boys, loskcha and Tawis-
cara. The latter was evil of nature : he refused to be born in
the natural manner, and, breaking his way out through his
mother's side or armpit, ended her life with his own birth.
The brothers grew up. loskeha went about providing the
earth, until that lime arid, with water. But the evil twin
attempted to foil him by creating a gigantic frog to swallow
all the water. A quarrel ensued, as in the case of itomulus and
Remus and other twins in the Old World. loskeha, using the
horns of a deer, vanquished Tawiscara, whose weapon was onlj"
a branch of the wild rose, and drove him away to the extreme
west, his blood gushing from him at every step and turning
into flint as it fell. The victor then established his lodge in the
far east, opened a cave in the earth and brought forth all kinds

1 Pliny, BN ii. 87.

of land animals, formed men, instructed them in the art of
making fire and in the growing of maize ; and it is ho who im-
parts fertility to the soil.i loskeha is therefore the culture-
hero and divine helper of the Huron-Iroquois ; and the deeds
and combat of the Heavenly Twins are the foundation of their
mythology.

Without pausing to consider any other N.
American twins, we may turn to Peru.

From before the times of the Incas the Peruvians seem to
have worshipped as creator a god whose name has come down
to us as Ataguju, conjectured by Brinton to be properly
Atachuchu, 'lord of the twins.' From him proceeded the man
Guamansuri, who seduced the sister of certain Guachamines,
'rayless ones' or 'darklings.' She proved pregnant and pro-
duced two eggs, but died in putting them into the world.
From these eggs emerged two brothers, Apocatequil and
Piguerao, names which have also suffered some deformation.
Apocatequil was the more powerful. By touching his mother's
corpse, he iirought her back to life ; he slew the Guachamines,
who had destroyed his father ; he released the race of Indians
from the soil by turning it up with a golden spade. "The
thunder and lightning were due to him ; thunderbolts were his
children. Stones held to be thunderbolts protected from
lightning, gave fertility to the fields, and were esteemed as
love-charms. ' In memory of these brothers, twins in Peru
were deemed always sacred to the lightning ; and when a
woman or even a llama brought them forth, a fast was held
and sacrifices offered to the two pristine brothers, with a chant
commencing A chuchu cachiqui, " O Thou who causest twins,"
words mistaken by the Spaniards for the name of a deity.' ^

The Bakairi, a Carib tribe in the northern part
of the Amazon basin, have a legend of twins who
were culture-heroes.

The Bakairi were then few and oppressed by the jaguars,
who are indistinctly imagined with traits of both the lower
animals and humanity. Their mother, captive to the Jaguars,
became pregnant bj' sucking two finger-bones of Bakairi killed
by the jaguars. She died before giving birth to her children ;
and they were cut from her body by the Caesarian operation.
The boys, who are called Keri and Kama, were fostered by the
jaguar, their mother's captor. They had not yet human form,
but manipulated one another to complete it. They then
avenged their mother's deatli on their foster-father. With the
help of the vultures they procured the sun and moon. They
stole fire from the fox (cams vetulus). From the Ochobi water-
snake they obtained water and made the rivers. From various
animals they got hammocks, sleep, stones to build houses,
arrows, tobacco, manioc, and cotton. They invented flutes
and dancing. They made various tribes of men ; and Keri is
honoured as the ancestor of the Bakairi. They quarrelled, but
made the dispute up again. Finally they disappeared, nobody
knows whither.*

There are other mythical twins in S. America, but
the subject need not be pursued.^ In New Zealand,
Melanesia, and Micronesia there are moreover
legends of two brothers, or a band of brethren, who
appear to be culture-heroes, though the opposition
of beneficent and malicious or of wise and stupid
brethren is also developed ; but they are not speci-
fically described as twins.

If we inquire into the origin of the cult, it seems
clear that the Dioscuri, as tlie .sons of Zeus, wei'e
regarded as divinities of light. It has been long
ago pointed out that their appearances are repre-
sented as taking place in the middle of tlie summer
about tlie first full moon after the solstice.* So
also there can be little doubt that the Asvins in
India were divinities of the dawn and possibly tlie
evening twilight. From divinities of light they
would naturally pass to wield, or personify, the
lightning (Zeus's weapon) and the storm. Tliey
came to be looked upon as protectors from the
violence of the elements, and thence of voyagers
on river or sea, and, by extension of the idea,
of travellers generally. Their powers would gradu-
ally grow until they covered a still larger area
of huniaii life. The same connexion with light
and lightning is to be traced on the American

1 The original authority is Jesuit Relatioiis, .\. Hurons [1636],
Cleveland, U.S.A., 1890, p. 125. D. G. Brinton, Mjiths of the Nno
World, New York, 1808, p. 169, American Hero-Myths, Phila-
<lehihia, 18S2, p. 53, amplifies the story from other sources.

2 Rrinlon, Myths of the New World, p. 152 ; J. O. MuUer,
Gesch. dcT amcrikan. Urrcliitionen-, Basel, 1867, p. 327.

3 K. von den Steinen, U^Uer den Haturvblkem ZeiUral-
nrasilii'Hs, Berlin, 1894, p. 372 ff.

■• Riiidel Harris, Boanerges, p. 155 ; P. Ehrenreioh, Die
Mythcn iind Legenden der siidamerikanische7i Urvolkcr, Berlin,
19U5, p. 44.

s PrellerS, ii. 302.

500

TYPOLOGY

continent, where they further tended to become
Culture-heroes. But this does not account for
their duality, except in so far as they may be
held to represent the morning and evening, the
dawn and the disappearance of light. It is perhaps
due to an innate tendency in the human mind to
repeat, to echo, to balance, or to contrast. This
psychological quality constantly exhibits itself in
every department — in philosophy, theology, mytho-
logy, literature, art, ethics. It is responsible for
the dualism of the great religions, for the frequent
reduplication of incident in a fairy-tale, for the
symmetrical grouping of figures in a work of art,
and for dramatic nemesis. In the domain of
mythology and religion, whether pagan or Christ-
ian, it has doubtless been emphasized by the
mystery attaching to the comparatively infrequent
phenomenon of human twins. The beneficent and
maleficent sides of their tabu are expressed in the
opposition of characters and frequently in the
double pedigree.^

5. Afterbirth as twin. — The Baganda hold a
curious belief that the afterbirth, or the navel-
string (there is a variation as to this between the
two accounts given by Roscoe, to whom we are
indebted for the information), is the twin or double
of the child to whom it belongs.

The afterbirth was enclosed in a broken cooking-pot, covered
with leaves and placed at the root of a plantain-tree — if a boy,
at the root of a plantain from which beer was made ; if a girl,
at the root ol a plantain used as a vegetable. We are told
that 'the afterbirth was called the second child, and was
believed to have a spirit, which became at once a ghost.' On
account of this ghost the plantain was guarded, to prevent anj'
one not belonging to the clan from partaking of the beer made
from it, or of the food cooked from it ; else the beer or the food,
by being consumed, would be lost to the clan, and the child would
then die in order to follow the ghost of its twin. To obviate
this catastrophe, the g:randfather ate the food and drank the
beer, so retaining the ghost of the afterbirth in the clan. More
elaborate was the care taken of the king's umbilical cord, to
which the ghost of the afterbirth attached, and which was
always spoken of as if it were the afterbirth itself : hence prob-
ably the confusion between afterbirth and cord. A special
officer, called the kimbugwe, who was second onlj' to the
katikiro, or prime minister, was appointed to the charge of it.
He occupied an enclosure next to the king's, in which was a
temple built for the ' twin.' Once a month at new moon he
carried the ' twin,' wrapped as it always was in bark-cloth, into
the presence of the king, who took it out of its wrappings,
inspected it, and returned it to the kimbugwe. He then ex-
posed it in the doorway of the temple for the moon to shine
upon it, anointed it with butter, wrapped it up again, and
restored it to its place in the temple. ANlien the king died, the
kimbttgwe made way for a new kimbugwe to take charge of the
new king's ' twin ' ; but it still remained his duty to care for
the old king's ' twin,' and to prortde for the upkeep of its
temple and enclosure. In due time the dead king's jaw-bone,
to which the king's own ghost was believed to adhere, would
be added to his ' twin ' and kept at the temple, where he would
continue to be venerated.2 Even the jaw-bone and umbilical
oord of the god Kibuka were preserved in his temple on an
island of Lake Victoria Nyanza ; and they are now in the
Ethnological Museum at Cambridge. 3

To the south of Uganda and west of the great
lake, in Kiziba, formerly in German territory,
similar customs and beliefs prevail.

The afterbirth, we are told, is considered as a kind of human
being, and on the birth of twins the children are spoken of as
four, instead of two, each afterbirth being looked upon as a
chUd.*

In ancient Egypt also there seem to be traces of the
same idea.

Monuments of the earlier dynasties show an object which
has been identified as the king's afterbirth carried upon a
standard in procession, together with the usual symbolical
standards of animals. Its use continued to the end of the
EgJTJtian kingdom, though its shape was gradually convention-
alized. The goddess represented as presiding at the birth of
Queen Hatshepsut wears on her head an object remarkably like
the reliquary containing the navel-string of Kibuka ; and in
other representations the same goddess wears a vase-like object

1 See art. Doubles.

2 Eoscoe, Baganda, pp. 52, 54, 235, 110 ; JAI xxxli. 33, 45,
63. 76.

^ Roscoe, Baganda, p. 303 ; GB3, pt. iv., Adojiis, Attis, Osiris,
London, 1914, ii. 197 ; A. M. Blackman, Joum. Egyp. Arclueo-
logy, iii. fl916) 199.

* H. Eehse, Kiziba, Land und Leute, Stuttgart, 1910, p. 117.

which may be intended for such a reliquary. Though there are
not many texts referring to the afterbirth or navel-string, im-
portance— not to say sanctity — does seem to have been attached
to 'the umbilical cord of Osiris.' Horus is described as rescuing
it from Seth and depositing it ' in its place in Herakleopolis,'
or, as the Egyptians called the city, ' House-of-the-Child-of-the-
King.' It has also been suggested that the object carried on
his head by the moon-god Khons (and perhaps Khons himself)
was evolved from the Pharaoh's afterbirth. There was some
relation in Uganda between the moon and the royal ' twin.' 1

In this connexion the common Hamitic strain
in the ancestry of the royal houses both of Egypt
and of Uganda will be remembered. At present,
however, the interpretation of the Egyptian evi-
dence has hardly got beyond the conjectural stage.

Literature. — The only \vriter who has made a special study
of the subject is J. Rendel Harris, whose three volumes, The
Dioscuri in the Christian Legends, London, 1903, The Cult of
the Heavenly Tieins, Cambridge, 1906, and Boanerges, do. 1913,
are indispensable. The principal sources of information apart
from these are to be found in works dealing with the customs
or the myths of various peoples, as indicated in the references
above. E. SIDNEY HaRTLAND.

TYPOLOGY. — I. Definition and scope.—
Typology is the science, or rather, only too often,
the curious art, of discovering and expounding in
the records of persons and events in the OT
prophetical adumbrations of the Person of Christ
or of the doctrine and practice of the Christian
Church. It is thus a branch of that method of
interpreting Scripture which is sometimes called
'spiritual' and sometimes 'mystical,' as opposed
to the literal or grammatical interpretation.
Origen, as is well known, spoke of several sub-
divisions of this ' spiritual ' method, and highly
favoured it. It was not his invention. Already
both pagan and Jewish writers had found in it an
admirable expedient for extracting edification from
passages in their sacred books which seemed to be
trivial, perplexing, or even of doubtful moral
worth, if taken at their face value. It flourished
particularly at Alexandria, and was much used by
Philo. The practice of allegorizing the OT Scrip-
tures became so popular, and the defining line
between allegorizing and typology in the strict
sense is so uncertain, that it is necessary at the
outset to refer to the former ; both branches of
this mystical interpretation, as used by Christian
^^Tite^s, aimed at elucidating the latent principles
of Christianity in the OT, but, if a definition
between them is demanded, it is supplied by
Herbert Marsh (bishop of Peterborough, 1819-39)
in these terms :

' According to one mode [i.e. typology] facts and circumstances
. . . have been applied to other facts and circumstances, of
which they have been described as representative. According
to the other mode [i.e. allegorizing] these facts and circum-
stances have been described as mere emblems ' ; or, again, 'An
allegory is a fictitious narrative, a type is something real.' 2

This last sentence requires some modification :
allegorizing may accept the historical truth of the
narrative treated, but does not depend upon it ;
typology, the bishop holds, demands its historical
truth. Van Mildert brings us nearer to the true
test when he says :

' It is, indeed, essential to a Type, in the Scriptural accepta-
tion of the term, that there should be competent evidence of
the Divine intention in the correspondence between it and the
Antitype.' 3

Again, Westcott says :

' A tj-pe presupposes a purpose in history wrought out from
age to age. An allegory rests finally in the imagination, though
the thoughts which it expresses may be justified by the
harmonies which connect the many elements of life.' 4

Any account, however, of the history of typology
must take into consideration the fact that this

1 C. G. Seligmann and M. A. Murray, Man, xi. [1911] 165 ;
Blackman, pp. 199, 235.

2 Lectures on the Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible,
Cambridge, new ed., 1838, lect. v. pp. 350, 354.

3 An Inquiry into the General Principles of Scripture- Inter-
pretation (BL), Oxford, 1815, p. 239. But see A. B. Davidson,
Old Testament Prophecy, p. 236 f. for a criticism of this view.

4 The Epistle to the Hebrews^, London, 1903, p. 202.

TYPOLOGY

501

distinction between type and allegory was not at
all times recognized, and there must always be
room for difference of opinion as to how far the in-
terpretation offered of any passage ' rests finally in
the imagination.' One characteristic feature of
the history of typology is the divergence of opinion
as to the limits of justifiable exposition of types.

The fundamental principle at the heart of this
method of interpretation is that of the continuity
of revelation and the divine unity of Scripture.
In days when the historical sense and the recogni-
tion of progressive revelation were still inchoate it
was the natural way of evidencing this unity of
revelation. It is the product of the ages when
history was regarded as a series of catastrophic
events rather than as the unfolding of an age-long
process, and it was therefore of immense value as
a means of showing that history is not a mere
series of accidental events, but the accomplishment
of a divine purpose. Thus, though typology, as a
branch of serious theological study, is now gener-
ally discredited and practically obsolete, surviving
only for devotional and homiletic purposes, it is
not deserving of the scorn to which not only its
outworn usefulness but also the arbitrariness and
fancifulness of some of its former champions expose
it. In any case the place it holds in the NT itself
deserves careful study. It is proposed in this
article to discuss (1) the extent and character of
typological references in the NT, (2) the general
history of typology in later times, and (3) its
Strength and weakness as a method of interpreta-
tion.

2. In the New Testament.— From the first it
was an integral and essential feature of the gospel
of Jesus Christ to establish and maintain an un-
broken connexion \vith the old covenant. Jesus
was aware that His teaching was such as to pre-
cipitate a cleavage with the traditions of the Jews.
He therefore emphasized the essential unity : ' I
am not come to destroy but to fulfil.' In the
synagogue at Nazareth He expounded Is 61 as a
scripture that day fulfilled in the ears of His
hearers. He saw in Jolin Baptist the fulfilment
of the 'Elijah' prophecy. After His resurrection
He expounded to His disciples ' in all the scriptures
the things concerning Himself.' He taught that
they 'testified to' Himself. Further, He illus-
trated His message from OT parallels, as when He
referred to Elijah at Zarephath, and Elisha and
Naaman (Lk 4-=-"). On two occasions He is re-
corded to have referred in particular terms to
events of the old covenant, viz. the sign of the
prophet Jonah, and the lifting up of the brazen
serpent. At these we must look more closely.

Concerning the sign of the prophet Jonah, Matthew (1239f.)
interprets the sign as Jonah's confinement in the belly of the
whale foreshadowing Christ's burial and rising. Luke (ll29f)
omits this application (though Plummeri contends that it is
implied in Soe-na-erai.). Matthew and Luke agree in giving the
application that the contrast between the penitence of the
Ninevites and the impenitence of the Jews at the preaching of
a greater than Jonah is the warning sign. We have to inquire
therefore whether Mt 12-10 is an interpolation by the evangelist,
and also whether Jonah can be justly regarded as a tj-pe. The
story is now generally accepted as an allegory of the experi-
ences of Israel, and as such is typical of Christ, in so far as the
whole history of Israel is prophetic, l)Ut, regarded as a personal
history, the story of Jonah corresponds so little with the
ministry of our Lord in principle, and offers so many difficulties
in detail, that the suggestion worked out by Sanday,- that
Mt 12M is not a saying of Jesus, is very attractive.

With regard to the reference to the brazen serpent, apart
from the difficulty of treating the discourses in the Fourth
Gospel as the actual words of Jesus, the case is clearer. But
the treatment is markedly on broad lines of principle and
Buggestiveness rather than detailed and exhaustive. The in-
cident referred to was already regarded as mysteriously em-
bodying a spiritual principle (Wis l^''-), especially as it
apparently contravened a divine law.^ Jesus intimates that

1 A. Plummer, St. Lttke (ICC)^, Edinburgh, 1901, p. 3Uli.

2 /7ispiration3 (BL), London, 1896, lect. viii., note A, p. 432.
s Justin, Dial. xciv.

that principle will be revealed in His own ministry, and the
terms in which He speaks of it are such as to express that
principle in the broadest possible way, for the htting up of the
Son of Man is a conception not exhausted by reference to the
manner of Christ's death. In a very similar way Jesus spoke
of His Body in terms of the Temple, because the Temple ' as
the seat of God's presence among His people 'i exhibited a
principle to be more perfectly fullilled by the Body of Christ.

Our Lord's example in this matter of reference
to the OT Scriptures may be summed up as a full
recognition that the principles of truth enshrined
in the OT were to receive in Himself a fuller and
clearer explication, and that therefore the OT
Scriptures are full of teaching concerning Him ;
His practice therefore encourages us to search the
Scriptures for the revelation of such principles,
but it may be questioned if we can derive from His
teaching any justification for the exploitation of
formal resemblances or for indulgence in the
fascination of elaborate working out of details.

Throughout the NT the same reverence for the
dignity and true spiritual value of the OT is
marked. Even in those books which show the
clearest leanings towards mystical interpretation,
in instances where the correspondence seems most
far-fetched (e.g., Mt 2^^-'^^), or the argument most
alien to our modern ways of thought (e.g., Gal 3'^
or 1 Co 10''), the respect for the old covenant as a
real revelation and the loftiness of purpose sharply
distinguish the writers of the NT from even their
immediate followers. Nothing in the NT can be
compared with the puerilities of such a work as
the Epistle of Barnabas, which degrades the old
covenant to ' a mere riddle of which Christianity
is the answer,"^ and which solemnly sees in
Abraham's 318 men a foreshadowing of the Cross
of Jesus, because the Greek numerals are T I H ! *
Even in the Epistle to the Hebrews— a work clearly
influenced by Alexandrian methods of thought—
the OT is never merely allegorized, and the
restrained treatment of the figure of Melchizedek
and of the Tabernacle ritual in that book affords
a marked contrast to the fanciful elaboration with
M'hich both have been treated by later writers.
A recognition of typological methods of thought is
essential for a true understanding of the NT.

The extent of possible typological references is
remarkably small.

Patrick Fairbairn-* gives the following list. But he has to
confess that even this would be regarded by some as too long

Persons: Adam, Melchizedek, Sarah and Hagar, Ishmael
and Isaac, and by implication Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon,
Jonah, Zerubbabel, and Joshua. ^u -c j

Events : the preservation of Noah, the Passover, the t-xodus,
the passage of the Red Sea, the giving of manna, the veiling of
Moses' face, the water flowing from the smitten rock, the
serpent in the wilderness, and some other events (see 1 Co U)),
besides the Tabernacle with its furniture and services.
At any rate it is important to note that all these
references occur quite naturally and that nowhere
is there any sign of a studied exploration of the
OT for possible types.

3. History of typology. — This may for con-
venience be divided into three groups rather than
periods, though each group corresponds roughly to
a period in the history of the Church.

(a) The first is that of the apologetic use of types
to prove as against Jewish or pagan objector the
antiquity of the Christian faith or to refute heretics.
The very purpose of the apologists exposed them
to fancifulness. Whereas the author of the Epistle
to the Hebrews would show his readers that what
they valued in the old covenant was but a shadow
preparing the world for better and enduring things
to come, Justin had to show that what the Jew

1 B. F. Westcott, The Gospel according to St. John, London,

2 Westcott, i General Survey of the History of the Canon of
the NT^, London, 1889, p. 46.

3 Gn 172:i ; fc'p. Bar/i. IX. 8. „j. v v. laA-i^At
•» The Typology of Scripture, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 184.^47,

B1880, i. 40.

602

TYPOLOGY

objected to in the Christian gospel lay hidden in
the Jewish Scriptures. We can understand how
he came to hold that the outstretched arms of
Moses at Kephidini prefigured the cross of Christ,
or even how the bells on the high priest's garment
were a mystical foreshadowing of the apostolate.^
Against heretics the aim was partly to refute the
very fanciful interpretations of those false teachers
who, as Hippolytus puts it, ' bj' seducing those
ignorant of the holy Scriptures into such like
fancies make fools of them.'^ The Catholics met
such errors, not by a rejection of typical or alle-
gorical interpretations, but by the application of
a canon of truth or tradition, which limited typo-
logical exploration to the treatment of narratives
in the canonical books and to the illumination of
truths revealed in Scripture — a limitation not
always observed in later times. When we come
to Origen, we find him using and extolling the
allegorical method because so he could reply to
Celsus's objection to some passages in the OT.
Herein he simply took over the already long-
established method of dealing with difficulties in
Homer. His intellectual greatness saved him from
the extreme rashness of his predecessor Clement,
though he adopted his recognition of 'a manifold
sense of Scripture (viz., on the one hand, the literal
or grammatical ; and, on the other, the allegorical,
anagogical, and tropical). It must be remembered
that, though Jerome accuses Origen of allegorizing
to such an extent that ' historitatis auferat veri-
tateni,' Origen recommended the retention of the
literal sense where it was profitable, but the literal
often failed to edify (TroXXaxoO 70,^ iXiyxerai, dd^va-
Tov 6v t6 fftafiariKdv),^ and then the superiority of
the spiritual over the carnal was made manifest,
and again that Origen did not regard his inter-
pretations in the least as 'resting finally in the
imagination,' for he says :

Kal SrjXov, oTi Moxnrjs ecipa tw vol ti)>' aAijSeiai' tov v6ij,ov, koI
Tas Kara ai'aycoyrji' dXXrfyopi'as TtiJv avayiypaixfiAvtov nap' avr^

ItTTCOpiUlV.*

(b) The school of Alexandria, inheriting this
tradition from so great a master, carried the dis-
covery of mystical significance in the Scriptures to
excess, finding in the method a vast field of oppor-
tunity for the edificatory use of the Bible. The
school of Antioch resisted this use ; Theodore of
Mopsuestia entirely rejects allegorical interpre-
tations. Time showed both how attractive and
how dangerous the practice was. Arnobius points
out how well the method meets the need of pagan
writers, but calls attention to the fact that in the
lack of any sound rule of interpretation anything
can be proved from the Scriptures.' Tyconius
Afer endeavoured to establish rules for the proper
surveying of the 'forest' of Scripture, and to
systematize what he calls the ' reduplicationes ' of
the Bible. Bein» a Donatist, he fell under the
condemnation of Augustine, who speaks slightingly
of his work." Augustine's own rule is thus
summarized :

' Iste omnino modus est, ut quicquid in sermone divino neque
ad morum honestatem neque ad fidei veritatem proprie referri
potest, figuratam esse cognoscas.' 7

On the whole the Latin writers were more re-
strained than the Greek, more tenacious of historic-
ity, and therefore more inclined to typical interpreta-
tion proper than to what is merely allegorical ; yet
Jerome, for all his criticism of Origen's methods, is
himself fairly free in dealing with Scripture. As
time went on, the ignorance of the original Hebrew
that fell upon the Church removed one of the surest
restraints against unprofitable fancifulness.

1 Dial. xlii. xc. 2 Ref. omn. hcer. v. 3.

3 De Princ. iv. 20. 4 in Evang. loann. vi. 2.

5 Adv. gentes, v. 32 ff .

•• In de Doctrina Christiana, iii. 30 (42).

7 lb. iii. 10 (14).

(c) The third group or period is that in which
typology took its place in constructive theology,
and begins with the Schoolmen. Their task was
to prove that the Christian faith is rational and to
reconcile it with the doctrines of the current Aris-
totelianism. In the first stage of Scholasticism
reason was subjected to faith. The example of the
Fathers in admitting a threefold sense of Scripture
was generally followed. Erigena indeed speaks of
an ' infinite sense,' and was led by his mysticism to
use the allegorizing method freely ; the Scriptures
to him Avere as a peacock's feather, every particle
glittering with divers colours. Rabanus Maurus
admits a fourfold sense. Others went farther,
acknowledging a sevenfold or even an eightfold
sense. In the later stages of Scholasticism, parti-
cularly after the rise of the theory of the twofold
nature of truth, and the spread of mysticism, some
schools practically scorned the literal interpreta-
tion of Scripture on the ground that ' litera occidit,
spiritus vivificat,' and ' carried this often to such an
extreme, as to leave scarcely a trace of the simple
meaning.' 1 It must be acknowledged that some,
like Hugo of St. Victor and St. Thomas Aquinas,
tried to restrain such indulgence.^

The combined influences of the Revival of Learn-
ing and the establishment of the Bible as the sole
regula fidei brought about in the writings of the
Reformers a very much sounder attitude. Both
Luther and Calvin are remarkable for the sanity
and critical acumen of their commentaries.
Reaction from Scholastic fancies and a new rever-
ence for the plain teaching of Scripture produced
this result ; but soon the demand for popular
expositions of Scripture (and perhaps the dearth of
really scholarly teachers) brought typology into
great favour, and it became a definite branch of
hermeneutics. In this connexion the name of
Cocceius of Leyden in the 17 th cent, is prominent,
although he adopted no definite system, and seems
to have been content with a formal resemblance to
justify typological interpretations. Others, how-
ever, did endeavour to systematize the method.

Salomon Glassius published at Jena in 1623-36 a work in five
books called Philologia Sacra, of which one part is devoted to
the study and classification of types. His work was incorpor-
ated in English in Benjamin Keach, Tropologia : a Key to Open
Scripture Metaphors and Types, London, 1681, and is referred
to as a principal authority by T. H. Home, An Introd. to the
Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, the first
ed. of which (in 3 vols.) appeared in 1818-21, the tenth and last
being issued (in 5 vols.) in 1856. Glassius divides types into
two main classes — 'innate,' or those specifically asserted to be
such in Scripture, and ' inferred.' These are further subdivided,
the first into those which Scripture 'expresse ostendit' or
' tacite insinuat,' the second into those which are 'oblati' or
' contorti.' The last are to be rejected. He adds nine canons
for classifying or recognizing types. The canons are not par-
ticularly helpful, but they afford the author the (to him) valu-
able opportunity of refuting Bellarmine's recognition of a type
of the Mass in the story of Melchizedek — a recognition, of course,
far older than Bellarmine. The fact reveals one reason why the
Protestant theologians were anxious to find clear rules to govern
typology. Other popular works on the subject were Thomas
Taylor, Moses and Aaron, or the Types of the OT opened, Lon-
don, 1653 ; Samuel Mather, OT Types Explained and Improved,
do. 1673, rewritten by Catherine Fry and published in 2 vols, in
1834 under the title Gospel of the Old Testament (regarded by
some as the fullest exposition of the subject) ; and K. Vitringa,
Observationes Sacrae, 3 vols., Franeker, 1689-1708.

The last named deplores the rise of rationalism,
and certainly the rationalistic and unimaginative
temper of the 18th cent, was inimical to the practice
of typology. Something of the 18th cent, methods
of thought affects Marsh's Lectures on the Criticism^
and Interpretation of the Bible, and here we find a.
quite definite rule as to the scope of typology laid
down. He will admit no types except those which
Glassius had called innate. He defends this

1 T. A. Liebner, Httgo von S. Victor, Leipzig, 1832, quoted by
K. R. Hagenbach, A Ilist. of Christian Doctrine, Eng. tr.,
Edinburgh, 1880-81, ii. 171.

^ ' Pro f undamento tenenda Veritas historiae ' {Summa, i. qu.
cii. art. 1).

TYPOLOGY

503

position with much good sense and learning,
though it is really a confession of weakness and
inability to discover the principles which govern
the practice of the NT writers.

At the beginning of tlie 19th cent, the subject
attracted attention. It was much affected in
circles influenced by the Evangelical Revival.
Typology engaged the eloquence and learning of
the Bampton lecturers in 1814 (Van Mildert) and
1824 (J. J. Conybeare), and of the Hulsean in
1826 (Temple Chevallier), besides giving rise to a
good deal of other literature. But the spread
of scientific criticism and the study of ancient
religions, and before long of comparative religion,
were destined to strike a death-blow to typology
as a recognized branch of hermeneutics.

The religion of the Jews was for a time regarded
as beneath the notice of the student of religion,
and, when it came into its own again, a much
broader view of the relation between the old and
new covenants held the field. Thus De Wette
wrote that the entire OT is a ^reat type of Him
who was to come, and that Christianity lay in
Judaism as leaves and fruit lie in the seed.^
Again, Clausen finds the foundation of the con-
nexion between the 'deeper apprehension and the
immediate sense' in the law of general harmony
by which all individuals, in the natural as well as
in the spiritual world, form one great organic
system.- The impress of the modes of natural
science upon this utterance did not recommend it
to those whose conception of the supernatural and
providential alienated them from the rising natural-
ism, but the effects of modern methods of scientific
study are already apparent in Fairbairn's Typology,
since the publication of which no standard work
on typology has appeared. It survives now princi-
pally in devotional works or in the expositions of
those to whom the results of Biblical criticism are
still unwelcome. Sometimes it is pursued with
dignity and real spiritual value (as in the works of
Andrew Jukes), but sometimes with a distressing
puerility or even ofl'ensiveness. It must be ac-
knowledged that, on the other hand, modern
writers of the critical school have unduly ignored
the importance of typology — an attitude to which
that of Edwin A. Abbott offers a brilliant exception.
In his view the NT, and particularly the Fourth
Gospel, is full of typical suggestions. In this way,
believing the author to record what he took to be
facts, but with a definite spiritual intention, he
reconciles the rejection of the historicity of the
narrative with the retention of its spiritual import.
In a word, he allegorizes the records, while
acknowledging that the author believed tliat
he was recording facts, but facts with a typical
significance.

This view is of importance in two respects.
First, it reminds us of the fact that the symbolic
significance of things and words held a far greater
place in the thought of ancient times than it does
with us, who have learned to form abstract con-
ceptions and to search for exact definitions. E.g.,
the NT writers can speak of the ' blood of Christ '
without explanation, in a manner that perplexes us.
In the second place, it is based on a fundamental
principle of sound interpretation, viz. the endeavour
to discover what the original author of any docu-
ment meant to convey. When we read of
Melchizedek, or the ritual of the Tabernacle, or
of David, it is not enough to ask wliat those
passages may suggest to us ; we must first ask
what they suggested to the original readers. If
tlie principles of truth which they then suggested
be one with the principles more clearly seen m the

J Quoted from an article in J. C. H. Biihr, Symbolik des
MonnUchen C'ulUis, Heidelberg, 1837. i. 16.
- Hertnencutik des NT, Leiprig, 1841, p. 835.

fuller revelation in Ciirist, then the imperfect
revelation may be regarded as typical of the
fuller yet to come, because so mankind was being
prepared for the clearer light. Now, David's
cai-eer is so presented in the OT as to subordinate
the imperfections of his character to those qualities
which suggested the ideal of a perfect Shepherd-
King ; the ritual of the Tabernacle was such as to
awaken a sense of sin which the sacrifices could
never satisfy, and the figure of Melchizedek held
up to men (even if the story be simply legendary)
a dim conception of a Priest-King greater than
Abraham or the priesthood of Aaron's line. Inas-
much as such dimly seen ideals are the result of
God's spirit working in the human spirit, we can
justly speak of a divine intention in these records,
and, without disregarding the human element or
ignoring the original meaning, we see in them the
gradual unfolding of a divine purpose, much as we
can see in the lonely flowering of the first snowdrop
an earnest of the summer glory of the garden.

4. The strength and weakness of typology. —
The passing of typology need not cause alarm.
Just as the discovery of the law of evolution
necessitates a broader sweep of investigation on
the part of those who to-day put forward the
argument from design, but has not invalidated that
argument, so our conception of the oneness of
revelation is to-day based on a broader view of the
OT, but is not therefore the less true or the less
deeply founded. Typology not only bred fanciful-
ness and, what was worse, quarrelsomeness among
the theologians, but it tended to reduce revelation
to the character of a jig-saw puzzle, for, at least
in many interpretations, the types are scattered
haphazard through the OT, and are quite un-
recognizable as such until the antitype is revealed.
Any one who has studied the works of art which
typology has inspired will remember the chaotic
confusion of the typical series as compared with
the order of the antitypical. To-day we recognize
the guiding hand of God in history as the typolo-
gists could not, and so see a deeper and truer con-
tinuity of revelation. But that in its day this
system of expounding the mystical relation be-
tween the OT and the NT had a marked educa-
tional value can be seen from the widely popular
Biblia paupcrum, illuminated MSS of which exist
as early as the 13th cent., and from a development
of it, Spectdum, humance salvationis, of which over
200 M8S survive. The invention of printing made
these works still more widely popular. The same
fact is evidenced by works of art ranging from the
frescoes in the catacombs, through mosaics such as
those in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome ' or San
Marco in Venice, down to the magnificent series of
windows in King's College, Cambridge. Indeed
this connexion of typology with Cln-istian art
suggests the very close association of typology
with ajsthetics. That love of mystery which is
almost universal has in reality an aesthetic aspect ;
for some it is satisfied in the dramatic ritual of the
Mass, and for those who repudiated this conception
of worship it has been satisfied by the exploration
of the mystical sense of the OT, somewhat as the
Qur'an supplied decorative motifs in Moorish art.
This seems likely to give a permanent vitality to
devotional typology, especially since the revival of
popular mysticism. A word of caution may be
ottered. The Idstory of typology shows how easily
devotion may degenerate into fancifulness and un-
profitable exercise of ingenuity. Only the most
chastened of saints and the most self-restrained of
scholars are immune from this danger ; typology
has always flourished in times of ignorance and

1 On these c(. J. P. Richter and A. C. Taylor, The Gulden Age
of Classical Christian Art, London, 1904, a work full of refer-
ences to early typology.

504

UDASIS

decay of learning, but its suggestions are not
•without value and helpfulness if thej'^ are received
gratefully, much as one might derive illuminating
thoughts from the contemplation of a sacred
picture, rather than as revelations possessing
dogmatic authority.

Literature. — In addition to authorities referred to in the
text : E. W. Hengstenberg:, Chrintology of the 07^, Eng. tr.,
4 vols., Edinburgh, 1856-C3 ; F. A. G. Tholuck, Das AlU
Testamentim Netun Testament^, Gotha, 1861 ; Edward Riehm,

Messianic Prophecy"^, tr. L. A. Muirhead, Edinburgh, 1891 ;
R. F. Horton, Revelation and the Bible, London, 1892 ; R. L.
Ottley, Aspects of the OT {BL), do. 1897 ; A. B. Davidson,
Old Testament Prophecy, Edinburgh, 1903, chs. xii.-xiv. ;
C. A. Briggs, General Introduction to the Study of Holy
Scripture, do. 1899.

Typological works.— B,. F. Willis, The Worship of the Old
Covenant, considered more especially in Relation to that of the
New, Oxford, 1880 ; Andrew Jukes, The Types of Genesis^,
London, 1875, The Law of the Offerings in Leviticus i.-vii.^, do.
1854 ; see also Holy Bible, ed. C. I. Scofield, Oxford, 1909.

J. R. Darbyshike.

TJ

UDASIS. — The Udasis are the principal religious
order of the Sikhs (q.v.). Also known as Nanak-
putra, 'sons of Nanak,' the founder of Sikhism,
they are probably the oldest of the Sikh orders,
but ascribe their foundation to Sri Chand, Nanak's
elder son. The term iiddsl is derived from Sanskrit
udds, 'sad,' and means 'sorrow' or 'sadness.'
The Udasis were separated from the active or
militant Sikhs by the third guru of that sect,
Amar Das, but he did not excommunicate them,
as is sometimes stated. This separation is also
ascribed to Arjan, the fifth of the Sikh gurus.
Whoever elfected it, the severance marks the
cleavage in the Sikh sect which definitely ranged
it against the Muslim Mughal power, leaving the
Udasi order still in touch with orthodox Hinduism.
Nevertheless the tenets of the order, deeply
coloured as they are with Hindu asceticism, did
not prevent its finding many followers among the
descendants and disciples of the Sikh guriis. Thus
the sixth guru, Hargovind, is said to have allowed
Sri Chand to adopt Gurditta, his eldest son, into
the order by making him his direct disciple — a
statement not free from chronological difficulties.

The Udasi order was at an early period divided
into four chapters {dhudn, lit. ' fires '). Their
founders were Baba Hasan or Hasna, Phul,
Gonda, and Al-mast — all four said to be disciples
of Gurditta. Of these founders the first bears a
Muhammadan name (Hasan) and the last a purely
Arabic title, al-mast denoting one drunk with
love or devotion. Al-mast Sahib, or ' the holy
ecstatic,' is now represented at Naini Tal and
Jagannath, places far from the Panjab and Sikh-
dom alike. Gonda Sahib is revered at Shikarpur
in Sind, as well as at a shrine near Amritsar in
the Panjab, while the other tAVo possess shrines
in the Panjab hills only. This distribution points
to efforts made by the earlier gtirus to spread
Sikhism, or at least a quietist type of it, over
India generally. The followers of these four
chapters constitute the senior assembly (bard
akhdrd) of the order, its junior, or chhotd akhdrd,
having been founded later by Pheru, a disciple
of Har Rai, the seventh Sikh guru. In theoiy all
Udasis are celibate, but those who are so in
practice are styled Nanga (or 'naked') Udasis.
Sir Edward Maclagan, however, gives a difierent
explanation of the term Nanga.

He describes their usual dress as red in colour, but ' a large
section of them go entirely naked, except for the waistcloth,
and rub ashes over their bodies. These, like the naked sections
of other orders, are known as Nange ; they pay special rever-
ence to the ashes with which they smear their bodies, and
which are said to protect them equally from either extreme of
temperature. Their most binding oath is on a ball of ashes.' i

As smearing the body with ashes symbolizes
also death to mundane things, the Nanga Udasis
are probably strict celibates, and hence the Nange

1 Census of India, 1891, vol. xix., Punjab and Feudatorie^s,
p. 152.

are correctly so described. Another chapter of
the order, sometimes said to be one of the four
dhudn, is called the Bhagat Bhagwan, or ' devoted
to God ' (Bhagwan). Its tradition connects it with
Hinduism, for, it is said, a Sannjasi, by name
Bhagatgir, once visited the shrine [derd] of Baba
Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, when on his way
to Hinglaj, a great place of Hindu pilgrimage in
Baluchistan. Nanak's gi-andson, Dharm Chand,
poured food into Bhagatgir's bowl, but failed to
fill it. The addition, however, of a pinch of
kardh prasad, or sanctified meal, blessed with
the words, Sri wdh guru, 'AH hail to the gurU,'
caused the bowl to be filled forthwith. This
miracle converted Bhagatgir. It was confirmed
when the goddess Hinglaj appeared to him and
his companions as they kept their vigil before
Nanak's shrine and thus fulfilled the object of
their pilgrimage. Bhagatgir and his followers
became disciples of Dharm Chand, assuming the
title of Bhagat Bhagwan. The principal akhdrd,
or meeting-place, of the chapter is at the Bibiksar
tank at Amritsar, but it also has subordinate
akhdrds at Bareli and other places in Hindustan
and claims no fewer than 370 gaddls, or monastic
foundations, in eastern India. The Bhagat Bhag-
wans wear the matted hair (jatta) of the Sannyasi,
with a chain round the waist, and smear their
bodies with ashes. But in their beliefs they accept
Nanak's precepts and follow his rules as to eating
and the like.

Yet another chapter is the Saugat Sahib, which is
admittedly not one of the four dhudn. Guru Har
Rai had a cook, named Pheru, whom he taught,
investing him with a black girdle and cap, and
sending him as a commissary to the southern
Panjab — his native country — and towards the
Indus, with a mission to collect the dues paid by
the Sikhs to the gurus. When Guru Govind
Singh abolished this system and destroyed the
masands, or commissaries, whose oppression had
caused grave discontent, Pheru made no resistance,
though no one dared arrest him, and waited on
the guru. Impressed by his righteousness, the
guril gave him lialf hi?, jjagv^, or turban, in token
that lie was admitted to a share in his guru's
authority, and promised that his following should
prosper. The guru further bestowed on him the
title of Sangat Sahib, 'holy companion,' and sent
him back to the scenes of his former activities,
where he increased the number of his followers.
In or before 1896 the Sangat Sahib, as the chapter
is called, established a peripatetic akhdrd. One
of its most noted disciples, an ascetic named
Santokh Das, worked many miracles. The Sangat
Sahibias, or adherents of the chapter, are numerous
and influential in the south and west of the
Panjab, but, as their traditions show, they are
not completely under the control of the Sikhs or
the regular Udasis. Another tradition assigns

ULTRAMONTANISM

506

the foundation of the chapter to a follower of the
famous Sultan Sakhi Sarwar, who was converted
by Guru Govind Singh, and it undoubtedly com-
prises many who used to aflect the cult of that
saint and perhaps still combine with it their
acceptance of Sikh doctrine. The chapter, how-
ever, possesses the Brahmbhut akhdrd at Amritsar
and an institution at Lahore, so it is distinctly
affiliated to orthodox Sikhism, and in the great
Sikh State of Patiala, where it is called the
Bakhshish Sangat Sahib, it pays special reverence
to the ^di Granth, or original Granth ('Book')
of Baba Nanak, and has an akhdra of its own,
distinct from those of the four dhudn. Lastly
must be mentioned the Ramdas Udasis, a sub-order
ascribed to another Gurditta (who was a grandson
of one of Baba Nanak's converts) and established
by one of the later gurus in a monastery at Kamdas,
where the sub-order possesses a fine temple, at
some distance from Amritsar. Each subdivision
of the Udasis has its own organization for collect-
ing and administering funds. Each is presided
over by a head abbot (srl Tnahant), to whom the
ordinary mahants, or monks, are subordinated.

The Udasis generally are recruited from all
Hindu castes and will take food from any Hindu.
Sometimes, but not invariably, or even usually,
congregated in monasteries, they are generally
found wandering to and from such sacred Sikh
places as Amritsar, Dera Nanak, and Kartarpur
in the Pan jab, but they are also said to be
numerous in the Malwa to the south of it, and at
Benares. The principal seats, however, lie in the
central Panjab and in the District of Rohtak,
where Sikhism is by no means dominant. Their
usages are not uniform. Some wear long hair like
Sikhs, others matted hair like Sannyasis, and
others again cut the hair. Some affect the tilak,
or caste-mark, others avoid it. The dead are
often cremated in the Hindu way, but apparently
are sometimes buried. When a body is burnt, a
samddh, or mausoleum, is erected to some Udasis,
but this privilege must be confined to those of
special sanctity or mahants. While the majority
are ascetics, some frankly engage in secular call-
ings. Maclagan gives the foUoAving iHcture of their
relations with the Panjab villagers :

' In Ludhiana the Udasis are described as mostly Jats by
origin, the chela or disciple and successor being usuallj* chosen
from this tribe, and are found to be in possession of the
dharmsdlds in Hindu villages, where they distribute food to
such as come for it and read the Granths both of Baba Nanak
and of Gurii Gobind Singh, although the.v do not attach much
importance to the latter. The head of the college is called a
niahanl and the disciples ehelds. They live in Sikh as well as
in Hindu villages, and it is probabl.v on this account they do
not quite neglect Gurii Gobind Singh. They rarely marry ; and
if they do so, generally lose all influence, for the dhannsdla
soon becomes a private residence closed to strangers. But in
some few families, such as that of Jaspal Bangar, which keeps a
large langar or almshouse going, it has always been the custom to
marry, the endowments being large enough to support the family
and maintain the institution ; but the eldest son does not in
this case succeed as a matter of course. A chela is chosen by
the mahant, or by the family. If a ynahant whose predecessors
have not married should do so, he would lose all his weight
with the people. The great shrine at Dera Baba Nanak, in the
Gurdaspur District, is in the custody of a community of Udasi
Sadhs, whose mahant used to be appointed with the consent
of the Bedis. Another shrine at the same place known as
Tahli S.ahib, from a large tahli or shisham tree i which grew
close to it, was founfied by Sri Chand, and is also looked after
by mahants of the Udasi order.' 2

Thus the Udasis display all the normal features
of an Indian religious order — a lofty ideal, readily
abandoned in practice, professed adherence to a
reformed faith, tempered by judicious compromise
with the established system, and the inevitable
evolution from an ascetic celibate order into a
hereditary caste. In tiie last phase of the Sikh
regime the Nanakputras had sunk to employment

1 Dalbergia sissoo.

2 Census of India, 1S91, xlx., Punjab and Feudatories,
p. 153.

as escorts to caravans, their sacred character as
' sons of Nanak ' ensuring them against attack.

LiTBRATURB. — E. D. Maclagau, Cenxus of India, 1891,
xix. and sxi., Punjab and Feudatories, Calcutta, 1892.

H. A. Rose.
UDYANA.— See Swat.

UGRA, UGRIAN OSTIAKS.— See Ostyaks.

UGRO-FINNS.— See Finno-Ugrians.

OKHA^S.— See Rukha^is.

ULTRAMONTANISM. — Ultramontanism is
the term applied, often in a hostile or critical
spirit, to the tendency to centralize in the papacy
the doctrinal teaching and government of the
Catholic Church. More vaguely still it is applied
in general to extreme Roman Catholicism, to the
tendency to emphasize all that separates Catholics
from other Christians or from other men. Often
enough it is used, quite inappropriately, as a mere
nickname for ordinary Catliolics who are conscious
of their obligations as members of a universal
Church. Thus the Catholic parties in the German
and Belgian Parliaments have been called Ultra-
montane, though they would certainly not admit
that they take their politics from Rome.

Historically the word ' ultramontanus ' was in
occasional use in Central Europe from the 11th
cent, onwards in a merely geographical sense, just
as ' citra-montanus ' was used in Italy, to describe
a man who lived south of the Alps. It does not
seem to have been commonly used with any theo-
logical significance till the 17th cent., when it was
applied to those who opposed the prevailing
Galilean tendencies in France. The counter-re-
formation in general, and especially the pontificate
of Sixtus V. at the close of the previous century,
had done much to organize the central administra-
tion of the Church, while, on the other hand, the
growng power and self-consciousness of the French
monarchy tended to insist upon, and to express
more definitely as principles, Galilean practices
which might be traced back to the 13th century.
It is in opposition to Gallicanism {q.v.) that Ultra-
montanism has its most definite meaning, and
Fenelon, the Jesuits, and others who opposed the
ecclesiastical policy of Louis xiv. and the Four
Articles of 1682, were, in a sense, the first Ultra-
montanes. In the ISth cent., when the influence
of religion was at its lowest, Galilean ]>rincijiles
kept a strong hold on the French Church, but they
found their most complete expression in the writ-
ings of the German Febronius and in the policy of
Joseph II. The Ultramontanism wiiich opposed
Gallicanism and Josephism was little more than
the assertion of the uni\ersal character of the
Church, which both these sj'stems tended to
obscure, and an ettbrt, far from successful till the
19th cent., to assert the right of the Church to live
her own religious life without the constant inter-
ference of the State.

Formal Gallicanism, with its Four Articles, may
be said to have been destroyed in France by the
Revolution. The fall of the nncien regime liber-
ated the Church ; numbers of the moi-e Galilean
clergy were discredited by joining the Constitu-
tional Church ; and Catholicism was purified and
revivified by suffering and persecution. No more
striking manifestation of papal power had yet been
seen than the act which, in accordance with the Con-
cordat, practically deprived thirty-seven bishops
of their sees. The Concordat was thus an Ultra-
montane act, and, though Napoleon added to it the
Galilean articles organiques and, when he quarrelled
with the pope, tried to make the Four Articles the
law of the State, nothing could restore the old pre-

506

ULTRAMONTANISM

Revolution Galilean system. The spirit, however,
survived and inspired both the statesmen of the
restored monarchy and many of the more old-
fashioned clergy, yet the Restoration was also the
period in whicli the Ultramontane movement of
the 19th cent, received its most poAverful expression
in the writings of Joseph de Maistre, de Bonald,
and Lamennais. These men realized that the
Revolution had destroyed the old foundations on
which men had rested their habits of thought and
action, and that a fresh start had to be made. De
Maistre knew that the revolutionary spirit was
still abroad, stronger perhaps than ever, and his
Dii Pape (1819) is an appeal as much to practical
utility as to principle. It is only the Christian
Church which has in it the strength to overcome
* the Revolution ' ; and without an infallible papacy
the Church is, like the States-General, reducing
the monarchy to a shadow and therefore slipping
back into revolution. He was disappointed with
the immediate etiect of his book, but his rigid,
authoritative mind had great influence on the
Ultramontanes of the middle of the century. A
man of far greater intellectual power than de
Maistre, the Vicomte de Bonald emphasized the
weakness of the individual man in finding out for
himself the essential principles of tliought and
conduct. What a contrast between the disagree-
ment of philosophers and the agreement of practical
men about practical matters ! The individual
reason rightly, therefore, falls back for support on
the convictions of society and on tradition. This
' traditionalism ' Lamennais combined with the
Ultramontanism of Joseph de Maistre. Lamen-
nais's passionate temper always made him push
a thing to its extreme limit, and he turned de
Bonald's trust in tradition into a universal test of
truth. The voice of the pope was for him the ex-
pression of this 'universal consent.' In his first
stage he combined legitimacy with Ultramontan-
ism ; in his second he appealed to the people and
tried to make democracy the exclusive ally of the
Church. The Avenir, which Lamennais and his
friends edited in 1831, was probably the most
brilliant expression of the earlier stage of 19th
cent. Ultramontanism. The enemy which the
Avenir fought was the Galilean tradition of State
control over the Church which had been reinforced
by the revolutionary doctrines of State-absolutism.
The aim was liberty — liberty of conscience, of
association, of education, of the press. Devotion
to Rome was the great instrument of liberty, for
the papacy represented the universal aspect of the
Church and was independent of the ditterent
governments. It provided also an element of
fervour and historic sentiment at a time when
Europe, under the influence of the Romantic move-
ment, was casting off" the 18th cent, and all its
works and recapturing the power of religious
enthusiasm. The exclusive form in which Lamen-
nais's ideas were expressed ultimately set Rome
itself against him, but the movement continued
under wiser men, Lacordaire, Montalembert, de
Ravignan, and others. They succeeded in all but
destroying the old Galilean spirit and in putting a
new life into the French Church. In the Revolu-
tion of 1848 the Church, which had been so un-
popular in 1830, exercised a powerful influence.

The defeat of Gallicanism, however, brought out
a division in the Ulti'amontane ranks which the
struggle had concealed. The Falloux Law, which
was passed under the Second Republic and which
"broke down the old State monopoly of education,
led to the first open breach. On one side Monta-
lembert, Falloux, and Dupanloup were prepared
to make concessions to the State in order to secure
an invaluable piece of legislation, and because
tliey shared in Mie ideas of their time so far as

these were not definitely opposed to Catholic
principle. On the other side were a number of
Catholics whose policy became characteristically
identified with a newspaper, the party of the
Univcrs. Louis Veuillot, the editor of the paper,
may without much exaggeration be called the
leader of the party ; he was certainly its noisiest
and most popular mouthpiece. The aim of this
school went much farther than merely to acquire
for the Church the control of her own religious
life. They wished to secure for her the pre-
dominance which in an ideal woi'ld the spiritual
would have over the temporal, and which in fact
the Church did partly enjoy in the Middle Ages.
Such an aim was incompatible with the ideas and
practices prevailing among a people who were far
from being mediajval in faith, but Veuillot and
his party were prepared to fight for it by bitter
antagonism to free-thinkers, by opposition often
bitter enough to those, even should they be bishops,
whom they considered lukewarm Catholics, and
by making the most of the support of the State, if
it should happen to be on their side, even when
that State was the autocratic Second Empire.
The archbishop of Paris himself, Sibour, brought
out the difference between the two schools in a
letter to Montalembert (1853) :

' When twenty-five years ago,' he said in substance, ' we
boldly professed ourselves " Ultramontanes," the Ultramontane
school was then a school of liberty. We defended the inde-
pendence of the spiritual power against the encroachments of
the temporal power, but we respected the Constitutions of the
Church and of the State. The l^ope was not the whole Church
nor the Emperor the whole State. On the one side there were
bishops and councils with a real authority, on the other aristo-
cratic and democratic elements with their rights. No doubt
there are times of crisis when both the Pope and the civil
government may override all rules. The old Ultramontanes
admitted this, but they did not turn the exception into a rule.
The new Ultramontanes have pushed everything to extremes
and accepting to the full the idea of power they have argued
extravagantly against all liberties whether in Church or State.' i

Another French bishop could write that the
fanaticism of the Univers had done more harm to
religion than that of Voltaire. It is indeed difficult
at first to understand Veuillot's popularity among
French Catholics. He seems the most perfect
representative of that ' insolent and aggressive
faction' which never tired of calumniating their
brethren in the faith and of trying to force their
private opinions on the Church. For men not of
the faith, whom he considered its enemies, for
free-thinkers, for ' the race of Cain,' he had no
pity. He had never any hesitation in distinguish-
ing between the wheat and the tares. Yet the
Univers was read in nearly every cure in France,
and Veuillot appealed far more than Montalembert
to most French Catholics. To begin with, he was
intensely democratic. Himself a man of the
people, he was always thinking of the people. It
was his passionate desire to protect the simple
from the aggressive irreligion of the bourgeois free-
thinker, while his fondness for the extreme point
of view in controversy, his scorn of moderate
opinions, and his intolerable abuse of the military
metaphor in matters of religion were more in
sympathy with French character than the con-
stitutionalism of the Montalembert school.

It must be added that the extreme character of
P'reneh Ultramontanism under the Second Empire
is partly to be accounted for by the reactionary
policy adopted by Pius IX. when he returned from
the exile to which he had been driven in spite of
his liberal reforms. To the world at large the
most complete expression of this reactionary policy
was the Syllabus of 1864. More sympathy would
be felt now than in optimistic mid- Victorian days
for a document which declared that the world had
gone astray by the neglect of God and of Catholic
l)rineiples. At the time, however, wliat appeared
1 Cf. Lecanuet, Montalembert, iii. 104.

ULTRAMONTANISM

507

to be a declaration of war against ' modern civiliza-
tion ' was taken as an official conlirmation of all
the excesses of the Univers.

* Ultraraontauism ' is a word much used in
German politics and religious controversy of this
period, but so heavy was the hand of the Erastian
State in the first half of the 19th cent, that the
word meant no more than the natural claim of
German Catholics to manage their own spiritual
affairs. Josephism survived longer in Germany
than Gallicanism in France, and it was reinforced
first by the current German philosophy of State-
absolutism and later by the growth of conscious
German nationalism. There was an important
Catholic revival in the twenties and thirties,
closely connected with the Romantic movement,
but it had little effect on religious politics. The
first struggle for liberty and the first victory
occurred not in any of the Catholic states but in
Protestant Prussia. The imprisonment in 1837 of
the aged ai'chbishop of Cologne and the support
given him by Pope Gregory XVI. led to a popular
movement in his favour and a general protest
against the action of the Government. When
Frederick William IV. eame to the throne in 1840,
he inaugurated a new policy and Prussia, by the
freedom which she allowed the Catholics, became a
model for other German states. The Revolution
of 1848 extended this liberty to different parts of the
country, but it was followed by a reaction, especi-
ally in S.W. Germany. Two schools began to be
distinguishable in the fifties. One was that of
Mainz, led by Bishop Ketteler, with the Katholik
as its organ, devoted mainly to practical work and
social problems, but in close union with Rome
and therefore soon to be called Ultramontane.
Closely connected with it was the more learned
group of Wiirzburg, where Denzinger, Hettinger,
and Hergenrother were teaching. The rival school
was that of Mimich in alliance with the Bavarian
Government and the University. Its leading
spirit was Dollinger, and it was interested mainly
in the philosophical and historical aspects of
theology and was very jealous of any Roman
interference with German science. The education
of the clergy came to be a subject of much contro-
versy, for in Germany seminary and university
training had long gone on side by side. A number
of the bishops distrusted the theological teaching and
the atmosphere of the universities, while Dollinger
and the Munich school suspected intensely the
training given by the Jesuits in the German
College in Rome, were contemptuous of Roman
theology , fought against the revival of Scholasticism ,
and dreaded the spread of Jesuit influence in and
through the German seminaries. In time they
came to see in the power of tiie State a means of
checking this ' Romanization,' and Dollinger, who
had fought for the Church against Josephism and
been called an Ultramontane in 1848, now began
to appeal to the State against Ultramontanism.
Yet among the German Ultramontanes there was
little of the extravagance of the Univers. No
doubt, as controversy grew more bitter, there were
violent language and personal attack on both
sides, and the air had to be cleared in Germany,
as elsewhere, by the Vatican Council.

In Italy the more extreme Ultramontanism was
represented by the OiviltCi Cattolica, a review
published in Rome under the editorship of Carlo
Curci and a small number of Jesuits who were
a curiously independent body and often quite out
of sympathy with their more moderate brethren
across the Alps and even in Italy. The Civiltd
was notorious for its support of tlie Univers, for
its extreme papal doctrines, and for its personal
attacks on more liberal though equally devoted
Catholics.

There was an echo of these continental battles
even in England in the controversy which was
aroused by the reviews edited by Acton and his
friends, first the Rambler and then the Hume and
Foreign lieview. These reflected, though in a more
moderate form, the views of Dollinger and the
Munich school. On the other side the lead was
taken by William George Ward and the Dublin
Review. Neither side disputed the authority of
strict definitions of dogma ; but the controversy
turned on the amount of respect due to the general
guidance of Rome. Acton claimed absolute liberty
outside dogmatic definitions, while Ward looked
to the papacy for positive direction. A loyal
Catholic, he maintained, should accept not only
the defined teaching but the ' doctrinal intima-
tions' of Rome.^

Underneath these controversies of the sixties
we seem to see two tendencies at work. The more
liberal Catholics wished, in various degrees, to
keep in touch with the times, to make the best of
the learning, the thought, the science, the political
conceptions of the age. With some this might
and did lead to a real contempt for traditional
Catholic practices and methods. The Ultramon-
tanes, on the other hand, felt the danger which
lay in excessive sympathy with the ' spirit of the
age.'

'The " Rambler "... appeared to Mr. Ward to worship the
modern ideal, both in ethics and in politics, with an unreserve
which was quite inconsistent logically with the principles of
Christianitj'.' ^

Ward had nohopein the movement led by Dollinger.
To him contemporary thought was moving away
from Christianity, and the one essential thing was
to react against it, to preserve the purity of the
faith and of Catholic ideals. Push this point of
view farther, much farther than Ward ever pushed
it, and you come to Veuillot's extravagances with
his conflict between the ' race of Abel ' and the
'race of Cain.' Now the papacy under Pius ix.
undoubtedly took the Ultramontane side, and the
liberals found themselves more or less in opposition
to the tendencies prevailing in Rome, while the
Ultramontanes were anxious to make these ten-
dencies prevail everywhere and, in opposition to
the nationalism of the day and the attacks on the
temporal power, to magnify the authority of Rome
in the government and teaching of the Church,
Veuillot, e.g., looked forward to the time when
papal bulls would take the place of all conciliar
deliberation. Thus it is that the question of the
doctrinal authority of the pope was raised and
that the Syllabus led to the Vatican decree of
infallibility. Yet there is a certain unreality
about the controversies which raged round the
Council in 1869 and 1870, for the number of those
who actually disbelieved in papal infallibility was
small indeed. The papal Definition of the Im-
maculate Conception in 1854 had been accepted
universally. What most of the opposition feared
was the added governmental authority which they
conceived the decree would give to the pope, the in-
crease which it would produce in all those centraliz-
ing and autocratic tendencies which they dreaded,

' I am much more concerned,' said Montalembert, 'about the
government of the Church than about the definition of Papal
InfaUibility.'*

It is obvious too that the opposition of Dupanloup
and the ' Inopportunists ' was due to the fear that
the Definition would lead to conflict with the State
and would emphasize the diflerences between the
Church and modern society. The language of the
more extreme Ultramontanes in speaking of the
pope as ' inspired,' or in such mad phrases as
' when the Pope thinks, it is God who meditates

1 W. Ward, W. G. Ward ami the Catholic Revival, p. 146.
a lb. p. 139. 3 Lecanuet, iii. 4.5C,

508

'UMAR AL-KHAYYAM

in him,' must have contributed not a little to make
the ' liberals ' fear that the Definition might mean
the triumph in the Chui'ch of the more extreme
faction.

The Definition came, after months of discussion,
in a form more moderate than even such Ultramon-
tanes as Ward had originally expected. It had
the effect of making a clearer distinction between
the doctrinal and the administrative functions of
the papacy. It is no longer possible for an Ultra-
montane to claim that every utterance of the pope
on matters of faith is protected by God from error.
Papal infallibility is defined and in so far limited,
and the conditions laid down in the Definition have
seldom, if ever, been satisfied by the papal doctrinal
pronouncements of the last forty years.

Ultramontanism became, therefore, a vaguer
term after 1870. The party of the Univers con-
tinued, indeed, to exist and to carry on its contro-
versial methods in support of the temporal power
of the pope or of the royalist movement in France.
It saw in a political coup d'Uat the only defence
against the attack which from 1879 onwards the Re-
publican party directed against Catholic education,
the religious orders, and other forms of Catholic
life. Louis Veuillot died in 1883, but the Univers
remained the most popular of Catholic newspapers
until its place was partly taken by Paul de Cas-
sagnac's Bonapartist L'Autorite. It seems absurd,
however, to call this party Ultramontane, seeing
that at least during the pontificate of Leo xiii. its
aims were opposed to those of the papacj. The
pope was anxious to reconcile the Catholics with
their governments both in France and in Germany.
In Germany he succeeded in bringing the Kultur-
kampf to a close, though at the cost of putting
pressure in 1886 on the so-called Ultramontanes of
the Centre party, in order to secure their support
for Bismarck's seven years' army estimates, whilst
in France his policy of urging the French Catholics
to accept the Republic met with much opposition
from the royalists.

In a sense, however, the term ' Ultramontanism '
may be rightly applied to the administrative
centralization which is a mark of papal policy since
the middle of last century. The enthusiasm felt
so widely among Catholics for Pius IX., the great
prestige of Leo Xlll., a conscious reaction against
disruptive national movements, the mere improve-
ment in the means of communication — these are
some of the causes which explain such a central-
ization. It was a particular feature of the ponti-
ficate of Pius X. and of the measures which he
took against ' Modernism.' It has certainly helped
to protect the unity and the tradition of the Church
in the midst of growing hostility or at least in-
differentism, and often enough Rome has proved
more broad-minded than the local ecclesiastics.
Thus two of the greatest bishops of the second
half of the century, Ketteler and Manning, were
appointed by the direct action of the papacy.
Many Catholics would, however, Avelcome a reaction
in the direction of the constitutional traditions of
the Church, especially in such matters as the
election of bishops and their synodal meetings.

LiTBRATURK.— It IS difficult to give a bibliography on so
general a subject. For the Gallican controversj' see art.
Gallicanism ; for 19th cent. Ultramontanism, F. Nielsen,
History of the Papacy in the XlXth Century, Eng. tr., 2 vols.,
London, 1906. An excellent study of the question is to be found
in Wilfrid Ward, William Geor<je Ward and the Catholic
Revival, do. 1893 ; E. Lecanuet, Montalembert d'apres son
journal et sa correspondance , 3 vols., Paris, 1895-1902, contains
the best account of the controversy with Veuillot. For a
defence of Veuillot on general grounds cf. Jules Lemaitre, Les
Ccmtemporains, do. 1888-98, vi. For the Catholic controversies
in Germany cf. G. Goyau, L'Allemagne religieuse : le Catholi-
cisriu, 4 vols., do. 1905-09. For the Vatican Council see art.
Councils (Christian : Modern) ; for the measures taken by Pius
,\. against the Modernists see art. Modrrnism.

F. F. Urquhart.

"UMAR AL-KHAYYAM.— Although much has
been written by European biographers concerning
the celebrated astronomer and poet of Nishapur,
'Umar ibn Ibrahim al-Khayyam or al-Khayyami,
generally known in Persia as 'Umar Khayyam,
the greater part consists of legends derived from
late and untrustworthy sources, while the facts of
his life and character remain singularly obscure,
notwithstanding that since 1897 one contemporary
and several early notices have become available.
Khayyam or Khayyami is a family name, and
does not indicate that either "Umar or his father
was a tent-maker by trade. The dates of his birth
and death are uncertain. Probably he was born
between A.D. 1025 and 1050, and the evidence of
his contemporary, Ni?ami 'Arudi, shows that his
death took place after 1115 and some years before
1135, and that he was buried at Nishapur in the
^Jira cemetery ;i the date A.D. 1123 given by some
authorities may well be correct. On chronological
grounds alone, the story of his friendship at
Nishapur with two school-fellows who afterwards
rose to eminence — Ni?amu'l-Mulk, the great vizier
of the Seljtiq sultans Alp Arslan and Malikshah,
and ^Jasan al-Sabbah, chief of the so-called
' Assassins ' — is extremely improbable ; and,
though it occurs in the history of the Mongols by
Rashidu'ddin (t A.D. 1318), it must be regarded as
a fiction. 2 'Umar received the education of a
scholar, including literature, natural science, theo-
logy, philosophy, and medicine. We possess two
treatises on algebra and geometry from his pen ; '"^
of seven other works on scientific and metaphysical
subjects only the titles have been preserved.*
Adopting astronomy as a profession, he was chosen
in A.D. 1074 to take part in, and apparently to
preside over, a commission of astronomers ap-
pointed by Ni?amu '1-Mulk and Sultan Malikshah
for the purpose of reforming the calendar.^ Their
labours resulted in the institution of the Jalali era,
named after the honorary title (Jalalu'ddin) of
Sultan Malikshah, and in the publication of the
astronomical tables known as Zlj-i Malikshdhi,
which were edited by 'Umar Khayyam." Like
most mediaeval astronomers, 'Umar practised
astrology, and two of his predictions are recorded
by Ni?aml 'Arudi,'' who ob.serves that 'Umar had
no great belief in such prognostications. During
the period of disturbance folloM'ing the death of
Malikshah (A.D. 1092) he .seems to have left
Nishapur. He was at Balkh in A.D. 1112-13, and
at Merv two years later.* Possibly it was at this
time that he made the pilgrimage to Mecca, ' not
from piety but from motives of prudence, and,
when he reached Baghdad on his homeward
journey, refused to meet the learned scientists of
that city who were eager to become acquainted
with him.' 3

Besides a few Arabic poems, 'Umar wrote a
number of Persian quatrains (rubaiyydt). That
he was regarded as a writer of occasional verse
rather than as a poet appears from the fact that
his name is not mentioned at all in the oldest
extant work containing biographies of Persian
poets, the Lubabu'l-Albab of 'Aufi (c. A.D. 1220),

1 Chahdr Maqdla, tr. E. G. Browne in JRAS, 1899, p. 806 f.

2 E. G. Browne, ' Yet more Light on 'Umar-i Khayyam,' in
JRAS, 1899, p. 409 ff., Literary History of Persia, ii. 190 ff.

3 F. Woepcke, L'Algelyre d'Omar Alkhuyydmi, Paris, 1851,
Catalogue of the Oriental MSS in the Leyden Univ. Library,
Leyden, 1851-73, iii. 40.

4 E. D. Ross, 'The Life and Times of 'Umar Khayydm,' biog.
introd. in Methuen's ed. of Edward Fitzgerald's version of the
Rtiba'iyyat, with a commentary by H. M. Batson, London,
1900, p. 73 ff.

6 Ibnu'l-Athlr, Kami7, ed. C. J. Tornberg,Leyden, 1868-74, x. 67.

6 Hajji Khalifa, Lexicon Bibliographicum, ed. G. Fliigel,
London, 1835-5S, iii. 570.

7 JRAS, 1899, p. 806 ff. 8 lb, p. 806 f.

9 Ibnu'l-Qifti, Ta'rxkhv. 'l-Hukamd', ed. J. Lippert, Leipzig,
1903, p. 244.

UNCTION (Christian)

609

and only incidentally by Daulatshah (end of the
15th cent.); moreover, the author of the Chahdr
Maqala, Avho treats of poetry and astrology in
separate sections, places 'U mar among the astrolo-
gers and makes no reference to his poems. The
most ancient MS, preserved in the Bodleian
Library and dated A.D. 1461, contains 158 rubd'ls ;
a facsimile of this text has been published by E.
Heron- Allen. ^ In later MSS and editions the
number of quatrains is very much larger. The
question as to their authenticity was first raised
in 1897, when Valentin Schukovski published in
Russian in al-Muz(iffariy6 (a Festschrift in honoitr
of Baron Victor Rosen) his famous article entitled
''Uraar Khayydm and the "Wandering"
Quatrains.'^ Here Schukovski shows that 82
quatrains ascribed to 'Umar are to be found in the
works of other Persian poets. Since the publica-
tion of his article the number of ' wandering
quatrains' has risen to 101, representing 46 difier-
ent poets* — a total which would be enormously
increased if the entire field of Persian poetry were
explored in a systematic manner, and if account
were taken of anonj'^mous quatrains, either written
as variations on those which already formed part
of the collection or added to it for no better reason
than that, 'Umar being specially and pre-eminently
a quatrain-writer, it was natural to ascribe to him
any favourite rubd'l of which the authorship Avas
unknown. Even in the oldest and presumably
least adulterated MS the proportion of * wandering
quatrains ' already discovered and assigned to their
proper authors is about 12 per cent. Of the re-
mainder many are likely to be genuine, but we
have no means of identifying the original " Umarian
nucleus or determining its size. The whole collec-
tion must be vieAved, not as the work of an indi-
vidual, but as an anthology reflecting various
aspects of Persian spiritual and intellectual life
and covering a period of six centuries.

It follows that the character of 'Umar Khayyam
cannot be read in the RubaHyydt attributed to
him, which give expression to diverse and often
radically inconsistent modes of thought. Two
notices, however, cited by Schukovski from writers
of the 13th cent, throw some light on the matter.*
The first, by Ibnu'l-Qifti (see reference above),
describes ' Umar as a man who tried to conceal his
want of religion and shrank from uttering his real
opinions. Concerning his poetry, Ibnu'l-Qifti re-
marks that it is widely circulated and reveals
an irreligious spirit to those who look below the
surface, although its literal sense is sometimes in
accord with the teaching of the Sufis.* He then
quotes four Arabic verses, of Avhich the following
is a translation :
'II my soul is content with a livelihood sufficient for my
needs, which is gained by the labour of my hands and arms,

I am safe from all changes and accidents, and care not
whether Time threatens me or flatters my hopes.

Have not the revolving heavens determined to reduce all
happiness to misfortune ?

Therefore, O my soul, abide patiently in thy sleeping-place :
its towers wiU not topple down until its foundations have
collapsed.'

Najmu'ddin Daya (t A.D. 1256), author of a
mystical treatise entitled Mirsddu'l- Ibdd, reckons
"Umar among those unhappy philosophers and
materialists who have gone astray from the truth,
and quotes two sceptical quatrains ^ as evidence of
his 'utter shamelessness and corruption.' This
passage is important because it shows that an
ardent Sufi of the 13th cent, looked upon 'Umar

1 London, 1S98.

2 A full abstract by E. D. Ross appeared in JRAS, 1898, p.
349 ff.

3 A. Christensen, Recherches sur les Rubd'iydt de 'Omar
Bayydm, Heidelberg, 1905, p. 30.

< JRAS, 1898, pp. 354 flf., 361 ff. ' See art. ScrTs.

6 Nos. 126 and 508 in The QMatraim of Oinar Khayydm, ed.
and tr. E. H. Whinfield, London, 1902.

as an enemy to mysticism ; and, inasmuch as the
rubd'ls quoted are probably authentic, we cannot
but agree with his judgment so far. The charge
of materialism, when brought by Sufis and theo-
logians against scientists and philosophers, carries
no weight: 'Umar is as unlikely to have been a
materialist as he is likely to have been a free-
thinker and pessimist. It should be noted,
further, that the name Khayyam occurs in twelve
quatrains, and constitutes at least a presumption
in favour of their authenticity, and that these,
together with the two quoted by Najmu'ddin
Daya, exhibit the principal elements of the
Rubd'iyydt, viz. hedonism, philosophical contempt
for the profanum vulgus, attacks on the orthodox,
lamentations for the cruelty of fate, meditations
on the incompatibility of a supreme intelligence
with the sufferings of life and on the nothingness
of man, hope of divine mercy, and a certain moral-
ity which recognizes the duty of doing good to
others. ' But the Sufi mysticism seems to be
excluded, although the poet often makes use of
Siifistic terms.' 1

LiTERATDRE. — Besides the literature given in the footnotes:
E. G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, London, 1906, ii.
246-259 ; R. A. Nicholson, Introd. to the ed. of Fitzgerald's
version of the Rubd'iyydt, do. 1909 ; J. B. Nicolas, Les
Quatrains de Khtyain, Persian text and French tr., Paris, 1867.

Reynold A. Nicholson.
UNCLEAN.— See Holiness, Tabu.

UNCTION (Christian). — As a religious rite, and
apart from social usages, unction was taken by
the Christian Church immediately from the Jews,
though for some purposes it was borrowed by the
Jews from other nations. In the OT unction was
used in the 'consecration' of priests, kings,
prophets, and places.*

I. In connexion with the complete rite of
baptism. — This use of unction was almost universal
from very early times up to the Reformation.

(a) The New Testament. — It is disputed whether
the apostles used unction in the rite of Christian
initiation. In 2 Co P"-, 1 Jn 2^<^- ^, all Christians
are said to have been anointed. This is un-
doubtedly metaphorical, but it perhaps points to
the actual use of oil in the apostolic age before or
after baptism, at least in some places ; as it was
then certainly in use for other purposes,* the
metaphor would in that case be more apposite.
On the other hand, in Acts, where two accounts
are given,* 'in which in addition to the baptism
proper the laying on of hands is described, unction
is not mentioned. Tertullian certainly thought
that the apostles used it in connexion with baptism,
for he traces it back to the 'primitive discipline'
of the OT.^ It is possible that it was used in the
apostolic age in some places, but not in others,
and it is noticeable that laying on of hands and
anointing are not for this purpose joined together
in the NT, though they were both there used for
other purposes.^ Or it is possible that the custom
of anointing at baptism arose in sub-apostolic
times, being due to a literal interpretation of the
NT metaphor.'

(b) The subsequent ages. — After NT times or at
least from the middle of the 2nd cent, onwards
unction was used, sometimes preceding, sometimes
following, immersion, or both before and after.
But it is necessary to note that, originally and for
many centuries, immersion and its complement,
which in the West from the 5th cent, onwards has
been known as 'confirmation,' were as a normal

1 Christensen, p. 35 f.
3 See § 2 below.
B De Bapt. 7.

6 Cf. Mk 523 65- 13 732 823. 25, Ac 288 etc.

7 See, on the one side, F. H. Chase, Confirmation in the
Apostolic Age, London, 1909, p. 69 ; on the other, H. J. Lawlor,
art. Confirmation, vol. iv. p. 2».

" See §§ 4, 5, 6 below.
4 Ac Si'iff- 192ff-.

510

UNCTION (Christian)

rule a single rite ; and it is immaterial to consider
whether any particular anointing belongs to the
one part or to the other.

We get no light on the subject in the scanty
literature of the first three quarters of the 2nd
cent. ; but it is to be remarked that unction is not
mentioned in the Didache, though it gives the
words of baptizing into the threefold Name.^
Towards the end of the century Tertullian tells us
that unction was administered after the immersion,
as a long-standing custom ; " Irenaeus says that
the Gnostic Marcosians used it in the parody of
Christian baptism ; ^ and early in the 3rd cent.
Hippolytus says that the Naassenes (or Ophites)
used it.* Theophilus of Antioch also mentions
unction as being the reason of the name ' Christ-
ian,'^ and thus implies his belief that the custom
was apostolic.

IrenaBus and Hippolytus, in the works mentioned, do not
actually aay that the Catholics used unction, though we may
infer this from the fact that the Gnostics were clearly copyists
in their baptismal rites ; but the matter is now set at rest by
the fact that the ' eo-called Egyptian Church Order ' in all its
versions has unction, in this case before as well as after
immersion (though the fragmentary Latin version, which
appears to be the oldest, is wanting in the description of the
rite before immersion). R. H. Connolly has shown that this
Church Order, at least in the main, dates back to Hippolytus
himself.8

Later in the 3rd cent, the custom of anointing
at baptism is attested by Cyprian '' and Origen ; *
but it was not used by the Novatians.* There are
frequent references to unction in connexion with
baptism in the Church Orders and in the Fathers
from the 4th cent, onwards ; there was usually an
anointing before immersion and either one or two
anointings after : if two, then the presbyter ad-
ministered the former, the bishop the latter. But
a peculiar custom prevailed in the early Syrian
Cliurch. There we Hnd only one anointing, and
that before immersion, so that in this Church the
'confirmation' took place before the rite at the
font, instead of after it, as everywhere else and as
in the NT.

The evidence for this custom is now full and complete ; lo it
continued till the 6th or 6th century. Probably Severus
(patriarch of Antioch, a.d. 512-519) introduced the post-
baptismal unction among the West Syrians (Monophj'sites), and
the catholicos Ishii'yahbh in. (a.d. 647-658) among the Ease
Syrians (Nestorians). The only known exception is in a com-
mentary ascribed to Ephraim,ii where an unction after im-
mersion is mentioned. But this work is probably not Ephraim's.
These commentaries are a catena of notes on the OT, many by
Jacob of Edessa, some headed ' Of Ephraim,' though the heading
is often doubtful, and the extracts may be paraphrases rather
than quotations. If at any point they are not in accord with
attested sayings of Ephraim (as is the case, here), we maj' safely
conclude that they are not his.

The ordinary custom, then, from the time of
Hippolytus, was to have an anointing before, and
at least one after, immersion ; in that case ordinary
olive oil was generally used before immersion and
chrism or unguent (fxipov) after, the latter being
oil mixed with balsam, .spices, etc. But there are
several exceptions. In Theodoret'^ 'chrism of

1 § 7 (c. A.D. 120?). The view of J. Armitage Robinson, that
the Didache only represents a piece of false antiquarianism,
and does not give us a true picture of Christian life, is perhaps
not very probable (JThSt xiii. [1912] 339 S. ; and Barnabas,
Hennas, and the Didache [Donnellan Lectures], London, 1920,
Appendix A).

2 De Bapt. 6-8 ; cf. de Res. Cam. 8, adv. Marc. i. 14.

3 Hcer. I. xxi. 3f. ■* Mef. v. 2.
s Ad Autol. i. 12 (c. a.d. 180).

8 The So-called Egyptian Church Order and Derived Docu-
ments (TS viii. 4), Cambridge, 1916.

7 Ep. Ixx. (Ixix.j 2.

8 In Lev. horn. vi. § 5, in Rom. hom. v. § 8 ; but we have
these in the Latin translation only.

9 Theodoret, H(er. Fab. Compe.nd. iii. 5 (5th cent.).

10 For the evidence see art. Confirmation, and R. H. Connolly,
The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai {TS viii. 1), Cambridge,
1909, p. xlii ff.

11 In Joel 22^. Lawlor (loc. cit.) suggests that the word
'midh4 ('baptized') here means * baptizandi." But in view of
Syriac usage this is impossible.

12 In Cant. i. 2.

fxupov ' is used before immersion ; in the Armenian
and East Syrian rites oil is used throughout.

(c) At the effeta. — This was a ceremony in the
West (called in Spain effetatio) which took place
several days before baptism, and was named from
the Aramaic Ephphatha ('Be opened'), the ears
and nose being touched. For this ceremony oil
was originally used, as we see in John the Roman
Deacon's Epistle to Senarius ' and in the works of
Ildephonsus, bishop of Toledo.* Afterwards, as in
the Gclasian Sacramentary * and in later pontificals,
saliva was used instead.

In several authorities, such as Ambrose,* the Bobbio Missal,^
the Stowe Missal,^ Alcuin,'' and Amalarius of Metz,8 neither
saliva nor oil is explicitly mentioned at the effeta itself ; but
in the Gregorian Sacramentary 9 and the Gelasian, and often
elsewhere, the effeta takes place just before the anointing of
shoulders and breast. It' is quite possible that this anointing
may be the unction which takes place just before immersion,
put into an earlier position.

{d) In consecrating the font. — In both East and
West oil or chrism or both were often poured in
the form of a cross into the water at the consecra-
tion of the font. This we find in Ildephonsus '** in
Spain ; at Rome in the Ordo Bomanus Septimus ; "
in Gaul in the Missale Oallicanum Vetus,^^ also in
the Bobbio Missal ^^ and the Missale Gothicum ; "
and in most Western pontificals. It is also common
in the East. It is mentioned in the writer who
poses as Dionysius the Areopagite ; '^ and is found
in the Greek rite of baptism, ^^ and the Armenian,"
the Coptic, West Syrian, Maronite, and (in some
MSS) the East Syrian, is

(e) During the catechunienate. — 'There are a few
traces of an earlier unction than that of the effeta
mentioned above. Augustine, speaking of our
Lord's anointing the blind man with the clay in
Jn 9", says that Jesus ' perhaps made him a cate-
chumen.' i* This may refer to a custom of unction
at the reception of candidates into the catechu-
menate. In Spain Isidore of SevUle speaks of
catechumens being anointed before they became
'competentes,'i.e. accepted candidates for baptism. ^^
The Roman Synod held A.D. 402 speaks of their
being anointed at the third scrutiny.^^ But the
phrase ' oil of catechumens ' usually means the oil
administered just before immersion, as opposed
to the chrism administered after. In the later
Western authorities three oils are distinguished :
(1) 'holy oil,' to sign the 'heathen child 'on the
breast and between the shoulders before im-
mersion ;-* (2) ' holy chrism,' after immersion ; (3)
'sick man's oil.'^

(/) Consecration of the chrism. — In the West the
chrism was ordinarily hallowed by the dioces,an
bishop, in the East by the patriai'ch, on Maundy

1 § 4 (c. A.D. 500).

2 De Cogn. Bapt. i. 27 f. (7th cent.).

3 Ed. H. A. Wilson, Oxford, 1894, p. 114.
* De Myst. i. [3].

6 J. M. Neale and Q. Forbes, Ancient Liturgy of the Gallican
Church, Burntisland, 1855-67, p. 269.

B F. E. Warren, The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church,
Oxford, 1881, p. 210.

7 Ep. xc. (8th cent.).

8 De Eccl. Off. i. 23 (9th cent.).

9 Ed. H. A. Wilson (Henry Bradshaw Soc, xlix.), London,
1915, p. 54.

10 De Cogn. Bapt. 109.

11 § 10 (in J. Mabillon and M. Germain, Museum Italicum,
Paris, 1687-89, ii.).

12 Mabillon and Germain, i. 324.

13 Neale and Forbes, p. 268.

14 Ed. H. M. Bannister (H. Bradshaw Soc, Hi.), London, 1917,
i. 77.

15 De Hier. Eccl. ii. 7 {ix.vpov).

16 P. O. Conybeare, Rituale Armennrum, Oxford, 1905, p. 403.
17/6. p. 95"; H. Denzinger, Ritus Orieiitalium, Wiirzburg,

1863, i. 387, 394.

18 Denzinger, i. 207, 276, 346, 373.

19 In Johan. tract, xliv. § 2.

20 De Eccl. Off. ii. 21. 2i Can. 8.

22 See § I (c) above.

23 ^Ifric, Ep. ii. (c. a.d. 1000), in H. Soames, The Anglo-Saxon
Church^, London, 1844, Suppl. p. 12 f.

UNCTION (Christian)

511

Thursday ; so, in the West, in the Gregorian^ and
Gclasian^ Sacramentaries. Leo the Great implies
that the same custom existed in Egypt in the 5th
century.* Proterius, bisliop of Alexandria, was
murdered on that day, and Leo says that ' the
hallowing of the chrism has failed.' But in the
East Syrian and Malabar rite, where ordinary oil
is used instead of chrism, it is consecrated by the
presbyter at the time of baptism ; ■* a little of the
' holy oil ' said to be descended from St. John is
added." There were elsewhere some exceptions.
At the first Council of Toledo (a.d. 400) permission
was given to consecrate clirism at any tirae.^ In
Gaul it was perhaps consecrated on Palm Sunday.'
Formerly the Armenians sometimes allowed dio-
cesan bishops to consecrate the oil," but this is now
confined to the catholicos.

The rule that bishops alone may hallow the chrism is laid
down in the West at the first Council of Toledo.^ by Pope
Innocent I.,10 at the second n and third 12 Councils of Carthage,
at that of Hippo, 13 by Augustine, i* at the Council of Vaison in
Gaul, 15 and at the second Council of Seville,i'> by Auialarius of
Metz.iv and by Thomas Aquinas ;18 also in E^ypt, early in the
4th cent., by Didymus of Alexandria.19 But in time of perse-
cution in 'Africa' presbyters were allowed to consecrate the
chrism, as John the Deacon tells us. 20 in the West the oil, as
opposed to the chrism, was ordinarily consecrated at the time
of the service by the officiant, whoever he might be.

[g) Meaning of the unction. — Originally the
anointing was considered to be the consecration of
the Christian to the royal priesthood. ^^

So Tertullian compares the baptismal unction to the anoint-
ing of the Aaronic priests. 22 The same idea is found in the 3rd
cent, in the Older Didascalia ;^'^ and (emphatically) in the
derived Apostolic ConstitxitinnsM Jerome, apparently allud-
ing to unction, and using the word 'baptism' in its widest
sense, says that 'the priesthood of the laymen is baptism.' 2S
The idea of consecration to the priesthood is also found in
Augustine, 26 Ambrose, 27 John the Deacon, 28 Isidore of Seville,29
Alcuin,30 and his disciple Rabanus Maurus,3i and became a
commonplace. The consecration was specially connected, by
John the Deacon, Alcuin, and many others, with the anointing
of the head immediately after immersion.

A special significance was attached to the post-
baptismal unction ^^ in places where the laying on
of the hand was dying out, or was less emphasized,
and even in Egypt, where that ceremony was long
retained. The gift of the Spirit, elsewhere associ-
ated with the imposition of the hand, was then
ascribed to the unction.

This is the case with Sarapion of Thmuis in Bgypt,33 Ambrose
(probably),34 and even Pope Innocent 1.35 The North Italian
author of the de Sacramentis says that at the signing (with
chrism) the bishop {sacerdos) invokes the Holy Ghost in His
sevenfold gifts. 36 Even Augustine 37 and Pacian of Barcelona 38
speak in the same sense. In the East, where the imposition of
the hand in confirmation died out early, we should e.vpect
the same thing ; and Cyril of Jerusalem 39 says that the object
of the fiv'poi' 18 to convey the Holy Ghost. Narsai (an East

1 Ed. Wilson, p. 49. 2 Ed. Wilson, p. 69 ff.

3 Ep. clvi. 5.

4 Denzinger, i. 372 ; G. B. Howard, The Christkins of St.
Thomas and their Litunjies, Oxford, 18(U, p. 38.

5 A. J. Maclean and W. H. Browne, The Catholicos of the East
and his People, London, 1892, pp. 247, 209.

6 Can. 20.

7 L. Duchesne, Christian Worship^, Eng. tr., London, 1903,
p. 320.

8 Denzinger, i. 55. » Can. 20.

10 Ep. ad Decent. 3. " Can. 3 (a.d. 387 or 390).

M Can. 36 (a.d. 397). 13 Can. 24 (a.d. 393).

" De Bapt. c. Donat. v. 28. 15 Can. 3 (a.d. 442).
16 Can. 7 (a.d. 619). " De Eccl. Off. i. 27.

18 Summ. Theol. 111. qu. Ixxii. art. 3.

19 De Trill, ii. 15. 20 Ep. ad Senar. 7.
M 1 P 26. 9, Rev 16 510 209. 22 Og Bapt. 7.

23 F. X. Funk, Didascalia et Constitutioties Apostolorum,
Paderborn, 1905, i. 210.
24 iii. 16 (c. a.d. 375). 28 Adv. Lucif. 4.

26 De Civ. Dei, xx. 10. 27 De Myst. vi. [30].

28 Ep. ad Senar. 6. 2s De Eccl. Off. ii. 25.

so Ep. xc.

81 De Inst. Cler. i. 30 (9th cent.).

82 Or, in the early Syrian Church, to the unction before
Immersion.

33 Sacramentary, § 16 (c. a.d. 350).

84 De Myst. vii. [42]. sa jUp, ad Decent.

3« iii. 2 [8] (c. A.D. 400 ?). 37 Senn. 227 (Benedictine cd.).

38 Senn. de bapt. 6 (4th cent.).

39 Cat. xxi. [Myst. iii.] 3 (a.d. 348).

Syrian) apparently calls the unction ' the drug of the Spirit,'
and certainly says that the Spirit is given by it.l

In the developed Eastern rites we sometimes
find the association of the gift of the Spirit with
the chrismation ; explicitly in the Coptic rite in
the prayer at the unction after immersion,* and in
tlie Ethiopic.^ Other Eastern rites are confused
on this point, but, as immersion and confirmation
are never separated in them, they are not particu-
larly careful to ascribe a special significance to
one or other part of the service.

{h) Unction at the j-eception of heretics. — This is
in reality part of the question which we are now
considering. For, as all agreed that the Holy
Spirit could not be given outside the Church, even
in the great controversy between Cyprian and
Pope Stephen as to heretical baptism in the 3rd
cent. , the ceremony used when heretics were con-
verted and admitted to the Church had normally
as its object the reception of the Holy Ghost. It
was the custom in the West and in ' Africa,' and
originally (it seems) in at least some parts of the
East, to receive heretics by the imposition of the
hand. But in places where the latter ceremony
Avas less emphasized they were received by
unction.

This was the case in Didymus of Alexandria,-* at the councils
of Orange on the Rhone 5 and of Epaon in Burgundy,'! and at
the Trullan Council of Constantinople.^ Basil also directs the
reception of heretics by unction,8 and Gregory the Great says
that this was the custom in the East.9 Theodoret says
that the Novatians were anointed on reception, because they
did not use unction in baptism. 10

2. Unction of the sick. — The early history of
this subject has too often been considered, by
writers of all schools of thought, merely from the
point of view of post-Reformation controversies.
It is more profitable to put these, in the first in-
stance, on one side, and to deal with the purely
historical question of the use by the Early Church
of unction for sick people, whatever was the
purpose of such unction. In the opinion of the
present writer, it will be found that the evidence
for unction of the sick is very much the same, as
regards time, as that for unction in connexion
with baptism, the only ditterence being that, while
for the latter the evidence of the 2nd cent, is
stronger than that of the 1st, for the former the
case is reversed, and the evidence for unction of
the sick, which is strong in the apostolic age, is
less so in the age which followed it. It will be
found, it is believed, that the commonly expressed
opinion on this subject will have to be recon-
sidered.'^

[a) The New Testament. — Unction of the sick is
mentioned as having been used during our Lord's
ministry : in Mk 6'^ the Twelve ' anointed with
oil many that were sick, and healed them.' In
the subsequent period it is commended by St.
James ; '^ the sick man is to call for ' the presbyters
of the church,' who are to pray over him, ' having
anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord,'
and this ' praj-er of faith ' is both for bodily heal-
ing and for forgiveness of .sins. "W^e read also of
our Lord anointing with saliva" in performing
cures ; and of the figurative anointing of the eyes
with eye-salve in the Apocalypse.'* The 'oU and
wine ' used by the Good Samaritan had no religious
significance,'^ though they have received a spiritual
interpretation. The passage in St. James is re-
ferred to by Origen'^ and Chrysostom." The

1 Connolly, Lit. Horn, of Narsai, pp. 43, 45.

2 Denzinger, i. 209. 3 n, p. 230.

4 De Trin. ii. 15. 6 Can. 1 (a.d. 441).

« Can. 10 (a.d. 517). 7 Can. 95 (a.d. 692).

8 Ep. canonica prima, clxxxviii. 1 (4th cent.).

9 Ep. xi. 67, ad Quiricum (6th cent).

10 See § I ((*) above. n See § 2 (h) below.

12 Ja Si-T-. 13 Mk 73;* 823, Jn 96- H.

14 3I8. 15 Lk im.

10 In Lev. horn. ii. S 4. 17 De Sacerd. iii. 6 [| 196].

512

UNCTION (Christian)

latter implies that the unction of the sick was still
practised in his day : he is speaking of the power
of the priest to forgive sins.

(6) 2nd and 3rd centuries. — The first known
reference to the unction of the sick after St. James
applies to the reign of the emperor Septimus
Severus (A.D. 193-211), or more probably to a
time before his accession. Tertullian says ^ that
the Christian Proculus Torpacion had once (a^i-
quando) healed ' Severus, the father of Antoninus '
[Caracalla] by anointing. If unction was used for
the healing of a sick heathen, a fortiori it would
be used for Christians. It might be held that this
was a purely medical use of unction. But any
possible doubt on this head has been taken away
by the investigations of R. H. Connolly with
regard to the Egyptian Church Order (already
referred to).^

In the Latin as well as in the Ethiopic version of this Church
Order there is a form given for the blessing of the oil for the
sick, offered apparently by the laity.3 This form we may with
confidence assign, with the g^reat bulk of this work, to
Hippolj'tus of Portus, and therefore we have evidence ot unction
of the sick at Rome early in the 3rd century. The form states
that the unction is for the healing of the body, but nothing is
said of spiritual blessing. This new evidence shows that we
must correct the statement of the committee of the Lambeth
Conference of 1908, that ' there is no clear proof of the use of
unction for the sick in the Christian Church until the fourth
century ' * — a statement which has been frequently repeated.

(c) From the 4th cent, onwards. — In the 4th cent,
we have a series of Church Orders which show
that unction of the sick was a common practice.
In the Testamv?it of Our Lord ' a form is given for
blessing oil and water for healing ; this prayer is
independent of the Hippolytean form, and much
fuller ; it incidentally refers to spiritual benefits.
The oil would be for application, the water for
drinking. The Apostolic Constitutions give a
form ^ for consecrating oil and water by the bishop,
or in his absence by the presbyter ; this refers to
healing, but incidentally also to demons and other
spiritual ills. This form is not found in the
epitome (of the eighth book of Apost. Const.) known
as the Constitutions through Hippolytus.'' In the
Canons of Hippolytits ^ oil for the sick and first-
fruits are blessed ; no form is given, but ' Gloria
Patri' is added. In the Sacramentary of Sara-
pion^ oil and bread and water for the sick are
blessed, doubtless by the bishop, as the book con-
tains only the portions of the services said by him.

The form contains the words ' Let every Satanic energy . . .
depart from . . . these thy servants,' and it has been suggested
that this shows that the oil was consecrated at the time of use.i"
Elsewhere in this work there occurs, after the anaphora, a
' prayer concerning the oils and waters that are offered ' [by the
laity"]. In both these prayers bodily healing is primarily asked
for, then spiritual blessings, and protection against demons
and the like. A form for consecrating oil for the sick is found
also in G. Homer's Statutes of the Apostles.'^^

In the above works the people seem to have
brought the oil (and water and bread) for the sick
to be blessed by the bishop or presbyter, and then
to have applied it themselves, in spite of Ja 5^'*.
At the same time they also brought firstfruits to
be blessed.

We have a good deal of other evidence of the
use of unction for the sick, the earliest referring to
Egypt.

I Ad Seap. 4. 2 See § i (6) above.

s Connolly, So-called Egyp. Church Order, p. 176 ; E. Hauler,
Didascalice apostol. fragmenta Veronensiu Latina, Leipzig,
1900, i. 108.

4 Report, London, 1908, p. 138. For a possible reference to
oil, water, and bread for the sick in Clement of Alexandria
{Excerpta, 82) see F. E. Brightman in JThSt i. [1900] 261.

6 i. 24 f. (c. A.D. 350). e viii. 29 (c. A.D. 875).

7 Given by Funk, ii. 7211.

8 Can. iii. (4th cent. ?) ; ed. H. Achelis, Die Canones Hippolyti
(TCTvl 4), Leipzig, 1891, § 28 f.

9 § 17 (c. A.D. 350).

10 J. Wordsworth, Bishop Sarapimi's Prayer Book, London,
1899, p. 77n.

II London, 1904, pp. 162-178. This is in a long interpolation,
and the dat€ is not certain.

Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis, in his Historia Lausiaca,
describes how the monks of that country in the 4th cent, used
oil for the sick — Benjamin of ]Sritria,i Macarius of Alexandria,^
and John of Lycopolis.3 The first of these monks healed the
sick by touch of the hand or by oil consecrated by himself.
Sozomen also tells us how the monks of Egypt in that century
anointed a paralytic with oil and healed him ; ^ and Rufinus
makes a similar statement.5 On the other hand, Athanasius
mentions only imposition of the hand in healing the sick ; the
Catholics would not allow an Arian to la3' a hand on a sick
man's head. 6 Thus unction and laying on of the hand were
alternatives, and we see the same thing m the NT : Mk 523 6'' 732
823. 25 [ Mk] 1618, Mt 918, Lk 4*0 1313, Ac 912. 17 288— all of our Lord
and the disciples.

In the 4th cent. Chrysostom says that the sick
were healed with oil from the church lamp,' and
this was afterwards a common practice.®

In the 5th cent. Pope Innocent I., asked if the
sick might be anointed with chrism {sanctum
oleum chrismatis), and if bishops might anoint,
answers in the affirmative ; the oil blessed by the
bishop may be applied by any Christian if necessary,
but it cannot be applied to penitents, because it is
of the nature of a sacrament.*

Some eighty or more years later Csesarius, bishop of Arlea
(t 542), says in one of his sermons : 'Whenever anj- sickness
comes, let the sick man receive the body and blood of Christ
and then anoint his body,' and the promise made by St. James
will be fulfilled. 10 And in another sermon he says that it is
better than magic uses to go to the Church and receive the
body and blood of Christ, and faithfully and copiously to anoint
(penmguerent) oneself and one's own with blessed oil, and to
receive not only healing of the body, but also remission of sins,
as James the apostle saj's.H

Here then, in the beginning of the 6th cent., it
is contemplated that the sick man should ordinarily
anoint himself, though the oil has previously been
consecrated.

From the 6th cent, onwards we read of the ' oil
of the cross ' in healing. This was oil touched by
a relic of the true cross, and was considered to be
especially efficacious.^'

Among the Easterns we find the use of oil for
the sick to be almost universal.

(d) Armenians in practice anoint only sick
priests, not deacons or lay people.

The Instruction in the Christian Faith, by Chosrov, says that
the unction is for the healing of the body and the forgiveness
of lighter sins ; the apostles sometimes laid hands on the sick,
and sometimes anointed ; unction is not essential, but prayer
is, and, if necessary, this sacrament may be administered with-
out the anointing of oil. is

The earliest mention among the Armenians of
unction as a preparation for death is c. A.D. 800 ;
and no rite for the anointing of the sick is found
in any ancient euchologion or mashtotz.^* The old
Armenian office for the visitation of the sick con-
sists of prayers and communion.^' Denzinger
mentions an Armenian custom of anointing the
faithful (not only the sick) on Maundy Thursday
with butter (not oil), blessed by the bishop.^®

(e) East Syrians [Nestorians). — In the Jakhsd,
or Missal, it is directed that the holy oil of
baptism is not to be used for consecrating churches
or for anointing the sick ; " for unction of the sick

1 The Lausiac EM. of Palladius, ed. C. Butler (TS vi. 1, 2),
Cambridge, 1898-1904, § 12 (ii. 35 f.).

2 § 18 (ii. 47 ff.). 3 § 35 (ii. 100 B.).

4 HE vi. 20, 29.

5 lb. ii. 4. F. E. Brightman gives other instances in JThSt
i. [1900] 260.

6 Encycl. Ep. 5. 7 In Matt. hom. xxxii. § 6.

8 See § a (/) below ; several other instances are given by
W. E. Scudamore in DC A ii. 1454 f.

9 Ep. ad Decent. 8 (a.d. 416). The authenticity of this letter
'has been questioned, but vrithout much probability. As late as
the besinning of the 8th cent. Bede, in his Exposition of the
Epistle of St. James, says, on Innocent's authority, that laymen
mav anoint themselves.

16 Serm. 265, § 3, col. 437, in the appendix to vol. v. of the
Benedictine ed. of Augustine (also PL xxxix. 2238).

11 Serm. 279, § 5, Ben. ed., col. 465 (also PL xxxix. 2273).

12 For this and similar oils see DCA ii. 1453.

13 T E. Dowling, The Armenian Church, London, 1910, p. 135 f .
14/6.

15 It is given in F. C. Conybeare, Rituale Armenorutn, p. 114 ff.

16 i. 190.

17 Syriac text (Urmi, 1890), p. 147. This part has not been
translated into English.

UNCTION (Christian)

513

a single collect is appointetl, and is to be said by
the priest when he blesses the oil.^ In this Church
hndnd (lit. ' mercy '), dust from the tombs of the
martyrs, is mixed with oil and water and applied
to the sick person.^ In the ordination of presbyters
prayer is ofiered that ' they may lay their hands
on the sick and they may be healed.' '

(/) The Copts have an office of the ' holy oil '
which they call 'the lamp' (({>av6%);* imposition
of hands is included in it, and seven presbyters
officiate. The Greek Orthodox also have a direction
to anoint the sick with ' the holy oil from the
lamp.'*

{g) The West Syrians {Jacobites) also have an
office for blessing ' the oil of catechumens, which
is also the oil of the sick.'®

(h) The Orthodox. — Here seven priests, if they
can be had, administer the oil. The Russian
Longer Catechism says^ that unction with oil is
a sacrament, in which, while the body is anointed
with oil, God's grace is invoked on the sick to
heal him of spiritual and bodily infirmities ; and
it then quotes Mk 6'3, Ja 5^*^-.

(i) Unction of the sick in England. — Theodore,
archbishop of Canterbury, in his Capitulare (A.D.
680), says that Greeks allowed presbyters, if
necessary, to make the exorcized oil and chrism
for the sick, but Romans confined the consecration
of it to the bishop.^ The Excerptiones of Egbert,
archbishop of York (A.D. 732-766),^ say that the
sick are to be anointed with oil hallowed by bishops
(sacerdotibus), and that the presbyter is to have
the eucharist always ready, that the sick may not
die without communion.^" King Edgar's Canons
(A.D. 960) order every priest to have unction for
the sick.'^

^Ifric'si^ Canons (c. a.d. 1000) direct the priest to 'have
hallowed oil apart for children [i.e. for confirmation], and apart
for sick men, and always to anoint the sick ij bed. Some sick
men are fearful, so that they will not consent to be anointed '
[they feared that unction "would kill them]. If a man is
anointed and recovers, and then once more falls sick, he can
agfain receive unction ; it is not an ordination, but in it is heal-
ing and forgiveness. 1*

The form of blessing the oil is given in the
Pontifical of Egbert, archbishop of York.

It prays that it may be to every one who touches it for
protection of mind and body, for the driving away of all pains
and all infirmities, and every sickness of body ; and refers to
the anointing of priests, kings, prophets, and martyrs. i*
The form in the present Roman Pontifical is nearly
the same.

In the later instances we see the restriction of
the administration of the oil to a priest. This
led to the practice of extreme unction, and then
unction was made to precede the last communion.
The anointing of the sick Avas retained in the
First Prayer-Book of Edward VI. (1549), and was
on the forehead, and explicitly for the healing of
both soul and body. It was omitted in the Second
Prayer-Book (1552), but restored by the Non-jurors.

3. Extreme unction. — AVhen the anointing of

1 Syriac text (Urmi, 1890), p. 98.

2 The directions are given in Denzinger, ii. 517 f.

3 lb. ii. 236. * lb. ii. 484.

' J. Goar, Eucholngion, Paris, 1647, p. 436 (2nd ed. Venice,
1730) ; see also § z (c) above.

•> Given in Denzinger, ii. 551. We may contrast the direction
among the East Syrians "riven in g 2 (e) above.

7 R. W. Blackmore, The Doctrine of the Russian Church,
Aberdeen, 1845, pp. 97, 239.

» § 35 ; E. Martfene, Df Antiquis BcclesicB Ritibus"^, Antwerp,
1736-38, I. vii. 3, § 7 : L. d'Achery, Spicilegium, Paris, 1723, i.
487. For Bede see § z (c) above.

9 But they are probably later than Egbert ; see DCB ii. Sl^.

10 D. Wilkins, Cr/ncilia Maynce Britannice et Ilibernice, Lon-
don, 1737, i. 1(13.

11 W. Maskell, Monwmenta Ritualia Ecclesice AnglicaruB,
London, 1846-47, i. p. ccxxiv.

1- There was an archbishop of Canterbury, and one of York
of this name, nearly contemporary, and a honiilist who was
perhaps different from both.

1^ Maskell, i. pp. ccxxv, ccxxxiii.

1^ The Pontifical of Egbert, ed. \V. Greenwell (Surtees Society),
Durham, 1853, p. 120.

VOL. xn. — 33

the sick came to be looked upon principally as a
preparation for death, it received this name, which
properly means ' the last of the unctions ' but was
popularly understood to mean unction admini-
stered to those in extremis ; it was no longer,
unless in exceptional cases, for the healing of the
body, but was for spiritual benefit only. The
name is not found before the end of the I2th cent. ;
it appears first in Peter Lombard ; ' after that it
became common. But the idea itself is found in
the lOth cent., in ^Ifric.^

We find frequent directions on the subject in
the Middle Ages. The Synod of Exeter under
Bishop Quivil (held in 1267) says that extreme
unction is for the healing of the body and for
forgiveness of sins ; it is not the least venerable
of the sacraments, and no money is to be exacted
for it ; the clergy are not to absent themselves
from their parishes except of necessity, lest any
die without confession, viaticum, and extreme
unction ; some ignorant persons refuse to receive
this last-mentioned rite, and the clergy are to
preach about it.* The Synod of Worcester under
Bishop Woodloke (held c. 1308) has the same
directions, except about the money.'* And in
Scotland we find similar rules in the 13th century.
Every sick person over 14 years of age in danger
of death should receive extreme unction, and no
fee is to be charged. It may be repeated if
necessary, and no restriction is laid down on this
point.'

Aquinas deals at length with extreme unction in the supple-
ment to his Stmima Theologica, written between 1265 and 1271.
He saj's s that it is a sacrament because it avails for the re-
mission of sins, whereas the oil of catechumens [administered
before baptism] does not do so. This sacrament was instituted
by Christ Himself, though He promulgated it through the
apostles ; some, however, think that He left it to the apostles
to institute.'? Olive oil is the convenient ' matter,' as in Ja 5i''f',
and it is to be first consecrated by the bishop, as in all other
unctions. 8 Extreme unction must have a ' form,' as all other
sacraments of the new law have ; this form is a prayer, as in
St. James, but the intention of the minister is expressed in the
words 'By this holy unction,' etc.9 Aquinas proceeds to deal
with the theological significance of the rite. It avails for the
remission of sins, as St. James says, and also for the healing of
the body, just as immersion in baptism cleanses the soul through
the cleansing of the bodj'.io It does not impress ' character,'
like ordination or confirmation, seeing that it may be repeated.il
Aquinas then deals with the minister of extreme unction. It
cannot be conferred by a layman, like baptism, as it is not
so necessar.v, nor yet by deacons, for St. James speaks of
' presbyters ' ; but the administration is not confined to bishops
alone.'2 With regard to the recipients of extreme unction,
Aquinas remarks that it is not for those who are in health, nor
for all the sick, hut only for those who are near death. It is
the last remedj' which the Church can confer. It is not for
madmen, unless in lucid intervals, nor for young children, as
it is a remedy for actual sin, not for the relics of original sin,
unless indeed these are strengthened in sonie way b.v actual
sin. Only certain portions of the body, not the whole, are to
be anointed, the mutilated being anointed on that part which
is nearest to the lost limb. 13 Further, extreme unction can be
repeated without injury, but not in the same illness. i-* Else-
where Aquinas says that by it men are prepared for worthy
communion [i.e. the viaticum] ; it is inferior to baptism and the
eucharist, and is not of necessity, but is for progress in the
Christian life. 16

Maskell '® gives the rite of extreme unction from
the Sarum Manual (his copy is dated 1543) :

After a prayer referring to Ja 5i*f- and asking for restoration
to health (' 8aK.ti pristinsB restituere '), the priest anoints tho
eyes, ears, lips, nostrils, hands (the laity on the palms, the
priests on the outside, as the.v had already been anointed on
the palms at ordination),i'' the feet, and the back, or in the case

1 Sent. IV. ii. 1. 2 See § z (i) above.

3 Cap. 6 ; Wilkins, Cone. ii. 134 f.

4 Wilkins, ii. 294 f.

5 Ei'clesicB Scoticance Stattita, ed. J. Robertson (Bannatyne
Club), Edinburgh, 1866, ii. 84, 68.

6 Qu. xxix., art. 1. ' Art. 3.
8 Art. 4-6.

» Art. 7-9 ; see below for the ' form.
10 Qu. XXX., art. If. n Art. 3.

13 Qu. xxxi. 13 Qu. -xxxii.

!■» Qu. xxxiii. 15 HI. qu. Ixv., art. 3.

16 Monumenta, i. 83. The Rituale lioinaiiurn ha'* almost the
same directions (ed. G. Catalan!, Piulua, 1760, i. 33211.).
1'? See § 4 litlow.

514

UNCTION (Christian)

of a female the front. At each anointing he prays for forgive-
ness in these words : ' By this unction and His most tender
mercy, may the Lord forgive thee whatsoever thou hast done
amiss through sight' (hearing, etc.). A psalm is said between
each anointing, and after the unctions a blessing is given,
referring to purification of mind and body. Then follows a
prayer which has special reference to the sick man's approach-
ing death, but this is not in the Bangor MS quoted in Maskell's
note, and seems to be later than the rest. The sick man is
then communicated if he is capable of retaining what he
swallows ; otherwise he is assured that spiritual communion
suflflces, and the well-known words are quoted : ' Tantum crede
et manducasti.' i In the Pontifical of Magdalen College, prob-
ably of Hereford or Canterbury and of the 12th cent., the first
prayer mentioned above ends differently ; here there is only
one unction, in which the references to the various senses are
combined.2 In this Pontifical two different prayers follow the
blessing, referring to the forgiveness of sins.

Only one priest is mentioned in the Sarum
Manual as administering unction, but Walter
Raynold, archbishop of Canterbury (1313-37),
speaks of sacerdotes in the plural ; and W.
Lyndwood glosses this by saying ' two at least,
except in case of necessity.'^ Raynold says that
all over fourteen years of age should receive
extreme unction ; * and also that it can be repeated
only if a year has elapsed.*

The oil was consecrated on Maundy Thursday ; *
and this Avas the case also at Rome.'' By a consti-
tution of J. Feckham, archbishop of Canterbury
(1278-94), any unused oil was burnt.^

The Council of Trent says that extreme unction
was instituted by our Lord as a sacrament of the
NT, outlined (insinuatum) by St. Mark, and com-
mended to the faithful and promulgated by St.
James. The ' matter ' is oil blessed by a bishop,
for the unction represents the grace of the Holy
Spirit, and the 'form' is 'By this unction,' etc."
The effect is primarily forgiveness and strengthen-
ing of the soul, and occasionally restoration of
bodily health ; the ministers are bishops and
presbyters. Extreme unction is to be used for
those who appear to be dying ; if they recover and
then again fall ill, it may be repeated.^" See also
art. Extreme Unction.'"

4. Unction at ordination. — The idea of anoint-
ing at ordination is consecration to God and
endowment with His gifts. The custom is derived
from the OT, where kings, high priests, priests,
and prophets are anointed.

In Ex 297, Lv 812, Moses anoints Aaron, whose anointing is
also mentioned in Ps 1332, Sir 4515. In Ex 28'*i 2921 3030, Lv 8-30
IC, Aaron's sons are anointed as priests ; in Lv 211", Nu 3525,
high priests in general receive unction. In 1 K 19i5f- Hazael,
Jeliu, and Elisha are anointed. The unction of prophets in
Ps IO516, Is 611, ig perhaps metaphorical. The anointing was
with olive oil and spices in Ex SO"^^-.

The same conception is found in the name ' the Christ,' ' the
Messiah' ('the Anointed One'), as in Lk 418, which quotes
Is 611, in Ac 426f., which quotes Ps 22, in Ac 1038, and in He 19,
which quotes Ps 457 ; cf. also Dn 924.

But, while in Eastern ordinals we frequently read
of anointing in a metaphorical sense, the actual
unction at ordination was confined to the West.

1 ' Only believe, and thou hast eaten.' The saying is from
Augustine, in Johann. tract, xxv. 12 (on Jn 628f.), 'crede et
manducasti ' ; but he is not speaking specially of spiritual
communion.

2 Ed. H. A. Wilson (H. Bradshaw See, xxxix.), London,
1910, p. 190.

3 Provinciale seu Constitutiones AnglioB, Oxford, 1679, bk. i.
tit. 6, ' Cum magna reverentia.'

4/6. 5/6., tit. 7.

6 lb., tit. 6, 'Cum sacris.'

7 E. G. C. F. Atchley, Ordo Romanus Primus (Library of
Liturgiology and Ecclesiology), London, 1905, p. 97.

8 Maskell, i. p. ccxl. 9 ct. Aquinas above.

10 Cano/ifs et Decrcta, sess. xiv., ' de Sacr. Poen. et Extr.
Unct.,' 1-3.

11 The subject of unction of the sick is treated very fully by
F. W. Puller (T/ie Anointinq of the Sick, London, 1904), but the
present writer had not the advantage of having seen that book
before compiling this article. Puller gives at length the evi-
dence of which only an outline is here attempted. He is speci-
ally concerned to refute the later teaching about Extreme
Unction and to advocate what he argues to be a more primitive
use. His argument is greatly strengthened by R. H. Connolly's
investigations as to the ' so-called Egyptian Church Order ' ; see
§ I (c) above.

(a) At the consecration — or, as it was originally
called, the ordination — of a bishop unction is not
so ancient as the laying on of the hand, or as the
custom of putting tlie book of the gospels on the
elect's head. But it is found at Rome in the 5th
century.

Leo the Great says : ' Now there is a nobler rank of Levites
[deacons], there are elders [presbyters] of greater dignity, and
priests [bishops] of holier anointing [' sacratior est unctio sacer-
dotum'J.'i Elsewhere he says that 'it is not the prerogative
of earthly origin which obtains the unction, but the condescen-
sion of divine gi-ace which creates the bishop,' 2 and that 'the
unction of the Holy Spirit consecrates priests.' 3 It is just
possible, but not likely, that the unction here is only meta-
phorical.

In the 6th cent. Gregory the Great refers to this
unction of the bishop ; * and it is found also in
Gaul, but not in ' Africa,' and perhaps not in
Spain." In Egbert's Pontifical, of the 8th cent.,
both head and hands were anointed ;^ and this
was the case at Rome also.'' In England the
bishop's head was twice anointed, first with chrism
mixed with oil, then (just before the unction of
the hands) with chrism only ; on each occasion
was said :

' May thy head be anointed and hallowed with celestial bless-
ing in the pontifical order, through [the unction of holy chrism
and oil and our blessing, in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.' 8

(b) Unction at the ordination of a presbyter was
not the custom of the earlier Roman Church, as
Pope Nicholas I. explicitly states in 864.^ It is not
in the Leonine Sacramentary nor in some MSS of
the Gregorian • i" but it became general in the
West after the 9th cent., and was introduced at
Rome. Amalarius of Metz (t 837) says that in
Gaul the presbyter's hands were anointed at
ordination by the bishop.^' In Egbert's Pontifical
the presbyter's head was also anointed," but this
seems soon to have been dropped.

(c) Unction of the hands at the ordination of
deacons seems to have been a peculiarity of the
Celtic and Anglo-Saxon rites ; it is mentioned in
Gildas's Epistle^^ (c. A.D. 560) and in Egbert's
Pontifical.^*

In all these cases the unction of the hands was
on the palms.''

5. Unction at the coronation of kings. — The
idea of this unction was the same as that of the
unction at ordination. It is taken from the OT.

In 1 S 916 101 1613 Samuel anoints Saul and David ; in 2 S 2^
men of Judah anoint David (so metaphorically Ps 89'-0) ; in
1 K 134- 39 Zadok and Nathan anoint Solomon, Zadok applying
the oil ; in 1 K 19i5f- Elijah anoints Hazael and Jehu ; in 2 K
1112 ' tiiey made [Joash] king and anointed him.' Hence conies
the phrase ' the Lord's Anointed ' in 1 S 166 and elsewhere, also
in La 420, and even of Cyrus in Is 451 ; and in Jotbam's parable,
Jg 98, the trees ' anoint a king over them.'

This unction is first mentioned as a Christian
cnstom in the Acts of the sixth Council of Toledo ^^
(A.D. 638). The Visigoth kings in Spain were
anointed at their inauguration. We read of
unction at that of King Wamba in 672." And in

1 Serrn. lix. 7 (de Pass. Dom. viii.).

2 lb. iii. 1 (on the anniversary of his consecration).

3 lb. iv. 1.

4 In I. Reg. ch. 10, quoted by J. Morinus, Commentarius de
sacris Ecclesim Ordinationibus, Paris, 1655, iv. vi. 2. § 2.

5 Morinus, § 1.

6 Ed. Greenwell, p. 3 ; Martfene, vol. ii. col. 101.

7 Morinus, § 2. 8 Maskell, iii. 263, 269.
9 E. Hatch, in T)CA ii. 1514b.

10 Ed. H. A. Wilson, p. 6. This also applies to the consecra-
tion of bishops (Wilson, p. 5).

11 De Eccl. Off. ii. 13. 12 Ed. Greenwell, p. 24.

13 § 106 ; see art. Ordination (Christian), vol. ix. p. 543''.

I'l Ed. Greenwell, p. 21 ; Mart6ne, vol. ii. col. 100 ; see also
cols. 110, 179.

15 See § 3 above.

16 J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima
Collectio, Florence and Venice, 1758-98, x. 659-674. On the
whole subject of the inauguration of kings see R. M. Woolley,
Coronation Rites, Cambridge, 1915. The 'cornu illud de quo
reges unguebantur' of the Pilgrimage of ' Etheria' ('Silvia')
refers, not to Christian practice, but to a supposed relic of O'T
times (Duchesne, Christian Worship^, p. 510).

17 Woolley, pp. 33, 120.

UNCTION (Christian)

515

France Pippin, father of Charlemagne, was anointed
in 750.^ But in these cases there is no mention of
crowning, and the anointing was the central feature
of the rite.2 On the other hand, the emperors
who were crowned for many centuries at Con-
stantinople— for no emperor was crowned at Rome
before Charlemagne — appear not to have been
anointed before the 9th cent, (when Basil the
Macedonian [867-886] is thought to have received
unction),^ or, as some believe, not before the 12th
or 13th cent. ; * in the latter case the earlier refer-
ences are metaphorical onlj'. In the Greek rite of
coronation as fully developed, and hence in the
Russian rite w hich is derived from it, unction is a
prominent feature. ^ It is uncertain if Charlemagne
was anointed as Roman emperor.^ It will thus be
seen that unction at the inauguration of kings is
earlier than at that of emperors. Both England
and France claimed to have a miraculous chrism
sent down from heaven for the purpose.''

The Abyssinians have the custom of unction at
the coronation of the Negus ; it is probable that
this is not derived from European practice, but is
directly deduced from Holy Scripture.^

The coronation service for an English king
found in Egbert's Pontifical is the most ancient of
those extant; it is printed by Mart^ne* and
Maskell,^" and the latter gives in his notes a colla-
tion of the same service in the Leofric Missal. In
Egbert the king is anointed once only, on the
head, one of the bishops ('unus ex pontificibus')
saying the prayer, and the others anointing him.
There is here no coronation of a queen-consort,
though we find one later (with unction), in the 10th
century.^^ There was more than one recension of
Egbert's office ; that called the Liber Begalis,
which probably dates from the time of Edward II.,
remained almost unchanged till the coronation of
James II. ^^ In the service in the Sarum Ponti-
fical given by MaskelP^ the king's hands, head,
breast, shoulder-blades, and elbows ('ambae com-
pages brachiorum') are anointed." The custom
of anointing has been retained in England ever
since the Reformation, at the coronation of a
king, of a queen-regnant, and of a queen -consort.
Notices of unction at the coronation of James I.
and his queen, of Charles I., Charles II., James II.,
William and Mary, and Victoria may be found in
Hierurgia A nglicana. ^^ At the coronation of George
V. the king was anointed thrice in the form of a
cross (four Knights of the Garter holding over him
a rich pall of silk or cloth of gold) : first on the
crown of the head, then on the breast, then on the
palms of both hands, i" Charles I. was anointed
first on the palms of the hands, then (after a
prayer) on the breast, then between the shoulders,
then ' on the boughs of both arms,' then on the
crown of the head ; ''' this followed the more ancient
custom. The English coronation rite is the only
remaining office in Christendom where the full
rites of the anointing and all the details of solemn
investiture are still extant.^^ The chrism was,
before the coronation, consecrated by the Dean of
Westminster if a bishop, otherwise by the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury ; but in the case of William

I WooUey.p. 34. 2 /&. p. 167. S 76. p. 179.
* F. E. Brightman, in JThSt ii. [1901] 383fl.

B WooUey, pp. 25, 29, 177.

6 See the discussion in WooUey, pp. 40, 169.

7 n. pp. 73, :03. 8 lb. pp. 30, 180. 9 ii. 10, ord. 1.
10 iii. 74. It may also be seen in tiie Surtecs See. (ed. W.

Greenwell), p. 101. Some tWnli that it is later than Egbert.

II WooUey, p. 65. ^'^ Il>- V- 69.

15 iii. 3. In his notes Maskell refers to earUer authorities also.
1* 76. pp. 19, 22.

16 New ed. revised by V. Staley, London, 1902-04, ii. 118,
121-124, 283 f.

1« D. Macleane, The Great Solemnity of the Coronatinn'i,
London, 1911, p. 30. In this work the full office is given with
elaborate notes.

17 lb. p. 328. '8 Jb. p. 314.

and Mary the oil Avas blessed in the coronation
service itself ; this addition to the latter was
dropped from the time of Anne.^

In France Napoleon I. was anointed on head and
hands at his coronation ; and his consort Josephine
likewise.*

In Scotland unction was first allowed at a king's
inauguration in 1329.* After the Reformation
there were four Scottish coronations : James VI.
was crowned in 1567, when one year old ; his
consort, Anne of Denmark, was crowned in 1590 ;
Charles I. was crowned as King of Scotland in
1633, Charles II. in 1651 ; at the first three corona-
tions unction was used, but not at the last.*

On the continent of Europe we find anointing
retained at coronations in the reformed rite at
Prague in 1619, in Prussia in 1701, in Denmark
from 1559 to 1840, in Sweden from 1675 till our
own day, and in Norway in modern times. ^

6. Unction at the consecration of churches, etc.
— This also is taken from the OT.

Jacob anointed the stone in Gn 2818, and S. R. Driver
remarks that this was a very common idea among primitive
peoples.6 The tabernacle was anointed in Ex 3026 409, Lv 81",
Nu 71. In Is 57'> we read of the pouring of a drink-o£Eering to
the 'smooth stones of the valley.'

From an early date churches and altars were
consecrated with chrism.

We read of this in Gaul at the councils of Agde or Agatha 7 and
Epaon.S in the Canons of Egbert of York,9 in his Pontifical^ in
Isidore of Seville, n Rabanus Maurus (t a.d. 815), the disciple of
Alcuin,i2 and Walafrid Strabo (t a.d. 849).ia In the Sarum
Pontifical '^■i twelve places in the church and the altar are
anointed with chrism ; holy water is also used. But neither
oil nor chrism was used in reconcUing a desecrated church. 16

We find the same custom in the East. In
pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (c. A.D. 500?) the
altar is consecrated with unguent (^ni^pv).^* The
West Syrians (Jacobites) use chrism in consecrat-
ing altars," as also do the Greeks. ^^ From the 8th
cent, we read of the Armenians consecrating
churches with unguent,^* even in the case of the
rededication of a desecrated church.^ Among the
East Syrians (Nestorians) the consecration of a
church is called syamidha (' laying on of the hand ')
and is of two kinds, with and without oil ; the
former is for new or rebuilt churches, or for rededi-
cating a church which has been desecrated owing
to some very grave cause, and must be performed
by a bishop ; the latter is intended for use after
minor accidents or breaches of the ecclesiastical
law, and may be performed by priests commissioned
by the bishop. In the former each wall and the
altar and the outer lintel of the sanctuary door
towards the nave are signed with the oil in the
form of a cross. ^^

In the Sarum Manual of 1543 bells also are dedicated with
oil and chrism,22and, at a much earlier date, in Egbert's Ponti-
fical.^ Similarly the Armenians dedicate with chrism the
semantron— a wooden board struck by a mallet, and much used
by Eastern Christians to call the people to church.24 The
Armenians also solemnly dedicate a cross, even for private use,
with unguent.25 in Dunstan's Pontifical the chalice is anointed
when it is dedicated.26

1 Woollev, pp. 80, 86. ^ /ft. p. 107.

3 76. p. 137 4/6. pp. 80, 138 f.

6 lb. pp. 143-156.

« The Book of Genesis (Westminster Com.), London, 1904,
p. 267.

- Can. 14 (A.D. 506). 8 Can. 26 (a.d. 517).

9 Can. 51 (a.d. 732-766). 10 Martfene, ii. 13, ord. 2.

11 Ad Leudef. 10. 1- 7>e Inst. Cler. ii. 45.

13 De Reb. Eccl. 9. " Maskell, i. 103, 185 ff.

IS 76. iii. 308 ff. i^ Hi^r. Eccl. iv. 12.

17 E. Renaudot, Liturgiarum, Orientalium Collection, Frank-
fort-on-Main, 1847, ii. 67.

18 Gear, Euchologion, pp. 837 f., 842.

19 Convbeare, Uit. Arm. p. 6. 20 lb. p. 33.

21 A. J". Maclean and W. H. Browne, The Catholicos of the Bast,
p. 303 f .

22 MaskeU, I. 158 f. 23 Ed. GreenweU, p. 118.

24 Conybeare, p. 39 ; see also Maclean-Browne, pp. 210, 213, 251.

25 Conybeare, pp. 46, 51.

38 Martfene, ii. 13, ord. 4. For further details as to unction at
the consecration of churches and altars see art. Consktration.

516

UNDER WORLD

In England the Caroline divines used oil in
consecrating churches. The Puritans objected that
' they shew us that the church, by the bishop's
anointing some stones thereof with oU, and
sprinkling others with water, and using from the
Roman pontifical some more prayers, some more
ceremonies upon it, becomes a ground more holy.'^

7. Unction of a dead body. — From the first the
Christians prepared the body for burial either bj^
embalming or with spices and unguents {fi}jpa) ;^
this was in contrast to the Roman custom of
cremation. References to the Christian usages in
this respect are found in Tertullian,^ Clement of
Alexandria,* Minucius Felix ^ (early 3rd cent. ?),
and in the Acta of Tarachus, a martyr in the
Diocletian persecution (A.D. 304).®

As an ecclesiastical act we find it, in the East,
in pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite ; the hierarch
[bishop] and the rest salute the dead body, and the
hierarch pours oil on the departed, just as before
baptism the candidates are anointed with the oil
of the sacred chrism.'' In Goar's Eiichologion we
read of a corpse being anointed just before burial
with oil from church lamps, or of a cinder from
the thurible being placed on it.^ This custom is
also found in the books of the East Syrians
(Nestorians) and of the Armenians, where clergy
anoint the dejjarted, the Armenians calling it a
sacrament ; ^ but in practice, while in the case of
a departed dignitary the East Syrians retain the
solemn final kiss of peace, they do not appear to use
unction.'* The office used by the Armenians for
the purpose may be seen in Denzinger.'^ In the
West, Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, says
that dead monks were carried to church and
anointed on the breast with chrism before the
mass.^^

LnBRATURE. — This is given in the footnotes.

A. J. Macleax.

UNDER WORLD.— I. Origin of the belief.—
The wide-spread conception of an under world in
religion and myth is generally, though not invari-
ably, associated with the dead. An under world
of the dead is not the only conception of their
dwelling-place : spirits may lurk about the place
of burial or linger among the abodes of the living ;
they may dwell in distant regions or islands, or
they may ascend to a place in the sky. These
conceptions may be held simultaneously, especially
where differences of rank or ideas of retribution
suggest separate places for different classes of souls.
They are also connected, especially in the lower
culture, with the idea that man has several souls
which after death separate and abide in different
localities. They may also result from the mingling
of different tribal or racial beliefs. '' We do not
know what ideas the earliest men had regarding
tlie dead, or how soon the belief in a spirit or
soul, apart from the body, was entertained. But,
while it must have been obvious that death
had brought about some difference between the
dead and the living, it is doubtful if the dead were
ever regarded as absolutely extinct and cut off
from all life and action. The wide-spread and
early custom of burial, the practice of placing
articles by the corpse, and the feeding of the dead
at the grave, all suggest the contrary. It is not
improbable, therefore, that the dead man was re-

1 Hierurgia Anglicana, new ed., ii. 237.

2 Lk 2356.

3 Apol. 42, de Idol. 11 ; and, for embalming, de Res. Cam. 27.
* Peed. ii. 8 [62]. 5 Octavius, 12.

6 § 7 ; T. Euinart, ActapriTnorummartyrum^, ed. R. Massuet,
Amsterdam, 1713, p. 436.

7 Hier. Eccl. vii. 8. 8 p. 538.

9 Denzinger, i. 190. i" Maclean-Browne, p. 287.

11 ii. 523 f.

12 Capitulate, § 115 (a.d. 668) ; see also d'Achery, i. 490.

13 On these varying conceptions see artt. Blest, Abode of the ;
State op the Dead.

garded as passing some kind of existence in the
grave. The grave was his house, and it was this
idea perhaps that led to tlie custom of making very
elaborate tombs for the dead, of which the
chambered barrow forms an example. Tiiat the
dead lived on in the grave, while their return
among the living was feared, is also suggested by
the belief that they could come from it in the body
— in which we find the root of the vampire belief^
— and by the customs of heaping a mound of earth
or placing heavy stones on the grave, and binding
the dead with cords. ^ Many folk-traditions re-
present the dead as coming in the body from the
grave, ^ and the idea of their still living in the
grave or barrow is seen clearly in early Scandi-
navian tradition. Thus the grave was in itself a
small under world. This was more emphasized
where several persons were buried in one tumulus
or grave, or where the separate graves of members
of one family or clan lay side hy side. The grave
or graves as a subterranean dwelling-place easily
passed over into the conception of a hollow region
under the earth, an under world where the dead
lived. At whatever time the conception of the
soul, spirit, or shade arose, it did not alter this
belief. The spirit might come and go from the
grave or inhabit with other shades the larger
under world.

The formation of a belief in an under world was
also aided by observed phenomena. The sun
seemed to rise out of the earth or sea in the east
and to sink into these again in the west. What
then more natural than to suppose that during the
night it passed through some underground region,
to emerge again in the morning ? This under world
(sometimes thought of as beneath the sea into
which the sun seems to sink) through which the
sun passed was then associated with the abode of
the dead, and in many descriptions of the latter
we are expressly told that, when it is night here,
it is day there, and vice versa. Hence, too, the
entrance to the abode of the dead is not always
near at hand, but far off, usually towards the sun-
set, and their dwelling-place is reached only after
a long and perilous journey.

Yet for many races the under ■world was not
visited by the sun. Being under the earth, it was
a dark and gloomy place, and this was accentuated
by the fact that those who inhabited it were shades
or shadows. Here, too, we may see another con-
ception leading to the idea of another world. The
eyes of the dead were closed ; they were in dark-
ness. Their shades were faint replicas of living
beings, seen only in dreams and darkness. Where
could such have their abode? The grave was a
dark, hollow place, and men knew also that caves
leading into the interior of earth grew darker as
the entrance was farther left behind. There must
then be a dark, hollow place within the earth, fit
abode for those now shut off from light.

Thus the under w^orld may be a shadowy, un-
desirable place, or, again, it may be a reflexion of
the upper world, now light, now dark, as the sun
visits or leaves it.

2. The under world in ancient religions.— It is
surprising that cultured races in the past hardly
abandoned the belief in a gloomy under world.
The Babylonians called this region Aralu, and it
was conceived as a vast underground dwelling, as
'the land without return,' the dark abode of all
the shades of the dead, with its entrance in the
west, the region of sunset. The sombre goddess
Eresh-Kigal and the terrible god Nergal ruled
over it. Seven walls, pierced by as many gates,

1 See art. Vampire.

2 For many examples see J. G. Frazer, ' On Certain Burial
Customs as illustrative of the Primitive Theory of the Soul,'
JAI XV. [1886] 64-104.

3 J. A. MacCulloch, CF, p. 102 f.

UNDER WORLD

517

surrounded this place of terror, where ' dust lay
thick on door and bolt,' where the shades dwelt
with dust for their food, in darkness and gloom,
among terrible evil spirits and demons. All these
ideas are vividly set forth in the story of the
descent of Istar to Hades. How far other con-
ceptions of a better region or of retribution were
held by the Babylonians need not be discussed
here. Gloomy as was the fate of the dead in
Aralu, there was a worse fate, viz. where burial
rites had not been performed and the spirit had to
wander, consumed by gnaAving hunger and feeding
on ofi'al.^

The older Hebrew conception was not dissimilar,
and the strong desire to be buried in the family
grave or by the side of relatives suggests that
Sheol or Hades, like the under world elsewhere,
was ' originally conceived as a combination of
the graves of the clan or nation.'^ The shades
(rephdim) dwelt in the under world, outside the
rule of Jahweh, distinguished from each other
according to their state on earth, but in a region
of darkness, dust, and silence. The state of the
shades in Sheol is seen from such passages as Ps
115", Job 7** 10=1'-, Is 149'-, Ezk 32"^. While the
later belief was generally difl'erent from this, it
still kept the idea of an under world, but now
generally as an intermediate state of the dead,
waiting for the day of judgment in different
compartments of it, better or worse, for the right-
eous or the wicked. Sometimes it was a place of
torment for the wicked at death, or it or a sub-
terranean Gehenna became the place of torment
after the judgment.'

An under world does not appear consistently
in Egyptian beliefs regarding the dead, their state
and locality, which were of a conflicting nature.
In the earliest period, and indeed all through the
later periods, the soul was associated with the
body in its sepulchre, leaving it and returning to
it. An under world is spoken of here and there,
probably connected with the grave. But many
other regions — on earth's surface or in heaven —
were open to the dead. In the Osirian religion the
blissful abode was in heaven or elsewhere, and it
was sometimes regarded as lying in a deep hole
under the earth.'* The theology of the religion of
Ra pictured the soul traversing the other world in
the bark of the sun by night, passing through
guarded gates into twelve successive regions,
peopled by gods, demons, and the dead. These
regions were either underground or in what
corresponded to an under world — the valley
through which the sun passed behind the Mountain
of Sunset until it reappeared in the east. This
was the Duat, or Tuat, the hidden part of the
world.®

According to O. Schrader, the primitive Indo-
European conception of the realms of the dead
was that the ancestral spirits dwelt in the earth.
They made no distinction between this region of
the dead and the tomb.* In Vedic times in India,
probably as a result of the newer custom of crema-
tion, Yama's kingdom, to which the spirits of the

1 A. Jeremias, The Babylonian Conception of Heaven and
Hell, tr. J. Hutchison, London, 1902 ; M. Jastrow, The Religion
of Babylonia and Assyria, Boston, U.S.A., 1898, p. 563 ff.,
Aspects of Relifjimis Belief and Practice in tiahytonia and
Assyria, New York, 1911, ch. vi. ; art. Babylonians and

A88YRIA.NS, § 4.

2 R. H. Charles, EBi, col. 1339.

ii See art. Eschatolooy, S 10; R. H. Charles, ' Eschatology '
in EBi, Critical Hist, of the Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel,
in Jxidaistn, in Christianity , London, 1899.

* W. Max. Miiller, Eqyptian Mythology { = Mythology of all
Races, xii.), Boston, U.S.A., 1918, p. 17C.

5 A. Ernian, A Handbook of Egyptian Religion, Eng. tr.,
London, 1907, p. 109 f. ; A. Wiedemann, The Realms of the
Egyptian Dead, tr. J. Hutchison, do. 1001; E. A. T. Wallis
Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, do. 1904, i. 170.

^ Ere ii. 30 f. ; A. Bergaigne, La Religion vedique, Paris,
1878-33, i. 77 f.

fathers went (the pitrs), was a heavenly one, but
it is probable that it had formerly been a sub-
terranean region.^ The Vedic hells as well as
those of Brahraanic and later Hindu belief are
abysses of the under world ; ^ yet even in the
earlier (Vedic) period we hear of the fathers being
in the earth, and in the age of the epics Yama's
realm is in the south, beneath the eartn.'

The Greeks preserved the idea of an under
world of the dead, Hades, the hidden place, intact
for a long period. See art. UNDER World
(Greek).

The Roman under world, Dis, was the abode of
the manes, and this belief was connected with the
earlier one, that the soul rested with the body in
the tomb. In the Comitium at Rome the lapis
manalis covered an opening which was supposed
to lead to the underground abode of the snades,
whence they came up to be fed on the days when
the stone was removed. Other approaches to the
under world were known — e.g., the cave of
Avemus at Naples. But to the Romans the
under world was never such a definitely expressed
object of belief as it was to the Greeks.

The Scandinavian and Teutonic under world,
Hel, the hollow place, was perhaps an extension
of the hollow barrow or tumulus in which the dead
were supposed to live feasting and occupying
themselves with the good of their kindred.
Though later conceived as a gloomy place of
punishment, this description applies more properly
to Niflhel, lower than Hel. AH men at first went
to Hel,* which, in the Elder Edda, is hardly a
place of gloom. As described in Balder" s Doom, a
road leads through the under world by grassy
plains to the mighty hall of Hel (i.e. the goddess
who rules over Hel). Walls are decked with
shields, and beer stands ready on tables.* The
myths seem to prove that Mimir's fountain of
immortal mead and his grove, and Urd's fountain,
were in the under world.®

Similarly in the old mythology of the Finns and
of the Esthonians the region of the dead is an
under world. By the Finns it was called Tuonela,
and, possibly through Christian influences, it had
come to be regarded as a place of punishment.
The Esthonians called their under world Porgu,
and it was supposed to be reached through a
cave.''

The old native religion of Japan, Shinto, re-
garded the dead as still living in the tomb, but
the Japanese also had a belief in a dark and re-
pulsive under world called Yomi (' darkness') and
Ne no kuni ('the root country'), with divinities
of death and plague. Though not specifically said
to be the region of the dead, it would appear to
have been, as the name Yomi is used for the state
of the dead or the grave, while the place itself,
regarded as a region of corruption, suggests the
decay of the tomb. Yomi was later identified with
the Buddhist hell.^

3. The under world in the lower culture. —
Among the lower races opinions as to the locality
in which the dead exist are as various as in the
beliefs of the higher races, but the conception of
an under world frequently occurs, and its nature
and conditions are described with great detail.

1 E. Hardy, Indi»che Religionsgeschichte, Leipzig, 1S98, p. 23.

2 See Rigvpda, vii. 104.

3 A. Bcrriedale Keith, Indian Mythology ( = Mythology of all
Races, vi), Boston, 1917, pp. 101, 159.

* Fdfnismdl, \. 39.

B O. Vifffusson and F. Y. Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale,
Oxford, 1883, i. 182.

8 See art. Ble.st, Abodr of the (Teutonic).

7 A. von Schiefner, Kalewnla, Helsingfors, 1852, Rune 15 ;
W. F. Kirbv, The Hero of Ethonia, lx)ndon, 1895, i. 100, 124.

» W. G. "Aston, Shinto, London, 1905, pp. 106, 181, 187 ;
B. H. Chamberlain. Ko-ji-ki., Yokohama, 1SS3 (TASJ x., Suppl.),
p. 36 ; art. Bi,est, Abodk ok the (Japanese), § i.

518

UNDER WORLD (Greek)

Such an under world, sometimes situated beneath
the sea, is known to some of the tribes of New
Guinea, sometimes as a place resembling this world,
sometimes much superior to it, while, as with the
Waga-Waga, it is said that, when it is night here,
it is day there, and vice versa, suggesting that it is
visited by the sun during our night.' A region
under the sea, called Tsiabiloum, is the place of
spirits, according to the New Caledonians — a
delightful place, far more fertile than earth, where
sickness, death, toil, and darkness are unknown. ^
In many parts of Melanesia the other world is
above ground, often on a distant island, but in the
eastern group of islands it is below the earth and
is called Panoi and other names. It is a peaceful
place and on the whole resembles the upper world.
But, according to some, the spirits die there, and
then revive in another Panoi, situated below the
first.*

Generally in Polynesia, while a superior heavenly
region was reserved for men of rank or for those
slain in battle, there was an under world for all
the other spirits of the dead, called Po, or Sa-le-fee,
or other names. This region was mainly regarded
as a gloomy, undesirable place, though sometimes,
as in Raratonga, it was pleasant and bright.*

In N. America the Eskimo have a belief in
vaiious regions for different people, but among the
different tribes the under world constantly appears,
now as a better, now as a worse place.' The
American Indian tribes are far from uniform in
their beliefs ; the under world of the dead is found
mainly among the tribes of the south-west, but
sporadically elsewhere. It is reached after a long
journey, and is generally a pleasant region, and
also the place whence the first i»en emerged on
earth's surface.* Occasionally, as with the Tlingit,
the underworld abode is one of several, and it is
to it that drowned persons go.'^ Similar distinc-
tions, according to rank or manner of death,
occurred with the Mexicans, whose under world,
Mictlan, was a gloomy place, reserved for those
who did not go to one of the other regions. This
resembled the dismal under world of the Peruvians,
the place allotted to the bulk of the people. An
under world of the dead is less frequently met with
among the S. American tribes — e.g., the Matacos,
the Muyscas, and the Patagonians, who thought
that vast underground caverns contained the souls
of the dead. None of these were unpleasant places.*

Among African tribes, both Bantu and Negro,
the belief in an under world is very common.
This country of the dead is usually reached through
a cave or hole in the ground, or through a pool or
lake. Especially with the Bantu it is a region
much like the earth, with villages, forests, rivers,
etc., but among some Negro tribes it is less desir-

1 A. Goudswaard, De Papoewa's van de Geelvinksbaai,
Schiedam, 1863, p. 77 ; J. L. D. van der Roest, Tijdschrift voor
Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xl. [1S98] 164 f. (Papuans
of Windessi); R. E. Guise, JRAI xxviii. [1899] 216 (Hood
Peninsula); M. J. Erdweg, Mittheilungen dei- anthropologischen
Gesellschaft in Wien, xxxii. [1902] 297 (Tumleo) ; G. Bamler, in
R. Neuhauss, Deutsch Neu ■ Gvinea, Berlin, 1911, iii. 514 f.
(Tami) ; C. Keysser, in Xeuhauss, iii. 149 (Kai) ; S. Lehner, in
Neuhauss, iii. 472 f. (Bukaua) ; C. G. Seligmann, The Melanes-
ians of British New Guinea, Cambridge, 1910, p. 655 f.

2 R. P. Lamljert, Moeurs et superstitions des Nio-Calidoniens,
Noumea, 1900, p. 13 f .

3 R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, Oxford, 1891, pp. 273,
275 f.

4 See, for further details, artt. Blest, Abode of the (Primitive
and Savage), § 3 ; Polynesia, § 9.

BF. Boas, 6RBE\V [1S8S], p. 588 (Central Eskimo); E. W.
Nelson, is' RBEW [1899], pt. i. p. 423 (Eskimo of Bering Strait).

6 11 RBEW [1894], pp. 68 (Sia), 512 (Mandan), 517 (Hidatsa);
17 RBEW [1898], pt. i. p. 292 f. (Seri) ; NR iii. 528 (Navaho);
H. B. Alexander, American Mythology {=Mythology of all
Races, x.), Boston, 1916, pp. 147, 274.

7 26 RBEW [1908], p. 460 ff.

8 I. A. Baldrich, Las Camareas Virgenes, Buenos Ayres, 1890,
p. 12 ; T. Falkner, A Description of Patagonia, Hereford, 1774,
p. 142 f .

able, as some of their sayings suggest.' Stories of
descent by the living to this underground region
are widely spread over Africa.

4. The under world in Christian belief. — Through
both Jewish and pagan influences the locality of
the souls of the dead in Christian belief was placed
beneath the earth, either as an intermediate state,
with part of it as a paradise region (Irenajus,
TertuUian), or, more generally, a place of punish-
ment. This belief is illustrated from theological
writings, legends, poems {e.g., Dante's Inferno),
and art. It has now ceased to be a vital part of
Christian belief.

5. The under world as fairyland. — In the art.
Fairy it is shown how frequently the abode of the
fairies, dwarfs, and such like beings is underground,
and various theories for this folk-belief are dis-
cussed— e.g., that which regards fairies as spirits
of the dead.

6. Divinities of the under world. — The divinity
who reigns over the under world is frequently a
personification of that region itself, and this is
more particularly the case where, e.g.. Earth and
Under-earth are conceived as personified in one
being. The earth-goddess is also the ruler of souls
(e.g., Demeter or Persephone), with the under-
earth people, the A-q/i-rjTpioi. or viroxdbvi,oi., as her
subjects.*

Literature. — This is referred to in the footnotes. See also
artt. State of the Dead, Descent to Hades (Ethnic).

J. A. MacCulloch.
UNDER WORLD (Greek).— The Greek con-
ception of the under world is the product of a long
process of evolution. The following strata can be
clearly determined.

1. An under world which is strictly local, and
in which the attributes of the dead are purely
physical. — This conception is well expressed in a
vase in the Central Museum at Athens. This
archaic vase is of the type known as ' prothesis,'
a class of vase used in funeral ceremonies and
decorated with funeral subjects. Two mourners
stand lamenting, one on either side of a grave,
erect on Avhich is a ' prothesis ' vase. Within the
grave itself is represented what the mourners
believed the grave to contain : (a) the eidola, little
winged figures of the dead, and (b) a great snake.
The under world was to the vase-painter strictly
local ; it was the grave itself. The little winged
eidola, shrunken men, represent the individual
dead, strengthless and vain ; the great snake
represents the collective might of the dead, the
5aL/jLuv of life and reincarnation, the immortality
of the y^vos or tribe. This SalfjLwv in human form
was the tribal hero, in later monarchical days the
king, like the ancestor of the Athenians, envisaged
as half-man, half-snake. He was essentially a
local power, and to him the fertility of the local
earth was due ; his temple was his tomb. This
belief in the snake-hero was essentially the faith
of a settled people of agriculturists to whom the
local earth with its perennial crops was all-im-
portant— a people who practised field-magic. With
the heroic age, its shiftings of peoples, its conquests
and migrations, the conception of the under world,
dependent like all other religious conceptions on
social developments, was bound to change. This
brings us to the next development or stratum.

2. An under world remote, non-local, Pan-
Hellenic— in a word, the Homeric or heroic under
world. — In Odyssey, xi., the so-called Nekuia, we
have a description of an under world which,
though its kernel is undoubtedly local, i.e. Boeotian,
has become in virtue of many accretions Pan-

1 See artt. Blest, Abode of the (Primitive and Savage), § 5 ;
Bantu and S. Africa, § 4 ; Negroes and W. Africa, § 3 ; Alice
Werner, African Mythology (= Mythology of all Races, vii.),
Boston, ch. iv. t.

2 See art. Earth, Earth-qods, § 7 f.

UNITARIANISM

519

Hellenic. This under world is no longer a local
grave, but a vast remote kin<,'dom of the dead,
separated from the living world by the stream of
Okeanos, but in confused fashion accessible by a
trench dug in the earth. The old conception
partly lives on. This under world of Homer
reflects of course the Homeric social structure.
We have the great mass of the people represented
by the ' strengthless heads of the dead,' Avho
'sweep shadow -like around,' and with whom
Odysseus holds no converse ; and we have the
souls of great particular heroes, who, after drink-
ing of the black blood, can hold converse with the
living. Instead of the collective dai/ioijv, the snake,
we have individual aristocratic heroes who emerge
in truly heroic fashion. The function of these
splendid Homeric dead is not to fertilize the earth
for their successors, but to live on themselves after
their kind, though in more shadowy fashion.
They are no longer either physical or local ; they
are functionless — no longer perennial, but merely
immortal and quite non-moral.

To the literary Nekuia of Homer must be added
the great fresco of Polygnotus, the Nekuia painted
by him in the Lesche at Delphi of which Pausanias
has given us a detailed account.^ The Nekuia of
Polygnotus is, if we may trust Pausanias, based not
on the Odyssey but on another Boeotian epic now-
lost, the Minyad. In it stress is laid on a new
element just dawning in the Nekuia of the Odyssey,
and this brings us to our third stratum.

3. An under world which is moralized, contain-
ing new elements — retribution and purification.—
These two elements appear very clearly in a black-
figured ampliora at Munich. ^ To the right is
Sisyphos rolling up his stone, to the left the Danaids
are filling their bottomless cask. Sisyphos stands
for retribution, the Uanaids mark the transition to
purification.

In the Nekuia of Homer Odysseus, after he
has had speech of various heroes whom he has
known in the upper world, sees as in a vision,
but does not speak with, Minos the judge of Hades,
Orion the mighty hunter, and the great criminals
Tityos, Tantalos, SiSyphos. Of these figures the
two first are marked by one great characteristic :
they are doing in Hades what they did in the
upper world. Minos, who judged Crete, is judging
in Hades ; Orion is still hunting wild beasts. But
the three ' criminals ' have been usually supposed
to be, not carrying on their normal pursuits, but
being ' tormented.' S. Reinach has brilliantly and
conclusively shown that the three ' criminals ' also
are depicted as carrying on their earthly activities ;
it is only a later moralizing age that supposes tiiem
'tormented.' We will take only one instance —
Sisyphos rolling his stone. Sisyphos is the ancient
king of Corinth, and, like all other ancient kings,
a daL/j.wi' of weather and sky powers. He controls
the sun ; in a sense he is the sun. It is his business
to roll the ball of the sun, the huge stone, up the
steeps of heaven, whence eternally it rolls down
again. The senseless punishment becomes intel-
ligible as a periodic function eternally incumbent.
Hades is peopled with the oaln^y powers of an elder
M'orld ; it is the dower-house of antique religion.

The Danaids are analogous figures ; but about
them have grown up accretions more complex ;
they stand not only for retribution but also for
purification, and they are ultimately connected
with the mystery-cult of Orpheus. Primarily, how-
ever, they are quite simple figures ; they are the
daughters of the old Danaos, king of Argos. He
makes the weather, and they make the rain ; they
are well-nymphs, projections of ancient rain-mak-
ing ceremonials ; they carry water in order that
water may well forth from sky and earth. They are
1 X. 2&-31. a Jahn Cat. 153.

depicted as on the vase pouring water in a, pithos-
well, the bottom pierced to communicate with and
fertilize the earth. But their labour is ceaseless,
i.e. periodic, year by year. But, when their nature
as rain-makers is forgotten, the ceaseless labour is
thought of as a punishment, a retribution ; they
are ' condemned to carry water in leaky vessels ' ;
they, the fertility-bringers, are doomed to endless,
barren toil. What was their crime? But for
Pausanias,^ we could never have guessed. He saw
in the Nekuia at Delphi figures represented as
carrying water in broken vessels, and he explains
them as ' of the number of those who held the
Eleu?inian mysteries to be of no account.' They
are the uninitiated, never purified in the upper
world ; tliey ceaselessly seek purification in the
world below. Thus the well-nymphs, with their
simple jihysical function as perennial fertilizers,
have been moralized by a later and mystical
theology.

In the Hades of Homer there are no water-
carriers, no uninitiated, for Homer knows nothing
of the mysteries. His theology has reached the
retribution, but not the purification, stage. But
from Homer onwards, as has recently been shown
by Gilbert Murray, the conceptions of bliss and
torment are in ancient literature, and we may add
in ancient art, ' always connected with the mys-
teries,' whether Orphic or Eleusinian. The mental
pictures of Heaven and Hell which were current
in ancient times and are still to a certain extent
traditional among us are based on the actual ritual
of the mysteries. The scenery and arrangements,
so to speak, of the other world are, in the first
instance, projections of the initiation-ceremonies.
Such is the purgatorial water-carrying of the un-
initiated Danaids.

Literature.— J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of
Gh-eek Reliijion, Cambridge, 1903, ch. xi. ' Orphic Eschatology,'
Themis, do. 1912, pp. 517-531 ; S. Reinach, 'Sisyphe aux enters
et quelques autres damni5s,' in RA i. [1903] 154-200 ; A.
Dieterich, Nekyia : Beitnifje zur Erkldrung der neuentdeckten
Petrus-apokalypse, Leipzig, 1S93 ; L. Radermacher, Das Jen-
seits iin Mythos der Hellenen, Bonn, 1903 ; Gilbert Murray,
'The Conception of Another Life,' Edinburgh Review, Jan.

]9i5. Jane E. Harrison.

UNEMPLOYMENT.— See Employment.
UNI ATS.— See Syrian Christians.
UNIFORMITY.— See Law (Natural), Order.

UNITARIANISM.— Unitarianism, an English
term derived from the Latin imitarius (first used
of a legalized religion in 1600 -), is applied to a
mode of religious thought and organization founded
on the conception of the single personality of the
Deity in contrast to the orthodox doctrine of His
triune nature. The corresponding term ' Trini-
tarian' was first used in the modern sense by
Servetus in 1546. The adjective ' Unitarian ' has
sometimes been employed beyond the limits of
Christianity — e.g., in connexion with Muhammad-
anism ; this article deals only with the development
of modem Unitarianism on Christian lines. The
place of the corresponding doctrine in the NT and
the early Church must be studied in the usual
authorities on historical theology.

I. Beginnings on the Continent. — The general
movement of humanism at the opening of the 16th
cent, led to a variety of speculation which was
largely stimulated by the publication of the Greek
text of the NT by Ei'asmus (1516). His omission
of the famous Trinitarian verse, 1 Jn 5^, and his
aversion to the scholastic type of disputations
produced a marked ellect on many minds. The
earliest literary trace of anti-Trinitarian tendencies
is usually found in a treatise of Martin Cellarius
1 X. xxxi. 11. 2 See } 4 below.

520

UNITARIANISM

(1499-1564), pupil of Reuchlin, and at first a
follower and friend of Luther. In 1527 he pub-
lished at Strassburg a work entitled de Operibus
Dei, in wliich he used the term deus of Christ in
the same sense in which Christians also might be
called dei as 'sons of the Highest.' The first
treatise of Servetus (1511-53), de Trinitcdis Errori-
bas, followed in 1531. The minds of the young
were on the alert. Teachers, theologians, lawyers,
physicians, mathematicians, men of letters and
science, were all astir. They travelled and dis-
cussed, and new views were carried far and wide.
In Naples a young Spaniard, John Valdes, became
the centre of a religious group of noble ladies for
the study of the Scriptures till his death in 1541 ;
and in 1539 Melanchthon found it necessary to
warn the Venetian senate of the existence of wide-
spread Servetianism in N. Italy. Out of this
circle comes Bernard Ochino (1487-1565) of Siena,
who passes slowly through Switzerland to London,
serves as one of the pastors of the Strangers' Church
(1550-53) till it is broken up by Queen Mary, takes
shelter again in Zurich, and finally migrates to
Poland in 1559, and joins the anti-Trinitarian

Earty. There Catherine Vogel, a jeweller's wife,
ad been burned at the age of 80 in 1539 at Cracow
for believing in ' the existence of one God, creator
of all the visible and the invisible world, who
could not be conceived by the human intellect.'^
An anti-Trinitarian movement showed itself at
the second synod of the Reformed Church in 1556,
and in 1558 secured a leader in the person of a
Piedmontese phj'sician, George Blandi-ata. Dutch
Anabaptists started various heretical movements,
and David Joris of Delft (1501-56) declared in his
Wonder-book (1542) that there is but 'one God,
sole and indivisible, and that it is contrary to the
operation of God throughout creation to admit a
God in tliree persons.' Thousands of Protestants
from Germany, Alsace, and the Low Countries,
migrated to England in the reign of Henry A'lll.,
and the Strangers' Church under EdAvard VI. con-
tained also Frenchmen, Walloons, Italian.?, and
Spaniards.

2. Beginnings in England. — English thought
was not unaffected. In the 15th cent. Reginald
Peacock, bishop of Chichester, had opened the
way by his two treatises, the Repressoi- of over-
timch Blaming of the Clergy^ and the Book of
Faith,^ to the discussion of the relative values of
Scripture, tradition, and reason as grounds of faith,
and had pleaded for freedom of investigation.
Lollard and Anabaptist diverged in ditt'erent direc-
tions from orthodoxy along independent lines. On
28th Dec. 1548 a priest named John Assheton ab-
jured before Cranmer the ' damnable heresies ' that
' the Holy Ghost is not God, but only a certain
power of the Father,' and that 'Jesus Christ, that
was conceived of the Virgin Mary, was a holy
prophet . . . but was not the true and living
God.' In the following April a commission was
appointed to search out all Anabaptists, heretics,
or contemners of the Common Prayer. A number
of London tradesmen were brought before this
body in May. The opinions which they recanted
included the statements ' that there was no Trinity
of persons ; that Christ was only a holy prophet
and not at all God ; that all we had by Christ was
that he taught us the way to heaven.' * Occasional
executions took place, such as that of the surgeon
George van Parris, of Mainz, in 1551 for saying
that God the Father was the only God, and Christ
was not very God. The Eastern counties, being

1 Wallace, Antitrinitarian Biography, ii. 139, quoting Polish
historians.

2 Ed. C. Babin^ton (Rolls series, xix. 1, 2), London, 1860.

3 Ed. J. L. Morison, Glasgow, 1909.

* Gilbert Burnet, Hist, of the Reformation of the Church of
England, London, 1679-81, bk. i., new ed., Oxford, 1829, ii. 229.

in constant communication with Holland, supplied
most of the victims, down to Bartholomew Legate,
of Essex, who declared Christ a 'mere man,' but
' born free from sin,' and who was the last sufferer
by Smithfield fires (1612), and Edward Wightman,
who was burned a month later at Lichfield, charged
with ten various heresies as incongruous as those
of Ebion, Valentinus, Arius, and Manes. ^ One
foreign teacher, Giacomo Aconzio (Latinized as
Acontius, born at Trent about 1520), held his own
through the troubled times. Engineer and theo-
logian, philosopher and lawyer, mathematician
and poet, he came to England in 1559, and received
a post at Elizabeth's court, which he managed to
retain even when Bishop Grindal excommunicated
him two years later for advocating tolerance to
Anabapists. In his Stratagemata Satanm'^ he
drew a distinction between articles of faith neces-
sary to salvation and beliefs derived from them
which might be matters of dispute. Adhering to
Scripture, he declared the Father to be ' the only
true God' ; affirmed the moral, not the essential,
filiation of Jesus Christ ; and asserted the subor-
dination of the Holy Spirit to the Father. But
the time was not yet come for his full influence in
England.

3. Types of speculation. — Three types of specu-
lation were thus in the European field by the
middle of the 16th century. (1) That of Servetus
was founded on the ' dispositio ' of Iren£eus and
the ' economy ' of Tertullian ; ^ the Trinity was a
Trinity of manifestations or modes of operation ;
when God is all in all (1 Co 15'-^), 'the Economy of
the Trinity will cease.' ■* His theology was Christo-
centric : ' There is no other person of God but
Christ . . . the entire Godhead of the Father is
in him.'^ (2) Many of the Anabaptists were
Arians. (3) A humanitarian view of Jesus, re-
cognizing a miraculous birth, was beginning to
claim attention. The last of these succeeded in
establishing itself in the east of Europe before
English Unitarians began to move.

4. The Socinian development. — When Blandrata
reached Poland in 1558, he found that there were
already some anti-Trinitarians in the Protestant
synod. Seven years later they were excluded, and
they consequently formed a small group which
refused to call itself by any other name than
Christian, though other titles (such as the Minor
Church) were sometimes applied to it. In 1579
the settlement of Faustus Socinus in their midst
led to the establishment of a new theological type
to be long known in Western Europe as Socinian-
ism (q.v.).

Socinus (1539-1604) belonged to a distinguished
Italian family, the Sozini, in Siena. His uncle
Lelius Socinus (1525-62) had evaded the Inquisition
by flight to Switzerland in 1547. He became the
friend of Calvin and Melanchthon ; he visited
England ; he travelled to Poland. He did not
escape controversy and suspicion ; he would not
deny the doctrine of the Trinity, but he would
accept it only in the words of Scripture. Faustus
Socinus was of a more aggressive temper. At
twenty-three years of age he published his Ex-
plicatio primes pai'tis prinii capitis Evangelii
Johannis,^ in which he ascribed to Christ only an
official and not an essential deity. A long series
of works followed, and in 1578 he accepted an
invitation from Blandrata, then in the service of
Prince John Sigismund of Transylvania, and went
to Kolozsvdr. Blandrata had invoked his aid
against Francis Ddvid, who rejected all forms of

1 Anti-Trinitarian opinions were developed in the first Baptist
Church founded in London in 1613, by Thomas Helwys. See
W. H. Burgess, John Smith, the Se-Baptist, London, 1911.

2 Basel, 1565. '■^ De Trin. Error, p. 48.
J/6, p. 82. 6/6. p. 112 f.

6 Rakow, 1662.

UNITARIANISM

521

cultus addressed to Christ.' Socinus pleaded for
the adoratio Christi as obligatory on all Christians,
and urged that the invocatio Christi should not be
forbidden. In 1579 he settled in Poland, where
the rest of his life was spent. The members of the
Minor Church were converted to his views, which
found expression in the Racovian Catechism issued
in Polish in 1605, a year after his death.- A Latin
edition followed in 1609. The Polish adherents of
Socinus failed, however, to hold their ground.
Deprived of their right to office, their leaders were
powerless. Roman Catholic reaction triumphed.
Their college at Rakow was suppressed, and finally
in 1660 they were offered the option of conformity
or exile. Some went to Germany and Holland ;
some carried their worship to Transylvania, and
maintained a slender separate existence till 1793.
But the influence of Socinus was perpetuated in
the massive volumes of the Bibliotheca fratrum
Polonorum quos Unitarios vacant, published at
Amsterdam (1665-69). His theology rested on a
rigid view of the authority of Scripture.* The
modern methods of historical criticism were of
course unknown. Philosophy raised no difficulties
about the supernatural, but reason started objec-
tions from the side of the multiplication-table.

'The essence of God is one,' says the Racovian Catechism,
' not in kind but in number. Wherefore it cannot in any way
contain a plurality of persons, since a person is nothing else
than an individual intellig-ent essence. Wherever then there
exist three numerical persons, there must necessarily in like
manner be reckoned three individual essences, for in the same
sense in which it is affirmed that there is one numerical essence,
it must be held that there is one numerical person.'*

But Socinus admitted the application of the
term ' God ' to Christ in an inferior sense (Jn 10**'')>
and argued from Jn 3'* that after his baptism
Christ had been conveyed to heaven, where he had
beheld his Father, and heard from him the things
which he was afterwards sent back to earth to
teach. Raised again to heaven after his resurrec-
tion, he was made the head of all creation, with
divine authority over the world, and in that sense
God. He was thus no 'mere man,' and deserved
divine honour. Modern Unitarianism has de-
parted widely from this Christology. Apart from
the necessarianism of Priestley, it is nearer to
Socinus in its view of human nature, which he
treated (against the Calvinists) as endowed with
free will, and capable of virtue and religion. But
the Polish Unitarians did not regard it as intrinsic-
ally immortal. A future life would be a gift
direct from God, its conditions being made known
bj' Christ. For those who did not fulfil them
there was no hell, only extinction.

Unitarianism acquired ecclesiastical status also
in tiie adjoining province of Transylvania. In
1563 Blandrata was invited by Queen Isabella to
the court of her son Prince John Sigismund. At
Kolozsvdr (Klausenburg) he was brought into
contact with Francis Ddvid, who had been sent
by his Roman Catholic teachers to Wittenberg.
There Ddvid had passed into Lutheranism, but
afterwards, dissatisfied with its doctrine of the
sacraments, he joined the Calvinists. His dis-
tinction led to his appointment (1564) as bishop of
the Hungarian churches in Transylvania. Under
Blandrata's influence he began to doubt the
separate personality of the Holy Spirit, and became
involved in discussions with the Calvinist leader,
Peter Melius. In these debates Melius is said to
have first used the word Unitarius. Ddvid was

1 See below.

2 The town of Eakow, founded in 1569, waa the ecclesiastical
base, with a school and university (1602).

» His treatise de Aucturitate S. Scripttirce, written in 1570,
was first published at Seville, and claimed by a Jesuit Lopez as
his own. Commended in 17'2S in a charge by Bishop Small-
brooke, it was translated into English bv Edward Combe in
1731.

•* Eng. tr. by Thomas Rees, London, 1S18, § iii. ch. i. p. 33.

strong enough to carry large numbers of clergy
and laity with him. In 156S a royal edict was
issued, granting entire freedom of conscience and
speech, and giving legal recognition to ' the Four
Religions,' Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Cal-
vinism (or Reformed), and ' the Klausenburg Con-
fession.' More than 400 preachers with their
churches, and many professors in colleges and
schools, ranged themselves under Ddvid's super-
visorship. Ddvid, however, soon advanced another
step, and questioned the propriety of prayer to
Christ. Blandrata's attempt to influence him
through Faustus Socinus (1578) did not convince
him, and in the following year, under a Roman
Catholic prince, DAvid was tried for innovation in
doctrine and sentenced to imprisonment. Five
months later (Nov. 1579) he died in the castle of
Deva in his seventieth year.

The name Unitarius first appeared in an authori-
tative document in a decree of the Synod of Lecs-
falva in 1600. It was formally adopted by the
Church in 1638. For two centuries after David's
death the community was in frequent danger from
political and religious vicissitudes. Their churches
were transferred to Calvinists or to Roman Catho-
lics ; they were deprived of their schools ; they
were debarred from public office. A statute of
1791, however, confirmed their position as one of
' the Four Religions,' and they have since enjoyed
ecclesiastical peace.' They have now about 140
churches, chiefly among the Szeklers of Transyl-
vania, with a few in Hungary, including a vigorous
modern foundation in Buda-Pesth. Till 1919 their
bishop sat in the Hungarian House of Peers. At
Kolozsvdr they have a university, and they have
devoted great attention to education. No doctrinal
subscription is imposed upon their ministers, and
under the influence of progressive change, and
contact with Unitarian teaching in England and
America, the Socinian Christology has been aban-
doned. The otticial hymn-book of 1865 made no
provision for the worship of Christ.

S. Growth of Unitarianism in England. — The
teaching of Socinus gradually made its way into
England. The Latin version of the Racovian
Catechism was sent to England with a dedication
to James I. ; it was formally burned in 1614. Two
Socinian Avorks appear in the first two catalogues
of the Bodleian Library (1620-35), but a consider-
able number may be traced in the catalogue by
Thomas Hyde in 1674. Bishop Barlow, himself
once librarian, in Directions for the Choice of Books
in the Study of Divinity (originally drawn up in
1650 and expanded after 1673), named numerous
others in connexion with a syllabus of the principal
questions at issue between Socinians and other
Reformed communions.^ Theology was deeply
concerned with the claims of the Roman Catholics
on the one hand and the controversies of the
Puritans on the other, and from the days of
Richard Hooker (1553-1600) a series of writers
discussed the respective authority of the Church,
the Scriptures, and rea.son. Doubtless revelation
was necessary, but Scripture was its medium. If
it was the teacher of theology, what was theology,
asked Hooker, Imt the science of divine things?
and ' what science,' he went on to ask, ' can be
attained unto without the help of natural discourse
and reason'?^ The Arminian revolt against
Calvinism tended in the same direction, and ' the
ever memorable' John Hales (1584-1656), when he

1 Cf. Michael Lombard Szentabrahanii, Sumnia Universce
Theologice Christiana! secundum llnitarivs, Klausenburg 1787.
The above was written before the great majority of Unitarian
Churches passed under Rumanian rule by the Peace of 1919.

2 The Genuine Jieinain^ of Dr. Thomas Barlow, late Bishop
of Lincoln, London, 161)3.

3 Laws of Kcclislaxtical Polity, bk. iii. ch. viii. 11, ed. Eeble,
Oxford, 1836, i. 473.

522

UNITARIANISM

left the Synod of Dort after hearing Episcopius
expound Jn 3'^ 'bid John Calvin good-night.'^
A stream of protest flowed on against the attempt
to define the mysteries of the Godhead beyond the
terms of Scripture. It had been the plea of
Aeontius in the Stratagemata Satance ; and William
Chillingworth (1602-44) owned him as his teacher
of the mischief of creeds -which led to the ' perse-
cuting, burning, cursing, damning of men for not
subscribing to the words of men as the words of
God.'- Chillingworth was indebted for acquaint-
ance with Sccinian literature to Lord Falkland.
He had seen some volumes in the rooms of Hugli
Cre-ssy of Merton College, Oxford, who 'claimed
to have been the first to bring in Socinus's books.'
Cressy afterwards became a Benedictine monk ;
Falkland was designated by John Aubrey 'the
first Socinian in England.' Other and wider in-
fluences were at work. Lord Herbert of Cher bury
(1583-1648) in his de Veritate'^ analysed the whole
faculties of the mind, and discovered among its
notiticB communes, innate, of divine origin, and in-
disputable, certain 'common notions' of religion
in five articles. These he exemplified historically
twenty years later in the de Religione Gentilium
(completed in 1645), one of the earliest treatises in
comparative theology. The great authority of
Grotius (1583-1645) gave special weight to his
exposition of Christianity in the de Veritate Re-
ligionis Christiance^ He discourses of the attri-
butes of God, but is silent about His triune nature.
He proves that there was such a person as Jesus,
that he rose from the grave and was worshipped
after his death. He vindicates his character as
Messiah, but never mentions the Incarnation.
His Annotationes on the NT were equally free
from traditional dogma. It was not surprising
that Stephen Nye, the author of the Brief History
of the Unitarians also called Socinians,^ should
affirm that he ' interpreted the whole according to
the mind of the Socinians.' Under such influences
diversity of opinion was recognized as inevitable.
Writers so diff'erent as Hales, Jeremy Taylor,« and
Milton'' declare in almost the same words that
heresy is not a matter of the understanding ; the
faithful pur.suit of reason did not make a heretic ;
the mischief lay in the influences that perverted
the will. Chillingworth thought it possible to
reduce all Christians to unity of communion by
showing that diversity of opinion was no bar to it.
That all Christians should think alike was an im-
possibility ; it remained for tliem to be ' taught to
set a higher value upon those high points of faith
and obedience wherein they agrree than upon those
points of less moment wherein they differ.' « Such
■\vriters did not adopt the theology of Socinus, but
they were in agreement with him in his plea for
Scriptural statements rather than dogmatic creeds.
'Vitals in religion,' said Benjamin Whichcote
(1609-83), the leader of the Cambridge Platonists,
' are few.'^

Meanwhile an occasional English traveller like
Paul Best (1590-1657) had visited Poland and
returned infected. Milton noticed in the Areopa-
fjitica 1" the ' stay'd men ' sent by ' the grave and
frugal Transilvanian ' to learn the ' theologic arts '
of England. The danger of Socinianism was

1 Letter of Anthony Farindon (17th Sept. 1657) prefixed to
the Gulden Remaivs, London, 1659.

2 The Religion of Protestants, Oxford, 1638, iv. § 16, referring
to Aeontius, vii.

3 Paris, 1624, London, 1633.

4 Leyden, 1627. » London, 1687.

6 In the Liberty of Prophesying, London, 1646 ; ed. 1817,
sect. ii. p. 32.

■7 In his last tract, Of True- Religion, Heresy, Schism, Tolera-
tion, London, 1673, p. 6.

8 Religion of Protectants, iv. § 40, p. 209 f.

a Moral and Reliyioxis Axioms, ed. Salter, London, 1753.
10 London, 1644.

spreading. The Convocations of Canterbury and
York agreed in June 1640 to prohibit the import,
printing, or circulation of Socinian books ; no
minister should preach their doctrines ; laymen
who embraced their opinions should be excom-
municated. ^ A series of angry writers denounced
them with shrill abuse. Parliament made the
denial of the Trinity a capital crime (1648), but an
English translation of the Racovian Catechism y/aa
published in 1652 at Amsterdam, followed by A
Twofold Scripture Catechism from the pen of John
Biddle in 1654. These works led the Council of
State to order John Owen, whom Cromwell had
made Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor
of the university of Oxford, to prepare_a reply.
His Vindicice Evangelicce appeared in 1655.

' Do not look upon these things,' he wrote with heat,2 ' as
things afar off wherein you are little concerned ; the ei-ill is at
the doo're ; there is not a Citty, a Towne, scarce a Village in
England, wherein some of this povson is not poured forth.'

6. Influence of Biddle and Locke.— John Biddle
(1616-62) has often been called the father of English
Unitarianism. Sprung from the family of a
Gloucestershire yeoman, he came up to Oxford in
1634, and graduated M.A. in 1641. The Gloucester
magistrates appointed him shortly after to the
mastership of the free school in the parish of St.
Mary de Crypt. There his Biblical studies led
him indepeniiently to doubt the doctrine of the
Trinity, the particular difficulty being the deity of
the Holy Ghost. Imprisonment in Gloucester and
at Westminster did not prevent him from publish-
ing his views, which became more and more
opposed to the prevailing orthodoxy. Released in
1652, he founded for the first time gatherings for
the exposition of the Scriptures on anti-Trinitarian
lines, and these developed into regular meetings
for worship. Biddle's catechism shows distinct
Socinian influence in the views that Christ as man
was taken up into heaven to be instructed for his
prophetical office, that God's love was universal,
and that Christ died to reconcile man to God, not
God to man. But Biddle did not adopt the
Socinian practice of prayer to Christ. In spite of
imprisonment and exile in the Scilly Islands (1654-
58) he gathered followers in increasing numbers.
They were sometimes called Biddelians, sometimes
Socinians, but they are said to have preferred the
name Unitarian to all others. =*

The death of Biddle in 1662 and the Act of
Uniformity checked the movement as an organiza-
tion for worship, but it continued as a mode of
thought. The constant plea for a return from the
creeds to the Scriptures led Milton finally into an
Arian Christology. Thomas Firmin (1632-97), a
wealthy and generous mercer, who had been the
friend of Biddle and also had close relations with
Archbishop Tillotson (1630-94), promoted the cir-
culation of literature. The Brief History of the
Unitarians, also called Socinians, was published
at his request in 1687. The Toleration Act of 1689
excluded those who denied the Trinity on the one
side, and Roman Catholics on the other. But an
active controversy broke out the following year,
which resulted in the production of a long series
of Unitarian tracts (1691-1705) largely financed by
Firmin, in which the chief ecclesiastical disputants,
John Wallis and W^illiam Sherlock,-' were cleverly
played off" against each other, and the argument
was enforced on grounds of Scripture and early
patristic testimony. The Unitarian influence was
so strong that Parliament found it necessary (1698)
1 Canons iv. and V. ^69.

3 The name has been found by Alex. Gordon in a controversy
between Henry Hedworth and William Penn in 1672. The
pamphlets are preserved in the Friends' Library at Devonshire
House, Bishopsirate, London, E.G. ... ^ ^

4 Cf. John Barling, A Review of Tnmtanamsm, London,
1847 p. 71 ; John Hunt, Religious thought in England, 3 vols ,
do. 1870-73, ii. 201 ff.

UNITARIANISM

523

to threaten the profession of the obnoxious heresy
witli cumulative penalties amounting to the loss
of all civil riglits, and three years' imprisonment.
But in the meantime a new and powerful influence
had entered the field. In 1695 John Locke (1632-
1704) had published his treatise on The Reasonable-
ness of Christianity.

Locke's Letters concerning Toleration^ and his
Essay concerning Human Understanding^ had
already placed him at the head of contemporarj'
English thinkers. It was a lamentable sign of the
heated temper of the time that the inquiry into
the essential nature of Cliristianity was published
anonymously. Locke did what Grotius and Hobbes
(in the Leviathan^) had done before him. He went
back to the Gospels and the first preachers of the
new faith, and found that their message consisted
in the proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah, the
proof of this character resting on his fulfilment of
prophecy and his miracles, especially the Resur-
rection. He had indeed already confided to his
journal in 1681 the pregnant remark that the
miracles were to be judged by the doctrine, and
not the doctrine by the miracles. But he could
still say in 1703 that the Scripture had God for its
authority and truth without any mixture of error
for its matter. This did not, however, prevent
him from recognizing the occasional character of
the apostolic letters ; and in the paraphrases of
the Epistles of St. Paul ■* (published after his death),
by treating their teaching as relative to the age
and persons for whom it was designed, he really
laid the foundation of the historical method. His
whole theory of knowledge, however, and his
polemic against innate ideas, led him to fall back
on the conception of revelation, and to find in
Scripture an ultimate authority for religious truth.
Meanwhile the violence of some of the Trinitarian
controversialists drove many minds along the paths
already trodden by Milton and Sir Isaac Newton
in the direction of some form of Arianism. William
Whiston (1672-1752), who had succeeded Newton
at Cambridge as Lucasian professor in 1703, was
deprived for this heresy in 1710; and it was
in the background of the treatise of Samuel Clarke
(1675-1729) on The Scripture Doctrine of the
Trinity,^ though he objected to the ancient Arian
statement, ' there was [a time] when there was no
Son.'

The formularies of the Church of England pre-
vented anything like general change within its
ranks. But Protestant Dissent was not organized
on the basis of dogmatic creeds. The English
Presbyterians under the leadership of Richard
Baxter (1615-91) had ardently desired compre-
hension in the Establishment, but they had as
ardently repudiated what they called ' human
impositions.' Driven out of the Anglican Church,
and unal)le to create a Presbyterian polity, they
found themselves side by side with the Congrega-
tionalists in 1689. When they took out licences
for places of worship, their trustees avoided doctrinal
tests, though they themselves were mainly Calvin-
istic. They often devoted their chapels to 'the
worship of God by Protestant Dissenters.' Some-
times the Presbyterians were named, sometimes
the Independents, sometimes botii conjointly.
They reserved to themselves, in tlie language of
Timothy Jollie of Sheffield (1659-1714), 'liberty to
reform according to Scripture rule in doctrine,
discipline and worship.' ^ The way was thus open
to gradual theological modification. The process

1 London, 1689-92. 2 London, 1690.

3 London, 1651.

■< A Paraphrase and Notes on the EpislUg of St. Paul to the
Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, and Bphesians, London, 1709.

•'' London, 1712.

6 Pastoral Care Ezemplified (funeral sermon for his father),
London, 1704, p. 28.

was slow, and its operation unequal in ditierent
places. Pastors and people did not always move
together. The transition through varying types
of Arianism naturally took place at varying rates ;
e.g., Nathaniel Lardner (16S4-176S), after resting
in Clarke's Arianism, finally abandoned it in his
Letter on the Logos. ^ The result was that at the
beginning of the 19th cent, nearly 200 chapels
were occupied by Unitarians, whose principles
were unfavourable to sectarian activity. Wlien
the Manchester Academy (now Manchester College,
Oxford) was opened in 1786, its first principal,
Thomas Barnes, who dedicated it ' to Truth, to
Liberty, and to Religion,' was himself an Arian.
His colleague, Ralph Harrison, became a Uni-
tarian. True to the practice of their forefathers,
the founders refrained from imposing any tests
on either tutors or students. The Presbyterian
Board, established in 1689, governs the Presljyterian
College at Carmarthen — the continuator of a series
of academies, the first of which was founded on the
same basis by Samuel Jones, sometime fellow of
Jesus College, Oxford, one of the 2000 ejected
ministers of 1662.

7. The work of Priestley and Belsham. — The
process of theologic change was promoted from
another side. Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), bred
among the Independents, threw off the Calvinistic
theology of his youth, and, after resting a little
while in Arianism, reached in 1768, while minister
at Leeds, a simple humanitarian view of the person
of Jesus. His scientific studies had already gained
him the fellowship of the Royal Society (1766), and
his Appeal to the Serious and Candid Professors of
Christianity''^ carried his name in 30,000 copies all
over England. His industry, his wide range of
knowledge, his clearness of thought and style, his
fearless utterance, his untiring earnestness, his
elevation of purpose and purity of life, his simple
piety, secured for his theological and philosophical
teaching a dominant position in Unitarian thought.
At Doddridge's Academy at Daventry he had
studied Hartley's Observations on Man,^ and
adopted a materialist view of human nature.
But this in no way impaired the religion which he
learned from the Gospels. The teachings of Jesus,
guaranteed by his miracles and triumphantly
established by his resurrection, supplied him with
a positive ground for faith ; and the identification
of the God of revelation with the Sole Cause of
all phenomena, including every form of human
activity, created a type of religious sentiment
which long pervaded Unitarian devotion. In his
Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated*
he affirmed that his doctrine should produce ' the
deepest humility, the most entire resignation to
the will of God, and the most unreserved confidence
in his goodness and j^rovidential care.'* Among
the Yorkshire acquaintances of Priestley was
Theophilus Lindsey (1723-1808), vicar of Catterick
on the Tees. A movement had been started by a
small group of the clergy of the Establishment for
the relaxation of the terms of subscription. The
failure of a petition to Parliament led Lindsey to
resign his living (1773) and make his way to
London. There in 1774 he opened an auction-room
in Essex Street, Strand, as a Unitarian chapel, and
thus ' first organized Unitarian Dissent as a
working force in the religious life of England.'®
He used the Anglican liturgy adapted to 'the
worship of the Father only.'

The London movement was reinforced in 1789
by the appointment of Thomas Belsham (1750-

1 A Letter writ in the Year 1730, concerning the Question
whether the Logos supplied the Place of a Unman So^ul in the
Person of Jesus Christ, London, 1769.

2 London, 1770. 3 London, 1749.
* London, 1777. « § ix.

6 J. H. Allen, Hist, of Unitarians, etc., p. 152.

524

UNITARIANISM

1829), once like Priestley an Independent, to a
theological tutorship in a college at Hackney. A
scholar of no small attainments, he wielded a
vigorous pen, and took a leading share in promot-
ing the development of denominational activity.
This was opened in 1791 by the foundation of the
' Unitarian Society for promoting Christian know-
ledge and the Practice of Virtue by the Distribu-
tion of Books.' Lindsey, Priestley, and Belsham
were its leaders. The preamble and rules, drawn
up by Belsham, contained the first public pro-
fession of belief in the proper unity of God, and of
the simple humanity of Jesus Christ, in opposition
both to the Trinitarian doctrine of three Persons
in the Deity and to the Arian hypothesis of a
created Maker and Preserver of the world. The
love of civil and religious liberty prompted a
petition the next year (1792) for the abolition of
the penal laws aftecting religion, to which Charles
James Fox lent his aid, and this was accomplished
in 1813 (so far as Unitarians were concerned) by
the repeal, through the elibrts of William Smith
(1756-1835), M.P. for Norwich, grandfather of
Florence Niglitingale, of the clauses of the Tolera-
tion Act which rendered the profession of Unitari-
anism illegal. Meanwhile local Unitarian associa-
tions had been founded, and a denominational
literature was springing up. Chapels long closed
were reopened ; new congregations were assisted ;
a Unitarian Fund was started ; and missionaries
were sent out to various parts of the kingdom.
Endowed by the Act of 1813 with civil rights, the
Unitarians proceeded to form an association for
protecting them (1819) ; and finally in 1825 a
number of separate organizations were amalgam-
ated in the British and Foreign Unitarian Associa-
tion. This body was created to promote the
principles of Unitarian Christianity. But its
founders refrained from imposing any definition of
them on its adherents. In the spirit of the English
Presbyterians of a century and a half before, they
left each member free to interpret them for himself.

The type of Unitarianism then prevailing was
largely shaped by the writings of Priestley and
Belsham. There were still Arians of different
degrees (designated as 'high' and 'low') among
both ministers and congregations. But the em-
phasis of controversy fell more and more clearly on
the humanity of Jesus, and the proof of this lay in
the Scriptures. The doctrine of their plenary
inspiration was indeed denied. Criticism had
already distinguished different documents in
Genesis. The narratives of the birth of Jesus
were inconsistent with each other, and one or both
might be rejected. But both the OT and the NT
contained ' authentic records of facts and of divine
interpositions,' and Charles Wellbeloved, principal
of Manchester College, York, could write in 1823 :

'Convince us that any tenet is authorised by the Bible, from
that moment we receive it. Prove any doctrine to be a doctrine
of Clivist, emanating from that wisdom which was from above,
and we take it for our own, and no power on earth shall wrest
it from us." i

On tliis basis Jesus was presented as 'a man
constituted in all respects like other men, subject
to the same infirmities, the same ignorance,
prejudices and frailties,'" who was chosen by God
to introduce a new moral dispensation into the
world. For this end the Holy Spirit was com-
municated to him at his baptism. He was in-
structed in the nature of his mission and invested
with voluntary miraculous powers during his
sojourn in the wilderness, and, thus equipped as
the Messiah, was sent forth to reveal to all man-
kind without distinction the great doctrine of a
future life in which men should be rewarded

1 Three Letters to Archdeacon Wra7ighairfi, London, 1823,
p. 51.

2 Belsham, A Calm Inqvinj into the Scripture Doctrine
concerning the Person of Christ, London, 1811, p. 447.

according to their Avorks. Of this the supreme
proof was found in the Resurrection, to which his
death on the cross as a martyr to the truth was
a necessary preliminary ; and he was destined to
reappear to raise the dead and to judge the world.
From this scheme all theories of atonement and
satisfaction disappeared. Priestley with his usual
frankness had admitted that a necessitarian ' cannot
accuse himself of having done wrong in the ultimate
sense of the words.' ^ But, though this type of
Unitarianism was deficient in the sense of sin and
produced a curious reluctance to recognize the
existence of a ' soul,' its teachers lived habitually
at a high moral tension, demanding a constant
conformity of the will of man to the will of God.
Associated with the emphatic assertion of the
Father's wisdom and beneficence, such views
naturally anticipated the final victory of good.
Thomas Southwood Smith (1788-1861) in his
Illustrations of the Divine Government'^ — a book
warmly admired by Byron, Moore, Wordsworth,
and Crabbe — powerfully impressed on Unitarian
thought the doctrine of universal restoration,
which had already found utterance in one of
Cromwell's chaplains, and gained various champions
(Hartley among them) in the 18th century.^

8. Legal difficulties. — The modifications of belief
which had brought many of the occupants of
chapels erected by Presbyterians and Independents
to Unitarian theology at last aroused the attention
of those who remained orthodox. Besides a number
of meeting-houses, the Unitarians were in posses-
sion of two important trusts — Lady Hewley's
Charity in York (1704), and Dr. Williams's Trust
in London (1716). A suit was instituted against
Lady Hewley's trustees in 1830. Legal proceedings
were slow and costly, and on 23rd Dec. 1833 judg-
ment was finally given against them. One of the
trustees was the minister of St. Saviourgate Chapel
(which Lady Hewley had habitually attended),
Charles Wellbeloved. It was at once seen that
the whole tenure of the chapels was endangered.
A long period of litigation followed, but the Law
Lords finally confirmed the first decision in 1842.
Meanwhile numbers of suits were threatened for
the recovery of the buildings, burial-grounds, and
endowments which had descended in undisputed
succession through generations of pastors and
laity. Between Lady Hewley's pastor, John
Hotham, and Charles Wellbeloved there had been
but one ministry, that of Newcome Cappe (1755-
1800) ; the three pastorates covered 144 years. In
the presence of such continuity of tenure the claim
of the existing occupants was irresistible, and in
1844 the Dissenters' Chapels Act, introduced by
the Government, gave the needed relief. Without
naming either Presbyterians or Unitarians, it
secured to such Dissenting congregations as had
no creeds or tests the right to change their opinions
as they saw fit in the lapse of time.* The chapels
subsequently built by Unitarians, and the funds
raised for the support of their ministers, have been
almost invariably founded on the principle known
as ' open trust.' The consciousness of this Iiistoric
evolution supplies the key to the conflict of
tendencies in modern Unitarianism between the
impulse to theological denominationalism and the
desire to realize on however small a scale the
' Catholic communion ' which had been the ideal
of the English Presbyterians who followed Baxter.

9. Martineau and the modern school. — The most
potent personal influence in the latter direction
was that of James Martineau (1805-1900) (q.v.).

1 Illustrations of Philosophical Necessity, 1777, § xi. {Works,
ed. Rutt, iii. 518).

2 Glasgow, 1816. ■' See art. Universalism.

■* Cf. the speech of W. E. Gladstone, on the second reading,
Parliamentary Debates on the Dissenters' Chapels Bill, London,
1844, p. 165.

UNITARIANISM

525

In his first work, The Rationale of Religious In-
quiry,^ he abandoned the position of the older
Unitarianism, which would have accepted the
doctrines of the Trinity, the Atonement, and
everlasting torments, if they could be found in the
Scriptures. ' No seeming inspiration,' he affirmed,
'can establish anything contrary to reason.'^
Three years later in the famous Liverpool con-
troversy (1839), in the midst of incisive criticisms
of the evangelical scheme of salvation, he laid the
foundations of a new view of revelation no longer
as a communication of truth, certified by miracles,
but as an appeal to the conscience and afi'ections —
and a fresh interpretation of the moral life on the
basis of free will instead of necessity. Meanwhile
he was reading Strauss, and soon reached the
conclusion that belief in miracles was not essential
to Christianity. The Messianic function of Jesus
was thus undermined. Wellbeloved had already
insisted on the contemporary significance of many
of the prophecies supposed to refer to Christ.
When the miracles were disowned, the second
guarantee of the supernatural character of Jesus
fell away : the followers of Locke found themselves
deprived of their ' reasonable ' Christianity, and
the faith of Christ seemed to become only a
superior kind of natural religion. Martineau
meanwhile pursued a double line of study. In a
group of articles in the Westminster Review he ex-
pounded the Tiibingen reconstruction of the origins
of Christianity on its critical side, while on the
philosophical he vindicated the communion of the
human spirit with the Divine, and presented Jesus
as the expression, within the limits of our nature,
of the righteousness and love of God. Revelation
was thus transformed from supernatural instruction
into the realization of more exalted character ; its
medium was not a written word, but a higher
personality. To establish the principles of spiritual
theism and find a place in man's soul for that
* dwelling in God and God in him ' which Priestley
had described as the higliest type of personal
devotion was the aim of a long series of brilliant
articles in the Prospective and National Reviews,
which culminated in two great treatises, Types of
Ethical Theory^ and A Study of Religion* By
these works, as well as by his sermons and
occasional Addresses, he exercised an influence
which went far beyond his OAvn denomination,
so that Gladstone described him as ' the greatest
of living [English] thinkers.'^

Other writers were not inactive beside him.
The saintly John James Tayler (1797-1869), in his
Retrospect of the Religious Life of England,^
delineated with singular breadth of vieAV and
literary charm the significance of contrasted
principles of authority and freedom ; and from
his pen came the first formal discussion of the
Johannine question in England in his Attempt to
ascertain the Character of the Fourth Gospel. "^ A
long series of scholars had pleaded for the revision
both of the text and of the translation of the NT ;
and, by the advice of the veteran John Kenrick,
George Vance Smith was invited to join the
company of the Revisers (1870). In James
Drummond (1835-1918) Unitarianism possessed a
theologian of the older school of learning, whose
works on The Jewish Messiah (1877), Philo Judceus
(1888), Inquiry into the Character and Authorship
of the Fourth Gospel (1903), and Studies in Christ-
ian Doctrine (1908) maintained the tradition of
devout scholarship. John Relly Beard (1800-76)
led the way to modem dictionaries of the Bible

1 London, 1836. 2 Rationale, p. 127.

8 2 vols., Oxford, 1885. * 2 vols., Oxford, 1888.

* J. E. Carpenter, James Martineau, Theologian and Teacher,
London, 1905, p. 413.
« London, 1845, new ed. by J. Martineau, do. 1876.
7 London, 1867.

by his People^s Dictionary of the Bible,^ and
made other valuable contributions to theological
literature. Cultivated laymen, also, such as
Edgar Taylor, Samuel Sharpe, and H. A. Bright,
rendered no small services to the Unitarian cause.
Most influential of all, perhaps, in its protest
against prevailing supernaturalism was The Creed
of Christendom'^ by William Rathbone Greg.
Francis William Newman and Frances Power
Cobbe found many readers ; and the writings of
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker,
together with the studies of Max Miiller, opened
the way to religion beyond the bounds of Cliristi-
anity. The Hibbert Trustees, who sought to
promote the spread of Christianity in 'its simplest
and most intelligible form,' were the first to in-
augurate in 1878 a series of lectures on the history
of religions, and Manchester College included that
subject in its theological course as early as 1875.
The discourses of Martineau, J. Hamilton Thom,
and Charles Beard provided varied illustration of
the preacher's power ; and the sermons and hymns
of Stopford Brooke, after his withdrawal from the
Church of England in 1880, presented, with a rich
glow of poetic beauty, the main features of religion
as understood by Unitarians.

10. Church organizations. — While English Uni-
tarians have been active in education and phil-
anthropy (witness their domestic missions in
important urban centres, established on unsectarian
principles after the visit of Joseph Tuckerman of
Boston, Mass., in 1833), they have not attempted
to secure large numerical increase. New chapels
have been built, but denominational zeal has never
been active. Congregational independence has been
.sturdily maintained. In 1882 a National Confer-
ence was organized, which has now 365 congrega-
tions in the United Kingdom on its roll, but they
have no common name. Proposals for united
action on Presbyterian lines were made by
Martineau in 1888, but the demand for congrega-
tional autonomy defeated them. The individual-
ism fostered by the constant plea for liberty is
unfavourable to the growth of corporate church -
life. Generous funds have been raised in aid of
ministers' incomes and insurance, and the Confer-
ence has found it necessary to lay down educational
qualifications for access to these benefits, and
has thus constituted an accredited class of religious
teachers. Unitarianism has thriven actively in
some districts of Wales, but it has little hold in
Scotland. The oldest of its congregations north
of the Tweed was founded at Edinburgh in 1776.
In Ireland Thomas Emlyn was prosecuted at Dublin
in 1703 for denying the deity of Christ. Ulster
Presbyterianism witnessed a movement against
subscription which culminated in 1726 in the
formation of a separate Presbj'tery of Antrim on
a non-subscription basis. Many of the ministers
passed through Arianism to Unitarianism, and in
1830 the Remonstrant Synod of Ulster was formed.
At the same time, largely through the zeal of
Martineau, then assistant pastor in Dublin, an
Irish Unitarian Christian Society, embracing both
individuals and congregations, was established in
Dublin, which was merged (1835) in an As.sooiation
of Irish Non-subscribing Presbyterians and other
Free Christians, including the Presbytery of
Antrim, the Sj'nod of Munster, and the Remon-
strant Synod of Ulster. Finally, in 1910 the
Antrim Presbytery and the ULster Synod united
for purposes of church government under the name
of the Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of
Ireland.

II. Unitarianism in America. — Unitarianism in
America sprang out of the Congregatioiuil order

1 2 vols., London, 1847Ht8.

3 Loudon, 1851, 8th ed., 2 vols., 1883.

526

UNITARIANISM

of the New England churches. Their theology
was Calvinistic, but the 17th cent, foundations
were based upon religious covenants instead of
dogmatic creeds. Thus the First Church in Boston
afhrmed :

' We ... do herebj' solemnly and religiously promise and
bind ourselves to walk in all our ways according to the rule
of the Gospel, and in all sincere conformity to [Christ's] holy
ordinances, and in mutual love and respect to each other, so
near as God shall give us grace.' i

The way was thus open, as in English Dissent in
the 18th cent., to gradual theologic change. The
literatui'e of the Trinitarian controversy passed
across the Atlantic, and the leaven of discussion
in the works of Sherlock and South, Clarke and
Whiston, supplemented by the writings of the
Unitarian Enilyn, began to produce its effect. A
slow movement towards Arianism and Arminianism
set in, invigorated by reaction against the ' great
awakening' under Jonathan Edwards (1735) and
the early preaching of George Whitefield (1740).
Jonathan Mayhew (1720-66) and Charles Chauncy
(1705-57), pastors in Boston, led the way towards
a more liberal faith. Under the ministry of James
Freeman (1759-1835) the congregation of King's
Chapel pui'ged their Anglican liturgy of all refer-
ences to the Trinity (1785). By this act, says the
historian of the chapel, the first Episcopal church
in New England became the first Unitarian church
in the New World. The writings of Priestley and
Lindsey were freely circulated, and at the end of
the century the doctrine against which they
protested had been rejected by all the Boston
ministers but one. The name Unitarian was
indeed rarely attached to the churches, but the
mode of thought and worship prevailed more and
more widely. It was found all the way from
Portland (Maine) to Charleston (S. Carolina).

In 1803 William Ellery Channing (1780-1842)
came to Boston and began the ministry which
so powerfully influenced Unitarian thought. In
reaction against a still powerful Calvinism, with
its doctrines of human depravity, the wrath of
God, and the atoning sacrifice of Christ, he pro-
claimed 'one sublime idea,' which he defined as
' the greatness of the soul, its divinity, its union
•with God by spiritual likeness, its receptivity of
his Spirit, its self-forming power, its destination
to inefiable glory, its immortality. ' ^ This was
the real challenge to New England orthodoxy ;
it operated with no less force in dispelling the
materialism of Priestley and giving a fresh impulse
of spiritual life to Unitarianism on both sides of
the ocean. With this exalted view of man's true
being, Channing declared himself surer that his
rational nature was from God than that any book
is the expression of His will ; and reason and
conscience were thus enthroned in the ultimate
seat of judgment. Neither philosopher nor scholar
in the technical sense, he exercised by his religious
genius and the force of his ethical appeal a far-
reaching influence both in the United States and
in Europe. 'Always young for liberty,' he pro-
tested against every form of sectarian narrowness.
He cheerfully took the name Unitarian because
unwearied efforts were made to raise against it a
popular cry, and he never was in any sense a
Trinitarian. But he believed in Christ's pre-
existence ; he accepted his miracles. He would
not, however, exclude from his fellowship the
stoutest humanitarian, though he might repudiate
the miracles altogether. For such a mind de-
nominational aggressiveness was impossible, and
this spirit was infused into the leaders of the
movement which culminated in the foundation of
tlie Divinity School of Harvard University in

1 Allen, p. 171.

2 J. W. Chadwick, William Ellery Channing, Boston, 1903,
p. 246, quoting withpvt date ' one of the letters of his later life.'

1816, when the Unitarian controversy was at its
height.

' It being understood,' said the constitution, ' that every
encouragement be given to the serious, impartial, and un-
biassed investigation of Christian truth; and that no assent to
the peculiarities of any denomination be required either of the
Students, or Professors, or Instructors.'

The movement of which Channing was the most
distinguished representative soon demanded some
kind of organization. Literature must be circu-
lated, congregations assisted, and churches built.
In 1825, on the same day on which English
Unitarians formed their association,' the American
Unitarian Association was constituted. A noble
line of eminent scholars, theologians, historians,
jurists, poets, statesmen, accepted its principles
and gave dignity to its profession of faith. It was
not long, however, before new forces appeared on
the field. The study of German philosophy pro-
duced a school of New England transcendentalism.
Ralph AValdo Emerson (1803-82) [q.v.) resigned
the pulpit of the Second Church in Boston on the
question of the observance of the Lord's Supper,
and six years later his famous ' Address to the
Harvard Divinity School' (1838) signalized the
breach of the new thought with the older views
of revelation and miracle. Theodore Parker
(1810-60) emphasized the same theme in a much
criticized sermon on ' The Transient and Permanent
in Christianity' (1841), followed by his M'idely
read ' Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion '
(1842). A new type of Christianity without miracle
was thus presented, emphasizing the divine imman-
ence in nature, and holding up the religion of
Jesus — the love of God and the service of man —
as the ' absolute religion.' Unitarianism fell into
the snare from which Channing would fain have
saved it, and developed an orthodoxy of its own.
When Henry Whitney Bellows of New York
proposed to organize the churches (1865) in a
National Conference, and its members adopted
the declaration that they were ' disciples of the
Lord Jesus Christ,' a group of bolder spirits formed
a 'Free Religious Association,' where Emerson's
name appeared first on the list. In 1894, however,
tlie Conference repudiated all authoritative tests,
and simply accepted ' the religion of Jesus, holding,
in accordance with his teaching, that practical
religion is summed up in love to God and love to
man.'^ The developments of criticism, science,
and philosophy, the study of comparative religion,
the desire for the widest possible fellowship, and
the growing demands of philanthropy, have all con-
tributed to broaden the outlook in every direction,
and in 1900 the ' International Council of Unitarian
and other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers '
was formed in Boston. It has since held large
and successful gatherings in London, Amsterdam,
Geneva, Boston, Berlin (1910), Paris (1913), and
Boston (1920), assembling a wide representation
of different nationalities and faiths._

As in England, so also in America, Unitarian-
ism has been an important influence in religious
thought. It represents a mode of approach to the
great problems of human life and destiny in which
it is closely allied with the time-spirit. Its loose-
ness of denominational organization makes its
advance over so vast an area slow and hesitating,
but its churches steadily increase, and in 1918 the
list (including Canada) comprised 490 societies.
The Divinity School at Harvard University gradu-
ally broadened out under the administration of
Cliarles W. Eliot (1869-1909) into a school of
scientific theology and independent research. The
Meadville Theological School (Pennsylvania),
founded in 1844, and the Unitarian Theological

1 See 5 7.

2 George Willis Oooke, 'Unitarianism in the United States,'
SSrii xxvii. 596.

UNITED PROVINCES OF AGRA AND OUDH

527

School at Berkeley (California), founded in 1904,
have remained more detinitcly within Unitarian
lines.

12. World-wide influence. — (a) The Colonies and
India. — The British Dominions, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, Africa, all have Unitarian churches.
English and American Unitarians are also in close
touch with the Theistic churches of India, and
with Unitarian work in Japan, and receive students
from the Far East into their theological colleges,
besides sending out representative ministers to
preach and lecture.

(b) Germany. — Continental thought has been
affected by the same general influences which pro-
duced the Unitarian movement in England and
America. The wi-itings of the English Deists of
the 18th cent, helped to foster German rationalism,
and the critical study of the Scriptures led to the
abandonment of doctrines of mechanical inspiration
and Biblical authority. Belief in miracles was
partly undermined by the influences of science and
philosophy ; and the Leben Jesu ^ of D. F. Strauss,
together with the investigations of F. C. Baur
into the development of the early Church, opened
new paths for the historical treatment of the
origins of Christianity. The results reached by
Baur were modified by the subsequent researches
of some of his own pupils, but a powerful school of
thought, led by teachers such as H. Holtzmann
(Strassburg), C. Holsten (Heidelberg), Carl von
Weizsiicker (Tubingen), A. E. Biedermann (Ziirich),
R. A. Lipsius (Jena), 0. Pfleiderer (Berlin), reached
a position which was substantially Unitarian,
though it did not employ the name or lead to
withdrawal from the State Church. In 1863 a
liberal union was founded under the title of the
' Protestantenverein,' which gave practical expres-
sion to this mode of thought. It still exists,
though in a state of somewhat diminished activity.
Recent theological liberalism has tended to take
one of two directions. Under the influence of
Albrecht Ritschl (q.v.) of Gbttingen, a higher
value has been ascribed to the person of Jesus,
quite apart from external miracle, than was usual
among the older ' liberal ' theologians. Among
the leaders in this direction are A. Harnack, W.
Herrmann (Marburg), and H. H. Wendt (Jena).
On the other hand, the study of Christianity in
connexion with the religions of the empire has led
younger scholars to emphasize its relations with
contemporary phenomena ; and along these lines
the late professors W. Wrede, J. Weiss, and W.
Bousset, and the brilliant group led by H. Gunkel,
E. Troeltsch, C. Clemen, H. Weinel, W. Heitmuller,
and H. Lietzmann have all been working. The
valuable translation and commentary issued under
the general editorship of Johannes Weiss,* and
the long series of Rcligionsgeschichtliche Volks-
biicher, represent the general attitude of liberal
theology on the problems of primitive Christianity,
(c) France. — A similar movement of thought,
though more limited in range, may be traced in
France, since the appearance of Renan's Vie de
J^sus,^ within the Reformed Church, represented
especially by A. Coquerel (fls), Albert and Jean
Reville, and a distinguished group of scholars and
preachers. When the ' Separation ' took place in
1905, the Reformed Church split into two bodies,
the ' National Union of Evangelical Reformed
Churches ' retaining a Confession of 1872, and the
liberal group designating itself the ' National
Union of Reformed Churches,' which is powerfully
represented in the Theological Faculty of Paris,
and exercises the greater influence both in the

1 3 vols., Tubingen, 1S35.

2 Dit' Schriften des Neuen Testamenti, 2 vols., Gottingen,
1906.

» Paris, 1863.

pulpit and in the press. Liberal Lutherans like
Maurice Goguel and Eugene Ehrhardt share the
same general view.

(d) ISwitzcrland. — Swiss Protestantism has been
aflected in like manner. The abolition of formal
tests of orthodoxy by the Genevan Church opened
the way for a type of Christianity essentially
Unitarian ; and in German Switzerland the theo-
logians of Basel and Ziirich have made important
contributions to both Biblical and dogmatic studies
on similar lines. Practical interest in social
questions is now to some extent withdrawing
attention from the critical and historical inquiries
of the older liberalism, and even leading to a
partial reaction towards the language and ideas of
orthodoxy,

(c) Holland. — A similar tendency shows itself in
Holland. In the second half of the 19th cent, the
Dutch Reformed Church, the Remon.st rants, the
Mennonites, and the Lutherans were all afiected
by the philosophical and scientific modes of
thought which generate Unitarian theology.
Scholars like J. H. Scholten, A. Kuenen, and C. P.
Tiele educated successive generations of students
in the newer methods of critical investigation.
Many of the younger ministers of the present day,
however, without returning to orthodoxy, are
more inclined to recognize spiritual values in some
of the old doctrines of the Church, and, while
they claim to be ' liberals,' are at the same time
unwilling to be classed as 'modern.' Their view
of human nature is not optimistic. The natural
man must be regenerated by the Spirit of Christ ;
for this generation there is no other way.

(/) Other countries. — In Italy a little group,
assisted by various university professors, is con-
ducting a monthly periodical. La Eiforma Italiana,
on Unitarian lines with the names of Mazzini and
Channing blazoned upon its cover. There are
Unitarian congregations in Denmark, Sweden,
and Norway. The veteran poet Matthias Joch-
umssen in Iceland (t 1920) espoused the same cause,
and communicated his enthusiasm to his country-
men in the United States. Even among the
educated negroes of Lagos on the W. African coast
religious thought has produced spontaneously an
active movement in the same direction.

Literature. — R. Wallace, Antitrinitarian Biography, 3
vols., London, 1850 ; J. J. Tayler, Retrospect of the Religious
Life of England"^, ed. James Martineau, do. 1S76 ; G. Bonet-
Maury, Des Origines du Christianisme unitaire chez les
Anglais, Paris, ISSl, tr. E. P. Hall, Early Sources of English
Unitarianism, London, 1884 ; A. Gordon, Heads of English
Unitarian History, hondon, 1895, and EDr^^, s.v. 'Unitarian-
ism ' ; J. H. Allen, ' The L'nitarians,' in A Hist, of tlie Uni-
tarians and Universalists ni the United States, New York,
1894, pp. 1-246 ; S. A. Eliot, Heralds of a Liberal Faith, 3 vols.,
Boston, U.S.A., 1910; biographies of Martineau, Channing,
and Theodore Parker. J. E. CaRPENTEB.

UNITED BRETHREN.-See Moravians.

UNITED EVANGELICAL CHURCH.—

See Lutheranism.

UNITED FREE CHURCH.— See Presby-
terianism.

UNITED METHODIST FREE CHURCH.

—See Methodism.

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.—
See Presbyterianism.

UNITED PROVINCES OF AGRA AND
OUDH. — Tiiese provinces, in whicii Oudh, a
separate juri.'^diction since its annexation in 1856,
was included in 1877, were u)) to 1902 known as
the North-West Provinces. The change of title
was mainly due to confusion with that of the

528

UNITED PROVINCES OF AGRA AND OUDH

North- West Frontier Province, which was formed
out of some Districts of the Panjab. The joint
jurisdictions of Agra and Oudh extend between N.
lat. 23° 52' and 31° 18', E. long. 77° 3' and 84° 39',
with a total area of 107,267 sq. miles and a popula-
tion in 1911 of 47,182,000. The Provinces contain
a hilly and submontane tract to the north-west ;
Bundelkhand, a part of the Central Indian plateau
to the south ; while the central and more im-
portant region constitutes the W. and Central
Indo-Gangetic Plain, the basin watered by the
rivers Ganges and Jumna (qq.v.). The Districts
between these two main rivers until they join at
Allahabad (q.v.) are known as the Duab, ' land of
the two waters.'

1. History. — The United Provinces form one of
the best-known historical regions of India. The
aboriginal population, wrongly classed as Dravid-
ian iq.v.) by Risley, was probably of the Mon-
Khmer stock. These ' pre-Aryans ' have left
traces in stone implements in the hills and plains,
cup-marks on boulders in the northern hills, and
cave paintings in the Kaimur rann;e to the south.
At some unknown date, possibly al)out 1000 B.C.,
the so-called 'Aryans 'who had been settled for
a considerable period in the E. Panjab^ seem to
have moved gradually eastward, and the Mahcbbhd-
rata and the Bd7)idyana epics describe the fortunes
of two bodies of Ksatriyas, one to the west with
their capital at Hastinapur (q.v.), the other at
Ayodhya, the modern Ajodhya in the Faizabad
District. One wave of invaders or colonists seems
in the early period to have moved along the base
of the Himalaya into Magadha or Bihar ; the
other occupied Madhyadesa, the ' Middle Land,'
or the Duab and its surrounding Districts.^ For
the earliest period there is no settled history till
the time of Gautama Buddha (c. 407-487 B.C.).
The next fixed date is that of Chandragupta
Maurya (321-297 B.C.), the Sandrocottus of
classical writers, who rose to power after the
invasion of Alexander the Great. His grandson
was the famous Asoka (q.v.), three of whose pillar
edicts have been found in the Provinces. We
know little of the Kushan or Saka invaders who
entered India about the middle of the 2nd cent.
B.C. The Gupta dynasty rose to power from about
A.D. 320 until 450, when the first Hun invasion
took place. This is remarkable because many of
the Rajput (q.v.) houses sprang from its chiefs.
In 1018 Mahmud of Ghaznl, the first Muhammadan
invader, raided the Provinces, and under the early
Muhammadan kings Delhi was the capital, being
succeeded by Agra early in the 16th century.
Babur defeated the Afghan king Ibrahim in 1526
and founded the Mughal empire, which with its
capital at Agra or Delhi, under Humayun, Akbar,
Shahjahan, and Aurangzib, lasted till the death
of the last in 1707. Then commenced a period of
anarchy until by treaty with Asafu-d-daula,
Nawab of Oudh, most of the eastern portion passed
into the hands of the British. This was followed
by further large cessions as the result of the
Maratha war in 1803. In 1833 the Provinces were
separated from Bengal and placed in charge of a
lieutenant-governor. Since that time the only
serious disturbance of order occurred in the Mutiny
of 1857.

2. Ethnology. — The population is of a mixed
type, made up of the pre-historic Mon-Khmer
stratum leavened by successive entries of
foreigners : Aryans, Scythians, Huns, Musalmans.
In the E. Gangetic Plain there is considerable
congestion, the density of population rising to 706
per sq. mile. The people occupy 106,020 villages
and 435 towns (of which 24 rank as cities), the

1 See artt. Delhi, vol. iv. p. 543, Panjab, vol. ix. p. 605.

2 Mann, Laws, ii. 21.

most important in order of population being Luck-
now, Benares, Agra, Cawnpur, Bareilly, Meerut.
Muhammadans favour a town life much more than
Hindus ; out of 1000 of each faith only 72 Hindus
as compared with 269 Musalmans are urban. This
concentration in towns is one cause of the pro-
gress of Islam.

3. Religion,— Hindus (85 04 %) are much in ex-
cess of Muhammadans (14-77 %) or Christians
(•38 %), but now Hindus are slowly decreasing,
and there is an increase in Muhammadans and
Christians. The progress of Islam is not to any
great extent the result of direct propaganda, but
is due largely to social conditions. Muhammadans
are more prolific ; they live more in towns and
under less insanitary conditions than Hindus ;
their diet is more varied and liberal, and they are
less addicted to the use of drugs like the prepara-
tions of hemp ; they marry later and allow widows
to remarry, while high-caste Hindus prohibit
widow-marriage. On the other hand, their women
suffer in health from seclusion (jiarda), and, being
confined to the house, they are more liable to
attacks of plague.^

(a) BrdJiinnnic Hinduism. — What has been
termed Brahmanic Hinduism is the creed of the
better classes, while the lower castes are largely
animistic. It is impossible to draw the line be-
tween these forms of belief, which in all grades
of society converge and intermingle. Orthodox
Hinduism is regulated by a body of Brahmans
numbering 4| millions, many of whom enjoy a
high reputation for sanctity, act as domestic
priests, or study theology, philosophy, and ethics
at sacred places like Benares. Those of a lower
grade act as guides at places of pilgrimage, cast
horoscopes, and practise various kinds of magic.
The majority, however, exercise no religious
functions, and make their living by agriculture or
domestic service, or take emjjloyment in the army
or the police. Some of the most sacred places of
Hindu pilgrimage are found in these Provinces :
Hardwar, shared by Saivas and Vaisnavas ;
Mathura, devoted to the cult of Krsna ; Prayag
or Allahabad, the sacred junction of the Ganges
and Jumna. -

(h) The development of vwnotheism. — An impor-
tant development in recent times is the tendency
to adopt a form of monotheism.

To quote R. Burn, 'the general result of my enquiries is
that the great majority of Hindus have a firm belief in one
Supreme God, called Bhagwan, Parameshvvar, Ishwar, or
Narain. Mr. Bailie made some enquiries 3 which showed that
this involved a clear idea of a single personal God ; but I am
inclined to think that this is not limited to the more intelligent,
but is distinctly characteristic of Hindus as a whole. . . .There
has been much discussion as to whether this monotheistic idea
has been a natural result of contact with Islam or Christianity.
As pointed out above, however, the idea of a single personal
God was not unknown to Hindus long before they came into
touch with adherents of these two religions, and I am inclined
to think . . . that the tendency of Hinduism, with all its
eclecticism and elasticity, is to develop more on the lines of in-
digenous beliefs, than on an entirely new direction copied more
or less from some foreigp religion.'*

'The Hindu who is a Saiva or a Vaishyava has no real place
for Parameshwar in his religious ideas, and would probably
explain his presence by saying he was Siva or Vishnu. Accord-
ing to the Puranic philosophy, Parameshwar is the universal
spirit when manifested as a personal god, who, according as he
is dominated by activity {rajas), goodne,ss (saitva), is separated
from the divine personalities, Brahma, Siva and Vishnu. This,
however, is merely stated to explain his relation to them ; for
it is a recondite theory which does not trouble the ordinary
Parameshwar worshipper. To him Parameshwar is the supreme
personal God, who made the world, is pleased by good and dis-
pleased by evil deeds, but is too much exalted to trouble ipuch
about mundane affairs. If the {lindu is not professedly a Saiva
or a Vaishijava, he wiU look on Siva and Vishnu as on the whole

1 Census of India, 1911, vol. xv.. United Provinces and Oudh,
pt. i. p. 108 ff.

2 See art. Pilqrimaoe (Indian), 5 7.

3 Census of India, 1891, vol. xvi., N.-W. Provinces and Oudh,
pt. i. p. 197.

4/6. p. 73 f.

UNIVBRSALISM

529

subordinate to him, though much more vahiable helpers in
times of trouble. Still, nebulous as his idea of Parameshwar
may be, it makes him at bottom a monolheist. But it is to
some extent wrong to say that he "worships" Parameshwar.
He may or may not repeat his name in the morning, and occa-
sionally he has the Sat Nardpan Knthd recited in his honour ;
but this is all. It is a waste of time to importune a god with
prayer and sacrifice when his attitude is one of suave aloofness ;
and the Hindu reserves his attentions for the minor gods and
godlings.' 1

(c) Islam. — The local distribution of Miihanmia-
danism is dictated partly by historical, partly by
economic causes.

' The Muhammadan is found chiefly where Muhammadans
held sway in the past : in Meerut and Rohilkhand Divisions, the
"Home Counties" of the Moghul Empire, in Agra, Farrukha-
bad, Jaunpur and Oudh, all centres of Muhammadan States or
provinces. In Cawnpore, Allahabad and other districts with
large cities, his tendency to urban life is sufficient to explain
his nimierical strength ; this is also a factor which atl'ects his
presence in such historically Muhammadan centres as Agra,
Meerut, Lucknow, Fyzabad, and Bareilly.'2

{d) Jainism. — ^Jains, numbering 75,427 in 1911,
show a tendency to decrease. The city mercantile
class, deficient in virility owing to their sedentary
habits, produce small families, and, as E. A. H.
Blunt reports, the country Jain shows little en-
thusiasm for or knowledge of his religion.

' The truth seems to be that whatever theoretical differences
may exist between Jainism and Hinduism, yet the followers of
the same creeds in the same comnumity do not differ very
greatly in their practice. The bar to their intermarriage is no
more insuperable than between Roman Catholics and Protes-
tants. . . . Men of to-day think less about religion because
the stress of modern conditions leaves Ihcm less time for other
than mundane affairs. The active pursuit of religion, wliich
means the active performance of ritual, is postponed to old age ;
the oHicial or professional man takes to religion when he
retires.'^

It is natural also that, when a Jain girl is married
into a Hindu family, she rapidly succumbs to the
influence of the more popular faith. Jainism
being reticent and unenterprising, she naturally
adopts religious usages which enjoy more prestige
and which are regulated by Bralimans, whom Jains
themselves emploj^ for their domestic rites.

(e) Sikhism and other faiths. — Sikhs, numbering
15,186, are foreigners, mostly sepoys or policemen.
Parsis, Jews, and Brahmans are also foreigners
and possess little influence, while Buddhists, re-
presentatives of a faith once dominant, now
number only 780, and are mainly confined to
the Tibetan frontier, with a few Nepalese, Chinese
artizans, Magh cooks, and other smaller groups.

The Arya Samaj is chiefly confined to the upper
and educated classes, and seems as yet to have
made little impression on the peasantry.*

(/) Christianity. — Christians show a remarkable
increase. The propaganda began with the visit of
a Roman Catholic priest to Agra in 1578. It
became active through the work of Henry Martyn
at Cawnpurin 1810. In 1811 the Baptist Mis-sion-
ary Society, and in 1813 the Church Missionary
Society, entered the field. Christians, inchiding
those in the Native States, numbering 58,518 in
1891 and 102,955 in 1901, increased to 179,694 in
1911.

' The new convert, ma.v be, is no better than his prede-
cessors ; but a new generation, the children of the first genera-
tion of converts, is f;rowing up. If the missionaries could and
can get little out of that first generation, the second generation
is in their hands from their earliest years. The children of the
converts, born in Christianity, are very different to their
parents; their grandchildren will be better still. It is this
which provides the other side to the black picture so often
drawn of the inefficiency of Christian conversion. And this
generation is now beginning to make its influence felt. The
Hindu fellows of these converts have now to acknowledge not
only that they are in many ways better off than themselves, but
that they are better men. And this has undoubtedly contributed
to the better esteem in which Christians are regarded. ... A
convert, no doubt, is still outcasted, but he is now regarded as

1 Census of India, 1911, vol. xv. pt. i. p. 120 f.
•■' lb. p. 107. S lb. p. 112.

* See ERE ii. 57 ff . ; Census of India, 1911, vol. xv. pt. i.
p. 132 ff.

VOL. XII. — 34

a member of a fresh cast*, and Hindus bear with his idiosyn-
crasies as they do with those of any other caste. "^

Literature. — R. Burn, Census of India, 1901, vol. xvi.,
iV. W. Provinces and Oudh, 3 pts. ; E. A. H. Blunt, Censtis of
India, 1911, vol. xv.. United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, 2
pts.; W. Crooke, The A'.-W. Provinces of India: their
History, Ethnology, and Administration, London, 1897, The
Tribes and Castes of the N.-W. Provinces and Oudh, 4 vols.,
Calcutta, 1896; V. A. Smith, The Early Hist, of India'i,
Oxford, 1914 ; A. A. Fiihrer, The Monumental Antiquities and
Inscriptio))'<in the N.-W. Provinces and Oudh, Allahabad, 1891 ;
H. M. Elliot and J. Dowson, The Hist, of India, as told by
its oum Historians, 8 vols., London, 1867-77 ; IGI xxiv. [190S]

132 ff. w. Crooke.

UNITY.— See Church.

UNIVERSALISM.— I. Uses of the term.—
The word ' universalism ' has been used in at least
three distinct senses, (a) It is convenient to take
first in order the use of the word which is in fact
the most modern. It designates the setting aside
of the belief that a nation or a race is privileged
to enjoy the special protection and favour of God,
or of a deity wiiom it recognizes as peculiarly its
own ; and contemplates all nations and races as
standing, actually or potentially, in one and the
same relation to one and the same God. Univer-
salism in this sense has become current largely
owing to the influence of F. C. Baur ; its opposite
is particularism. In the OT the view of the special
relation of a deity to a people is expressed in such
passages as .Tg 11-*, when Jephthah says to the
Amorite : ' Wilt not thou possess that which
Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So
whomsoever the Lord our God hath dispossessed
from before us, them will we possess.' The steps
by which this particularism yielded to the larger
thought, first of Jahweh's rule over all peoples as
God above all gods, and next as being the only
God, whose sway is universal, but who has chosen
Israel as His special care, are sufficiently familiar.
There are within the pages of the OT occasional
indications of a desire to extend to other nations
the Messianic hope and the kingdom of God.* In
the NT we are familiar with the distinction
between the universalism of St. Paul and of the
Lucan writings,* in contrast with the exclusiveness
of the Jew and the Judaeo-Christian, who, if they
did not entirely disapprove the proffer of the
gospel to the Gentiles, yet wished to make con-
ditions and impose practices which St. Paul strongly
repudiates. In the NT the larger view seems to
win its way from the announcement of a salvation
which, beginning from Israel, shall be unto all
peoples, to the Apocalyptic vision of the 'great
multitude which no man could number, out of
every nation, and of all tribes and peoples and
tongues,'* and of a New Jerusalem whose gates
are never shut.

{b) The second use of the term ' universalism ' has
to do with the theological question of the extent
of the benefit wrought by the atoning death of
Christ, and with the relation of the Calvinian
doctrines of election and predestination {qq.v.) to
the expressed purpose of the gospel, that all men
might be saved. The Arminians had maintained,
as the second of their five points, 'that Jesus
Christ by His death and sufferings made an atone-
ment for the sins of all mankind in general, and
of every individual in particular,' but they went
on to .say that none could be partakers of this
benefit but tiiose possessing a true faith, which can
belong only to those who are regenerated by the
operation of tiie Holy Ghost. This was condemned
as error by the Synod of Dort (1618). There were
many, however, who desired to mitigate the lan-

1 Census of Iiulia, 1911, vol. xv. pt. i. p. 145.

2 See, e.g., Is 1933-25.

3 E.g., Oal 328, Col 3", Ac 1035 1724-28.

4 Rev 79.

530

UNIVBRSALISM

guage of absolute predestination and particular
redemption. Among these were John Cameron,
professor in the Protestant seminary of Saumur
(1618-22), and his pupil, Moyse Amyraut, professor
of theology at Saumur (1638). The aim of both
was to vindicate for the Deity a larger and more
real benevolence and goodwill to mankind than
was contemplated in the Canons of Dort. They
postulated a general will to save all men, but, in
order to be effective, this required to be reinforced
by the exercise of a particular will. The merits
of Christ's passion and death were in themselves
sufficient, but not efficient for all men. In other
words, though the impetration is universal, the
application is individual : the general will is not a
will decreti but prcecepti, and it may be wholly
resisted by mankind in bondage to sin. The uni-
versality of salvation is conditioned ; the promise
is sub ronditione fidei. A similar distinction is
made between objective grace, an offer of pardon
to all, and subjective grace, which is the applica-
tion to the individual by the particular will of
God. The special action of grace is variously
described : sometimes it seems identical with
' effectual calling ' ; in other connexions it is that
which brings a man to the knowledge of the truth,
and, acting through the intellect upon the heart,
brings about conversion. ^ The doctrine of this
school is known as ' hypothetical universalism.'
Its promulgation led to some persecution of Amy-
raut in France, to the withdrawal by the Swiss
Reformed Churches of their students from the
seminary at Saumur, and the elevation of that of
Sedan in its place as the centre of French Protes-
tant orthodoxy. Amyraut and his friend Paul
Testard were summoned to appear before synods
of the Reformed Church of France at Alen^on
(1637) and Charenton (1644-45) ; they wereacquitted
on all charges of heresy, but this acquittal Avas
strongly reprobated by the rigid Calvinists of the
Reformed Church. It was, however, approved
and defended by the learned Jean Daill6 (Dallaeus)
(1594-1670), pastor of Charenton, who published
in 1655 Apologia pro duabus Synndis Nationalibus.
The position of tiie High Calvinists was defended
by Friedrich Spanheim (1600-49), professor at Ley-
den, in his Disputatio de gratia universali (1644),
followed by Exercitationes (1646).

The controversy spread to England, where John
Davenant (1576-1641), bishop of Salisbury, who
had attended the Synod of Dort, was engaged in
finding a ' middle way ' between the Remonstrants
and the Supralapsarians, and did this with a
special reference to the Gallicana Controversia, in
his Dissertationes duce de Morte Christi et de Prce-
destinatione, published at Cambridge in 1650.
John Owen had already denounced the ' error ' of
universal redemption and those ' who try to go a
middle way betAveen the Churches of France and
the Arminians,' especially in his anonymous work
Salus Electortim Sanguis Jesu (1648). The term
' universalist ' was applied to the advocates of
universal redemption perhaps first by Obadiah
Howe, whose work. The Universalist Examined
and Convicted, appeared in 1648. The controversy
engaged the ready pen of Richard Baxter, then at
Kidderminster, who thus alludes to his early work
upon it :

' Another Manuscript that lyeth by me, is a Disputation for
some Universality of Redemption, which hath lain by me near
Twenty years unfinished . . . partly because at last came out
after Amyraldus and Davenant's Dissertations, a treatise of
Dallceus, which contained the same things, but especially the
same Testimonies of concordant Writers which I had prepared
to produce.' 2

This work, entitled Universal Redemption of Man-
kind by th.i' Lord Jesus Christ, was published in

1 See art. Amyraldism.

- Reliquice Baxteriance, London, 1696, bk. i. pt. i. p. 123.

1694 by Joseph Reid, who had been Baxter's
assistant and had transcribed his MS in the year
1657.

It is to be remembered that throughout this
period the doctrine of 'general redemption' was
being taught by tlie early English Baptists, known
as General Baptists from their opposition to the
doctrine of particular election. Of these the first
was Thomas Helwys (1550 7-1616?), who had been
the chief supporter of Joiin Smith's little congrega-
tion in Amsterdam, and had been baptized by him,
and who returned to England after Smith's death
in 1612. He set forth the doctrine of general
redemption in a document of a few pages printed
in 1611 and entitled A Short and Pluine Proof by
the Word and Workes of God . . . that all men
are redeemed by Christ. He was the founder of
congregations in London and the home counties.

(c) Universalism in the third sense denotes the
doctrine held by persons and churches called
' Universalist.' With some minor differences, all
such agree in the belief in the final salvation of all
mankind. The opponents of this doctrine are
designated by its adherents as partialists or
limitarians.

The assertion and defence of this doctrine are based mainly
on the language of the NT, as, e.g. : ' All that the Father giveth
me shall come to me ; . . . and this is the Father's will which
hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose
nothing ' (Jn 6^7. ^9). • And I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men unto me ' (1232). • As in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive ' (1 Co 1522). • Qgd was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself ' (2 Co 5ia). ' That
... he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both
which are in heaven, and which are on earth' (Eph li"). 'God
our Saviour ; who will have all men to be saved . . . for there
is one God ' (1 Ti 23- ■*■ 5). ' For the grace of God hath appeared,
bringing salvation to all men' (Tit 2ii). 'The Lord is . . . not
willing that any should perish, but that all should come to
repentance ' (2 P 3^). ' And he is the propitiation for our sins :
and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world '
(1 Jn 23). ' Deatfi and hell were cast into the lake of fire '
(Rev 20W).

In scriptural argument the Universalist conten-
tion has mainly turned on the following points :

(1) The purpose of God : see Ac 321, a770KoTa<rTa<n? TravTiov,
where the recovery of a primal condition, once forfeited, is
certainly indicated ; the end is to be as the beginning.

(2) The means and sanction of such recovery by the office and
work of Christ. 'Therefore as by the offence of one judgment
came upon all men to condenmation ; even so by the righteous-
ness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of
life ' (Ro 51**). ' That he by the grace of God should taste death
for every man ' (He 29).

(3) The nature of the ultimate salvation. ' Then cometh the
end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even
the Father ; when he shall have put down all rule and all
authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all
enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed
is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when
he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is
excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all
things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also him-
self be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God
may be all in all ' (1 Co l.'i24-28). The consummation is reached
by the divine indwelling in every human soul.

2. Universalism in Patristic literature.— When
the expectation of a speedy coming of the end and
a Messianic reign of a thousand years on earth
died away in Christian circles, attention Avas
directed to the idea of a world-process, involving
an evolution of a spiritual realm, supplanting the
material universe, Avhich Gnosticism in its various
forms had made familiar. Christian Platonism
set itself to combine tlie promises of the gospel
with the more spiritual elements of Greek philo-
sophy. When the Christian philosophers of
Alexandria undertook to set forth a true gnosis.
as against the several false ones, they had to
exhibit salvation on the scale not of the individual,
but of the cosmos.^

In the view of Clement of Alexandria (t A.D.
220) God's purifying discipline of man extends
beyond this life.

1 See art. Alexandrian Theoloqt.

UNIVBRSALISM

531

Death is the means whereby the soul is made more immedi-
atel.r subject to rerleeniing influenoes, and through correction
and repentance maj' rise to various sta^jes of spiritual develop-
ment, the highest of which is eternal communion with infinite
jToodness, love, and trutti. This is the completion of that like-
ness of God wherein man was made at the bejfinning.

Origen (t A.D. 254) extended tlie notion of the
discipline of souls mucli farther both in scope and
in detail. His mind was at once more laborious
and more speculative than Clement's.

He conceived a chain of existences in which the human life
of this world is but a link. Souls arrive from an infinite past,
in which their experience and tlieir discipline have been carried
on with the most varied results, to exercise here their privilege
of free will, to rise or to sink according as they have accepted
or resisted the spiritual influences that are perpetually striving
for their redemption. Into future ajons beyond this life Origen
carries the divine work of leading souls towards the goal of all
sentient being, which is attained in likeness to God, for in the
end God will be all in all. Fallen angels and demons will be
rescued to share with mankind the ultimate salvation. It is to
be noted that, when Origenism was anathematized as heresy,
under Justinian (a.d. 541-543), it was not his view of the uni-
versality of salvation that was condemned, but then, as after-
wards, his doctrine of the pre-existence of souls and of the final
salvability of devils.

Gregory of Nyssa (t A.D. 394) moves towards
the same result from his central conviction as to
the ultimate annihilation of all evil. For he says :

' If God will be in all existing things, evil, plainly, will not
then be among them.' i ' The resurrection is nothing else than
the reconstitution of our nature in its original form.' 2 Nothing
that had its origin from God will fall out of His kingdom.
When all the evil that is intermingled with things that are is
melted out by cleansing fire, everything that originated from
God will become such as it was from the beginning, before the
evil entered into it

The same view was taken by Didymus of Alex-
andria (t A.D. 395), M'ho explicitly endorsed Origen's
opinion on the conversion of devils.

Among the later Fathers of the Church in the
East it suffices to mention Theodore of Mopsuestia
(t A.D. 428), an opponent of Origenism, who main-
tained that sin and its penalty were both agents
in the moral purposes of God as conducive both to
self-knowledge and to repentance, and thus effective
for the restoration of the wicked.

The current of Alexandrian thought came again
to the surface in the 9th cent, in the mind of John
Scotus Erigena (t a.d. 877), in the form of a pan-
theistic theodicy. He predicts, at the conclusion
of a complicated and somewhat inconsistent scheme,
the absorption of all into the divine ; wickedness,
death, and misery are all transformed into good-
ness, life, and blessedness ; and the consmnmatio
munch is that God is all in all.^

In the period immediately preceding the Refor-
mation some form of belief in universal salvation
is found in connexion with very various forms of
doctrine and life; e.g., this belief is seen in com-
bination with the Antinomianism of the Brethren
of the Free Spirit {q.v.), and the fanatical asceticism
of the Albanensian Cathari.*

3. Universalisra in Germany. — A certain pre-
valence of Universalism among the German Ana-
baptists has been attributed "to the influence of
Hans Denk, scholar and mystic (1495-1527), but
his extant writings do not show that he gave it
any prominence in his teaching. That the Ana-
baptists were largely credited with such opinion is
evident from cap. xvii. of the Augsburg Confession
(1530), where there is formal condemnation of the
Anabaptists 'who believe that there will be an
end of the punishments of the damned and the
devils.'

At the end of the 17th cent, and the beginning
of the 18th controversy was very rife on three
points— the eternity of punishment, the millen-
nium, and the restitution of all things. A number
of the publications of this time, especially on the
last-named topic, are embodied in a great work
published in three volumes folio at Frankfort in

1 De Anim. et Remrr. '^ lb.

3 De Dinieione tIaturcB, v. 30. ■» See art. Ai.nioRNSKs.

1701-10, entitled Mvar-qpiov dTro/caraa-Tdcrfws irdvTwv,
oder das Geheimniss der Wiedcrbringung aller
Dinge, compiled by Johann WUhelm Petersen
(1649-1727). Petersen had been professor at
Rostock and a prominent divine of the Lutheran
Church. He was deposed from office in 1692, because
of his having embraced Univer.salist opinions, to
which he had been converted by his wife, Johanna
Eleanora yon Merlau. She had been influenced in
this direction before her marriage by the writings
of the English mystic, Jane Lead, whose opinions
were widely circulated in Germany by her disciples,
who constituted the Philadelphian Society.'
Petersen was a very voluminous writer, and both
he and his wife contributed largely to the contents
of the great compilation.

For many years after the appearance of Petersen's
work a great number of writings, for and against
the doctrine of restoration, were published. On
the orthodox side appears the great name of Johann
Lorenz von Mosheim (1694-1755). On the other
side the most remarkable publication, in per-
manence and popularity, was the little work
entitled The Everlasting Gospel, which, having
run through many editions in Germany from 1700
to 1745, was destined to achieve wide influence in
America. It professed to be written by Paul
Siegvolk, but it is known that the author's real
name was Georg Klein-Nicolai, for which Paul
Siegvolk is a transparent disguise, eti'ected with
the aid of German, Latin, and Greek.

Such subjects as eternal punishment were from
this time open to latitudinarian treatment in
Germany, but it remained for F. D. E. Sclileier-
macher (1768-1834) to give to his contemporaries
and successors a definite direction towards Univer-
salism. Among sj'stematic theologians the one
who has most closely followed Schleiermacher
iq.v.) in his eschatology is the Zurich professor,
Alexander Schweizer (1808-88).^

4. Universalisra in England. — It has been in-
ferred, from a mandate of Simon Langham, arch-
bishop of Canterbury, dated 5th Nov. 1368,* that
doctrines of universal salvation, extending even to
the salvabUity of devils, were current at that time
in England. A number of opinions are condemned
as erroneous, extending from the possible salvation
of Saracens, Jews, and pagans to beliefs such as,
e.g., 'it is not possible that one should be danmed
for original sin without actual sin,' and that the
nature of demons may not be essentially irrepar-
able. This mandate is addressed to the Chancellor
of the University of Oxford, and it is surely more
probable that it intends to deal witii the possible
re-appearance of Origenistic speculation in academic
disputations than with any popular advocacy of
such views.

The 42nd of the English Articles of 1553 has for
its title ' That all men shall not be saved at the
length,' and it runs :

' 'They also are worthy of condemnation who endeavour at
this time to restore the dangerous opinion, that all men, be
they never so ungodly, shall at length be saved, when they have
suffered paines for their sins a certain time appointed by God's
justice.'

It is generally admitted that this condemnation is
directed against Anabaptist opinions promulgated
by foreign refugees who had then recently come to
England in large numbers and been permitted to
establish churches. Such doctrine is not attributed
to the English Lollards, save probably in one docu-
ment, viz. The Protestation of the Clergy of the
Lower House within the Province of Canterbury,
with Declaration of the Faults and Abuses ivhich
heretofore have and now be within the same, worthy

1 See art. PuiLADELPmANS.

2 H. R. Mackintosh, ' .Studies in Christian Elschatology,' in
Exp, Sth ser., viii. [1914) 128 ff.

» D. Wilkins, Concilia Magtux Britannia et Uibemia!,
London, 1737, iii. 75,

532

UNIVERSALISM

special Beformation (1536), where, under no. 4, we
read :

'That if there be a place where they [souls departed] be
punished, God is not yet bom, nor He that shall redeem the
world.'

Here, obviously, not a doctrine of temporary
punishment, but one of no punishment at all, is
condemned. The return of foreign Protestants to
their own countries on the accession of Queen
Mary (1553) probably accovmts for the withdrawal
of the Articles 40, 41, and 42.

It would have been strange if, in the general
outburst of the most diverse religious opinions
from 1640 onwards, the maintenance of universal
salvation had not found a place. It is warmly
advocated in a little anonymous book entitled :
'Divine Light, manifesting the love of God unto the whole
world : with the True Church.

Wherein the holy Spirit of Truth manifesteth the Glory of
God in Christ, exalting Christ, a spiritual Christ, and All-saving
Jesus ; shewing that Christ is a sure Foundation, and chief
Corner-Stone for all Spirituall building, unto the raising up
lively hopes for all People to proceed in Beleeving the greate
Mercies and loving-kindnesses of our God in Christ, in whom
God hath redeemed us his saints, and All; having wrought all
things for us, and all in Christ, wherein wee are made perfect.

Sent forth by the Minister of the Lord Jesus, whom He hath
appointed his servant for the Good of All :

In bringing Glad Tidings of Good Things unto the whole
Creation. Esai 52. 7. 13.

The Lord will worke for the manifestation of his Truth in this
his due time. Printed in the year 1646.'

The author does not deny that the elect are found
in every age, but they are those who are chosen to
proclaim to the world general redemption and the
holy covenant. It is evident that the work
attracted much attention, for in A Testimony to
the Truth of Jesus Christ as also against the
Errours, Heresies and Blasphemies of the Time and
the Toleration of them, Inscribed by the ministers
of Christ within the Province of London, December
14, 1647, we find that the ' errours against God's
eternal decree of Election and Reprobation' are
taken verbatim from the Divine Light. Under
date 4th Feb. 1646 the Lords and Commons put
forth an order for a day of public humiliation ' for
the growth and spreading of Errors, Heresies and
Blasphemies,' and among the 'errors' enumerated
are two, referred to Divine Light :

'(a) "That God's eternal election is of all men, one as well as
another " ; (6) " that all shall be saved at last, both men and
devils, and that they that deny it are the great Antichrist ; that
true faith is to believe it ; and that though this Faith of general
redemption were but in three persons only in the world, it
should be sufficient to save all the rest of the Creation." 'i

In the so-called Draconic Ordinance, passed by
Parliament in 1648, while deniers of the Trinity
are threatened with death, those who maintain
that all men shall be saved are declared liable to
imprisonment.

Another vigorous little tract, of six pages,
written by Henry Horn and published in 1653,
deserves mention in connexion with the Divine
Light, viz. The Light of God spreading itself in all
the dark Corners of the Earth ; with glad Tydings
to all People, with a Restauration of all Things,
and the LyorCs Power overthrown.

At this time three men were itinerating in the
country, preaching Universalism, and gathering
small bodies of adherents. They often preached
in churches, but more frequently challenged the
clergy in public disputation after the manner of
the ' gifted brethren ' of the army. These were
William Erbury (1604-54), Gerrard Winstanley
(t 1652), and Richard Coppin (t 1659). The last-
named was frequently imprisoned ; his works
largely consist of accounts of debates with liis
clerical opponents and his judges. One of his
chief contentions is that there may be redemption
from hell, and in sujjport of this he argues that, in
1 Hell broke loose, London, 1646, p. 5.

Biblical language, ' everlasting ' does not mean
' endless.'

The latter point is elaborated at length by
Samuel Richardson, a Baptist, in his work entitled
Of the Torments of Hell: The Foundation and
Pillars thereof discovered, searched, shaken and
removed, with infallible Proofs, that there is not to
be a Punishment after this Life, for any to etidure,
that shall never end, printed in 1658, and reprinted
in The Phcenix, ii. [1708]. In this little work the
author carries himself beyond the end proposed,
and convinces himself of the ultimate salvation of
all men.

In 1661 appeared an anonymous treatise entitled
A Letter of Resolution concerning Origen and the
Chief of his Opinions, reprinted in The Phoenix, i.
[1707]. The author was George Rust, who in 1667
became bishop of Dromore. His statement of
Origen's opinions is not mere exposition, but
reveals the author as more than favourable to the
notion of universal restitution.

A classic of Universalist literature was being
produced at this period by Jeremiah White (1629-
1707), Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and
chaplain to the Protector. The book was not
printed until 1712, and did not then bear the
author's name. The title is The Restoration of all
Things, or a Vindication of the Goodness and Grace
of God, to be manifested at last in the Recovery of
his whole Creation out of their Fall. Rev xiv. 6.
White approaches his subject from the predestina-
rian side ; his style is forcible, simple, and dignified,
reminding the reader of the Cambridge Platonists.

Isaac Barrow (1630-77) had already approached
the subject from the Arminian side in his sermons,
nos. 39-42, ' The Doctrine of Universal Redemption
Asserted and Explained.'^

Thomas Burnet (1635 ?-1715), Master of the
Charterhouse, towards the end of his life, wrote
a Latin treatise, de Statu Mortuorum et Resur-
gentixim, which he circulated in MS among his
friends, strictly enjoining that it was not to be
printed. After his death, however, it appeared in
print (1727), and subsequently in an English trans-
lation (1733). The author is perhaps not very
clear as to the processes and stages by which the
soul after death arrives at the general resurrection
and the last judgment, but he is unmistakably
opposed to the doctrine of endless punishment.
He maintains, however, that this doctrine should
not be publicly discredited, but used as a deterrent
from sin in popular teaching.

Archbishop Tillotson (1630-94) held that the
Biblical language as to future punishment is to be
regarded as a divine threatening of wrath to come,
which in God's mercy may not be literally realized.

The views of George Cheyne (1671-1743) inclined
towards Universalism.

Popular preaching of Universalist doctrine had
a brief success in London under the vigorous
advocacy of James Relly (1720-78). He had been
a convert of Whitefield's, and was for some time a
preacher among his adherents, but he espoused the
doctrine of a ' finished salvation ' in Christ, main-
taining that all sin and all suffering for sin had
been accomplished and ended in the passion of
Christ, and that mankind has therefore expiated
all oflence in the person of Christ, its corporate
head. The only olJence for which man is still
accountable consists in the disbelief or the ignor-
ing of this fact. Relly made a convert of John
Murray, who in 1770 carried his doctrine to
America.

Elhanan Winchester (1751-97) came from

America in 1787, and in the following year

published The Universal Restoration Exhibited in

Four Dialogues. He gathered a large congrega-

1 Works, London, 1830-31, iii.

UNIVBRSALISM

533

tion in Parliament Court, London, and was suc-
ceeded there, on his return to America in 1794,
by William Vidler (1758-1816), who had been a
Baptist minister at Battle, and, on embracing
Universalism in 1792, had been expelled, with his
congregation, from the Kent and Sussex Associa-
tion of Baptist Churches. Vidler was not success-
ful in maintaining a large congregation in London,
but did great service to the cause he advocated by-
establishing in 1797 a periodical entitled The
Universalist's Miscellany, which in 1802 became
The Universal Theological Magazine. This con-
tinued from 1797 to the end of 1805, and was
succeeded by The Monthly Repository (1806-37), a
valuable record of men and movements on the
liberal side of the old dissent.

Universalism, apart from any attempt at the
organization of a Church, found an advocate in Sir
George Stonhouse (f 1793), a Syriac scholar of
eminence, who had spent much time in the ex-
amination of Syriac MSS in Continental libraries.
At Oxford he had been a member of the little
band of Methodists over whom John Wesley pre-
sided, nicknamed the Holy Club, and had main-
tained, against his fellow-members, the doctrine
of universal restitution. In later life he resided at
East Brent, Somerset, and was much interested in
a society formed in the neighbouring parish of
Burnham and called the Burnham Society, ' to
study philosophy and polemic divinity and debate
on the difference of religious opinions, in brotherly
love.' The minutes of the society record dis-
cussions on the pre-existence of souls and universal
restitution.^ Stonhouse published (anonymously
at Bristol in 1761) Universal Restitution a Scripture
Doctrine, and two subsequent volumes on the same
subject in 1768 and 1773.

Another independent study is The Restitution of
All Things: An Essay on the Important Purpose
of the Universal Redeemer's Destination (1785), by
James Brown, chaplain of the British garrison at
Savannah in the Province of Georgia. The author
is apparently quite unaware of any eflForts or any
books of purport similar to his own.

At the close of the 18th cent. Universalism
began to spread among English Unitarians. John
Prior Estlin, of Bristol (1747-1817), published Dis-
courses on Universal Restitution (1813), directed
principally against the doctrine of the final anni-
hilation of the wicked. A more generally interest-
ing treatment of the subject was put forth by
T. Southwood Smith (1788-1861), in his Illustra-
tions of tJie Divine Government (1816).

David Thom (1793-1862), minister of the Scotch
Church, Rodney Street, Liverpool, having been
licensed by the Presbytery of Glasgow, was in
1825 censured and suspended by that Presbytery
upon charges of heresy, which, however, lay en-
tirely witliin the sphere of Calvinistic doctrine.
His adherents formed an independent congregation,
Avhich soon became known as Berean Universalists,
for Thorn now espoused the doctrine of a ' finished
salvation,' analogous to that of Belly, and con-
structed on a distinctly Calvinistic basis. His
works consisted of laborious and often paradoxical
interpretations of Scripture, but in 1850 he re-
published Jeremiah White's Restoration of All
Things with a historical preface. The same year
marked the appearance of a magazine. The Uni-
versalist, edited by Richard Roe, to which Thom
became a constant contributor, his efforts being
largely devoted to restraining the Unitarian ten-
dencies of contemporary Universalism, especially
in the United States. ^

Universalism has, at a later time, been approached
from various sides by -^mters within the Church of

1 Extracts, etc., were printed in 1798.

* D. Thom, Sennmis with Memoir, London, 1803.

England, notably F. W. Farrar,^ Andrew Jukes,'
and Alfred Gurney.*

5. Universalism in Scotland. — As early as 1755
certain small congregations in the Merse (Berwick-
shire) which had been associated with the Reformed
Presbytery (a branch from the Camerotiian side of
the Scottish Covenanters) united in declaring their
belief in ' the boundless love of God and the uni-
versal mediation of Christ.' Feeling the need of a
pastor, they solemnly set aside three young men
considered tit for the office, and, after a day of
consecration and prayer, determined by lot which
of the three should be recognized as their pastor.
The lot fell upon James Purves (1734-95). This
was in 1769 ; and, as they desired to have direct
recourse to the Scriptures of the prophets and
apostles as the source of true knowledge, ecclesi-
astical and civil, Purves was directed to apply
himself to the study of the original tongues, and
for this purpose went to the University of Glasgow.
In 1776, many families of the original body having
settled in Edinburgh, he was appointed pastor over
them, but did not relinquish his relation with the
societies in the Merse. Purves having publicly
advocated Universalist views, his congregation in
1792 adopted the title of Universal Dissenters.
Later, in 1813, it became generally known as
Unitarian. In 1812 T. Southwood Smith became
minister of the congregation, the charge having
been vacant since the death of Purves. During
the period of his ministry he studied medicine,
and, having graduated M.D. in 1816, became
subsequently well known as a pioneer of sanitary
reform. The congregation is now represented by
St. Mark's Chapel, opened in 1835.'*

Neil Douglas (1750-1823), who in 1809 seceded
from the Relief Church, established Universalist
congregations in Greenock and Glasgow, and
preached in many other places. His successor,
William Worrall (t 1828), continued his work,
and congregations were established in Glasgow,
Greenock, Johnstone, Paisley, Ayr, and Falkirk,
which united in an annual conference. He published
three volumes of a periodical entitled The Gospel
Communicator. Probably a survival of his activity
is to be seen in the Universalist Church of Sten-
housemuir, Larbert, the only congregation in the
United Kingdom still bearing the title Universalist.

James Morison (1816-93) founded the Evangelical
Union in 1843 on the basis of three universals :
universal love of God, universal atonement of
Christ, universal work of the Holy Ghost. De-
claring that the sacrifice of Christ was for all men
everywhere, Morison stops short of universal
salvation ; the obstacle, in his view, is not, as in
Amyraldism, the lack of special grace in the in-
dividual, but ' unbelief, the only obstacle to salva-
tion which the death of Christ has not removed.'*

6. Universalism in America. — The progress of
Universalism in America has found a competent
and judicious historian in Richard Eddy ; hence
its main lines may be readily traced and succinctly
stated.

The first advocates of universal salvation were
probably the German Baptists, called Dunkers or
Tunkers,^ Avho were settled in Germantown, Pa.,
as early as 1719, and there established a church.
They brought or imported Universalist books from
Germany, and among them was The Everlasting
Gospel, attributed to Paul Siegvolk (see above).
The translation and printing of this, which may

1 Eternal Hope, London, 1878.

- Tlie Second Death and the Restitution of All Things^,
London, 1887.

3 Oxir Catholic Inhcritan-ce in the Larger Hope, London, 1888.

* MS Register of Minutes, St. Mark's Chapel, Edinburgh;
and Historical Aerount, printed in 190S.

•■' W. Adamson, Life of the Rev. Dr. James Morison, London,
isas, p. 127.

8 See art. Sbcts (Christian).

534

UNIVBRSALISM

be regarded as the primary document of American
Universalism, is probably due to the influence of
G. de Benneville, Avho, after having suffered
persecution for preaching Universalism in France
and Germany, settled in Pennsylvania in 1741.
The title runs thus :

'The Everlasting; Gospel, commanded to be preached by
Jesus Christ, Judge of the Living and Dead, unto all creatures,
Mark xvi. 15. concerning the Eternal Redemption found out by
him, whereby Devil, Sin, Hell and Death, shall at last be
abolished, and the whole Creation restored to its primitive
Purity ; being a testimony against the present Anti-christian
World. Written in German by Paul Siegvolk, and translated
into English by John S[echla]. Germantown : Printed by
Christopher Sower, mdccliii.'

There is abundant evidence that in the latter half
of the 18th cent. Universalism was spreading
widely in the Episcopal, Congregational, and
Presbyterian Churches. Controversy was roused
especially by the anonymous publications of Charles
Cnauncy, of Boston (1705-87), e.g., Salvation for
all Me7i (1782). But the organization of societies
on a basis distinctly Universalist is due to John
Murray (1741-1815), who, deserted on account of
his Rellyan views by his former friends in White-
field's Connexion, and broken by domestic afflic-
tions, had determined to seek refuge and obscurity
in the New World. The ship that bore him and
was making for New York was driven by a storm
into shoal water off the coast of New Jersey. It
became necessary to land part of the cargo, and of
this Murray was left in charge. Wandering on
shore, he came to a settlement called Good Luck,
and met with its founder, an aged man named
Thomas Potter, who, in addition to his farm
buildings, had built a meeting-house, and con-
fidently expected that the Lord would send him a
preacher. He hailed Murray as the heaven-sent
messenger of the gospel, and constrained him to
preach. An inscription on a granite boulder now
marks the spot where Potter and Murray met, and
records that on 30th Sept. 1770 Murray first

K reached in America. For some time after this
lurray itinerated as a preacher among orthodox
Baptists, until in 1774 he settled at Gloucester,
Mass., Avith a congregation many of whom had
been already influenced by the teaching of Relly.
Here in 1779 some of these joined with Murray in
a church covenant ; this marks the earliest form
of organization among American Universalists.

Murray's later ministerial life Avas spent in
Boston, but at this time a new centre of Uni-
versalist activity was formed in Philadelphia by
the labours of Elhanan Winchester. Winchester's
followers, who were at first known as Universal
Baptists, joined the adherents of Murray in organ-
izing 'The First Independent Church of Christ
commonly called Universalists.' A convention,
held in Philadelphia in 1790, drew up Articles of
Faith and a plan of church government. The
third of these Articles runs :

' We believe that there is One Mediator between God and
man, the man Christ Jesus, in whom dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily ; who, by giving himself a ransom for all,
hath redeemed them to God by his blood ; and who, by the
merit of his death and the efficacy of his Spirit, will finally
restore the whole human race to happiness.'
Murray and his adherents adopted these Articles
in 1791, and subsequently altered them in a Rellyan
direction. But the personal friendship of Murray
and Winchester could not avert divergence between
their followers ; for, while Murray advocated a
'free and finished justification' obtained at once
by the expiatory suffering of Christ, and summed
up in the words 'no future punishment,' the
adherents of Winchester suspected a perilous
tendency to Antinomianism in these views, and
Winchester's own teaching included an elaborate
eschatology involving a millennial reign of Christ
with the saints on earth, their ascent into the
lieavenly places, the conversion of this world into

a lake of fire for the age-long punishment of devils
and wicked men, and the ultimate purification
and elevation of both to final sanctification.

Another view which would appear to be more
definitely Antinomian in tendency than Murray's
was propounded by Caleb Rich of VVarwick, Mass.
(1750-1821), and attained a certain local ascend-
ancy. According to this, as at the creation the
soul was inserted into the mortal frame, so now
with each individual soul ; it remains untainted
by the deeds and desires of the flesh, and at the
dissolution of its material envelope rises again to
God in its original purity.^

Notwithstanding these divergencies, it is re-
markable that in Aug. 1803 the Convention of
Universalist Churches of New England, held at
W"inche.ster, N.H., in which 38 societies were
represented, agreed upon a Profession of Faith
which is still the standard of American Universal-
ism. This, known as the Winchester Profession,
is as follows :

' Article i. — We believe that the Holy Scriptures of the Old
and New Testaments contain a revelation of the character of
God and of the duty, interest, and final destination of mankind.

Article ii.— We believe that there is one God, whose nature is
Love, revealed in one Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of
Grace, who will finally restore the whole family of mankind to
holiness and happiness.

Article iii. — We belie\'e that holiness and true happiness are
inseparably connected, and that believers ought to be careful
to maintain order and practise good works ; for these things
are good and profitable unto men.'

The general consensus marked by the Winchester
Profession prepared the way for a new departure,
and for the commanding influence of a new leader
in the person of Hosea Ballou (1771-1852). He
published in 1805 A Treatise on Atonement (subse-
quently much revised). This little work severed
Universalism from its origins in Calvinism, and
lifted it from controversy to a level of affirmation
and construction. It sought to build up a theology
on the one postulate of God's universal and ever-
lasting love. Ballou finds the reality of atonement
not in the appeasing of God's wrath and the recon-
ciliation of God to man, but in the reconciliation
of man to God.

' To believe in any other Atonement than the putting off of the
old man, with his deeds, and the putting on of the new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,
is carnal-mindedness and is death.' 2

While he emphasizes God's dealings with man in
the way of moral discipline and retributive justice
in the present life, and insists on the continuity of
the divine judgment of the individual from day to
day, he anticipates that death will in some way so
quicken the powers of the soul and enlighten al